>>I think your criticism are on point - except the part about company funding. It is a little more complicated than that. Interest groups - including labor unions and soft money pacs funded by everyone from crazy right wing oil millionaires ( Clay Murchison in the LBJ days ) to crazy left wing currency speculators ( George Sjoros ) make the whole money process very ugly.
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>>But remember this is a very very big country with huge media markets and unfortunately most people get their info from TV
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>Point taken.
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>>By comparison, Holland has the population and media complexity of a medium sized American city, so your political process could be better compared to running for mayor of Philadelphia.
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>I don't think so. I was in philly two weeks ago, and I might be wrong, but I thought the city had about 4 million citizens. Holland has 4 times as much (16 million).
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>Further I think (anyone can correct me if I'm wrong) our system is more or less the same as the british. With 60 million citizens this is of course only 1/5 of north america, but still.
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>About media complexity. I really cannot judge as I really don't know. Can you say why you think your media is more complex than ours ? Just because of size or other reasons ?
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>Walter,

No, just meant the number of different TV markets in which you would have to make a buy to reach the electorate, the number of papers etc.

Didn't mean to disparage Holland in any way, just to point out that the physical size of the U.S. and the multiplicity of the media makes running for any office - much less a national one - incredibly expensive and complex.