TravellingChris
Active Member
It's interesting that you bring up this quote. Campbell was pilloried during the 1993 campaign for saying it (even if she was misquoted) because voters interpreted it as her being unwilling to spell out beforehand what she planned to do on certain files if re-elected. Campbell subsequently contended, and I believe her, that she was pointing out that election time (with its brief sound bites and elevated temperatures) does not allow for proper discussion and scrutiny of options in major areas of policy. She was absolutely correct, though to be fair she also had a track record of setting off verbal land mines which led people to choose the worst possible interpretation of anything she said.
As to your second point, very few elections seem to be about accountability. This year we've already seen the re-election of the absolutely disastrous President Erdogan in Turkiye. His crackpot economic policies have caused widespread harm to the economy and financial stability of the country, the resulting devaluation of the lira has impoverished millions of Turks, yet he was re-elected over an experienced opponent who was offering a competent alternative. Or look at Finland, where a solid prime minister Sanna Marin was defeated by the voters and replaced with an unwieldy coalition government which includes the far-right. Voters seem more concerned about what parties are promising in the near future, and how a party and its leader makes them feel at the time of a campaign, rather than holding them accountable for anything the party has or hasn't done in the past four years.
