Shorter Is Better

With 66 days remaining in this year's topsy-turvy presidential election campaign - last week I shared with The Missus how much I was enjoying the change in venue.  The absolute lightness to be found in a dramatically shortened campaign season.  Restricted to only a handful of months it has a decidedly European flavor to it.  Short and sweet.

Presidential campaigns nowadays seem to start the day following the last campaign and drag-out in a long, slow, bloated, slog.

This year some of my Trump-supporting friends have been grousing and grumbling about how Kamala Harris wasn't selected by means of a presidential primary.  Consequently, democratic voters have been somehow disenfranchised and her elevation to the candidacy has been a presidential coup.  Sour grapes.  Political parties make the rules.

Frankly, if the former president, and luckiest man on the planet, hadn't dodged an assassin's bullet the GOP would be faced with the same conundrum of selecting a candidate at the last moment.

What people have forgotten is that presidential primary elections are a relatively recent phenomenon.  Immediately following the ratification of our constitution a convention of state delegates chose electors to represent their interests in the Electoral College.  The top two vote-getters in the Electoral College became president and vice president.  This worked for America's first couple of elections; but the wheels came-off with the rise of political parties after Washington left office. 

After a messy 1800 election and runoff between Jefferson and Burr, in 1804 the 12th Amendment was ratified.  Congressional caucuses were then used to pick presidential and vice presidential candidates.

With the passage of time, party nominating conventions supplanted the congressional caucuses as the mechanism for selecting nominees.  This convention system with its smokey back rooms and party bosses persisted until the 1970s.

Following the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago both parties implemented reforms to allow voters a greater role in selecting nominees.  By 1976, roughly seventy percent of convention delegates were chosen by means of the primary election process.

By 1984, primaries had morphed into a form of grand colossus (think: Super Tuesday) where as many 40 to 60 percent of party delegates might be selected in one day. 

Naturally, when Joe Biden abdicated the throne on July 21, the campaign of Kamala Harris was restricted to less than four months.  Leaving this blogger to scratch his head and ponder why we don't do this all the time. Speaking for myself, I like a short sprint - not a long, protracted, bloated, boring, trudge that saps your interest.  You know, the same old shtick.

There are plenty of other world democracies that don't spend anywhere near the amount of time that we do on election campaigns.  French presidential races cannot begin until two weeks before the first round of voting.  In Japan it is twelve days.  The UK conducted a parliamentary election in six weeks this summer.

I think Harris is presently benefiting from a short campaign.  Yeah sure, Trump is pissed because someone moved his cheese at the last moment.  Nikki Haley saw this coming; was the Trump campaign asleep at the switch?  Hmm?  Nevertheless, this race remains a toss-up. 

Anyway, what if campaigns began after Memorial Day?  Or states held their primary on the same date?  What if we weren't subjected to Super PAC advertising ad-nauseam?  Throughout our country's history this process has continually evolved.  I think we've spent a sufficiently long-enough time in our rut and it's about time to extricate ourselves from the current primary mire.   A break-out with some open field running.  It might be good for all of us.

Just like removing a BAND-AID^®, you don't slowly pick at it.  You rip it off.  Because shorter is better.

We got a game-on.