The Independent View: The Nation's "Project 45" and the 2016 General Election

The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States, founded on July 6, 1865. Its current editor and publisher since 2010 is Katrina vanden Heuvel.

The Nation is launching what they call "Project 45", an initiative that refuses to accept the assumption that the 2016 campaign has to be dictated by insiders.

So two years before the first caucuses and primaries, thirty-three months before the November 2016 election names the forty-fifth president, it is time to get serious about the process. They will identify and promote the reforms and reformers that offer the promise of a more open, inclusive and democratic process.

Why worry about 2016 now? Because the power brokers who profit from our electoral system’s many imperfections are busy locking down the next election.

The Republican National Committee voted in January to compress and control the schedule of caucuses and primaries that will choose the party’s 2016 nominee, this is one part of a broad strategy to limit debate and undermine the ability of grassroots candidates to build momentum. The party also hopes to move its convention from late summer to as early as June to get Republican voters motivated. The GOP establishment’s real goal is to strengthen the hand of big money, and to make it easier for an acceptable candidate to prevail in the primaries, secure the nomination and maximize post-convention fundraising.

The Democratic Party insiders will feel pressure to mirror that top-down strategy, especially if they sense that their nominating process might evolve into anything other than what former Montana governor and potential candidate, Brian Schweitzer, warns could be a “coronation” of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The Nation is making this commitment to encourage those who will fight to prevent the hijacking of the 2016 campaign by high-powered strategists, well-heeled donors and big media outlets that are more interested in cash, and a vapid politics of personality, than in a genuine clash of ideas.

"Project 45", will be featured in print and online over the next three years.

- They hope to focus a great deal of attention on the money-in-politics issues raised by what former Senator Russ Feingold has described as “this system of legalized bribery.”

- Direct attention to the reforms and to the reformers who seek a cure. Some reforms, such as a constitutional amendment to undo the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling will take time, others hopefully can be implemented before the mechanics of the 2016 campaign have been locked into place.

- Make sure that groups like FairVote, Color of Change, Demos, Free Speech for People, Move to Amend, People for the American Way, Public Citizen, Common Cause, the Campaign for America’s Future and others at the national, state and local levels are kept in the conversation.

- Invite readers to submit their own ideas to their website and highlight them in the coming months.

Even in this era of big money and big spin, election campaigns can be teachable moments:

- Draw attention to the need for official and voluntary controls on money in politics.

- Focus on defending and expanding the right to vote on every front: from the fight of Representatives Mark Pocan and Keith Ellison for constitutional guarantees; to the efforts of Senator Patrick Leahy, Representative John Conyers and others to renew the Voting Rights Act; to implementing recommendations from the Presidential Commission on Election Administration that could make it easier to register and vote; to the work of expanding participation by the young, people of color, rural Americans, and all who have suffered disenfranchisement and discouragement.

- Turn the conversation to giving voting rights broader meaning by limiting the influence of gerrymandering and the Electoral College. When state officials seek to game the system, as Pennsylvania Republicans did with a 2013 proposal to restructure the distribution of electoral votes in that state, so that the loser of the popular vote might gain an Electoral College advantage. Keep an eye on the effort to create a National Popular Vote compact among the states to guarantee the presidency to the candidate who wins the most votes nationwide.

The Nation’s reporting and commentary will highlight opportunities for immediate reforms:

- Break the Democratic and Republican stranglehold on the presidential debates, and highlight the work of nonpartisan groups like the Free & Equal Elections Foundation and Open Debates to challenge the anti-democratic Commission on Presidential Debates, which limits formats and excludes independent and third-party candidates.

- Encourage primary competition that brings new ideas and new approaches into the process.

Once the nominees are chosen:

- Pay attention to serious independent and third-party candidates, who in the best tradition of Progressive Bob La Follette, Socialist Norman Thomas and Ralph Nader, present radical ideas that will eventually be viewed as common sense.

- Draw attention to ballot access and debate access fights, recognizing that voters deserve a broad discourse, and that front-runners become better contenders, and better presidents, when they’re forced to expand their frame of reference.

Presidential elections should not be a spectator sport. Citizens should be involved in shaping their content and character and in charting their direction. The election of America’s forty-fifth president is too important to be left to the power brokers.