Election Burnout?
 

I'm noticing a certain waning in my interest in the election news. There was a time--not many weeks ago--when a fair amount of my free time was spent reading the latest "news" from the campaign trail. I found this site, Electicker 2008, which aggregates RSS feeds from a very broad range of political and non-political sources that contain campaign news, and I'd scour it, consume it, come here and post links, debate it.... Lots of energy.

In the last couple weeks, it's all turned into soap opera for me. The he-said-she-said of it just is wearing me down, and I'm having a hard time keeping up the energy to tune into the drama of the current news cycle. I'm also noticing a certain slowing of posts here in Tilted Politics (although that may be just taking a deep breath after the last couple weeks).

Is this happening to anyone else? And, any theory about why? Is it the protracted nature of the campaign for the Democratic nomination--how damn early it started and how it's not sewn up by now? Is it the amount of time that's passed since the last primary? Is it just human nature?

If this is more than a "ratbastid phenomenon", do you think it is a bad omen for turnout and participation? You think the populace at large is getting burned out too? Or do you think it's just me?

tv coverage, sir.
obsessive tv coverage.
it generates its own effects, entirely independently of the content involved.

no, it's not a ratbastid phenomenon. I felt it in '04 and am feeling it now, but earlier in the year because there has been more conflict earlier.

Jan - Aug is the pre-season. Many just tune-in occasionally to follow their favorite player and start to size up the competition, but its too early to get too engaged. Most voters pay little attention beyond their own primary. More are probably watching in passing this year than in the past because of the close Democratic race.

The regular season used to begin with the conventions, but those are now just staged events with the outcome already decided.

And then the Olympics get in the way in August, diverting most people's attention.

Labor day....Play ball!

It's redundant. Hillary attacks Obama over something she misrepresents, and Obama counters within an hour so that they get the same coverage. And McCain lets a little crazy out (Depends, anyone?).

Once Hilary drops out, you'll be hooked again. They always come back (rubs hands maniacally).

The election process is far too long and all-consuming. Media is saturated with attempts at slander and praise. I watch and I think of all of the hundreds of dollars that must be spent daily to maintain this frightening pace - is it healthy for our country? Part of my reasoning behind voting for 3rd parties - they are by necessity removed from the hype, and therefore their names are not scarred by the waste.

Short answer: yes, I feel it too.

I'm still very interested in the outcome, but I've burned out in terms of always being up-to-date with info. A big reason is that when I look at election coverage and see Obama vs. Clinton stuff, I think, "We're still talking about this? Obama won the nomination, it's almost impossible for Clinton to get it, can't we just move on?"

Maybe once the election turns into a Democrat vs. a Republican, my interest will be rekindled.

There should be four weeks of campaigning followed by a nationwide day of voting. If desired, do this twice (the first time to decide the candidates for each party).

This is where I'm at.

I'm a political junkie, always have been, but even I'm tiring of the debate. It's a little more interesting for me than others, though, because I live in Oregon, and we haven't had our primary yet. We might actually be relevant this election, though I confess I'm a little dismayed at the cannibalism members of the Democratic Party are engaging in, and wish it were all decided so the party wouldn't tear itself apart from the inside.

That makes it simpler, but that doesn't necessarily make it better. In fact, when it comes to creating good elections that result in preferred outcomes, simpler often means worse. (Case in point: plurality (first-past-the-post) voting is both the simplest and worst form of voting in terms of creating a favorable outcome.)

For one thing, America is a large place. Spreading out the primaries allows the candidates to campaign more personally in various places, thereby allowing the voters to get a much better feel for those candidates than they would if the election were national and short. It's been well-documented, for example, that when Obama gets to focus his campaign in a smaller area and people get to know him better (all while also getting to know Clinton better), he seriously cuts into her lead. Having a condensed, national primary would prevent voters from getting properly exposed to a candidate they might otherwise prefer.

That said, I don't claim that there's any perfect (or even very good) answer for how to run the primaries. There are a lot of complex issues involved.

Obama certainly has been full of surprises...looking forward to hearing more from him. :oogle:

I don't feel it. I didn't succumb to the early parts of the election because I knew it was too early to get involved in the bit players.

I feel much the same way, even though I rarely watch television news and frankly wasn't even terribly attached to blogs/print journalism on the race. I merely made sure I kept up on broad trends, perhaps catching an article or two from a major paper each day.

I wonder how journalists themselves manage to remain engaged in their work during long stretches like this one. I wonder if their own boredom feeds back into the perceived necessity to take every small event and blow it up until it balloons into some kind of major news item indicative of some broader trend.

I've been traveling a lot for business (mostly parts in the mid-west to Seattle) and burnout is definitely affecting the collective attention span. Cable news is always on in the airports and on-board conversations tend to range from weather, to sports, to politics. Many can't take it any more and are just tuning out.

In Kentucky, we still have our primary to look forward to. There seems to be less burnout in other states where local and national activity is ramping up.

Everywhere I go, Obama seems to be the overall Democratic favorite.

I've been burned out since day one, whenever that was...


At least I have my guns and bibles to ease my pain.

I'm amazed anybody but the most fervent politics follower can keep it up for the length of the US primaries.

Maybe that is partly due to the fairly short election time frame is Oz. The Politicians in power have the option of calling an election, as long as it is done within the last 6 months of their 3 year term and typically the entire election campaign is 6-8 weeks. We also do not vote directly for a Prime Minister, but vote for a local candidate who represents our local area in Parliament. (The Prime Minister is the leader of the party who has a majority of the seats in Parliament, so who we vote for does directly influence who this person is).

After 6-8 weeks of bombardment with political advertising, I'm over it, so when you guys have 9 months of campaigning, no wonder it gets tired...

burnout? maybe. disgust and despair? most definitely.

with the crop of candidates we have to choose from, i'm most certainly depressed with the knowledge that no matter who of the 3 is finally elected, it will without a doubt be the lesser of 3 evils, which will end up as irrelevent as the nation implodes.

Totally bored. I already voted in my state's primary.

I saw a quick description of how the two parties work once. It was shown before the primaries started, but it seems to have been dead on. It stated that the Republican nominee would be secured very early in the race, while the Democratic nominee would be determined after a long dragged out battle. So so true. This is how it goes all the time.

I'm exhausted already.

From one of my favorite group blogs, The Volokh Conspiracy:

One of my problems with such a long election cycle is that it promotes "blogger bullshit" (before the era of bloggers, it was just "pundit pontification")... opinions of folks who dont know any more than most of us about the candidates, but pretend they do.

I've been over the 2008 election since about 200...5.

99% of the election news I hear comes from the TFP.

wish i was in England... 6 weeks to campaign and it's over... haven't got 6 weeks to say what you need to then don't say it at all... move along so i can save my money

I got my copy of all 7 seasons of "the west wing" in the mail last week. I'm guessing Spoiler: Jimmy Smits will be President in my house before a new real president is elected :)

From the news soundbites and ads, many people who do not follow these things closely probably think a crazed preacher named Jeremiah Wright and a bitter Muslim named Barack Hussein Osama are running. I think we need more debates to discuss important issues like the proper amount of patriotic flair each candidate should wear. This is getting really boring.

The perfect answer for me:

would be you allow the candidates to run in the month of Feb.

You give each candidate the same amount of money.... there is no fund raising, no special interest donations, the candidates cannot even use their own money... there is an independent firm watching the money and who pays for travel expenses etc. to make sure only the money given is the money used. All media must charge the same for commercials and offer similar time spots to each candidate.......

hold a national primary for both parties the first Monday of March.....

The winner then moves on.

You allow no commercials on tv until 1 month before Election in Nov.

Allow them maybe the summer to campaign but only on weekends and the whole month of Oct.

You give each candidate the same amount of money.... there is no fund raising, no special interest donations, the candidates cannot even use their own money... there is an independent firm watching the money and who pays for travel expenses etc. to make sure only the money given is the money used. All media must charge the same for commercials and offer similar time spots to each candidate.

Every Tuesday in Oct, there is a 2 hour debate that must be televised (stations have the option to carry or not), each covering different issues (i.e. First: the economy/taxes, Second: defense, Third: Social policies Fourth: perhaps summaries and wild card...)

Finally, the night before the election, each candidate gets 1/2 hour to tell us why we should vote for them. This can be done by Q&A from a townhall, the press, a written speech, etc. The order is decided by coin flip and the candidate going last cannot see what the other candidate or the type of pitch the previous one does. (I.E. McCain goes first and has a townhall.... Clinton goes second.... has no idea what McCain said or how and holds her own 1/2 hour press QA)

This keeps costs down, allows the people to truly decide NOT finances, not who raised what or who was able to put on the most commercials and so on.

It evens the playing field.

This takes the money out of it, it allows those elected officials to do the jobs they were elected to do and not spend all their time campaigning and not their true jobs.

This applies to Governors and the 2 Senators as well.

If a third or fourth party comes around or independent and maintains a certain percentage of votes in polls then they are entitled to the same monies, debates, and day before show and must follow the same rules.

It will never happen, the media thrives and lives off the monies made from the political commercials.

I like it, pan. While we're blue-skying, let's change our voting structure to some sort of instant runoff system.

I also see merit in this approach. The devil would absolutely be in the details, but I've always thought too many potential "good" candidates are locked out because of finance, special interests, and media smear campaigns. Even ratbastid and I agree on this one.

Here's another proposal:

Since many of us are not happy with our representation or political process, perhaps it's time for a movement to demand accountability from our parties and politicians. To get their attention, I'm thinking along these lines as temporary measures:

• organize a drive to register as independents
• stop donating

It's that simple (it will never happen). Of course, everyone continues to vote their conscience or ideology, but something needs to be done that will force these jokers in to actually representing their constituents. Hit 'em where it hurts.

Changing the voting system is actually rather simple. The votes are already counted by machine (even the paper ballots), so the machines just need to have their programming changed a bit (and it's not particularly complex, even if using a Condorcet method). On the voter's end, you just rank candidates instead of vote for only one - not too hard.

Changing how elections are funded is far more complicated, but I agree it would be nice if candidates were given an equal (and large) amount of money to run on, and nothing else. One reason this won't happen is because supporting politicians with donations is considered a matter of freedom.

National primaries, on the other hand, are a terrible idea. No system is going to be perfect, and there's definitely a lot of room for improvement with our primaries as they are, but the reason we don't have national primaries (and shouldn't) is because it's important to give the candidates the opportunity to make personal appearances in a wide variety of places. National primaries would make it more difficult for voters to get to know the candidates through anything other than sound bites.

I agree...a national primary is a terrible idea...personal connections with candidates would be lost.

I do like the idea of consolidating primaries together on no more than four dates, a month apart...particularly the Delaware plan:

Interesting plan. I am about to head out so I can't go into detail with some of the problems I have with that, but one thing was already mentioned: I'd like to see variation in order between elections. I don't think just shuffling which group goes when would be enough for that (because, for example, if the largest state group goes first, that can really hurt the smaller states that go afterward). Also, the 12 largest states are some pretty large states. I think, at the very least, it would need to be split up into 2 groups of 6, where the first group goes on the first Tuesday of the month and the second goes on the third Tuesday of the month.

Still, interesting plan which I had not come across before.