How we wind up with morons as Presidents

One of the reasons that our country is in such deep doo-doo is the way we choose our leaders. We keep a 200+ year old system simply because that's the way the writers of the Constitution wrote it! If we applied this concept to daily life, mail would be carried through the woods on horseback, we would be writing with quill pens dipped in ink and cooking on the fireplace hearth.

It produced a very minority representative system (the minority was the white male property owners) who selected the delegates to the electoral Congress. They believed that they were granted authority from "Ghod" (like Rush) to select the President. It took so long because they had to walk or ride horses to get to Washington, and it was the middle of winter!

Do we have better alternatives today? Well there are ways to get to the polls easier than then. All votes can be quickly and easily counted (excepting for them damm hanging chads), and the results are available in California for three hours before their polls close. The media has already predicted far ahead who's going to win, so countless, mindless voters either don't bother to vote, or simply say, "Since he's going to win anyhow, I'll just vote for him too."

Many favor direct voting. But let's look at a primary election where all states vote on the same day (no Super Tuesdays). There were 9 Democratic candidates this season. Only about 40% of those who are able, even bother to register to vote. About 15% of those registered voters go out to vote. (Follow the math . . . That’s 15% of the 40% of those who COULD vote). That's SIX PERCENT of the people who could be making the choices. And they are not representative of the young, the minorities, the poor, etc.

Next step - With a one-time primary vote and 9 candidates running; a close race could see one candidate winning with as little less than 12% of the votes (winner-take-all). That’s 12% of 6%, or ZERO-POINT-SEVENTY TWO PERCENT (0.72%) of those who should be making the choices. That person becomes our choice in November, running against the other party’s candidate.

To show it easier, for every million potential voters, 400,000 register. Then 60,000 turn up at the polls. 7,200 would elect the candidate if the votes were fairly evenly divided. That's no better than the other system, is it?

If 80% of those who could register and vote did so, that would be 800,000 of that million, or about 100,000,000 American adults, and we could believe that this person, statesman, boob, moron, is the wish of the American people.