The shortened campaign seems likely to have whatever campaign effects do exist to have a greater potential impact, while the long, drawn-out American campaigns have the advantage of allowing for a greater convergence to the fundamentals.
That’s David Bateman in a comment on Henry’s post on the recent British “presidential debate.”
In longer campaigns, voters rely more heavily on the true values of economic conditions to inform their evaluations of parties in power. In shorter campaigns, these effects are mostly absent. Campaign length seems to matter for voter learning.
That is from a 2000 article by Randolph Stevenson and Lynn Vavreck. Find the article here (pdf).
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Does this imply that the obscenely long US campaign might actually be a good thing? Even leaving aside “the fundamentals” I suppose you might think it’s easier for someone to “fool” the public over three weeks than over two years.
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