Time Essay: Stop the Endless Campaign, Please

The Endless Campaign, Please

The dead weight of the 1980 presidential campaign has fallen away, and Americans, no matter how they voted, seem to be walking with that little bounce in the spirit that comes when an ordeal is over, a decision finally made. The evening hour, for example, seems unaccountably more pleasant; the reason may be that political advertising has abruptly vanished from television—a sweet, almost subliminal improvement in the moral atmosphere. No more candidates hagiographically displayed, saints mixing radiantly with the adoring throng; no more of those sarcastic prosecutorial voice-overs about the other guy, the pitchman's tone as low and...

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