No matter whether your politics lean right or left, we all have a stake in Kamala Harris’ presidential candidacy. Why’s that? Because the abbreviated nature of her campaign — if successful, electorally — might just convince Americans and their representatives in Congress to move away from endless presidential campaigns.

President Joe Biden, you may recall, announced his candidacy for reelection on April 25, 2023, some 18 months ahead of Election Day in November 2024.

Donald Trump took the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2017, and filed for reelection with the Federal Election Commission the same day. This time around, he declared on Nov. 15, 2022, two years ahead of the first Tuesday in November 2024.

Naturally, the Trump example is more ridiculous. But setting that aside: This national election schedule has grown untenably lengthy, especially for sitting presidents who surely have better things to do. Or should.

Win or lose, the Harris campaign will last no more than 14 weeks. It has already demonstrated how meaningless the 14 months leading up her ascension had been. Her performance has, in fact, underlined the electoral argument for a sprint to November, instead the traditional marathon. In fact, 14 weeks may be too many. I say we limit presidential campaigns to 10.

“Since Harris is not that well known, her favorable has shot up. She’s new today. And she will be new on Nov. 5,” Democratic strategist Bob Shrum told the New York times early in August. “The shortness of it means that effect won’t go away. On the other hand, if there’s a mistake, the mistake becomes magnified. There’s less time to get around it.”

The strongest argument for shorter campaigns will be electoral viability, and so we cannot judge that aspect until Nov. 5. However, the jury is back on the status quo.

Despite declaring 18 months ahead of time, President Joe Biden, his campaign and the Democratic National Committee took a lot of heat from media, from fellow Democrats and the GOP, about not trotting out their chosen candidate often enough. His campaign cited the rigors of office, while opponents claimed the 81-year-old chief executive was being cosseted away.

Yet all modern U.S. presidents are obliged to walk this very fine line between being political (read: raising money) and doing their jobs. They should not have to walk that line. Even if Biden were 51 years old, presidents should not be encouraged to spend campaign time and money while in office, any more than necessary. They are, after all, holding down the most burdensome job in American government.

And yet, perversely, U.S. election timelines of 18 months or more have come to demand it.

In Trump, we’ve all served witness to the opposite problem. As president, he appeared at 150 fundraising rallies. The man also visited a Trump organization property on 428 of his 1,461 days in office, playing an estimated 261 rounds of golf.

Campaign finance laws entitle sitting presidents to solicit funds and, more to the point, spend campaign funds — but they must declare for reelection first. Limiting the duration of U.S. presidential campaign takes away the incentive to declare early and be running all the time. Ten weeks makes sense on this basis alone.

A 10-week campaign ahead of a single Super Tuesday-style primary, one for each party, also makes sense. But now is not the time to get bogged down in such details. There are dozens of election systems deployed by western democracies around the world. Those examples make this much clear and obvious: No country indulges in such lengthy, expensive, frivolous campaign cycles as our own.

In late July, the United Kingdom elected Keir Starmer to the position of prime minister following Britain’s standard 6-week campaign.

Six weeks.

On June 4, 2024, India reelected Narendra Modi prime minister. Because it’s the largest democracy on Earth, with 1.4 billion citizens and 970 million voters, India conducts a 7-stage general election process. It began on April 19, unleashing a period that Reuters described as “more than two months of grueling and acrimonious campaigning.”

But still: Only two months.

Modi is a not my kind of candidate. He spent most of his campaign denigrating the nation’s Muslim minority, blaming it for the country’s ills … What I wouldn’t give to limit Donald Trump’s grievance-laundering, serial acrimony and racial-scapegoating to 10 weeks.

India and Great Britain are parliamentary democracies that operate quite differently than our own, yet nothing inherent to the U.S. system or Constitution demands years-long presidential campaign cycles. These durations are, in fact, a relatively new development attached to a primary system developed in the late 1950s.

Congress should take up this matter anew — and if Harris wins, politicians on both sides may well warm to the idea.

As you know, the Democratic Party — and, by extension, our body politic — stumbled upon the timing under which Vice President Harris is obliged to operate today. Biden’s disastrous debate performance on June 27 (which seems like it happened 18 months ago) tripped this unprecedented series of political wires. I won’t recount them all here. Suffice to say, in withdrawing on July 20, Biden ensured that the Democratic nominee would have just 14 weeks to make her case to the nation.

Note the pronoun. In backing his vice president on July 20, the sitting president made it clear — in a curiously parliamentary fashion, it must be said — that Harris would be that nominee. On Aug. 5, she named Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz her running mate. The Democratic Convention has come and gone. Yet nothing feels rushed. Both tickets are still in our collective faces every day. The debates are scheduled for September.

Ten weeks and counting — with a clear end in sight.

I think I speak for everyone in America when I say, I could get used to this.

Hal Phillips is an Auburn resident, author and journalist. He is managing director of Mandarin Media, Inc.