With one of the most brutal presidential campaigns most of us can remember finally behind us, I’d like to offer some suggestions that could make the next one easier on long-suffering voters.
The campaign just-ended was one of the longest and most rancorous ever. Yes, the candidates did occasionally focus on the issues, on what they hoped to accomplish if elected. But they spent far more time brawling in ways that would bring reprimands if they happened at any respectable kindergarten. There were reports of parents not allowing their children to watch the debates, putting them off limits as they might with violent horror films (which at times the debates resembled).
The voters were subjected to hearing about the size of Donald Trump’s hands, and by extension other parts of his anatomy. We were forced to sit through reruns of his and Bill Clinton’s sexual improprieties and Hillary Clinton’s e-mail improprieties. This more than any other campaign in memory was marred by irrelevant comments, rude remarks and outright violence. Can you imagine supporters of, say, JFK or Ronald Reagan punching each other out during their campaign speeches?
Part of the problem is that campaigns have become absurdly long. This one started almost two years before the election and seemed almost endless. How many of us even remember Jim Webb, George Pataki, Bobby Jindal, Lawrence Lessig or Mark Everson on the campaign trail?
Okay, so political junkies remember them. But most of us don’t. This despite the fact that at one time all were candidates for one of the major political parties. Campaigns have gotten so long and tedious that we either forget candidates and what they stood for, or wish we had. It tests both the limits of the candidates’ endurance and the patience of the electorate. (In neighboring Canada, a country known for moderation and common sense, presidential campaigns are measured in weeks rather than months, let alone years.)
In the interest of making campaigns more bearable, here’s my first suggestion. Limit them to six months. Pass a law stating that no candidate should be allowed to begin campaigning earlier than six months prior to election day. Six months is plenty of time to discuss and debate the issues without sending the public into a politically induced coma. If the candidates can’t win us over in six months, they clearly don’t have the smarts or communication skills needed to run the country.
Second suggestion: Force candidates to stay on track during debates. Limit them to debating relevant issues that are meaningful and important to the American people. Any candidate who strays from relevance by criticizing the opposing candidates’ – or anyone else’s – gender, ethnic background, hand size or hairstyle should be given a warning. Those who fail to heed the warnings would be ejected from the stage in a fashion similar to that with which pilots are ejected from doomed aircraft.
Third suggestion: It’s an understatement to say that neither of the candidates this time around was universally popular. Not only were they not admired by a majority of Americans in the way that popular presidents have been, but the election results brought protests that in some cases bordered on rioting. All this could be avoided with a simple addition to the ballot.
After listing the presidential candidates for the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, the Independents, Libertarians, Green Party, etc., we add “None of the Above.” If None of the Above wins, we have a do-over. Candidates who failed to get more votes than None of the Above would be excluded from running the second time around.
Campaigns and elections are, of course, expensive. But they don’t have to be. In the United Kingdom, political parties are limited to spending $29.5 million during the course of campaigns. No figures are available for the cost of Donald Trump’s campaign, but according to the New York Times, Hillary Clinton had raised almost $300 million by April – before the general election campaign even started.
In Germany, candidates are limited to one, 90-second television commercial.
Even without spending limits, expenses would be reduced if campaigns were shorter. Is the system really working for us if the major-party candidates have nearly two years to campaign and a sizable percentage of the American people still can’t stand one or the other of them? How many times did you hear people say the election was a choice between the lesser evil or ask whether this was the best the system could do?
I’d be willing to bet that if it had been on the ballot this time, “None of the Above” would have won easily.
Who knows? We might even get a better slate of candidates. We might get truly qualified people who are turned off by the thought of putting themselves and their families through grueling, seemingly endless campaigning. There might be a potentially great president out there right now who chooses not to run because the process is such a mess.
If we don’t do something to make campaigns shorter, less expensive and more focused on the issues, what will the next one be like? Will it start before painful memories of the last one have faded? Will multiple candidates fade from contenders to has-beens, leaving us with another distasteful choice? Hulk Hogan vs. Lady Gaga, perhaps?
Here’s hoping for the best for the next four years. May the new president grow into the job and the country regain some badly needed civility.
And next time around, may the campaign take a higher, shorter road.

Tim Woodward’s column appears every other Sunday in The Idaho Statesman and is posted on woodwardblog.com the following Mondays. Contact him at woodwardcolumn@hotmail.com.

 

When they read the news of Ken Robison’s passing, most people recalled his many years of service as an Idaho state legislator. I remembered him as one of my early bosses.
Robison, who died recently following a long illness, served one term as a state senator and nine as a state representative. He was best known for championing conservation causes and education funding and was a leader of the the campaign to give homeowners the property tax exemption we still enjoy today.
Before he was a legislator, Robison spent a decade as The Idaho Statesman’s editorial page editor. His appearance reminded me a bit of an absent-minded professor – loosened tie, shirttail hanging out, a preoccupied expression that suggested weighty thoughts.
There was nothing absent-minded about his work, however. He was a meticulous researcher whose knowledge of tax codes, land use, the environment and other public issues was encyclopedic. His editorials won national awards for conservation writing and were instrumental in building support for protection of the White Clouds, designation of the River of No Return Wilderness (now the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness) and ending construction of dams on the Snake River.
This was the illustrious figure who, toward the end of his journalistic career, took on a rookie editorial writer as his assistant. My background included a brief stint as The Statesman’s Canyon County Bureau reporter, several years of covering Boise and Ada County government and a few months writing a personal column. Journalistic wisdom of the time had it that if you could think but couldn’t write, they made you an editorial writer. If you could write but couldn’t think, they made you columnist. As both, I was something of an oddity – one about to receive a baptism by fire.
I’d been Robison’s assistant for a week when he announced that he was going on vacation.
For a month! He would be spending it in a remote stretch of back country. There would be absolutely no way of reaching him in case of a problem. The editorial page would be mine for four weeks – four times the total amount of my experience as an editorial writer.
And I’d be doing it without an assistant. Looking back, it’s hard not to wonder whether his decision to acquire an assistant, something he’d never previously done, was based at least in part on his desire to take an extended vacation.
It wasn’t just a matter of writing editorials. The editor (acting editor in my case) had to do the editorial page layouts, choose the columns that would be on the page, handle Letters to the Editor and field complaints, which, given my lack of experience, were likely to be numerous.
Page layouts weren’t a problem. You blocked out spaces for the editorials, the editorial cartoon, a column or two and the letters to the editor, hoped your measurements were accurate or, if they weren’t, that the composing-room denizens who pasted up the pages would help make the necessary changes. Normally a cantankerous bunch, they took pity on me and did.
Writing the editorials was a challenge, especially when my opinion conflicted with those of the other editorial board members. A case in point was an editorial endorsing capital punishment. I was the only one on the board who was against it. A week or so after it was published, a letter to the editor called it “the most left handed endorsement I’ve ever read.” I was rather proud of that.
Surprisingly, there were few complaints – not counting the guy who screamed at me that it was my job to fight for his unprintable letter to the editor. He was later arrested for indecent exposure.
The proudest achievement of my time as acting editor was getting Mike Royko’s column on the editorial page. The late Chicago columnist was one of the smartest, wittiest columnists of the time.
I also tried to get Russell Baker’s column, but for that The Statesman would have had to buy the entire New York Times wire service. Baker was a marvelous columnist and the author an autobiography that won the Pulitzer Prize. Not long after my stint as acting editor, I received a letter from him thanking me for my failed attempt to get his column and adding that if we’d bought the Times wire just for that, “it might have been enough to get me a $10 raise around here.”
Robison dropped Royko’s column not long after returning from his adventure in the wilds. A serious man with lofty goals, he didn’t think it was a fit for his editorial page.
Disappointed as I was, it took nothing away from my admiration for him. He was a brilliant, driven journalist with a long and distinguished record of fighting for the environment and the little guy. No rookie editorial writer ever had a better role model.
Even if he did take long vacations.

***
The Ride to the Wall Benefit scheduled for Veterans Day, a subject of this column in June, has been postponed.
The purpose of the Ride to the Wall Foundation, begun by late rock and roll icon Paul Revere and Boisean Larry Leasure, is to help needy veterans. The benefit, featuring singer-songwriter Pinto Bennett and my group, the Mystics, was to have been at a venue that initially offered the space for free, then raised the price to four figures plus a guaranteed, four-figure minimum in drink sales.
So much for philanthropy.
The plan now is to postpone until Jan. 7 – Revere’s birthday. Funds raised will go toward opening a Paul Revere House for homeless veterans. They could stay there for up to a year while they got back on their feet.
The musicians are donating their time, and it would be nice to think that there’s a concert venue in Boise that’s more interested in helping our veterans than in making a buck.
If you know of such a place, please e-mail me at the address below.

Tim Woodward’s column appears every other Sunday in The Idaho Statesman and is posted on woodwardblog.com the following Mondays. Contact him at woodwardcolumn@hotmail.com.