Is the election really over? Don't tell me, I'm scared

I know it’s been two days since the polls closed, the election is over and we have a new president. Right now, I don’t want to know. I’m so afraid my guy didn’t make it that I am shuttering myself up in my old farmstead, pulled the plug on the tube, the radio and am not talking to my wife, the journalist.

It’s been such a long, arduous, boring and worst of all, wildly expensive carnival that I can’t bear to think that it came out all wrong. All wrong being, of course, the other side won. And because of the sacredness of the secret ballot in America, I’m not going to spill the beans and spit out the name of my favorite.

Never mind that I have been a Democrat since the first day I could vote, that I’m a card-carrying member of the ACLU and the ACL, not to mention being a lackadaisical member of the local town party. You can tie me to a chair and dunk me in a lake, burn me at the stake or pull me apart a la  favorite device of the Inquisition. I’m still not talking.

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All of which segues into the possibility that one of the first things the new president should do is send a bill to the Congress (that translates into that trio of ghostly legislators, as McCain would have it: “Reid, Pelosi and Frank�), that revamps our entire election system.

It’s been two long years of campaigning, during which three U.S. Senators — McCain, Clinton and Obama —  have been traipsing about the country insulting each other, trying to win the support of us helpless citizens.

Forget who won the presidency. Bush has shown that a president can be only a puppet on a string, manipulated by his veep, his cabinet and his advisors. But back to the campaign.Consider how many millions all this folderol cost. Money that could have been spent on health care, on education, on roads, on bridges,  dikes and levees, etc., etc., etc.

The Canadians know how to do it right. They just held parliamentary elections after five weeks of campaigning. Five weeks! Count them. That’s not even long enough to put together a team of supporters. England’s parliamentary elections don’t take much longer.

Now admittedly the Canadians and Brits are not voting directly for their prime minister. He or she is selected by the party that wins the most votes, i.e. by the Parliament. We can’t do that because we don’t have a parliamentary system and one expert was quoted the other day, saying the United States will never adopt a parliamentary system.

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If you ask me, I think it would be a good idea, because if the new guys and their parliamentary supporters don’t produce, they can call elections when they are fed up with the administration and not wait four years.

Come to think of it, we Americans don’t vote for our presidents, either. We vote for members of the Electoral College and two elections ago, in 2000, the winning president won the electoral majority but NOT the popular vote.

Reason enough, in my humble opinion, to switch to the parliamentary system in which the top guy doesn’t suddenly become a dictator. Unless, of course, you are the president of an African country and you lose the election, but declare it a fraud and stay in office. (See Zimbabwe and the disaster that has been wrought upon a once-thriving country by one of the worst dictators to pretend he’s practicing democracy, even as he was torturing the members of the opposition.)

It does make you wonder if people who have never experienced democracy should be forced to adopt it as a way of life. In Iraq today, where the “surge� and a huge cement wall cutting off Sadr City have reduced the violence, the leaders can’t agree on how to run the country, despite the constant inflow of oil money.

With more than 600 parties, it will be a miracle if they can agree on whether the sun is shining — or not. Just wait until we leave — that means transferring all our troops to Afghanistan, another sinkhole  — and watch Iraqi “democracyâ€� come unraveled.

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Some analysts have suggested that countries in the Middle East and Africa segue their way into democracy, but start first with “benevolent dictators.� Hey, they may start out benevolent, but the temptation to rob their citzenry into extreme poverty appears to be overwhelming, and benevolence goes down the drain.

I myself have been involved several times in the democratic process and never abused the position.

First, when I was a Boy Scout at Camp Pioneer on West Hill Pond in New Hartford, we had Boy’s Day and I was elected assistant camp master. I sat at the table with the real assistant’s wife and was so nervous I spilled a cup of coffee all over her dress. (Women didn’t wear pants in those days.)

Then I was convinced, against my will, to run for first selectman in Goshen against Richard Kobylenski, a legend in his own time. I garnered 80 votes.

I still like to serve in the community, but getting appointed is an easier and wildly inexpensive way to go.

Now for my last word, I quote our recent candidates in the recent election: “God bless America.�