Valerie,The French have an electoral system that the Clintons drool for. A close comparison of the American electoral process side-by-side with the French soon shows how bicycle-pedaling nobodies in some little arrondisment make it to the first round national presidential run-offs when said same party hack would be electorally destroyed no later than the first Iowa straw poll in the USA. Louisiana has essentially the same system. BOTH Louisiana and France have presented voters with this exact dilemma (and bumper sticker): "Vote for the CROOK, not the Nazi." Chirac got a whopping 17% in the first round - an actual president against some of the most pathetic no-name losers inthe nation. That would be him, his wife, his dogs. In the run-off with Chirac versus LePen, voters held their noses and voted for the sole purpose of keeping LePen out. Chirac was basking inthe deceptive glow of an unheard of free election result of over 80% (close to Castro's, Saddam's and Gorby's usual controlled numbers) It'd be interesting to see what sort of candidates would make it in France if the system presented the voters with real choices.
Valerie,The French have an electoral system that the Clintons drool for. A close comparison of the American electoral process side-by-side with the French soon shows how bicycle-pedaling nobodies in some little arrondisment make it to the first round national presidential run-offs when said same party hack would be electorally destroyed no later than the first Iowa straw poll in the USA. Louisiana has essentially the same system. BOTH Louisiana and France have presented voters with this exact dilemma (and bumper sticker): "Vote for the CROOK, not the Nazi." Chirac got a whopping 17% in the first round - an actual president against some of the most pathetic no-name losers inthe nation. That would be him, his wife, his dogs. In the run-off with Chirac versus LePen, voters held their noses and voted for the sole purpose of keeping LePen out. Chirac was basking inthe deceptive glow of an unheard of free election result of over 80% (close to Castro's, Saddam's and Gorby's usual controlled numbers) It'd be interesting to see what sort of candidates would make it in France if the system presented the voters with real choices.