In England our campaign process lasts a few short weeks, where our trusted representatives kiss babies, use technical jargon and generally over-populate the centre so as to gain a vote which in the end endorses a party not a person.
In the US it's kinda different. Big corporate bucks are used to try to sway the votes, although up until this week past those could not be used to directly influence the outcome for a specific candidate. That's all changed, though, when the current Supreme Court ruled that the century-old rules limiting US corporate expenditure on campaigns were unconstitutional based on the First Amendment that gives all US citizens freedom of speech.
Ok so you may wonder what the big deal is? Well, big business has traditionally been a machine that definitely leans toward the right. As a result the fear is that the Democrats, already suffering from the loss of Teddy Kennedy's seat in Massachusetts recently, will have a significantly lower degree of campaign finance than the Republicans for the mid-terms coming up this summer. This comes on top of the fact that 12 Democratic Representatives are not fighting for their seats again come this electoral cycle. And although the battle for Obama's old Senate seat isn't that close, the party must still attempt to focus a lot of effort on this embattled state.
The pressure is on for the Democrats in 2010. Obama's support is sliding and their hold on both houses is definitely loosening up. But there is hope for the party yet: this is politics after all and as Scott Brown (and his Cosmo!) proved the battle ain't over 'til it's over. This is going to be one interesting fight.
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