Archive for December 4, 2010

We all know the dif­fer­ence between courtship and mar­riage. Courtship is an excit­ing, heady time, a ver­i­ta­ble whirl­wind of pos­si­bil­i­ties. It’s time con­sum­ing, expen­sive, exhaust­ing and won­der­ful. We spend our time mak­ing and hear­ing big promises, pre­sent­ing our­selves at our best, try­ing hard to please. Men hold their stom­achs in, keep their liv­ing spaces tidy and pre­tend to enjoy for­eign films. Women wear uncom­fort­able push-​​up bras, shave their legs every day and pre­tend to enjoy foot­ball. The future is shiny and bright, and this time it’s going to be great.

Then comes mar­riage, and sober real­ity. There are debts to pay, dis­ap­point­ments to endure, new fam­i­lies to adjust to, and even­tu­ally a throng of small peo­ple for whom we are end­lessly respon­si­ble. Life changes from a series of adven­tures to a litany of prob­lems. And yet within mar­riage lies real oppor­tu­nity for growth and advance­ment. Man­ag­ing debt teaches finan­cial pru­dence, dis­ap­point­ments fos­ter cre­ative adap­ta­tion, dis­agree­ments stim­u­late accom­mo­da­tion and respon­si­bil­ity cre­ates matu­rity. Two peo­ple learn how they can pool their efforts to build a solid, sat­is­fy­ing life.

I think cam­paign­ing and gov­ern­ing are anal­o­gous to courtship and mar­riage. Cam­paigns are excit­ing, treach­er­ous, vibrant times, fraught with lies we style as “promises.” They are are mad episodes in the life story of most coun­tries, mer­ci­fully short peri­ods of reck­less spend­ing and wretched excess that are soon replaced by the bor­ing neces­sity of respon­si­ble governance.

Except in the United States. Like a ser­ial phi­lan­derer, Amer­ica lurches from one courtship to the next with barely a pause to drink the cham­pagne and taste the wed­ding cake. There’s a brief hon­ey­moon (often spoiled by rainy weather), a few nights of crazy sex and later some bit­ter accu­sa­tions: “You’re not at all what I thought you were…” “Oh yeah…well you said you had your stu­dent loans all paid off…” And then the coun­try is off on its next courtship.

This is because Amer­ica for some rea­son sched­ules its elec­tions in advance, as if they were Olympic Games. I’m not a spe­cial­ist in polit­i­cal sci­ence or com­par­a­tive government…but does any other large coun­try do this? Canada is a par­lia­men­tary democ­racy rather than a repub­lic, and its sys­tem is strik­ingly dif­fer­ent. Dur­ing a Cana­dian fed­eral elec­tion, can­di­dates from var­i­ous par­ties run for seats from every rid­ing in the coun­try. The party gain­ing the most seats forms the gov­ern­ment, and the leader of that party becomes the Prime Min­is­ter. The PM and his party have a man­date for no more than five years, after which an elec­tion must be held. How­ever, elec­tions can be called at any time dur­ing the five-​​year term…if the PM feels it’s a good time because he’s up in the polls, if he wants a new man­date for a par­tic­u­lar large pol­icy, or if his gov­ern­ment has been top­pled by a suc­cess­ful vote of no-​​confidence.

When the PM drops the writ for an elec­tion, a date is set six weeks in the future and the cam­paign is on. It’s fast, it’s furi­ous, and it’s all over in lit­tle more than a month. The new gov­ern­ment is seated, and the busi­ness of gov­ern­ing begins again.

Peo­ple who are opposed to the per­pet­ual cam­paign that occurs in the United States have pro­posed var­i­ous solu­tions. One is the sin­gle six-​​year pres­i­den­tial term…and this is one of my favorite seri­ous dis­cus­sions on the topic, dat­ing back 30 years.

Along with the sin­gle six-​​year term, many pro­pose that Sen­ate terms become nine years, stag­gered at three year inter­vals, with Con­gress com­pletely chang­ing every three years. New cam­paigns would not begin as soon as the old lawn signs were taken down. Politi­cians would not be forced to begin fund-​​raising the day after they’re sworn in. The bribes of lob­by­ists would be some­what less tempt­ing. Law­mak­ers would have time to learn their jobs and get to know their con­stituents. Amer­ica would exchange the wild excite­ment of per­pet­ual courtship for the qui­eter com­forts and ben­e­fits of marriage.

It’s worth think­ing about. Con­stantly buy­ing flow­ers, shav­ing your legs every day and won­der­ing all the time if you’re being lied to…that’s a really exhaust­ing way to live your life.