Early Birds or Worms?

I'm a little confused, so I'm hoping someone can explain to me why we have candidates beginning their run for president almost two years before the election. It doesn't make sense. And now they're talking about the candidates forgoing public campaign financing. This means they'll be raising huge amounts of money. Does this strike anyone else as odd? It is creating the real possibility for major accounting fraud. They've raised the possibility that the candidates will spend hundreds of millions of dollars. That's crazy.

I'd like to propose an idea: we shouldn't allow candidates to declare themselves until about a year before the elections. Then we don't have to worry about them spending time campaigning while they should be governor or in the Senate or something. And when they decide to run, they should be forced to resign any other political office they hold. That way, we'll make sure they're serious, and those whose senator or governor is galavanting around on the campaign trail will still have representation.

While we're at it, why don't we make every candidate use public campaign financing, then limit that severely, giving every candidate a level playing field? I for one would welcome this, because it would significantly reduce the number of lame election ads I have to watch in 2008. That would be real campaign finance reform.

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