Of course that won't work though, prominent local figures are usually politicians already and they'd vote a party line all over again. Maybe it'd work if we require the Electors to be average Joes and Josephines who've never been in politics-hmm, but then we'd probably get O.J. Juror Syndrome again or worse, bribery. Nope, toss this old Electoral College system out, it's never gonna work. So much for a back door for my candidacy in 2004. Probably Nader's in the same boat.
Idealism is a tough sell.
As I am writing this the Presidential contest is still too close to call, but I feel confident that the winner will arrive in Washington in an airplane named The Spirit of Machiavelli. This election has been very dissatisfying, but at least we don't have violent coups and conquerings every four years. Most of human history has been littered with bodies because of great leaders' ambitions and we should be thankful our imperfect system is this benign. The worst we will get is plenty of opinion-mongering from the pundits and varying degrees of bad government. Anyway it's time for me to go back into the Closet and find where the heck I stashed my MBA shingle.