Political Dollars and Sense?

Americans will be attending the voting polls in record numbers (hopefully) on November 4th to choose who will be our next President with hopes that either Obama or McCain (and their dream teams) will be able to fix the financial crisis, re-work the health system and end the war in Iraq within the their first two years in office -the final two years will solve global warming and buy back our businesses from China of course.

On November 8th, Kiwis will also flock to their polling sites to elect both members of Parliament and their next Prime Minster (which is done on the same ballot). But the campaign ads here in New Zealand just started about a week ago.
So while all you Americans are fast-forwarding your dvr's through all of the political commercials and think I'm lucky to have missed them, consider the trade off of explaining how the American campaign "trail" works to inquiring minds here in the Pacific.

There are many differences between the American and the New Zealand political systems including more than two parties running for the head spot (I think they have about 5 major parties), they have a Parliament and Prime Minister instead of Senate and Presidents and the most shocking part is that the NZ candidates just "officially" announced their candidacy this past Sunday and only really starting campaigning (via billboards) about 6 weeks ago when the election was actually announced (they don't do it on the same day or same years as we Yanks do).....which means they just started spending campaign dollars.

"Campaigning" in New Zealand does involve debates (which are quite colorful), t.v. ads and billboards but they started and continue their campaigning for less than 3 months total. Granted the Kiwi Candidates only have to travel up and down the country which is like Obama driving from Denver to Telluride...but it is a bit hard to explain how and why our candidates travel around the country, multiple times- Stay in expensive hotels with teams of people- Have expensive and continual t.v. commercials, high-end "fund raising" dinners, multiple debates.....ect ect.

It is a little bit hard to defend (or explain) how Americans are in a serious financial crisis yet our presidential candidates (who are supposed to be the ones that cure our financial woes) are the ones spending so many greenbacks. As of September 21, 2008 Obama had spent $377 million and McCain had spent $149 million according to the Federal Election Commission and now reports indicate that between the two candidates they have raised over $1 billion dollars which they will continue to raise until election day. This doesn't even begin to include the money raised and spent by Romney, Clinton, Edwards.......
I'm not sure if NZ candidates have a limit on how much money each party can spend on election campaigning and I couldn't find any information indicating how much had been spent. But in 3 months, a few commercials and billboards surely isn't reaching the billion mark.

I still think that America is truly the land of opportunity and offers more political and social diversity than a country like New Zealand but is spending money the country clearly doesn't have on smear ads and mud-slinging the best representation to the rest of the world on how the rest of Americans respect the dollar?




here's the link for NZ voters if you want to learn more on their system and voting process
http://www.elections.org.nz/

To read Helen Clark's (the incumbent) campaign nomination speech (and compare the differences of "major concerns") http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0810/S00261.htm