Check this out....

[darxbane]

Somehow I doubt that, especially if the president turned out to be the best ever.  We don't live in a democracy, do we?  We live in a Republic.  Sure, we have some democratic processes, but we do not vote on everything, we elect representatives to speak for us.  We do the same thing when electing a president.  The Electorate was not made to prevent the "uneducated" from making mistakes.  It was made to prevent small, densely populated regions of people from monopolizing the presidency.  Before the Electorate was created, every president came from the NorthEast.  the remaining states, which had very different needs (city folk didn't really care about farmers, as long as they got food), couldn't get representation.  Do you understand mob and self interest mentality?  The electorate allows each state to have the same power electing a president as they have representation in the House.  In fact, each state has the same number of electoral votes as representatives.  This is called balance.  It also wasn't the first time it happened.   

Contrary to popular belief, the Bush Admin is not the longest standing example.  Congress is a much more colorful example of the problems with our current political landscape.  It is also an example of what is wrong with us.  Sports are always a great comparison to life.  What sports do you like?  Baseball?  Football?  If a team has no talent, will firing the coach somehow make the team better?  Most of the time it doesn't, but it makes people feel like something is being done. 

Barack Obama could be completely different from Bush and make things worse.  You don't have the luxury of working with so many current and former military and police personnel.  I know things that the public have not been able to filter out of the crap the media spews just to bash Bush adn support their own selfish agendas.  I know of other things that have never been made public in order to prevent mass panic.  Believe me, the focus on keeping Terrorists busy on as many fronts as possible is more necessary than you can even begin to realize, and I am not saying this to scare you.  The fact that you are still able to be angry with Bush and feel so comfortable in life is proof that he succeeded in his number one agenda, to make America safe.  If you look even closer, you will find that, before the dems gaffed the chance to rein in Fanni and Freddie in 2006,  we had lower unemployment rates, higher revenues than the Clinton era, and an all time record stock market number.  I keep hearing about tax cuts for the rich, but the way the tax cuts were structured, the top 30 % pay a higher percentage of the overall tax burden than they did under Clinton.  Interesting, isn't it?  It is proof that we can't help but be influenced by those on TV. They can make or break someone.  I can't worry too much about it, though.  Even you, Gorgon, kept the blame on Bush for 9/11 because it happened on his watch.  I guess that means that Lincoln was even worse, because half the country SECEDED when he was president, and he presided over the only American Civil war!  I imagine his popularity rate wasn't all that high at the time, either.  The truth will come out eventually.

[GorgonlaVacaTremendo]

We don't live in a democracy.  But it is touted that we live in a democracy none the same.  My point, therefor, is still perfectly valid.

The people in congress have changed, in a major part, as recently as a few years ago.  Also, while I'm not a large sports person in general, a switch in coaching often can lead to a large increase in team productivity.  Especially if you are switching from a terrible coach or to a great coach.  Congress sucks.  I know, I've said it several times.  They are failing to act at important times because (big surprise) they are more obsessed with reelection than they are with issues.  The Democratic congress has been doing hardly anything, and the Republican congress continuously failed to check to the president at important times until issues became publicly noticed.  Bush would have been a much better president, I believe, if his congress had checked him more.  This would have allowed him a fallback net which he didn't have.

I don't believe I ever flat-out blamed Bush for 9/11.  I said that relieving him of all responsibility, as it sounded like you were trying to do, is ridiculous.  It did happen on his watch, and there was some intelligence his administration had which they failed to act on.  I never said, "It's all Bush's fault," I was defending the fact that he has some blame.

You know, it's not just as though television is bashing Bush, and all of those people who are informed really admire him for his greatness.  There is plenty of literature from political scholars and even those involved in the administration who hold similar opinions to myself.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

The popular vote doesn't matter because the candidates know going in that it doesn't matter and thus don't run fully national campaigns. They only campaign hard in the swing states. Unless the electoral college is dropped completely, you can't say for sure who would win the popular vote. Bush won over 50% of the popular vote in 2004, but if the campaigns had been based on the popular vote from the start and both candidates had campaigned nationwide and fought for every vote, no one can say whether it would have turned out the same or differently.

That said, I think there is still something to be said for the electoral college system for the reasons darxbane mentioned that it was set up (though it's not true that "most" of the pre-Constitution presidents were from the Northeast). But perhaps it should be altered in some form, like adding some votes for the nationwide popular vote winner. Or making each state's votes divide up by how each district actually voted.

I also think there's a better way to vote in the first place (possibly with the electoral college overlaid). Instant runoff voting would let people vote for who they actually wanted rather than only who they thought could win (like for the Hugo awards). And the whole voter registration thing is bunk. It shouldn't be necessary to register to vote. It should be automatic.

Also, in some countries voting is mandatory. And I like the idea of "none of the above" being a possible, binding, option.

[GorgonlaVacaTremendo]

I very much like the idea of adding in Instant Runoff Voting, or some other form of voting which allows you to pick your favorite without fear of taking votes away from a major candidate.  I also like the idea of "none of the above", which takes away any excuse people have to not vote.  I do not like the idea of mandatory voting for two reasons.  Forcing a person to vote, even if it is in their best interest, is still forcing a person to do something outside the realm of power I think the government should have.  Also, the people who tend to not vote also tend to be the people who are uninformed or simply do not care, which means if they do vote (even if "no opinion" is given as an option), many are likely to make uninformed decisions just because they're told to.