TPI's picks for US President

For obvious reasons, it is an election in which everyone in the world has a stake, even if only a few of us can vote. The Proud Islamist disagrees with Hamas on this one. Obama's pastor made me more fond of the man himself, and the Democrats probably do have something to offer the US on the domestic front, but I refuse to settle for a large amount of evil in order to realize a small quantity of good. Unfortunately, the current system requires it.

My feelings on US Presidential campaigns, with their barely democratic two-party system, are well summed up by this passage from Douglas Adams' So Long and Thanks for all the Fish, which was recently brought to my attention by an acquaintance (if that person is reading this, how does it feel to wield such influence?).

"No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like to straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."

"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."

"I did," said Ford. "It is."

"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't the people get rid of the lizards?"

"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."

"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"

"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."

"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"

"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?"

The solution to this problem would be to have a "none of the above" option on the ballot - if 50% of the people select this option, the election has to be redone. While this would rarely happen, it would send a message to campaign managers everywhere when the number of "NOTA" votes edged up, saying "Yes, people are engaged in the process, and they just don't like any of you." Sure, you would run the risk of spending the odd $100 mil whenever it did hit 50%, but if anyone believes that democracy is worth fighting and dying for, the I'm sure they wouldn't begrudge it a bit of cash every now and then to keep it healthy.

Now, this might seem like an intellectual curiosity that will never be realized, and maybe it is, but nobody ever effected change by focusing on that.