The nadir moment of Mitt Romney's campaign in the past week wasn't McCain's victory in Florida, but Romney's insistence on eating a lunch of fried chicken at a Florida KFC with--GASP--the skin removed. His rivals, especially the food loving, diet guru Mike Huckabee, predictably pounced. "Any Southerner knows that if you're not gonna eat the skin," said Huckabee, "don't bother with calling it fried chicken."
From pancakes in New Hampshire diners to corn dogs at the Iowa State Fair, if you can't pound away the regional vessels of trans fats with conviction, you're campaign is fried. Gerald Ford compounded his klutz persona when he bit into a tamale with the husk still on, John Kerry asked for Swiss on his Philly cheesesteak (provolone or Whiz are the only acceptable cheeses) amplifying his aloofness, while George McGovern basically tossed away New York when he ordered a kosher hot dog with a glass of milk. Oy.
By the time Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney or John McCain actually make it onto November's ballot, they will have consumed millions of calories along the campaign trail. Stuffing yourself to the gills may be at the heart of the American political tradition--a gluttonous rite of passage as true for small town mayors as it is for Presidents--but the gustatory overindulgence has transcended the edible realm to the very core of the nation's political wellbeing. Let's face it America, you're getting a bit doughy at the edges.
Put simply, America is pigging out on electoral democracy. Voters are consuming one lengthy election after another, with little time in between to digest the consequences. There are likely more democratic elections in the Untied States than any other country in the world, but with so many elections for so many positions, the average American citizen finds himself hounded by some federal, state or local campaign every single day of every single year. Often, lawn signs for candidates will go into the very hole left by a previous campaign.
On the surface this seems like a good thing. You can look at a calendar filled with endless trips to the ballot box (Primaries! Prosecutors! PTA!), and rest assured that in terms of the sheer numbers of elections, the USA is still democratic superstar #1. But like the much-maligned American diet currently testing the candidates, the problem is one of quantity versus quality, and Americans are gorging themselves on tremendous amounts of cheap democracy. The constant onslaught of televised attack ads, fundraising dinners, rousing speeches and miniature flag waving is the democratic equivalent of a diet characterized by Big Mac combos. Sure, it satiates your momentary desire by giving you exactly what you want, but it is nutritionally deficient, and in the long run a disaster for America's democratic health.
Just look at the current Presidential race: most of the candidates have been campaigning in one way or another for well over a year, and they still have another seven months until election day. During this time, thousands of ads will appear, along with hundreds of speeches at dozens of primaries where countless red and blue balloons will drop from above and burst on the floor, all of which will cost many millions in campaign funds. No other country has campaigns as long, large, and expensive as those in the United States.
But while it all makes for good TV (and blogging), history has clearly demonstrated that it does nothing to improve the quality of the leaders eventually elected. The longer the election goes, the less one knows. So far, there have been very few in depth policy discussions or ideas put forward by candidates in the primaries. We've heard few concrete proposals on how to exit Iraq or on curbing the nation's massive debt--which is the root cause of the increasingly fledgling economy. Instead, Senator Obama talks of "hope" while Senator Clinton shoots back with "change", but other than their vague promises of uniting America, they've said little. Long campaigns tend to retain the true meat of policy for the very final stretch. Why bother revealing your health care plans a year before the election, only to have it torn asunder by the spin machine? What Americans get for the most part of long campaigns is filler--a whole lot of processed corn around a teensy bit of beef.
Lengthy campaigns ultimately result in a parallel race for funding, which often compromises the integrity of candidates, who must sell their loyalties to donors. Worse still, the constant cycle of political campaigns hinders actual governance. Between midterm congressional elections, primaries, and Presidential races, there are perhaps several months during a four year term when the collected representatives in Washington can sit down and work on the business of guiding America without courting the next vote.
The solution is clear: It's time to go on an election diet.
The first step of this program would be dramatically reducing the length of political campaigns, especially the Presidential election. In other nations (like here in Canada), campaigns officially begin on a set date, and run less than two months in length. Shorter, more intense campaign would require less financing (cutting down on the influence of lobbyists), and require candidates to sell a condensed, concise message. There's less chance for attack ads, and diminished opportunities for the type of fluff that distracts voters from the issues at hand. Candidates won't be as worn down, and ultimately, the competition would be fairer.
Secondly, the long, torturous system of primaries should be cut back. Clinton, Obama, McCain and Romney are basically running for election each week. At the end of the day it will all be decided at the national party conventions anyway, and without the costly primaries there'd be more of a chance for even competition amongst delegates, not to mention giving a voice to those states who aren't part of the primary tradition. New Hampshire's pancakes have been walking tall for some time now, and there's simply no good reason why that should happen.
Finally, it's about time that serious campaign finance reform was enacted and enforced. If all candidates and parties had vastly less to spend on their campaigns, you'd better believe the result will be shorter, grittier races, where the issues take center stage. This would also have the added bonus of decreasing the influence of lobbyists at all levels of government, which, as the Bush years have demonstrated, is practically an issue of national security.