By Shawna Huang & Ben Miller
Central Stampede
Portage Central HS
1st Place
Division 2, News Writing
Pro/Con Editorial Columns
Many people, including me, enjoy reading endless Twitter fights about politics. Luckily, there will be many more opportunities to sit back with some popcorn and bask in the ignorance of others for over another year until Election Day. The United States’s presidential campaign season kicks off almost two years before the actual election, when pompous politicians announce their intentions to run for the highest office in the land. While to some, American elections may seem drawn-out and exhausting, they are an essential part of our democratic process.
The campaign season that we currently have allows underdog candidates to gain support and allows the voters to learn more about the candidates running for office. It would be very difficult to gauge a politician’s true positions and intentions without this period of time. For example, a candidate like Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont (Democrat) would most likely not be gaining on front-runner Hillary Clinton in the polls if it weren’t for the longer campaign season.
Likewise, Donald Trump (Republican) probably wouldn’t be the front-runner by such a wide margin if he had less time to garner support and get his message out. Without having so much time, we would probably be stuck with the status quo election. This would probably be Hill-ary Clinton and Jeb Bush dueling for the presidency, which, let’s face it, wouldn’t be nearly as energizing for the American people.
The length of our campaign season gives journalists more time to dig into the pasts of the candidates in order to discover informative stories that could educate voters on what types of decisions that person would make as president. An example would be the controversy surrounding Hillary Clinton’s private email server where, instead of using her government email server from while she was Secretary of State, she is using a private, personal email server. Voters worry this shows she is secretive and untrustworthy. Clinton announced her candidacy in April, and it was widely known that she would probably run months before, giving journalists and the media plenty of time to uncover this story that is making many Americans question Clinton’s judgement.
If the campaign season were to be abbreviated, impulsive voting would come into play as well. Between school and work, a lot of Americans don’t have time to research the views of every candidate. Many would simply vote for the person with the most name recognition, and that would hinder the chance for a lesser known candidate such as Trump or Sanders to come out of the shadows and gain support. Americans need a time of reflection to see if the vote they are making is a right one. A true democratic election requires a lengthy campaign sea-son in order to obtain the most genuine results, come Election Day. With about 13 months until Election Day, you have plenty of time to judge and analyze the important issues before us like taxes, edu-cation, foreign policy or whether or not Donald Trump’s hair is real (we can make an educated guess and say it isn’t).
Somewhere in the world tonight, an egg will be fertilized. It will split into two cells, then four, then continue to divide until it forms an embryo. That embryo will develop into a fetus, which will slowly develop into a baby. That baby will eventually be thrust out into the world for the first time, and it will start to cry, presumably over the current state of American political discourse. This baby, which has not yet been conceived, will be 4 months old before we actually elect a president.
I will be six days short of 18 on Election Day next November. No matter how angry this makes me, I can’t change the fact that I will not be able to cast a vote for president. Nonetheless, I do my best to follow the campaigns, even though I technically have no obligation to. Not that I have much of a choice when, 13 months away from the election, the media is al-ready shoving it all down my throat. I’ve honestly grown a little tired of the de-bates and the rabble-rousing and the talk of whether Donald Trump’s hair is real or not.
I know I’m not the only one who’s annoyed by the extreme length of the American presidential election cycle. By dragging on election cycles, not only do citizens like me get tired of following every candidate and issue, but costs also skyrocket. According to opensecrets.org, more than $2.6 billion was spent on the 2012 presidential election alone. Estimates from thehill.com suggest the 2016 presidential election could cost as much as $5 billion.
This exorbitant spending seems unnecessary, especially when compared to elections in other countries. According to spectator.org, the 2008 Canadian prime minister election cost $333 million and took 37 days. Few countries have election cycles longer than 100 days, and several limit campaign spending and donations. Yet here we are, 403 days from the 2016 presidential election, and we’ve already been talking about it – and spending mil-lions – for months.
You might say a longer election cycle gives voters more time to learn about the candidates and issues. But do we really need two years and several dozen candidates to pick a president? How long does it take candidates to communicate their positions on a topic? Are they worried that the American electorate is too dumb to quickly understand the issues and so feel a need to drag their campaigns out for two excruciating years?
If we shorten our election cycle, we may be able to cut down on campaign costs and put more of that money toward dealing with the federal debt or funding new laws. Presidential hopefuls may finally be able to spend less time campaigning and more time actually governing.
But of course, knowing the American political system, that’s not going to hap-pen any time soon. Despite my wishes for the contrary, the American presidential election cycle is only going to grow longer and more expensive.
It seems that many of us will have to join that future baby in weeping for the state of political affairs in this great nation.