Politics as Usual

Most people will know by now that the Prime Minister has officially called an election for May 6. (Too bad it's not next year at this time, when I hope to have citizenship, so I could exercise my vote.) A few nights ago, The Other Half lamented that that's all we'll be hearing about for the next month. True, it will probably be very difficult to escape the constant news coverage, on TV and online, but at least we won't have to suffer through TWO WHOLE YEARS OF IT, as we do in the US. I quite like the Brits' way of things: get it all over with in a month, and then be done with it so they can complain about whatever administration has been voted in. In fact, shouldn't we be expecting the 2012 US presidential candidates to be kicking off their campaigns pretty soon?