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take up entire term by 2016
major contenders in the 2008 presidential race just months after the 2004
contest was decided, a new study released Friday noted that the ever-
lengthening campaign cycle has pushed such pre-election punditry earlier
than ever before.
Worse yet, said the report from the Analytic Public Policy Institute, at the
present rate of growth presidential campaigns are expected to consume a
leader’s entire four-year term by 2016.
“The numbers are amazing,” said APPI’s Howard Dankowitz, who chaired
the study’s examination of every election since 1789. “Even recent
differences are notable. In the 2000 election, it took at least three weeks
before anyone even talked about the next president. This time Chris
Matthews actually brought up [New Mexico Governor] Bill Richardson’s
name on election night.”
“Kerry hadn’t even conceded, yet,” he added, shaking his head in disbelief.
“Good grief.”
Dankowitz notes that the modern campaign season’s ever-expanding
proportions stand in stark contrast to earlier campaigns, which lessen in
length as one looks further back in time.
“Ronald Reagan’s reelection campaign didn’t even get under way until a
year-and-a-half before the 1984 contest,” he said. “Speculation about
whether Richard Nixon would run in 1968 waited even longer and in 1956
the Democrats didn’t even remember the election in time to put up a new
nominee. They just ran Adlai Stevenson again. Nobody really noticed.”
Campaigns in the nineteenth century were briefer still. As evidence,
Dankowitz cited President Ulysses S. Grant‘s two-month campaign of
1868, President James Polk‘s eleven-day effort in 1844 and President
James Monroe who in 1816 took charge of the young nation after a low-key,
48-minute campaign consisting entirely of a single press conference on
the morning of the election, which was cut short by lunch.
“His slogan was ‘Monroe: He’ll Take Questions Until About Noon,’”
Dankowitz said.
These examples are sharply different than today’s 24-hour political punditry
cycle, which many contend is an overheated, intrusive, never-ending, four-
year-long, overloaded cluster-fuck of omnipresent experts, advocates, talk
shows and bloggers that seamlessly stretches and morphs one hellishly
interminable campaign season into the next.
"Also, Sean Hannity's hair is annoying," notes Dankowitz.
The study, which took five-months to reach its conclusions, employed
some of the most cutting edge statistical techniques to determine
presidential campaign length.
“We derived basic probability algorithms from the raw numbers based on
complex geometric ratios and Gaussian data sets to arrive at common
algebraic consistencies that required weeks of painstaking analysis,”
Dankowitz said. “Then we turned on CNN. Did you know Hillary Clinton is
already raising money?!”
Most disturbing, the campaign’s expansion is not expected to stop at four
years. By 2024, speculation about front-runners is expected to overlap well
into the previous campaign season. By 2040, candidates may need to
begin campaigning as much as nine years ahead of time. Dankowitz
advises parents of 2056 presidential hopefuls to start building a war chest
now for their child’s future run at the White House.
“It’s never too early to take the little tykes around to network and build
relationships with party leaders a generation or so ahead of time,” he said.
“Although most will die off decades before the election, it still builds a base.”
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