Charles Krauthammer:

In Britain, Canada and other civilized places, national elections are often called, run and concluded within six weeks. In America, election campaigns go on forever. It used to be one year, now it’s two. No one planned this, but like other evolutionary artifacts (the Founders applied intelligent design to the general makeup of the U.S. government but never foresaw formal political parties, let alone the endless campaign), this crazy improvisation embodies a certain wisdom.

First, it tests a certain kind of competence. Managing a national campaign in a country of continental dimensions requires exceptional organizational skills. A fairly narrow competence, to be sure, but of major importance in a country where the president must run the behemoth that is the federal government.

The second function of the endless campaign is to build party consensus and democratic legitimacy, both of which contribute substantially to the astonishing stability and longevity of the American system. The presidential primary season is essentially a prolonged intraparty dialogue. It re-creates the Madisonian idea of factions and interests competing against each other, applied not to the legislature or the executive but to the electoral process that produces both. The job of the parties is to create a kind of pre-legislative consensus through the competition and conversation of the various factions — ethnic, ideological, economic, geographic. The purpose of the endless presidential primary is to force the dialogue and, for all its haphazard meanderings and maddening trivialities, it does.

Unscripted, of course, and much of it goes nowhere. But not always. Perhaps Barack Obama’s suggestion during a television interview that we should be moving away from preferences based on race to preferences based on class will be ignored. But perhaps it will be taken up by an opponent or the media and provoke a historic debate within the Democratic Party on affirmative action and a transition to a new national consensus.

Similarly, Rudy Giuliani wrestles with the abortion issue (and, in the eyes of many, loses). He will be asked the question repeatedly. He will have to answer repeatedly. Should he prevail as the Republican nominee, it will perhaps represent a historic shift in the very self-definition of American conservatism.

He goes on to write:

The final function of the endless campaign, and perhaps the most psychologically important, is to satisfy the American instinct for egalitarianism. We have turned the presidential campaign into a pleasingly degrading ordeal — pleasing, that is, to the electorate. The modern presidential campaign is meant to be physically exhausting and spiritually humbling almost to the point of humiliation. Candidates spend two years and more on bended knee begging for money, votes and handshakes in a diner.

And, according to Krauthammer, Americans do not elect a “chief magistrate” but a “king.” Yes. A king. “True, the kingship is temporary, but its glories and perks are beyond compare — the pomp and pampering of a head of state, married to the real political power of controlling the most important state on the planet.”

The ‘deal’? The American people agree to make the candidate (president) “Lord,” in return the “Lord” has to “flatter us first with a very extended show of camaraderie and commonality with the Iowa farmer, the New Hampshire alderman and the South Carolina good ol’ boy. Aboriginal tribes have slightly different rituals for those who pretend to kingship, but the idea is the same: ordeal before dominion.”

In other words, the candidate has to “humiliate” him- or herself, before he or she can become “King of America.”

Seemingly, Krauthammer doesn’t quite understand that Americans do not elect a King. Not even a temporary King. There are more differences between a Monarch and a President (than just that the former is not elected and the latter is). A King stands, literally, above the law for instance. As far as I know, Presidents do not.

One might argue that I make too much out of this part of Krauthammer’s column, but I think it is important to address this issue. Krauthammer is a neocon and neoconservatives want to give the executive a lot of power(s). The idea that the President is, in fact, a temporary King serves to back that idea / theory.

Back to the first part of Krauthammer’s column: personally, I find it fascinating to see that American campaigns / elections take two year. It is great for this blog, and I find the political games to be very interesting. However, there is also a major downside: when people are busy campaigning, they cannot come up with solid policies. Solid policies are based on thousands of pages of analyses. Campaigns are based on a couple of slogans and soundbites.

More at Blue Crab Boulevard.