By Brian Bohl
Primary season is just over 11 months away and already campaigning is garnering front-page attention and close scrutiny.
The Republicans are already gearing up for the 2008 presidential election season that doesn’t officially start until the Iowa caucus on Jan. 21 (mark your calendars now). Not to be outdone in their desire to inundate Middle America with their fervent zest for democracy, the Democrats will bombard the Hawkeye State a full week earlier.
Those early starts mean candidates will be courting votes nearly eight months before the summer nominating conventions.
Despite midterm elections concluding just three months ago, at least six Democratic Party members officially filed their request to make a Presidential run with the FEC.
Three other public officials, including New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, have formed exploratory committees before officially announcing their candidacy. Meanwhile, four Republicans officially entered the rat race, while Sen. John McCain (Arizona) and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani are among the group that created their own exploratory committees.
Add all those ambitious public officials together and it adds up to 21 consecutive months of wall-to-wall campaigning. Nevermind that New York voters just elected Clinton to serve another six-year term way back in November; her second-term was just in its infancy before she was off in Cedar Rapids talking about her virtues as the country’s potential 44th president of the United States.
While an increasingly long election season distracts public officials from serving their constituents, the financial obligations required to sustain a professional campaign keeps increasing, forcing candidates to start fundraising earlier than ever.
“The 2008 race will be the longest and most expensive election in American history,” Federal Election Commissioner Michael Toner said last week. “We’re heading into the first $1 billion election.”
Politicians feel more pressure than ever to start early and gain any advantage over a crowded field, hoping to entice donors to send money their way. Any delay in the process could put a senator or governor from a smaller state at a disadvantage, thus fostering an environment where it seems the country is going through an endless election cycle.
It also means increased scrutiny to every public comment. Delaware’s Joseph Biden found that out the hard way earlier in the week. While trying to separate himself from the rest of the early Democratic field, the senator came under fire for his remarks about Obama.
“I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” Biden said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”
There is a saying in sports that says a game cannot be won in the first quarter, but it can be lost. Biden can’t win the election now, but his gaffe already generated negative buzz on the internet, newspapers and cable television networks.
Biden immediately apologized and said his remarks were taken out of context. Obama said he wasn’t offended, though the public can be much less forgiving than the actual candidates.
That mistake probably won’t make any impact come primary season, but the story epitomizes the overexposure the entire nomination process is afforded when a presidential election year evolves into a full two-year saga.
The marathon process is not fair to prospective nominees, who must now declare their intentions much earlier than what was necessary in previous years. It puts people in a tough position to make such a life-altering decision so far in advance, and the obligations could discourage qualified leaders from entering the race.
Having the primaries so early is also a disservice to Americans. Like the Clinton exploratory committee is already showcasing, the more time a candidate spends on the road, the less time he or she can devote to their districts or states. With the executive and legislative branches deeply divided on partisan lines, it behooves every American citizen if politicians can spend more time on legislation and devote less of their efforts on a run for higher office
Brian Bohl is a junior print journalism student. You may e-mail him at [email protected].