Welcome to Election Season

Last weekend the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) held its annual straw poll to decide its preferred presidential nominee. While it is completely ridiculous to say that this poll has any basis in reality – Ron Paul, who has a touch of the crazies, has now won twice in a row – it did signify the beginning stages of the 2012 Presidential campaign, and I am not happy about it.

As a little background for those of you who don’t follow obscure political conventions, this year’s poll had many contenders, but only two had any real support. Failed 2008 presidential candidate Mitt Romney finished behind Ron Paul, and everyone else was far behind. Sarah Palin got no love from the CPAC crowd, but she has recently hired new staff members with suspicious amounts of campaign experience, so watch out.

But that poll covered just 15 potential GOP nominees. As if Republicans don’t have enough problems what with Tea Partiers running around in Revolutionary War costumes, Donald Trump has said he will decide on whether to join the race within the next few months. Despite the fact that the American people would never elect someone with such awful hair, if he decides to run his truckloads of money could keep him in the race just long enough to throw a wrench in the works of serious Republican campaigns.

The November 2012 elections are still twenty-two months away, and yet here we are diving head first into election madness. Even as a person who spends a significant portion of her free time thinking about politics, that is way too much campaigning. A child born today will be able to walk and talk and terrorize its siblings before it ever knows a time without campaigning.

Despite all of the time and money that will be put into those twenty-two months, it is unlikely that any of it will have an effect. Unless the Republican field changes or the President makes a huge mistake, most early polls show that none of the right’s candidates seem to have what it takes to beat Obama. All we are going to get out of it is two years of excruciatingly repetitive and inescapable coverage of every move every candidate makes. If we are lucky, we might at least get a showdown at the convention to add some excitement to the whole process, but that hasn’t happened for almost fifty years, so I’m not holding my breath.

Meanwhile, there are troops in Afghanistan, the economy is still a mess, unemployment is high, the country is facing a huge deficit and important legislative questions about immigration, education and health care (among others) that need to be addressed. With the news media wrapped up in the thrill of the chase and Obama out trying to convince people he didn’t screw up as badly as we all think he did, these things will all fall by the wayside. The American political campaign has become a complete circus. I find it tiresome and I’m almost positive the rest of the country shares my opinion. Politicians can’t enjoy two years of non-stop work ending in almost certain defeat, either. Why can’t we all just agree to wait until next year to start the madness? Please?