Campaign 2016 is Off and Running!

Is it me or has the political world gone off it’s axis? It used to be that presidential campaign began about six months before the national elections and before you were really exhausted by all the political blather, it was time to inaugurate the new Chief Executive. Americans had other preoccupations and presidential campaigns were a once-in-four-years Constitutional requirement to keep the ship of state afloat.

The good, old days.

Then came the advent of twenty-four hour cable television news and twenty-four-hour social media and twenty-four-hour talk radio. And before anyone knew what had happened, the subject of the day–of every day–became the next presidential election. It made no difference that the ink was barely dried on the present election. The gears were greased and the names were already being floated, even as the new president was taking the oath of office.

And every election cycle has gotten worse than the one that came before it. Now we are faced with three years–three years–of non-stop presidential campaigning (mostly by candidates that refuse to acknowledge that they are running for president, even while they make sure to make these assertions in the most public venues).

It used to be that running for president required a candidate to actually get out and meet the voters. He or she had to trek endlessly across the fifty states and spend truckloads of cash to get the word out. Now, with social media and CNN, FOX and MSNBC, all they have to do is make an announcement and–presto!-three hundred million people know about the decision.

Which brings it all back to the American electorate, to our patience and weariness with the manufactured sound bites that have taken over our political conversation.

Get ready, America, the 2016 Presidential election has officially begun. It may seem like Spring of 2014 but the next three years are going to fly by in a flash. Unless you turn off your computers and televisions and radios and stop reading newspapers and magazines, if you still know what those are.