The Long and Grinding Road

It just occurred to me that this damn campaign will have lasted 2 years when it's all said and done (most candidates declared their intentions around January/February 2007). The conversion of presidential politics to a 24/7, 365 day a year business strikes me as a HUGE problem for American democracy in the long term.

To put it in perspective - 2 years is 50% of a President's term, 100% of a term in the House, and 33% of a term in the Senate. Since running for President is a full-time endeavor, that means anyone running for the office is spending larger and larger portions of their terms on the campaign trail rather than helping constituents. Presumably, the candidates are the best and brightest from the party so that means our country's brightest leaders are continually in full on campaign attack/counterattack/spin mode.

Of course, this was never a problem in early America. It was thought back then that the very act of campaigning for an office automatically disqualified you from the job. The Founding Fathers probably couldn't even conceive of a day when candidates would spend 16-18 hours criss-crossing the country every day for 2 years. The thought would probably boggle their minds - hell, it boggles mine to think about it.

So how does running for President impact your voting record? Nowadays, voting records are a very powerful tool used by the opposition. They can use it to effectively paint a candidate with whatever color is most effective. See John Kerry 2004 (and any other race in recent memory). On the Republican side, take it as a given that some "think" tank will release a "study" showing that the current Democratic nominee is the most liberal in the country. On the flip side, there is a competing pressure coming from the nominee's own party to appeal to the base voters. Two years before an actual primary, and the only people paying attention are the ultras, the voters who absorb every bit of campaign nonsense and feed it into the partisan amplifying media. This produces a disinclination to work across party lines, vote for bipartisan bills, and otherwise be seen as compromising with the other party. It exacerbates the hyperpartisanship that's currently seen in Washington and it's doing so for longer and longer stretches of the legislative session. So instead of building statesmen, we're building partisan warriors and the country is suffering as a consequence (deadlock on healthcare, immigration, social security, etc. etc. etc.). The people are demanding solutions, and all they're getting is sound bites.

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