2 For 1 Sale

Election 2016
2014-2016
RIP
Our long national nightmare is finally over. The “experts” on TV will analyze what happened for a while, but the two year campaign is dead and buried.

I'm not a big fan of changing the Constitution. I think it should be left well enough alone, save for something like abolishing slavery or letting women vote. But I would wholeheartedly support a constitutional amendment limiting presidential campaigns to less than six months. People could announce their candidacy after 4th of July, the primaries could be in August, conventions in September and election day in November.

This would make it much harder for the two corporate parties to spend a billion dollars getting their boys elected. They would still spend entirely too much money, but it might give other parties a chance to compete. Americans are supposed to like competition, but our political system guarantees that only two teams get to play. Imagine the NFL with only two teams. How exciting would that be?

The most obvious benefit, of course, would be far fewer campaign commercials in far less time. I don't know anyone who loves watching campaign bullshit for two straight years. Making it shorter would probably burn out fewer people and increase voter turnout.

This is one reason it would never happen. The Republican and Democratic parties count on low voter turnout. If 100% of eligible voters actually showed up, or even more than 60%, other parties would win a few elections. The people in charge will never let that happen. The question is, why do we?