3 more weeks to go...

[kedoane]

before we go to the polls and elect our new President and members of Congress, and vote on various propositions.

I am going to be glad when these 2 weeks are over since I get exposed to all the advertising and mudslinging while I am at work. One solance is that at least the Presidental candidates haven't bought any airtime on either TV station that I work at. But then again, California is not a swing state either.

If you haven't register to vote, then go out and do it, if you can (CA has cut off date of today. You'll need to have your request postmarked by midnight.) If you are registered to vote, then go out and vote on 11/2. If you don't vote, then you can't complain about how this country is being ran.

Katster is now stepping off of her soapbox.

[Brian Olewnick]

Katster clearly lives in the obscure area of the country that votes a week after everyone else!

Hey! no fair editing!!!

[kedoane]

I corrected myself folks. I mean 2 weeks before the election.

[Monte Smith]

Originally Posted by kedoane

If you don't vote, then you can't complain about how this country is being ran.

I've seldom heard it better putted.

[Gary Sisco]

I'd support an amendment that limited campaigns to three weeks, total. I mean, if you have nothing to say, how long can it take, already?

[Monte Smith]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

I'd support an amendment that limited campaigns to three weeks, total. I mean, if you have nothing to say, how long can it take, already?

I support the ideal of shorter campaigns as well, but under our system, where I know the date of election day in 2008, 2012, and 2052, I don't see how it is practicable. Are you going to legislate a ban on political speech during "ordinary time?" If you don't, then partisans and people interested in politics are going to pre-campaign before the official campaign and the effect will be to create a situation exactly like we know now. In other countries, campaigns are briefer either because elections are called irregularly by the party in power (the UK is like this) or because the stakes are so low that no one bothers to campaign hard or so high that thugs control the process through brute exercise of power and you can't really talk about election campaigning (as opposed to parading) at all.

You'd have to enact some pretty fundamental reform (Constitutional amendment, I have to think) in order to create a more comfortable electioneering window. But look at the last marginal electioneering reform, McCain and Feingold's so-called campaign finance reform. Can anyone point to that high-minded and misguided effort and say it accomplished what it was designed to accomplish?

[Gary Sisco]

Why not? Your Fuhrer signed legislation to ban political speech during election time.

[Gary Sisco]

Seriously, the American election campaigns have gotten out of control, timewise. We basically pay these motherfuckers (and well, I might add) to campaign full-time, no matter what office they hold (or want). The nanosecond one election ends, the campaign for the next begins. It's absurd.

I was stationed on the island of Iwo Jima for 365 days, and the crew had a never-ending pool tournament like that. The moment someone won it, the next one began, and so on, there was so precious little to do to entertain oneself out there.

I haven't played pool since, and I left there in early '76.

That's the way I feel about American political campaigns today. Parliamentary systems have it all of the US in that regard, I have to admit. I'm sick of politicians today before their terms even begin.