The Neverending Campaign
Via The Wall Street Journal
You hear it all the time: Are presidential campaigns getting longer, or do they just seem longer? A new report from the Center for Competitive Politics laid a measuring tape on campaigns from 1952 onward, and yes, they are longer.
Changes in media intensity and other issues have contributed, but the authors point to the main reason being federal campaign-finance limits that force candidates to spend more time raising money. The date when presidential campaigns began to run forever is impossible to miss: It happened in the 1970s, following passage of the 1972 Federal Election Campaign Act and amendments two years later.
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