Just what we need...

[tayefeth]

Florida and the DNC are aruing about primary dates. And several other states are threatening to move their primaries up. Because what we really need is a longer campaign season, so that we can spend more of our time and money listening to divisive attack ads.

Comments

[barking_iguana]

Actually, I'm pretty sure that early nominations are good for the country, and will tend to de-polarize. Look for an esplanation in my journal the next time I sit down to write something that isn't an immediate reaction to something in the news.

[tayefeth]

Starting the campaign more than two years prior to the inauguration date cannot be good for the country. Too much time, energy, and money is spent on campaigning, rather than governing. Moving the primaries up to more than a year before the inauguration date will only cause candidates to begin campaigning for the nomination even earlier. I'm heartily in favor of moving the conventions up a bit, to say six months before Election Day, but I don't think we really need six months of primaries before then, so that people can wag their tongues over who's electable and who's a waste of a primary vote and the candidates can spit on each other. If we want to reduce the intraparty divisiveness, let's have all the primaries within a month of each other, a week before the conventions. Not this "I wanna be first, so I'm going to move my state's primary to... December, yeah!" shit.

[barking_iguana]

I agree. But in all probabbility, the nominees will be effectively decided in February, so it will be almost as if the conventions are moved up.

[tayefeth]

Except that there will still be primaries going on, and therefore there will still be intraparty campaigning.