>>>>>>>>>I must be giddy between the election and the start of my 3 month .NET course. It wasn't until just now, reading the latest Newsweek, that I remembered our little wager on the election. Your gracious concession speech isn't going to get you off the hook, pal ;-) How did it go? -- "Mike Beane is smarter than me"?
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>I know I'm not but it delights me to picture you wearing it. And we need proof!
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>Your pal in humor if not politics,
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>Mike
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>UPDATE: The UT To address feature apparently does not work. This message was addressed to the prince of South Florida, John Koziol.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>I'm curious: would you consider it a 'landslide victory?' :o)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>I know you didn't ask for my opinion, but I thought I'd give it anyway. It was only a landslide by the terms of the electoral college. It was a narrow victory according to the voting public. We get that sort of stuff up here too because of the way the 'wards' are distributed. Like us, until you change your system to be more sensible (ie - dump the idea of electoral votes), you will never have a true 1 person 1 vote system. In a federal vote, like this one for the president, the idea of 'states' should be discarded and he/she should simply be elected based on popular vote.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I see your point, but the analogy is not quite clear. USA Presidential office is unique enough, most peer countries, e.g. Canada, do not elect it.
>>>>>
>>>>>True, we elect a Prime Minister in a very different way. We don't have an electoral college, and we don't vote directly for the Prime Minister. We vote for a local politician, and he/she belongs to a given party. The party that gets the most 'seats' wins and the leader of the party becomes Prime Minister. It's a lousy system in my view because where it is similar is in the fact that the 'seats' are not distributed evenly, so that in some areas of the country, a vote is really worth more than a vote in another area.
>>>>>
>>>>>What's worse is that because of the number of parties we have, a party can win with a popular vote percentage in the high 30s. It's a bit ridiculous.
>>>>
>>>>They're still the most popular party. Do you have a better way?
>>>
>>>Representation in the government should be proportional to the number of votes won.
>>
>>Absolutely!
>>
>>There are some who keep trying to bring in proportional representation, but it never seems to get any traction. Surprising? No.
>
>Proportional representation is hardly a panacea, especially in parlimentary systems. It frequently leads to coalition governments where the minority parties wield power far in excess of their actual representation.

Nothing is a panacea when it comes to parliamentary governments, but I think it makes far more sense than what we now have. And personally I think that coalition governments can work far better than majority governments because it places better checks and balances on the ideological whims that you sometimes get with majorities. Be that as it may though, could you please explain what you mean by "minority parties wield power far in excess of their actual representation". I'd have thought they wield power in exact proportion to their actual representation.