Articles by Perry Waag

Bess Truman famously said “if you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.” Well, even though I’m a dog person myself, cats might just hold the key to fixing our politics. Let me explain why. If you’ve ever seen the show "My Cat From Hell" you know that cat behaviorist Jackson Galaxy helps cat owners figure out why their cats are misbehaving and get them back to having a mutually beneficial and harmonious relationship. The nonpartisan innovation community needs to take the same approach with fix...

Before this global COVID pandemic & resulting economic suffocation, political philanthropy to fix & reform our elections & governmental institutions was already severely lacking but very much needed. The entire democracy reform space consisting of 130+ organizations raises approximately $150 million a year per Nick Troiano of Unite America. The two major parties? They raise a combined $4 billion a year per Open Secrets.Org. That’s a lot of Davids for 2 very big Goliaths. In short, pre-COVID, ...

An exciting new grassroots effort is underway in Jacksonville Florida to bring ranked choice voting to future municipal elections. Even though Florida is a plurality state at the state & federal office levels, cities are left to decide for themselves how to handle local elections. All across Florida, cities have used a majority vote, 2-round run-off system for their local elections for over 40 years. In many cases, these local elections are held in off-years with far less turnout than regular e...

Regardless of whether you are a middle of the road independent like me, or a staunch conservative, or a liberal Democrat, something really important and timeless was said on Friday, January 20. But not this past Friday. On Friday, January 20, 1961, President John F. Kennedy stated in his Inaugural Address, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what YOU can do for your country.” We are a divided and polarized nation. What I, an average citizen humbly ask of my fellow Americans, on beh...

Years ago it used to be that car companies only cared about selling you a car, and once you were off the lot, they didn’t really give a hoot if you had a bad experience going to get your car serviced after the fact. Then one day someone got the bright idea that if they start caring about the “after sale” experience with maintenance visits, etc, they would get better reviews and positive word of mouth would spread about their particular brand or dealership. They could now keep customers for life...

Just about everyone these days seems to be either overcome with fear or anger in this election cycle, and for good reasons. It might not be pretty, but that's one of the major benefits of having elections every few years...it helps to air out our republic and allows for a re-examination of where we stand as a nation, a repudiation of things we don't like, and a re-affirmation of things we do like. As a middle of the road independent that is just as underwhelmed as the rest of America with the o...

Flawed Logic I would like to believe that if Spock from Star Trek learned of our two-party system and how it functions, the first words out of his mouth would be, “how illogical.”  And if the good Dr. McCoy were to hear him say that, he would get angry and say “is that all you can say…how about ‘it’s damned illogical!!!’" I have struggled for many years to understand the flawed logic of both parties. On the Republican side, many claim to want small and limited government and to keep it out of...