The Next US President
Timing and Importance
The election of next president of the United States will take place on the 4th of November 2008. The successful candidate will take office in January 2009, for 4 years. He/she may be re-elected one more time, only, for 4 more years, in November of 2012, to serve until January 2017. His main power is that any new law can be vetoed by him, unless 67% of both houses, the House of Representatives and the same percentage of the Senate have voted for the new law. The situation is somewhat different for the Democratic and the Republican Presidents, whichever has been elected. It is likely, in either case, that both houses will be controlled the Democrats, who will tend to vote in favor of the policies of Democratic President and against the policies of the Republican President.
If a Republican, most likely John McCain, is elected, there may be serious problems in passing new laws, ie the new laws which are not favored by 67% of both Houses, or by at least 50% of both Houses and the President, will not pass. Either new laws, approved by most people and the President will not be possible. This requires a lot of political negotiation and bargaining, ie horse trading, slowing up most things, outside a threat of total war.
The Parliamentary system, used by Great Britain and most of her former colonies, avoids this problem. Whichever party is in control of the House of Commons, elects the Prime Minister who has considerable control of the policies of the government which will be voted on by the Members of Parliament. If, however, the majority of the Houses do not vote for his proposals, be may call for a new election, risking that an opposing party will win control and elect someone else as Prime Minister. Whatever happens, the House and the Prime Minister will be members of the same party, and mostly in favor of the party's policies.
The problem is that there needs to be strong leadership in control of dramatic changes, quickly, to avoid global disaster. Not only do the decisions need to be correct, there needs to be fast and unified support for them. If you think John McCain is more likely to have the best policies than a Democratic President and can get enough support from congress, then vote for him. Otherwise, vote for Democrats for president and for congress. The hope that Senators and Representatives will come up with bold solutions that will work is likely to fail. The only hope is a strong leader, with unified support.