Political Campaigns Should Be No More Than 90 Days Long

Today Texas Senator Ted Cruz announced he is running for President. He is the first major candidate to officially throw his hat in the ring for the 2016 Presidental election, which is 596 days away. The world is changing very fast, and having our political campaigns stretch on for nearly two years is absurd, and is hurting our country. Here are some of the problems a long campaign cycle causes, and how a much shorter cycle could help.

Ability To Govern

Our system of governance was designed to thwart hasty action, and as a result we have numerous veto points that make accomplishing anything difficult. It’s great that we are careful, but our systematic inability to do big things is actually a major weakness compared to rival countries such as China. Somehow our elected officials have managed to add yet another choke point to progress, by simply refusing to pass any substantive legislation as the campaign season heats up. During a campaign, there is increased attention and scrutiny on politicians. Out of fear of making a misstep, our legislators have decided that making no policy is the safest way to reelection. In countries like the UK, where elections are held within 17 business days of being called, they do not suffer this same problem. Those that are elected to power should be spending their time governing as much as possible, and a shorter campaign cycle will allow them more time to do their job.

Political Fatigue

For political junkies, the status quo is intoxicatingly delicious. I was glued to the TV, laughing hysterically at all 20 debates in the 2012 Republican Party presidential primary. As good as a time as I had, this was pure entertainment, and was actually very harmful to our democracy. There is only a finite amount of attention that people will give to politics. Political campaigns tend to crowd out news about what the currently elected officials are up to. This means that when there is an active political campaign going on, citizens will be more likely to seek out or absorb information about the ongoing political horse race, instead of information about what is actually happening such as new laws being proposed or enacted. It’s fine for people to pay attention to a political campaign at the point when they need to make a decision of who to vote for. But we are still almost 20 months until the next election and it’s really counterproductive for average people to use their limited political attention span to think about an election so far away.

Money In Politics

Our political system is under siege by monied interests. It’s been this way for a while, but with the Supreme Court declaring that spending money to buy off politicians is protected under the constitution as free speech, it may get even worse. While it may not be possible to legally limit political donations at the moment, it still may be possible to combat the influence that money has on politics by reducing the need for political campaigns to spend money. A drastically shorter campaign cycle would help for two reasons. First, there would without a doubt be some savings realized, since campaigns wouldn’t need to hire staff or run TV ads for nearly as long. Second, under the current law, politicians wouldn’t be allowed to solicit donations for their campaigns except during the brief campaign cycle. This means that, assuming no other loopholes popup, our leaders wouldn’t have to be ‘dialing for dollars’ except during the brief campaign season. In an ideal world, politicians would spend a lot less time talking to large donors, and more time doing things like governing or simply talking to average folks to get some direct feedback on what’s going on in their communities.

I am under no delusions that shortening the election cycle alone will be some sort of silver bullet that will magically solve all of these issues. However I do believe that on balance it would be beneficial, and really make some progress in addressing some of the woes of our political system. Plus, imagine not having to hear Ted Cruz’s stump speeches for the next 2 years!