The results are in for our first-ever TRM Poll, and the clear winner: presidential campaigns should last no more than three months.
Interesting, considering the 2024 presidential campaign started last month when former President Donald J. Trump announced he is running again. Trump’s announcement means the country faces a two-year presidential campaign season, longer than in 2020 and 2016.
Just under 53 percent of respondents chose the shortest time frame we offered, three months. About 24 percent chose six months, and 18 percent chose a year. One poll respondent chose one month.
No one chose the option of 18 months, or what we have now, which is “unlimited.”
Other countries limit their election seasons
Turns out a limited presidential campaign season is not unusual in other countries, reports Business Insider. John Haltiwanger shares that Argentina and France legally limit their presidential campaign seasons to 12-14 days, while many other countries end up with campaigns where 11 weeks is considered unusually long.
Haltiwanger also questions whether America’s unrestrained political seasons are why our voter turn-out is so much lower than most other countries. “American presidential elections are absurdly long and tend to wear out voters,” he writes.
America’s voter turnout — even at the record numbers from 2020 and last month’s mid-term — lags behind about 30 other countries, writes Pew Research.
New TRM Poll focuses on “A Christmas Carol”
Our new poll question is a way to celebrate the best part of the holiday season: giving. Since Charles Dickens first wrote “A Christmas Carol” in 1843, more than 25 versions have been created on the big and small screen of Dickens’ account of the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge discovering the joys of helping others in need.
Dickens’ story has some interesting back-facts: he wrote the now-historic tale in only six weeks, under financial duress, writes Paulette Beete for the National Endowment for the Arts. He was inspired by his own childhood working in a factory to help support his family.
“A Christmas Carol” is supposed to be spooky and scary, rather than heart-warming, says Alex Huffman writing for ScreenRant. “When Dickens wrote the novel, he didn’t set out to write a feel-good holiday classic. He wrote it as a supernatural horror story, and the book contains some truly spine-chilling prose.”
The 14 versions we’ve included in our poll span 69 years, starting in 1938 and continuing through 2020. Some are 25 minutes long; others are two hours. We also include an option to add your own, if you don’t find your preferred “Christmas Carol” among those listed.
Whichever version most speaks to you, “A Christmas Carol” is considered a timeless lesson on letting go of a cold, possessive heart and recognizing that we can never fully know the burdens others carry, or why.
Here’s the poll:
[democracy id=”2″]You can also find this poll on almost any page of the TRM website. Voting closes Dec. 23. Don’t forget to tally your vote!
