Real Debate for 2008?

Question

As a Progressive I do worry about the election season starting so early. I think it will be one of the toughest races as candidates rise up, tumble, fall out, or rise up again.

This election will be more media driven than election we have every witnessed........

If we do not keep it agenda driven, focus on the future, focus on solving major problems.........then the media will trun it in a circus on personalities and flaws.

John Kennedy would not get elected in this election, not would it allow his brother Robert to work so close with him and become Attorney General afterwards......

i have no issue with a larger diverse crowd throwing their hat into the ring......but media focus should not be on who is up this week, who made a mistake (looking what they did to McCain supposely sleeping when he was reading at the State of the Union)

Lets lets candidates speak and find their voice and vision before we toss them away!!

Peace

Answer 1

...is this a question? No, no, it's not.

Nevertheless, it's a valid issue, and I'm a fellow liberal (voting for the first time in 2008!), so I'll take the time to share a response. I have very mixed feelings about this issue, mostly because I'm from California. As you may have heard, we're trying to move up our primary date to February, which could cause a lot of other states to do the same, worsening the problem.

While I do agree with a lot of what you've said, I think that the idea does have several merits. First, selfishly, it means my state will stop being used merely as an ATM. It also adds a lot of diversity to the primary - nothing against Iowa or New Hampshire, but they're not exactly representative of America at large. It does value media blitzes over handshaking - but, unfortunately, so will the general election, so at the very least we'll probably emerge with a strong, battle-tested candidate. And if there's a front-runner very early on, the damage done to them by the primary will have faded by the time they face their GOP opponent.)

What we ultimately have to remember is that primaries change consistently over time. First we had the smoke-filled rooms, then nominating conventions and caucuses. Now, we're having a media-clogged marathon. While certainly imperfect, I don't think it's all that much worse than our former situations. And eventually, if this all does prove to be too much, the very politicians who are burned by it will go back to the Senate and their parties and lead an effort for reform. Ultimately, I think you'll see parties spacing out their primaries very deliberately, and candidates facing more scrutiny (not necessarily a bad thing) and also paying a lot more attention to netroots early on. Different, yes. Worse? I guess we'll see.