The Race (?) to the Presidency

And the Presidential race is on! How stupid is it that the potential Presidential candidates are already holding televised debates, challenging each other, and hoping to make the other candidates look stupid. I think they all look stupid, for a couple of reasons.

First, there are several current officeholders in the race - governors, congressmen, etc. If they have to campaign nonstop for the next 14 months, who is doing their job? They can't possibly do justice to what they were elected to do—govern. I think campaigning has become a full time, year-round job. Who cares about passing laws, or governing the country, all they have to do is campaign from the time they are first elected until they finally die. Job description—no governing needed.

Second, with today's technology, a candidate could announce his or her candidacy a month before the election and still become well known enough to get elected. In fact, that might not be a bad idea. By that time, all the candidates who started campaigning early would be nothing but noise. We would have heard their ideas, or lack of ideas, a million times, and have gotten so bored with their rhetoric that most of the electorate would have shut their ears and eyes to them. Someone who comes in just before election day would get noticed a lot, especially if they had at least one new idea.

Where has common sense gone? And what is wrong with the American people that we put up with such idiocy?