The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down to One. He advanced towards it trembling. The Phantom was exactly as it had been, but he dreaded that he saw new meaning in its solemn shape.

'Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point,' said Scrooge, 'answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?'

Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood.

'Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead,' said Scrooge. 'But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me!'

The Spirit was immovable as ever.

Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave his own name, Ebenezer Scrooge.

Thus be it said of the verdict of history on anyone having the power to influence the Bush Administration but yet done nothing. Except that Scrooge did change, changed his actions, his "course", so that the ends changed as well. But that was all a fictional story, of course.

The author gives many good reasons why the Electoral College should be abandoned. One disagreement I have is his idea about federalizing the elections process; I contend such a thing would be impossible to implement practically unless we're willing to have a fully redundant set of Federal Election Supervisors to the current set of State officials - and then what would happen in a General Election where the President, Senator, Governor, County Chair, and Mayor are all on the ballot at the same time. Who supervises and administers that?

But of course the real kabosh to this suggestion is that it would require a Constitutional Amendment to happen, and since it is in the interests of the small states to keep the status quo, there's no way you can get 3/4 of the State Legislatures to pass it.

An alternative that does not require a Constitutional Amendment, but just a simple Act of Congress, is to increase the number of Representatives. Currently the average House Member represents around 800,000 constituents and the GDP per Member is over $34 billion. In Great Britain, the corresponding numbers for a Commons Member is 80,000 constituents and $3 billion. Arguably, having more Representatives would make gerrymandering less effective and would increase the relative power of minorities. It would also help some small states like Montana (that have one at-large Representative for its 935,000 people - just like Alaska does for its 664,000 people).

There are other consequences to this idea as well. You couldn't have regular meetings in the House Chamber if there were say 3,000 House Members. But then again, isn't it time that the business of lawmaking can mostly be handled electronically? Keeping Congress critters outside of The Beltway may make them less conflicted with the K Street crowd (and corruption would be harder when there are more pockets to line and they don't show up to schmooze at the regular cocktail parties.)

With 3,100 instead of 535 Electoral Votes, the small state versus big state imbalance would be redressed significantly. The issue of apportionment of Electoral Votes, i.e. individual Congressional District or Winner-Take-All, would still be a problem, however.

And unless letter readers think I'm a total loon (ok, I'm sure they do anyway), I don't think there's much chance that Representatives would pass a House Increase Bill, because of course that would dilute their power. But, short of a Constitutional Amendment, I don't see any other way to address this issue.

Every time I hear Senator Clinton say that, the hair on the back of my neck stands up. For gosh sakes, Tom DeLay knew how to get things done in Washington. Is that the kind of bargain the Democratic caucus and primary voters are making? Settling? Conceding at the end that she'll be a "good President"?

America needs a whole lot more than good right now. A big chunk of the world hates us right now. Even our old allies know they can't believe what we tell them, and their citizenry won't let them get taken in by any grand scheme hatched in Washington. We are operating an economy propped up by foreigners buying our debt. We depend on oil to an extent that we are beholden to undemocratic and unsavory - and likely unstable - governments in dangerous locations. Our middle class is disappearing; families bear obscene amounts of personal risk. And to top it all off, the climate is changing in ways that we can't control. We need a helluva lot more than "good" right now. We need a transformative presidency. And that's why I have so much unease about Senator Clinton's candidacy.

Her well-oiled machine is guided by the crowd of insider consultants so highly regarded inside The Beltway, telling her to divert sharp questions, blur distinctions, obfuscate her positions, triangulate, hedge, anything but tell the truth. The feeling she gives me, and I hate to say it because this might comfort the trolls out there, is that any substantive policy position she's taken is in reality up for grabs. An example: universal health care - her plan recently released bearing uncanny resemblance to former Senator Edwards' plan formulated half a year ago. When the rubber meets the road, will President Hillary Clinton make a closed-door deal with the Aetnas and Cignas of the world to water it all down and keep the corporate profits rolling in, provided she can get some fig leaf skeleton of a plan passed by Congress with her name on it so she can use it in her reelection campaign? In a New York nanosecond, I'm afraid.