2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumWhy do your electoral process take so long?
Is it a mandate in your constitution?
Am curious, here in Canada, we had three months and voters were complaining it was too long! Mind you, within the three months, we got to know more about Mr. Justin Trudeau's policies and we even got to know who Mr. Tom Mulcair policies were. Well, Mr. Trudeau won as we all know!
msongs
(67,198 posts)akbacchus_BC
(5,700 posts)who wins in an election. That is the problem, the candidates preach they are for mainstream people but in the end, they bail out the bankers! I have no idea whom to trust anymore.
HerbChestnut
(3,649 posts)Turns out one of Bernie Sanders' main talking points is getting money out of politics. He wants to overturn the Citizen's United Supreme Court decision, which allowed for SuperPACs, and he wants to move to public funding of elections. Those two steps would make it virtually impossible for people to buy the elections. As you might guess, not all of the candidates agree on that platform.
akbacchus_BC
(5,700 posts)electoral reform where Candidates do not have to rely on super pacs to fund their campaign. If the superpacs fund your campaign, then you have to give them what they want if you win the elections. Mr. Sanders is against superpac and there is where I think he will lose to Mrs. Clinton. She has all the money bags in her corner.
HerbChestnut
(3,649 posts)But at the end of the day, SuperPACs just need to be abolished. Period. Candidates will always need money to run a campaign, but we can limit the amount of money available to them and where it comes from.
Cassiopeia
(2,603 posts)That can't happen overnight.
akbacchus_BC
(5,700 posts)I cannot see Mr. Sanders being elected, so it will be Mrs. Clinton and to tell you the truth, I prefer her than Trump!
If trump gets elected, have no idea what his infantile behaviour will result in!
liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)the media. There really is no limit on how much money can be spent on elections anymore much like war, so drawing the process out as long as possible means more money for those who profit off of it. Funny how we have all the money in the world to buy elections or go to war but we have to cut disability benefits and even Democrats ask just how is Bernie going to pay for single payer health care and tuition free college. Well that is pretty damn simple. You increase taxes on the wealthy and spend less on war. Funny how we can't even get Democrats to support taxing the rich and spending less on war. We are lost. We no longer have a democracy here in the US. We have an oligarchy.
akbacchus_BC
(5,700 posts)How the hell the media is now speaking for the US?
liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)akbacchus_BC
(5,700 posts)teabaggers in office are the world's worst nightmare. Those dimwits have no clue about foreign policy and they are dismissive. Do you really think that when people across the world see the republican line out, they are even remotely interested in one of them being the President of the US? Trump, hell no, Rubio, hell no, Cruz, hell no, another bush, well he cannot gain traction. The two clowns will never ever get any leverage during the general election against Mrs. Clinton.
I rest my case!
liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)with the Middle East. I doubt Clinton will do much to restore the world's faith in us.
newfie11
(8,159 posts)WillyT
(72,631 posts)Sorry.
But you can help... even from Canada: http://www.wolf-pac.com/
We already have 4 or 5 states on the board.
Check us out.
akbacchus_BC
(5,700 posts)We have overcome a lot of adversities, the road ahead is not that smooth, but according to Martin Luther King, we will see the promised land.
Hang in there, things will change.
akbacchus_BC
(5,700 posts)manipulate the electoral process. Does not make sense to me!
In 2008, people in the US were voting for the lesser of two evils and come 2016, you are still voting for the lesser of two evils.
Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)We have to get to a place where enough people refuse to vote even for lesser evils to turn things around.
Ron Green
(9,821 posts)Our political process has very little to do with issues and ideas, it's most about whether we "like" a candidate. There's a very long period for marketing and image-making.
liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)akbacchus_BC
(5,700 posts)You just cannot accept the status quo and live with it! How do you think Civil Rights got traction, people protested, lots of people died for the cause. And in these modern times, god help you if you black and your car break down, nothing has changed! Sorry, am pissed at that incident and needed to get it off my chest.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)...like a root canal.
liberal N proud
(60,302 posts)The candidates want as long as they can to collect as much money as they can and the media wants as much money as they can get out of ratings and advertising.
It also gives the media lots of things they can hype they can use to divert people attention.
brooklynite
(93,873 posts)First, no, there's no legal requirement on the length of an Election. Unlike Canada, Federal Elections are held on the 2nd Tuesday of each even numbered year (with 2-4-6 year terms).
There are two reasons for the length of the campaigns and neither of them are "to make money". The first is that, unlike Canada, we have a nomination process for our individual candidates, rather than a Party designated nomination or list. The second is, because candidates feel that to get nominated, they need extra time to win the Primary. Part of that is campaigning, part of that is raising the funds needed to campaign because one's opponent has decided to. For better or worse, Buckley Vs. Valeo (a Supreme Court decision from the 70s) determined that you couldn't limit campaign spending, so candidates spend the early phase of their campaigns fundraising.
Could you "order" the campaign to not start until a later date? Yes, but what difference does it make? When I went to the Democratic Convention in 2012, I saw Martin O'Malley address the Ohio delegation and Brian Schweitzer address the New Hampshire delegation. Neither had "announced" a campaign; neither had campaign staff. Were they campaigning? Of course they were.
NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)With populations center spread out everywhere. It's impossible for our candidates to meet the people in a short amount of time. Many issues are vastly different from state to state. While I don't personally like the length of the campaign season, I can find no fault in it. Politicians meeting the people and being fully vetted is a good thing, not a bad thing. Most countries can get this done in a quicker time period.
While Canada is spread out, it has the population of California, with many of its residents in a few major "hubs."