This Is Not News

I need some time to pull some thoughts together for a longer post. But for the moment I’m reading the Guardian’s coverage of the Labour Party conference and feeling some serious envy. This week it’s seemed like the conference was actually a matter of people in the party trying to work out differences, although maybe it’s just rose-colored glasses from across the pond comparing it to our party conventions. And while this might sound silly, since I’m talking about a party conference in 2012 when the next British parliamentary election isn’t until 2015, I like the fact that there’s an ongoing conversation about the party that isn’t tied to a specific campaign. It could just be that I’m tired of presidential campaigns in America that seem to take two years and take place outside of the normal legislative process. In the US, Mitt Romney has been campaigning for two years (or more) but hasn’t had an official role since 2007. In Britain, Ed Milliband has been in the parliamentary trenches since becoming the part leader in 2010. I think that allows for more accountability and ties elections more closely to actual governance.