American campaigns should be a lot shorter
There is a campaign industry, and it has become a vested interest, an industry that wants to grow, not shrink – an industry that doesn’t just influence officeholders, it creates them.
My experience is that about nine in 10 members of Congress hate the long campaigns – the perpetual fundraising, the distraction, the triviality, the nasty ads, the indignities.
But there is a professional class of political consultants who love expensive campaigns.
Television stations love campaigns that buy and buy ad time. Reporters love campaigns because they are easier to cover than government, which can be boring and technical.
Perhaps these are some of the reasons why the rather obvious idea of trying to shorten the campaigns we all complain about isn’t on the menu of good government reforms.
Blowback
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Not Bloomberg short, I hope.
Flange on March 18, 2013 at 4:24 PM
How do you say “Amen!” in British?
KS Rex on March 18, 2013 at 4:30 PM
i’m guessing the BBC has an idea for a government program to solve this problem.
Steven McGregor on March 18, 2013 at 4:37 PM
Of course. But how do you enforce it? Brits do it by not having regularly-scheduled elections, so you don’t know in advance when to start campaigning. I don’t think that’s an improvement.
alwaysfiredup on March 18, 2013 at 4:38 PM
Like not campaigning for four years straight?
andycanuck on March 18, 2013 at 4:41 PM
Wow. I have to agree with the Beeb.
I think I may have to go lie down for a while.
trigon on March 18, 2013 at 4:41 PM
It doesnt make sense to be lectured about elections by (state-)media from countries that have as of yet to discover something as fundamental to self-government as primaries.
Valkyriepundit on March 18, 2013 at 4:42 PM
Modern Day Britain: “Alah Akbar!”
portlandon on March 18, 2013 at 5:04 PM
Sure, the parties could change the primary schedule, but that won’t change the practice of starting a campaign early. It would be a First Amendment violation to ban campaign ads before a certain time. In my opinion, the way campaigns are regulated now hurt Romney – his campaign couldn’t begin to run ads before he was nominated, but Obama’s could run anti-Romney ads long before the convention, since he (Obama) was unopposed. Good point here:
We know that there will be a Presidential election on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November every four years. That’s a feature, not a bug of the system.
ConservativeinCO on March 18, 2013 at 6:11 PM
How does that comport with the First Amendment though? Would our government really be able to ban people from campaigning?
DavidW on March 18, 2013 at 6:11 PM