Tout est dans le titre

Well, I was kind of interested to know what you think on this specific subject, considering my previous post. It would be cool to know what you think. Please leave comments on this specific subject.

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From France, the American campaign was an interesting story. We all followed the never ending battle between Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama as well as the details on Sarah Palin involvement in the bridge going nowhere. Hilary Clinton was very popular in the french medias, probably due to our last presidential election where Segolene Royal also had quite some chances of being elected. We were surprised to see how much time and effort every single TV channel gave to capture every single American citizen’s attention on a daily basis.

But my main surprise (and worries) concerned the duration of the campaign itself. Barack Obama justified his capacities and experience as a team leader only by the energy he gave to his campaign. The president is elected for 4 years in US. If I am correct, the campaign took possession of the medias during nearly 2 years.

Do you think, american citizens need 2 years to make up their mind about the next president? I don’t think so. My opinion is that the decision is taken in a few days; sometimes just before the actual day of the election. In France, the campaign also tend to be now longer than they were. But even if the medias start talking about it a year or so before the election, the actual campaign really starts 6 months before the election. If you remember that the french president is elected for 5 years, you see that it gives far more time to the president to develop its policy.

Then I though that there must be a reason why it’s so long in US so I asked some of my american friends in Paris about it. And, surprinsly, the only reason they gave me was that it was due to the size of the country. Indeed, 150 years ago, the candidates had to travel all around the country to present their program. That’s exactly why, the debate between Obama and Clinton took so much time. If they wanted, they could have travelled by horse, they had enough time to do so.

Do you think the Ohio needs to know the result in California to choose its own candidate? Again I don’t think so and it does sound weird to us.

So my question is simple. Is the next American president gonna do something about the duration of American campaign for the election of the president?