i was too busy last week to blog about the debate among democratic candidates last week. though my meeting with my arabic tutor prevented me from seeing the republican debate tonight, there's really no reason i can't still spout off some half-baked wisdom about it.
but i don't wanna. the bottom line is that the primary race--for both parties--is starting waaaaaaaay too early for me. i am already on the verge of being sick of it. and yet in any normal year no one would have even declared yet.
i also have this theory that the early start encourages the proliferation of stupid petty stories about the candidates. sure, haircut stories didn't begin with john edwards this year, but when you've gotta write a story a day about a group of people for the next year and a half, there's a big incentive to stretch out the insignificant stuff into a story. after all, when faced with a story about a petty spat between two candidates, or a substantive discussion of policy proposals, who cares about the proposals? no one will even be trying to decide who to vote for for almost another year. so the focus instead becomes the phenomenon of the campaign--the meta campaign. where gaffs and pithy lines become all anyone pays any attention to. besides, most of the candidates don't even have their proposals worked out yet.
not that the election will be fluff-free when we finally make it to the actual primary season. but there are a finite number of substantive issues in the 2008 election. you just can't keep up interest in substance for that long. a longer election campaign season means that the idealized campaign that i dream about (but never actually happens) is even less likely to occur this year.
and it pisses me off. so i'm not watching any debates, from either party, for quite a while. and i won't be discussing the campaigns much here either, at least for a couple of months.
unless, of course, someone does a particularly hi-larious gaff. or maybe i'll just suddenly change my mind and take all this back. but for now i'm trying hard to focus on other stuff.
