What bothers me about all this is the length, I hate how we are constantly in election cycles. I would prefer 9/6/3 year terms for senate/pres/house but not allow politicians to run consecutive terms and to put limits on advertising / marketing to 2-3 months before the election, and primary stuff the 2-3 before that. That's a pipe dream though that would require a constitutional amendment.
Most Senate and House seats are never in play so perpetual election cycles are, for the most part, not issues there. (Notice how you very rarely see ads for New Jersey congressional races). You could have a six year term for President and it wouldn't change that, or at the very most at the margins. The office is way too powerful (too much so I would argue), so people will dump as much of their resources as they can, and as early and often as possible.
I also categorically reject limits on political advertising or marketing. You would have to start carving out exceptions to the First Amendment, which has served this country pretty well. Just think through the consequences. Think it's allright for the FEC to say monitor political blogs or newspaper editorials that have nice or bad things to say about politicians? That type of in-kind "advertising" or "marketing" doesn't come free. The only campaign financing laws that I could support would be limits on direct contributions to politicians running for office, which are designed, not to balance the playing field (if that is at all possible), but to curb quid pro quo type of corruption.
Really, the biggest sin of spending on political campaigns is how annoying the tv ads are. However, the Constitution does not require that my television watching experience be more enjoyable.
