The Curse of Scattershot Election Schedules

I have lived in seven different states over the course of my lifetime, in most major regions of the country.

You would think that once, just once, I'd get to vote in a primary before the Powers That Be have decided who the front runner is going to be. 

You'd think that just once I'd have the chance to vote for my preferred candidate before the media blitz encourages him to withdraw early.

You'd think, in a year that has broken many of the usual media platitudes about election strategy and forecasting, in a year that has seen a massive compression of the primary schedule, in a year where I am in one of the states that votes earlier rather than later, I'd be able to vote for "my" candidate.

I was very excited about the chance to do this for the first time in my voting life.

DEE-nied!

Again.

Damn you, American primary system!  Damn you!   *shakes fist*

Comments

[Pica]

Yep. I have no idea why this has to take a whole year, either. In Europe they do the whole thing, start to finish, in six weeks.

[Jill Smith]

Sing it, sistah.

[JD]

I know, I know. And he had come to be my favored candidate, too (though there are things I like about all three). Alas.

[Agi]

As far as I know, Mike Gravel is still on the ballot here in California and I don't think he's dropped out of the race, yet. Or there's always my dog as a write-in candidate...

[Adrian]

I really enjoy reading your blog, it always has great insight. But I am very frustrated with the media’s lack of questions to the presidential candidates about global warming. Now that it is down to just a few candidates I would think that this would be a bigger issue.

Live Earth just picked up this topic and put out an article ( http://www.liveearth.org/news.php ) asking why the presidential candidates are not being solicited for their stance on the issue of the climate change. I just saw an article describing each candidate’s stance on global warming and climate change on earthlab.com http://www.earthlab.com/articles/PresidentialCandidates.aspx . So obviously they care about it. Is it the Medias fault for not asking the right questions or is it the candidates’ fault for not highlighting the right platforms? Does anyone know of other websites or articles that touch on this subject and candidates’ views? This is the biggest problem of the century and for generations to come…you would think the next president of the United States would be more vocal about it.

[Rex]

Climate change?
http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=332289