A week from today I’m going up to Stratford, Ontario, with the Old Professor for a long weekend of theatre and renewing old acquaintances with a place that is dear to both of us. (Long-time readers know that Stratford was an annual pilgrimage of mine with my parents until last year when their relocation to Cincinnati meant giving it up.) I’m really looking forward to it; we’re going to see some great plays. And, I thought, we’re going to have a brief respite from all of the silly campaign news that dominates the media here in the U.S.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper will call an election as early as this Sunday, kicking off what would be the longest federal election campaign in modern history, CBC News has confirmed.
The election is generally considered to be set for Oct. 19, 2015, under the Conservatives’ fixed election law, although there is wiggle room. But Prime Minister Stephen Harper told Bloomberg News Wednesday that he considers that date to be set in stone.
[…]
Dropping the writ more than 11 weeks before voting day will make it the longest campaign in modern history. The previous longest campaign was a 74-day one in 1926.
On the other hand, I would love to see an American election campaign that lasted only eleven weeks. I’d settle for eleven months.
Perhaps you would like to see an eleven week or month campaign and it would certainly be a step forward. However, here it is merely a cynical ploy by Harper to drain his less funded opponents of available money to last until the end as he can rely on contributors with deeper pockets to keep his party going strong throughout. Can we be far behind the US where money is everything?
My solution to the endless campaigning where one begins as the other ends – surely this isn’t what the signers of the Constitution intended – is to turn it off. Ignore it. Press “mute” or change the channel to WE where “Law & Order” provides a soothing look back into the Olden Days of murder and jury trials in NYC. So civilized!