Election coverage burnout is on the horizon

There are about two years left until the presidential election, and I’m already sick of… There are about two years left until the presidential election, and I’m already sick of hearing about it.

I mean, people do realize that this isn’t happening until late in 2008, right? Because from the amount of attention this election is getting in the media, someone might think it was remotely close. And not only am I sick of hearing about the election, I’m sick of everyone constantly talking about how significant it is. There’s a woman! And a black man! And a Hispanic man! I mean, we’re actually getting candidates that represent the demographics of our country! Talk about craziness.

I think that the fact that everyone is so insane about these candidates goes to show just how backwards American culture still is. For the first time in our history, we get serious candidates from a big party who aren’t middle-aged white men in stuffy suits, and the whole country starts flipping out. I mean, who cares that Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., used to hold imaginary conversations with Eleanor Roosevelt about her role as First Lady. Everyone talks to the dead wives of former presidents now and then. And never mind the fact that Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., hasn’t even been in the Senate for a full term and told the Chicago Sun-Times in 2004 that he “unequivocally” would not be running for the Senate in 2008. We don’t need candidates who are responsible for their words anyhow. And of course, there’s Democratic Sen. Bill Richardson from New Mexico. Haven’t heard of him? My point exactly.

Here, let me put my grief into perspective. A simple search on the CNN Web site for “2008 election” yielded 476 articles. That’s more articles than there are days in the year, by a hundred and then some. I mean, there’s almost an entire year before there are even any primaries. That means that until the middle of January next year, we won’t even have a clear picture of who the front-runners are. Sure, we can pretend we know, but there’s always problems with that strategy. For example, Howard Dean was poised as the Democratic front-runner in the 2004 election, and look what happened to him in the primaries. I mean, nobody had even heard of John Kerry until after February of 2004.

In opposition to the Democratic “revolutionary” candidates, the Republicans seem to have decided to stand by the tried-and-true method of old white men. However, these aren’t just any old white men, but the oldest we’ve ever had. Did you know that Senator McCain is 72? He’s three years older than Reagan was! Or, to look at it another way, he’s 30 – yes, 30 – years older than Kennedy was in 1961. Of course, that shouldn’t impair his ability to lead the nation. Unfortunately, his diagnosis with malignant melanoma might – but that’s obviously nowhere near as important as name recognition.

What does all this mean for us, the humble voters? Well, if the current trends are to be believed, it probably means that it’s going to be the longest and most expensive election season in American history. A Jan. 14 article in the New York Daily News estimated that for candidates to even be serious contenders, they will have to raise at least $100 million by the end of 2007. That’s more money than George W. Bush raised in the entirety of his 2000 campaign – just for the first year. Analysts are saying that this will be the first “billion-dollar election,” with more than $1 billion raised and spent in total campaign funds. Or, put another way, more money than the U.S. budget allocates for the Department of Energy. Take that, tree-huggers.

What happened to patience? Are we really so eager to forget that President Bush is still in office that we’ll drown him out almost two years before he leaves office with the talk of his potential successor? Well, OK, yeah we are, but still. This is getting a bit ridiculous. I mean, the man could probably bomb Canada right about now, and all that would happen would involve his approval rating dipping a bit lower – if it can get any lower – and we’d go back to debating Hillary versus McCain. Or, more substantially, if America is ready to see Bill Clinton campaign for his wife (answer: No).

Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be much we can do to slow the tide at this point. Instead, we’ll probably just have to wait it out, suffering through the long haul until 2008, when we finally get to cast our precious votes. But until then, it’s campaigns, commercials and political madness out the wazoo until none of us can take it anymore and we’re all desperately crying for the madness to stop.

Only that’s what I’m thinking already.

If you think bombing Canada is a good idea anyway, send Richard an e-mail at rab53@pitt.edu.