I have to say, I'm not ready.

[Ilsa]

I'm not ready for 18 months of campaigns, ads, shit showing up in my inbox begging for money several times per day. It's all too soon, too much, too expensive and too much of a distraction from all of the other significant issues. I guess I'll need to stick my head in the sand for awhile.

[roamer65]

1. +1000

I agree.

[elleng]

2. Ditto

[tirebiter]

3. I have hard time coming up with anything more significant than a battle for .

Freedom and Democracy.

[bsiebs]

5. I am with you... this one is way too important to hide from... EVERYONE needs to focus NOW...

[Ilsa]

10. Yeah, that's part of why I'm exhausted from the last two elections.

The thought of Desantus or the orange fascist having even a shot at it makes me ill and suspicious and paranoid. And I'm not ready.

[Tetrachloride]

4. A new email address helps.

[Sympthsical]

6. I'm probably going to do a fairly hard block until the last few months

It feels like we just got done with 2022. Just sick of hearing about campaigns. Campaigns are always excuses not to govern as well. "Oh oh, can't do anything! Election's coming up! Oh oh! You don't want us to lose the election, do you? Oh oh!"

The perpetual campaign the media got going because it became a cash cow for them is one of the worst things to happen to this country in the last 30 or so years.

We're morphing into a people where the circuses are increasingly becoming a substitute for bread.

[NBachers]

7. "We can't believe how you've abused Democracy by ignoring our 29th demand for a response!"

[NJCher]

8. Something like this

Would never occur to me.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

9. That had NOT occurred to us, Dude ...

[Marius25]

11. I really hate how long US campaign cycles are

It's ridiculous. Europe has like what, 6 weeks of campaigns? Not a year and half.

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

12. Well, some of the European countries

Get help with candidate selection by having strict requirements to run for, say, Parliament. Or, in the case of the UK, disqualifications. Yes, certain people cannot run for MP:

* Judges
* Police
* Active military members
* Civil servants
* Depending on the country within the UK, anyone under a bankruptcy, debt restriction or sequestration order cannot run for office. It's a nice way of saying you must be financially responsible to run for office. Tends to cut down on that bribery problem a fair bit.

France requires that candidates for office must be 18, a French citizen, qualified to vote, and can't have a record of a criminal conviction or adverse judicial decision. Oh--and they must have a bank account. I always found that one amusing.

European election seasons are short because these simple requirements to run for office eliminate many of the problems that make US elections such a cock up. Not to mention removing from the candidate pool some real dirtbags, like, oh, TFG. He couldn't have even attempted to run for office in most of Europe over his bankruptcy history alone.

Imagine the heartache and suffering the US would have avoided (and could still avoid) if rules like these existed to run for office.