Does anybody else think that this is getting a bit ridiculous? [View All]

Here we are, in late 2006, fifteen months before the first primary, and we already have people announcing their candidacy for President. Last month, Clinton announced that she is doing "exploratory work" into whether she will run or not. Obama is playing a coy game of footsie with the press, building up the suspense until he makes a "suprise" announcement, probably sometime in January. With the heavy hitters out and swinging alredy, this has forced the underdogs to hit the campaign trail, like Kucinich and Vilsak, if they want to have any sort of prayer of running. And the same thing is happening, though a little less publicly, over on the Republican side. McCain might as well declare now, he's all but said he wants the job. Meanwhile others like Gingrich are playing the game, doing their own calculations, getting ready to start.

I for one am sick of it. We haven't even sworn in the next Congress, yet all the sudden we're jumping up to the 2008 elections? What insanity is this? Frankly, I think such early starting campaigns hurt our government, as now all of these people, Clinton, McCain, Obama, etc will be busy running, and perhaps neglect their job. Also, every vote that they cast, every decision they make will be framed by their candidacy. This is not the way to run a government people, and it is getting more ridiculous with each election cycle.

It wasn't that long ago, 1999, that candidates weren't declaring until nine months before the first primary. It was only about a quarter century ago that the time frame was six months. Yet here we are, over a year out, and people are up and running. What's next, the campaign for 2012 will start in 2009?

A good part of this madness is media driven. I distinctly remember back on election night this year that all the pundits and talking heads were going on about how the "race for 2008 starts tonight." Why, just so you blowhards have something to chatter about for the next year plus? Fuck that.

Frankly, along with publicly financed elections, I think that we need to put a strict time limit on campains. You cannot form an exploratory committee, you cannot declare, you can't play coy media games until four months before the first primary. Otherwise we're going to have the spectre of somebody declaring their candidacy for the 2024 election before the 2020 one has even been decided.