Elections

In the original framing of our country, our founding fathers were concerned with making sure that all branches of the government had proper checks and balances, and that each branch had a means by which they could check and balance the other branches.

Originally in the Constitution, the person with the highest number of votes won the Presidency and the person with the next highest number of votes became Vice-President (Article 2, Section 1, Clause 3). I believe this was an inherent check and balance as designed by the creators of our country. Typically the two highest vote getters would be from different party affiliations or philosophies and they would have to work together toward common goals. It also ensures that the primary resource for the President was someone with a different understanding than his own, so he would be provided with council that someone who generally agreed with him may not give. This seemed to work well as our country quickly grew to be one of the finest and most powerful in the world. Early in our country's history, we also tended to have many more strong parties (Wigs, Whips, Hawks, Doves, etc.)

An amendment to the Constitution (Amendment XII) changed the election process to allow a Presidential candidate to choose their running mate. I believe this change has created the needlessly antagonist bi-cameral situation in which we now find ourselves.

Just imagine how differently many of our country's biggest moments might have turned out if the President's primary advisor (the Vice-President) had a different philosophical bent. The President would see different sides and likely consider ideas from more perspectives and directions than if the Vice-President was like-minded. And the animosity between the executive and legislative branches would be greatly nullified as the concept of "party politics" would be greatly erased.

We are currently going through a bitter election process where the Republicans and Democrats are starting to sling the mud early and often. This is going to be a long 7 months until the election. Imagine if we legitimately had strong candidates from more parties. Imagine if the people knew that the top two vote getters out of X number of candidates would get the Presidency and Vice-Presdency. Imagine if those two people had to work together in order to take our country forward for the next 4 years (with the President taking the lead and the Vice-President offering council and alternative solutions).

Imagine, just imagine, voting for the BEST person to do the job (regardless of party) and having the two best choices getting into office and working together.

Oh what a different country this would be!