And Back to Politics

The fatigue of both candidates and voters has yet to lift from the 1970 campaign, and already, inevitably there is talk of '72. The Democrats are looking over the ranks with an eye to burnishing their boys for the run on the White House; the telephone calls to set up clandestine campaign organizations are even now being placed. The strategists in the White House are searching for adjustments in the machinery that will keep them in power for another term. In slightly more than a year, the presidential primaries will open in New Hampshire.

Politics may be the very life of the American system as well as the nation's greatest spectator sport. But a time does come when the voter feels glazed, like a football fan who has watched New Year's Day bowl games played out across the time zones. The amount of money spent, the emotion and brain power diverted from the business of governing, make two reforms imperative. Campaign spending must be curbed or equalized, to end the scandalous situation in which, more and more often, political office in the U.S. is a rich man's prize. Also, campaigns should be considerably shortened, preferably to a civilized few weeks as in Britain, instead of being virtually year-round affairs.

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