It feels like campaigns now run on forever. Incumbents are fundraising for the next campaign as soon as the last ends. Maybe elections should be held every 36 years. Candidates for president would choose multiple 4-year terms to run for. Likewise Senators would run for all possible 6-year terms at once. Then they could exclusively work on government business for the terms they won without having to campaign again. It would be like a felon being tried concurrently for several crimes and serving terms consecutively just for convictions. The House should be decided by lots since that couldn’t be any less selective than the current arrangement.
Herman Cain could run for 999 terms and serve none, none, none. Perry could run for and win three terms, serve two then forget the third. Romney could run simultaneously as a conservative for 2012 and a moderate for 2016 and a liberal for 2020 and see which works. Without the pressure from re-confronting Values Voters, President Gingrich wouldn’t be stuck with the same First Lady for two terms. Sarah Palin could serve four half terms over sixteen years.
I know this sounds complex, but thats not necessarily a bad thing. Bachman and Santorum probably couldn’t figure out whether they won or not and, with all that confusion, John Huntsman might actually have a shot.
– Iron Filing
2 Comments
I’ve always thought the opposite would be better, yearly elections.
Yearly elections! *shudder* Goodness no. Nothing gets done NOW. But I don’t think timing is the real problem – the timing that we have in the national elections is just about right.
The real problem is the money problem. The reason campaigns are lasting so long is that fundraising has become a constant, and the best funded candidate wins 16 out of every 17 races.
If we can drastically change the way money buys votes we can make a real difference.