OATKA -
I am a great fan of the NONE OF THE ABOVE option. One of my favorite Herblock cartoons was the one issued after the Russians started sending their Communist bosses off to retirement with None of the Above winning election after election. Herblock's cartoon had the stereo-typed Russian babushka checking NOTA on her ballot as she said: "Eat your heart out Americanski!"
With less than 50% voting total, less than 25% are electing presidents. If NOTA were on the ballot, we would have a real choice for once -- the abolition of the corrupt status quo -- and, in my view, TONS of folks that never voted before would stand in line to throw the bastards, every one of them, out.
I have spent some time thinking about how to get this kind of option put into law (petition movement), and how to make it practical (who holds power in the interim between the two elections? is a 39 30 31 vote with NOTA on top a win for NOTA or does it need to get 50%+1 ??).
But, you've identified the issue underlying Jesse's appeal. He is clearly none of the above, and America is clearly tired of the above. That was the source of Ross Perot's popularity in 92 and Colin Powell's in 96.
It is also, I think, the source of popularity currently for Bill Bradley (I know, it's heresy here to say anything good about someone who supports gun registration) and John McCain.
Both of these guys had a life before politics, both have bucked their party on critical issues, and both seem to want office not as a result of a lust for power but out of a genuine sense of duty.
It is probably good for the Reform Party that Jesse gets an opportunity to get his feet wet in Minnesota before running for something bigger. Much as I like this guy at a gut level, it takes a little bit of a reach seeing him in the oval office, but I will be the first to conceded we have done worse, a whole lot worse.
It may be a tangent, but I don't think Jesse, even on his headiest day, would claim to be able to occupy the position Jefferson did/does in our heritage. Jefferson's most famous line was "I have sworn eternal hostility to any kind of tyranny over the minds of man."
Jefferson did not give us the Alien and Sedition Act, it was enacted in 1798 when Adams was President and expired by its own terms in 1801. Jefferson did not take office until March 1801; he refused to prosecute any outstanding cases, pardoned those previously convicted and got as many as he could refunds of their fines. Sounds like the kind of guy Jesse would have liked!
[Following is an excerpt from New York Times v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, *275, 84 S.Ct. 710, **723-376 U.S. 254, *276, 84 S.Ct. 710, **724 (1964)]
Although the Sedition Act was never tested in this Court, [The Act expired by its terms in 1801] the attack upon its validity has carried the day in the court of history. Fines levied in its prosecution were repaid by Act of Congress on the ground that it was unconstitutional. See, e.g., Act of July 4, 1840, c. 45, 6 **724 Stat. 802, accompanied by H.R.Rep.No. 86, 26th Cong., 1st Sess. (1840). Calhoun, reporting to the Senate on February 4, 1836, assumed that its invalidity was a matter 'which no one now doubts.' Report with Senate bill No. 122, 24th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 3. Jefferson, as President, pardoned those who had been convicted and sentenced under the Act and remitted their fines, stating: 'I discharged every person under punishment or prosecution under the sedition law, because I considered, and now consider, that law to be a nullity, as absolute and as palpable as if Congress had ordered us to fall down and worship a golden image.' Letter to Mrs. Adams, July 22, 1804, 4 Jefferson's Works (Washington ed.), pp. 555, 556. The invalidity of the Act has also been assumed by Justices of this Court. See Holmes, J., dissenting and joined by Brandeis, J., in Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616, 630, 40 S.Ct. 17, 63 L.Ed. 1173; Jackson, J., dissenting in Beauharnais v. Illinois, 343 U.S. 250, 288--289, 72 S.Ct. 725, 96 L.Ed. 919; Douglas, The Right of the People (1958), p. 47. See also Cooley, Constitutional Limitations (8th ed., Carrington, 1927), pp. 899--900; Chafee, Free Speech in the United States (1942), pp. 27--28. These views reflect a broad consensus that the Act, because of the restraint it imposed upon criticism of government and public officials, was inconsistent with the First Amendment.
[This message has been edited by abruzzi (edited October 17, 1999).]
