Bob Wire Has a Point (It's Under His Cowboy Hat)

Political Campaigns Are Just Too Damn Long

By Bob Wire, 11-10-10

	Should be on the back of the shirt. That's where they stab you.

Now that the dust has settled on the midterm elections, our elected public servants can finally put all that behind them and get down to what’s really important: the 2012 elections.

Here in Montana, the tempera paint wasn’t even dry on the misspelled Tea Party congratulations posters when former U.S. Representative Rick Hill announced that he’s running for governor. And he wasn’t even the first. Two other Republicans, Ken Miller and Cory Stapleton, had already decided to dedicate two solid years of their lives to campaigning to win the post being vacated by term-limited Brian Schweitzer. No Democrats have announced as of yet, probably because they’re waiting for Harry Reid to tell them Nancy Pelosi said it’s okay.

Politics has ruined government, but that’s not exactly a news flash. What boils my caucus is the seeming desperation of career politicians to keep a permanent seat on that gravy train of public office. Once they’ve tasted that gravy, once they’ve grilled up a few cases of free Montana steaks or flown to a single-malt fundraiser on a pharmaceutical company’s G6, there’s no way they’ll ever want to go back to having to get by on just a salary or straight wages, the way most of us non-politicians have to do. Like a 34-year-old grad student, these career politicos will shed every scrap of dignity and self-respect before they give up their cloistered existence and join us out here in the grubby Real World.

Seriously, candidates, we need somebody to have the guts and the vision to begin campaigning, oh, in the same year the election is taking place. It’s counterproductive and shortsighted to fidget on the sidelines and snipe at the current office holder for two years and call that campaigning. That’s what the Republican Congress is known for. I think they call it Leadership.

The campaign for POTUS typically lasts more than two years, and that’s at least eighteen months too long. If you need two years to figure out who’s the best representative to send to Washington, then you’re too stupid to vote. I say don’t allow ANY campaigning until sixty days before the election. That’s right, yard sign printers and button fabricators. Two months. That will force the candidates to cut to the chase, and will leave very little room for distractions, backroom subterfuge, political red herrings, and sex scandals. Actually, I take that back. There’s always time for a sex scandal.

Another problem with these endless campaigns, especially the presidential ones, is that they are a huge waste of resources. Take Sarah Palin. Please. She began campaigning for 2012 the moment John McCain disposed of her like a used condom before his concession speech two years ago. Oh, sure, she already had a gig waiting for her back in Alaska, but she had tasted the gravy. And even though she’s no longer an elected official, she is chugging that savory sauce like it’s Thanksgiving dinner and nobody else showed up. Riding a tide of Tea Party anger, Palin constantly denies that she’s running in 2012. She denies it at nearly every campaign stop, I mean, speaking engagement. And at $100,000 a pop, she can afford to distribute the finest bullshit money can buy. The only way the rest of us are going to collect that kind of money for speaking is if we use the words, “I have a gun. Empty the vault into this bag.”

Naturally no one believes her, any more than I believed Miami Dolphins coach Nick Saban when he swore up and down that he’d never ever break his contract and leave the team. Of course, he was wearing a Crimson Tide windbreaker at that press conference, so a lot of us ‘Phins fans found him a bit disingenuous.

At least these Montana Republicans and their premature announcements are being up front about their intentions. But honestly, how in the hell do they expect to sustain a gubernatorial campaign for two years? Come on, man, most of the voters in Montana (and, for that matter, the U.S.) will earn less money in their lifetimes than what you’ll blow on billboards, attack ads, bumper stickers and Montana-shaped Frisbees (that might have worked with that Florida candidate who gave out boomerangs, but you should stick to refrigerator magnets, Mr. We’re-Square-But-Not-As-Square-As-Wyoming).

Feel free to do all the fundraising you want, candidates. Scarf those $1000-a-plate rubber chicken dinners ‘til your Town Car smells like a henhouse. Extract money and pump your base ‘til you’re blue in the pumper. Just don’t spend two years jabbering about what an asshole your opponent is even though you don’t know his or her identity because he or she won’t declare his or her candidacy until six months from now. Save it for the jury.

Two years is just much too long. One year is too long. As much as I dislike Fred Thompson, I had to give the guy a huzzah when he waited until September of 2007 to announce his candidacy for the 2008 presidential election. I was subjected to those flapping southern jowls for less than five months before he bailed, trailing even Strom Thurmond in the polls. And Thurmond had been dead four years. But Thompson had the right idea: wait until the field is crammed with ineffectual middle management suckups looking for a career change, jump in there and hope your splash is big enough to wet down 51% of the voters.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been accused of having a short attention span. I was the one who started the movement for a ten-game baseball season a few years ago. But I don’t think I’m alone about this interminable campaigning. Stop the insanity. Cut these political campaigns down to two months.

Cripes, don’t even get me started on the NBA playoffs.

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