I'm telling ya, the rest of the (democratic) world looks at the American presidential election process as a joke.
A full year of dicking around to determine who the nominees will be for the two major parties (fortunately one of them has already been decided) spending (wasting?) 10's of millions of dollars that could be better spend on infrastructure (if nothing else, to keep bridges bridging)
Are we really expected to believe that it takes that long to determine who will lead the party into an election? I'm not an American, and can't take part in the process, but as a Canadian who thinks the democratic system in Canada (and Australia and UK, among others) works just fine, I'm amazed at the contortions gone through by my American neighbours (in spirit, if not geographically)
As I see it now, from the outside, the Democrats don't have a hope in the next election. McCain, the 'presumptive', is sitting back having a good old chuckle at the Democrats ripping themselves apart. I can't tell Obama and Clinton apart policy-wise (not that much policy has been discussed in the past 6 months) and, very surprising to me, a fairly hefty chunk of supporters from both democratic sides have stated they will vote Republican should 'their' preferred nominee not make it. Madness!
I'm living in Oz right now. From John Howard's announcement of an election to his ousting by KRudd took, I believe, 6 weeks.
Think about it. Both parties in any democratic country are active through the non-election years and anybody paying even the slightest attention knows how those parties will behave after an election. Why spend a year, or more, belabouring the issue?
Blows my mind.
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. - Carl Sagan
