Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for February 17, 2009

Just a few of the 500M Americans who lose their jobs each month, according to Rep. Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Idiots.

ANAndy-see Candorville!

Jack, speaking as an independent, your party does not have the prettier women or the better booze. And if you want to know why you don’t get the younger voters, consider why you think babes and booze are the tipping point issue, even in jest. Your party is out of touch with reality. You think it’s 1974 with a dash of 1957, but can’t really see either year for what it really was. Yours is the party of social reactionaries and fiscal stupidity (tax cuts for the wealthy do NOT trickle down and same-sex marriage is NOT the end of the world). Your party thinks Sarah Palin is a great stateswoman and that Joe the Plumber is a worthy source of political commentary. THAT is why the Republicans lost in 2008 and will continue to lose as long as they stick to that dead set of notions and patronizing attitudes.

Jack: The booze only makes the women appear better looking.

MatthewJB, actually reasons for party performance in various elections are rather simple. Americans, with their frenetic lifestyles, generally lack patience–and so cannot commit longterm (more than two decades) to any party unlike those of most other (Canada obvious exception, as lifestyle there only slightly less frenetic) countries.

Pattern shows up in all elections post-1952.

I would like to see election ballots that had all of us voting for every candidate in descending order, whom you most want to win first, then the candidate you would vote for second and all the way down to the candidate you least like. That way you don’t have to feel that you are throwing your vote away if you vote for some third party candidate. If your candidate doesn’t get into the two top vote getters than your vote goes to your next pick, etc.

The Clinton presidency is what swept the Republicans into power. If the Obama presidency founders as bad as I am beginning to fear it will, it’ll happen again in 2010 or 2012.

But Duke’s always nice; like an iron fist in a velvet glove.

I would like to see two things on a ballot: None of the Above is Acceptable If this win a plurality (not a majority), you throw out the election and have another one, with all the rejected candidates barred from competing.

and/or

Run the elections the same way as opinion polls. Each Candidate is followed by the options FOR/AGAINST. The voter can only make this selection for one candidate in each race. AGAINST votes are subtracted from the FOR votes.

In the case of Presidential elections, I would support a Constitutional amendment forbidding the “all or nothing” option used by most States in apportioning their Electoral College votes. If a candidate wins a Congressional District, they get that EC vote. Senatorial EC votes could be split between the front runners for the State, or all go to the candidate who carries 3/4 (I would also accept 2/3) of the votes for that state.

Um, Jack? You do know that if you drink enough booze, no matter the quality, all women look better?