Election Insanity

So, I was flipping around recently, and saw the reports that Florida had voted to move its presidential primary elections to the end of January, and how the traditional "early" primary states will be moving theirs up as well.

That means we could have our first primary or caucus as early as Jan. 2.

Really? Jan. 2? C'mon people.

I know this is important. Electing a president is the greatest part of our democracy.

But the second day of the year? Are you kidding me? We're still getting over the holidays at that point. And you want us to vote?

Lets start with the trivial part of my problem with this: Jan. 2 is a Monday, which means we'll be celebrating the new year on a Sunday, and that means most of the college football bowl games will be playing Jan. 2. The Rose Parade will be Jan. 2. The NHL Winter Classic (an important one for the hockey fans like me)? Yep, you guessed it, Jan. 2. Can't we put all this off until after the Super Bowl, at least?

Sure, we need to have early primaries and caucuses to thin the herd. But that early? It seems like thinning the herd that early would lead to the person with the most money behind them would be most likely to stick around the longest.

And what happens when the candidates who are frontrunners that early end up stumbling later down the road? And how about the people who are backing those people? How is their voice heard when the person they backed drops out after those early votes? And how are the conventions even relevant any more?

Some of my trepidation comes from the election overload Californians went through in 2010. Meg Whitman campaigned for how long that year? We saw and heard her ads practically nonstop for 11 months (I'm sure all the media companies taking those ads we're more than happy to take them ... and the money). Same goes for Carly Fiorina's campaign.

Seriously, we didn't even get a week off from the primary election before we started seeing ads for the general election. And you couldn't escape them. They were on broadcast TV, cable and broadcast radio 24 hours a day.

(If you ask me, those constant ads may have worked against both of those candidates in the final tally, because I'm sure I wasn't the only one who was sick and tired of them.)

Frankly, I'd say we need a new law that places a moratorium on election ads for at least 30 days (would love 60, but no one would go for it) after a primary or general election day. Take a month off from ads. Campaign all you want, but no attack ads for a month.

So possibly starting on Jan. 2 means we'll have 11 months of elections and debates and mudslinging and talking heads and campaigning and ... no actual work by any of the candidates involved.

This campaign has already started earlier than I can ever remember it (or maybe it's just because we have too much 24-hour coverage). But now it's going to be for real for 11 months?

Sigh.

Oh well. At least we'll have the Summer Olympics to help break up election coverage for a while next summer.