How can I survive the 2020 Presidential Campaign? It's March 1919 and campaigns have already started. Do other countries do this?

I survive by not watching the major news networks on TV. I will get most of my news from the PBS station, or by reading selected news stories from the internet. You are correct that the campaigns seem to run forever. I believe that so far, about 24 Dems have announced they are running for President. So there is gonna be countless attempts for them to make the news. I just suggest get pertinent info before your state primary, but do not even try to stay on top of things until much later in the process. And sorry, I do not know if other countries do it in a similar manner.

You cannot control how the campaign season will go or how long it lasts, but you can control how much of it you take in and how it affects your mental health. Much like how you wouldn’t get up from your couch and try to run a marathon tomorrow, mental health specialists and campaign veterans say you need to start preparing yourself now if you plan to get through this without throwing your phone and then yourself into the nearest toilet. Yes, professional runners out there (journalists, politicians and other sadistic wonks) will always seem more prepared than you.

Medically induced coma.

As far as I know, not even the USA starts election campaigns 101 years in advance. There is the small problem of the average candidate not even being born when the campaign starts.

Other countries mostly don't do this and there are two key reasons.

1. The USA has elections on fixed dates as it would give the President far too much power to give him the choice. Where you have a separate head of state and head of government, it's not up to one person and calling a general election at any time is allowed. You won't get campaigning until we know when the election IS! It goes on in a mild way all the time with the parties sniping at each other, but actual official campaigning can't start until the election is actually called. Here in the UK, for example, it doesn't get going until Parliament is actually dissolved and then there is a set timetable of about 3 weeks leading up to polling day.

Take 2017 for example. Theresa May (rather misguidedly as it turns out) decided she wanted a general election in the hope of an increased majority in the House of Commons. She announced it in April, the House of Commons voted for it by the required 2/3 majority a few days later, there was the usual "wash-up" period to get any remaining Bills through if at all possible, then Parliament was dissolved, mad 3 weeks of campaigning and we voted in June. We'll know the result next morning and the Queen will appoint the leader of the winning party, assuming there is a clear winner, to be Prime Minister that lunchtime. So there you go - the UK can have a general election at any time from a standing start in 2 months flat.

2. Other countries don't do primaries. What you get in a parliamentary system is that all the parties choose their leaders as and when, so there is always a leader, and their leader is the candidate to be Prime Minister. Similarly, local parties will each pick their prospective candidate for the local electoral district at any time to make sure there always is one, so again, there's always someone in place in case of a snap election being called. And US primaries go on for months because the states won't all hold them on the same day - you get none of that either. We move directly to Stage 2, the general election itself.

Just because it happens to be a bit of recent news where I am, Dominic Grieve, MP for Beaconsfield, lost a vote of confidence in him at the local Conservative Association AGM on Friday night. They're not happy with his attitude to Brexit and what he's been doing about it. (Nor is my mother, who lives in the constituency so Dominic is her MP.) The Chairman tweeted that there was a "robust" discussion - now that's one of those wonderful euphemisms. It translates as "there was a blazing row". So far it's a vote of no confidence, but you bet this is the first stage towards the Association looking for someone to replace him at the next election. No reason not to start looking now as nobody knows when the next election will be. See - no primaries, the local party makes the selection itself.

The U.S. is a little different than most countries in several ways. First, it is a presidential rather than a parliamentary democracy. Second, it has fixed date elections. Third, we have primary elections to choose a party's candidate. Fourth, we have little restriction on campaign spending. Fifth, we define the election cycle differently than other countries. Each of these contribute to the perception that the U.S. has a longer campaign than most other countries do.

In parliamentary countries, the official campaign starts when parliament is dissolved. However, the candidates for prime minister are the leaders of the parties, and these leaders have been sniping at each other for most of the parliament (depending on changes in party leadership) and making public appearances around the country throughout the term of the parliament to promote the party's position on issues. So the unofficial campaign in a parliament never ends (particularly as an election can be called at any time).

This feeds into the impact of the First Amendment on U.S. campaigns. In the U.S., despite some attempts to put some limits on campaign, the courts have generally found such limits to be unconstitutional. In other countries, however, the limits are valid and, thus, candidates have to pretend to not be campaigning when they give speeches before the campaign officially starts (even though they are campaigning).

By contrast, federal election law in the U.S. treats the campaign cycle as beginning at the end of the previous election and going through the next election (i.e. from the mid-term general until the convention and from the convention through the general election). Thus, for spending purposes the election has already begun. However, state laws define the campaign in terms of the start of the filing period to be on the ballot which has not yet begun in any state. So currently, we are in the pre-primary part of the U.S. campaign.

The set election schedule also gives the perception of a long campaign in the U.S. Candidates are working toward a February 2020-June 2020 party primary season and a November 2020 general election. So they are publicly setting in place the structures for that run. In countries in which the election date is unknown, the parties have the structures in place behind the scene ready to snap into active status when the election is called but the work is almost entirely behind the scenes.

And the extended primary election creates the perception of a long election. In countries that use different mechanism, the selection process tends to be less drawn out and less public. For example, the selection of candidates for parliament is done by local party meetings in most countries. The meetings may make local news as they are done one-by-one but there is no formal schedule for when party X will choose a candidate for seat Y. While the use of primaries used to be a mainly U.S. thing, other countries are beginning to do the same, and the result is a longer election process.

For example, the NDP Party in Canada held a primary-like leadership election after the last general election. The election was triggered when the prior leader lost a "leadership review" vote in April 2016 but the vote on the new leader was not held until October 2017. Most of the candidates waited until the late winter of 2017 to officially announce and the campaign could have lasted longer if one candidate had not gotten a majority on the first ballot. For the Conservative Party of Canada, the process started when the prior leader resigned in October 2015 but the filing deadline established by the Conservatives was November 2016 and the voting took place in May 2017.

no. most are much faster. quit fox and cnn tv.