Nevada's Latest Political Scandal, and a Modest Proposal

The Las Vegas Sun is reporting that Rory Reid, son of Harry Reid the Democratic Majority Leader in the Senate, apparently knowingly set up dozens of shell Political Action Committees to circumvent campaign laws. He raised $750 grand essentially by soliciting, er, perhaps the wrong word--by asking rich Sneering Plutocrats for large donations and then making it look like he was getting small ones. Now, Ned has known for years that the political system in this country is corrupt and perhaps irreparably broken, but so far no one has come up with a solution.
Now Ned will offer his.
The ancient Athenians used to select city officials by lot, essentially like being called to jury duty. Every free male was obligated to serve if called. So Ned asks, if we have the most enlightened citizenry in the Greatest Country In The World, why not fill our offices like that? Take Nevada, for example. Instead of having to run in a corrupt and corrupting system--imagine a candidate who pulled the shenanigans Reid did being elected, then taking an oath to uphold the laws!-- all citizens above some age to be decided upon would be invited to offer their name for an office--say, Senator or Representative, or Mayor. Everybody would agree to have a background check done if they went through to the second round in a first drawing. Then a name would be drawn out of a hat, and that person, unless they had a damned good excuse, would take over that office for its term. No running for election or re-election. Ned believes it would work for President as well, except we would solicit nominations like the Nobel Prize Committee. All persons approved by a nominating committee, composed of intelligent persons, would be entered into the Drawing for the Grand Prize, which would be President of the United States, for a term of four years. No running for election or re-election. We would save tens of billions of dollars and take the corrupting influence of elections out, as much as possible.
Bill Buckley, that marble-mouthed conservative, once said that he thought that the first hundred names in the Boston phone book would make as good a president as the system gave us--think of George Bush!
Ned tends to agree.