To the editor:

Are you prepared for another two years of presidential campaigning?

In England, the matriarch of where our own USA governmental/bicameral legislation process originates, campaigning candidates are limited to a four- to six-month period in which to do so.

The American voter is over-saturated and assaulted for years by so many political pundits having all the solutions to our future and our best interest.

I faithfully watched every televised Republican and Democratic presidential debate of 2016 with earnest optimism that I could be confident in our campaign process. I was and am very disappointed in the entire shameful process. Not so much as to the final outcome of the election, but just how we arrived at that final, distorted vote. The constant barrage of everyday reporting by all media given over the rhetoric, nonsense, deceit, lies, policy reversal, sexual assaults and tens of millions of dollars given to promote such diatribe. It all became a total embarrassment for those giving and receiving such campaign messages.

I, for one, am not ready to enter into the lions’ arena again for the next two years. I am not quite sure how to go about avoiding such frustrating political pollution.

Elected Congress members have only themselves to blame for present conditions and the presiding president. He only needed to express publicly the nation’s dissatisfaction with the present politics. He made that dissatisfaction the majority of his platform. He managed to divide and conquer. If Washington pundits are not able to read that message?

Point being, the president had two years in which to promote his agenda before voting day. He used his time well. Too much, too long.

We as voters should no longer allow or be open to extremely long campaigns. They are tiring, divisive and only allow for more muckraking. All that needs to be said can be accomplished in a six-month period. After all, I am sure it is nothing we had not heard before. I am also sure that we will be able to continue to make poor choices in a far shorter time frame than what is presently taking two years to accomplish.

Bruce Van Vranken

Tupper Lake