Hump Day: Presidential Primaries

I classify politicians in the same food group as children in that they should be seen and not heard. Sadly, they’re breaking this cardinal rule at the moment as it’s an election year.

My God, American politics bugs the crap out of me. The foreplay involved in deciding who is going to disappoint us for the next four years goes is driving me mental. The presidential primaries seem to have been going on forever and we still don’t have a Republication candidate. I think I’m ticked off at the moment as I recently it looks as if it’ll be August before the nomination is given. 5 more months of this. UUrrgghh!! Now, I’m not picking on the Repubs, just the primary process itself because it’s so bloody tedious. The candidates campaign from state to state and each state holds its election for who will be the candidate–and all at different times, some months apart. And most importantly, all fifty states will have their votes counted. Normally, the presidential candidates are chosen long before a bunch of states even have their primaries.

I don’t have a problem with the primaries themselves, but what I do have a problem with is why can’t all the elections be held simultaneously? We live in a world of global communications. There’s no need for the candidates to travel the country.

The answer I was given is that the piecemeal approach weeds out the various contenders, until the winner is left. You can still do that. You could give the candidates three months to campaign across the country, then have all primaries on one day. That way we don’t have to have all the infighting between candidates, several hundred million dollars will be saved, and hours of annoying political commercials will be eradicated. Sounds like a win for the people for once.