Canada to fire starting gun for October general election

[brooklynite]

6. No, it's not that simple...

First of all, what was announced was a General Election. You could argue that our General Election doesn't start until next summer when the Conventions announce their candidates. What adds time to both is the selection process by the Parties. In the case of the US, we've decided that this is left up to voters rather than Party leadership. We've further decided that there's value in having candidates engage with voters one-to-one. If we simply had an 8-week national Primary campaign followed by a national vote, the edge would be give to well known candidates with the ability to raise huge amounts of money to pay for a national TV campaign. Lesser-know challengers wouldn't have a chance.

Additionally, there's the pesky matter of what constitutes "campaigning". Back in 2012, I was at the Democratic Convention and could easily see who the aspirants for 2016 were, because they were making speeches to the Iowa delegation meeting, or endorsing Governor and Senate candidates, or speaking at policy roundtable discussions. Which of those activities (all fully compliant with the First Amendment) would you propose to prohibit?