Why do USAmerican elections take so long to conduct?

Question

In some countries politicians are unable to declare or announce candidacy until a few weeks before an election. Here in the USA, it seems as soon as one Presidential election is over we start on the next one.

Does anyone else get sick of the entire process?

Is there any way we can reverse this trend?

Note: I *will* be choosing a best answer instead of letting this go to popular vote. [If you think this is a good trend and can convince me, you get double consideration!]

Answer 1

I think American elections have become a big $ industry that puts lots of people to work & makes lots of money for lobbyists, corporations,and  especially the media.  There is no reason to spend millions of dollars to become President, or for that matter any elected official.  

It is a way to destroy our democracy by making sure "regular" folks can't run.

Perhaps we can reverse this trend  by having public financing of elections; limiting the amount of time people can run for election and really making it easier to register to vote and easier to vote (which they have already done in some states)

They should also return to a paper ballot like most of the rest of the world!

However, this would mean we the people will have to take back states' rights so we can diminish the power of corporatism.

Answer 2

Because we're voting for individual people whereas in Europe and many other places they vote for a party by voting for their local representative.  Those systems are called parliamentary government.  If it worked that way in America it would be our election of Congressional Representatives (not Senators) that would determine which party would take control of the executive branch - then the leader of the winning party would become President and name his VP and cabinet.

In Europe, et al. the leader of the winning party (or, often, coalition of parties) then becomes prime minister - a sort-of equivalent of our President - and names his second-in-command and his other ministers.  The second-in-command is one of the PM's ministers and functions much as a powerful VP would in America - the main difference is that a PM's second-in-command has an executive branch department to run and in the US the VP does not have a department to run.

To answer your question: it takes so long in America because anyone can declare their candidacy and it can take a very long time for candidates to become well enough known to the public at large to be taken seriously as Presidential material.

Overseas, the different party positions are continually articulated and fine-tuned so it takes very little time to put an election season together and an even shorter time to conduct it.  Citizens of countries with parliamentary government already know the different party positions at any given moment in time and a lengthy getting-to-know-you campaign would be superfluous.

"Does anyone else get sick of the entire process?"

Of course.  LOTS of folks are not exactly enthralled with this process - principally because of the repetitiveness and the lack of specificity of the campaigners.  It often seems like we're watching wind-up dolls performing the same skits over and over and over again.

"Is there any way we can reverse this trend?"

I don't believe so and I'm not sure, despite the tiring nature of the exercise, that we'd want to.  In the end, the process does work pretty well in that we do learn enough about the folks we're charged with choosing that we're able to make intelligent choices.

This system also allows relatively unknown politicians to rise to the top and I think that this is the most important advantage we have over parliamentary governmental systems.  Bill Clinton, like him or not, is one example of this.  Our system also allows candidates to rise from the dead; John McCain is an example of this in the current go-round.  McCain, in particular, never would have made it this far in a parliamentary system - those systems most certainly do not reward mavericks.  Clinton, on the other hand, would have done just fine - probably in any system of government.

Answer 3

Well, the USA can't keep people from declaring their candidacy, because our constitution guarantees free speech to everyone within our borders.

The only way it would be reversed is if people got tired of seeing all of this. However, the news ratings during election season indicate that people love this stuff, even if it's a secret pleasure. People may say that they are tired of it, but the economics of the media prove that a great many of them are lying about it, and love the show.

If most people did get tired of seeing this all the time, then the candidates wouldn't be out there as much.