Obama's Yahoo Question

Today I went to check my mail at yahoo and I saw a very interesting thing in the side bar. Barack Obama had asked a question on yahoo answers which I thought was interesting. So naturally I clikced on it to check it out, and I would have to say for a politicain he asked a pretty inteligent question: How can we engage more people in the democratic process? Which being the opinionated guy that I am I thought I would throw my two cents in (Funny thing is I'm not even 18 and I know 100x more than the average adult about politics.). It turned out voting was closed and a best answer had alread been posted. So here's my answer to the problem it's not that we have few people in the democratic process its that we have several people that don't know anything about the canidates and the issues. Take for instance where I live near a small town called Duffield in southwest Virginia, most of the people in this area are farmers and they really don't like change they just want to surrive. If you were to ask them who that they would vote for in the next election of a represenative for our section of the state ninty percent of them would say Kilgore. The day before the election if you were to ask them the same question you would again hear Kilgore, but if you asked them who else was running in the election forty five percent of them wouldn't know anyone else besides Kilgore. Why? They have no desire to learn because they already think that Kilgore is the best (Not sayin he isn't.) I would surmise that only twenty five percent of all americans acctualy care about the political process and thirty five percent of the people don't vote and the rest just go by what the twenty five percent tell them. How is this a problem? Well take my recent phone call with a dear friend of mine we got to talking about politics (something you shouldn't ever do with me because it tends to run up the phone bill). We got on the subject of the next President the only two people she thought were running was Obama and Hillary she didn't know anything of the republican candidates or even the other democratic candidates. I quickly corrected her on her mistake and told here about some of the other candidates that were running. Then we talked a little bit more and she said "did you know that Obama guy is a terrorist?" I asked her what she was talking about she was quick to tell me how someone that she trusted told her that Obama was a muslim therefore he was a terrorist (please keep in mind this was a girl that was about twenty years old). I was quick to correct her yet again. My point is that a lot of the people who vote don't know the issues and the only way to do that is to have a desire to learn. One of the things that I propose is that all the candidates in an election pull together some money to buy a two hour long TV spot on the major stations including PBS, NBC, ABC, CBS , and FOX and have a debate on live TV. Secondly instead of having mudslinging ads have ads that acctually mean something to the american public. Last election I could not tell you how many ads I saw downing the other person. Secondly I would like to see our kids get involved (no I don't have any but I'm just saying) teach them in school from an early age what voting is all about. We also need to teach them how to think for themselves about the political process and stop letting the twenty five percent flood our minds with crap. If we don't teach them this stuff while they're kids then there's nothing we can do when we get older. Finally I would restrict all religous interaction with government activities like voting. Why you ask? Because religion is part of the twenty five percent and it's not letting people make their own decisions. It's being a part of the problem by making the decision for them (By the way I believe in God and I go to church just in case you're doubting it now). I would like to see the schools reformed the most if they could do any one thing to help out. Senator Obama I applaud your action in asking us what we think would help make it better. In summary if people were better educated and better informed I think it would make a world of difference.