We have reached the point where election fatigue has set in. While spared Democratic Party primary battles, the campaigns began with the Republican primaries in which a large number of candidates battled it out until Gov. Mitt Romney emerged the nominee.
After that the big news was Romney’s selection of a Vice President choice which, if you think about it, is an odd way to fill this critical job, but it has been the way it’s been done for a long time. In the nation’s early years, the Vice President was whoever lost the presidential race, thus putting the winner and loser in tandem, with the latter given the job of being president of the Senate that usually consisted of breaking tie votes and largely ceremonial duties.
The lengthy process is intended to encourage an extended examination of the issues and the candidate’s qualifications. Surely, a million words will be written about the first Obama-Romney debate. The Lincoln-Douglas debates were crucial to the selection of an Illinois politician and the issue was largely one of slavery and its consequences for the nation. Even the Founding Fathers had decided to “kick the can” down the road in order to secure the U.S. Constitution to replace the earlier Articles of Confederation.