Dropping Like Flies

Edwards- OUT!
Giuliani- OUT!
Thompson- OUT!

Wouldn't it be cool if they all dropped out. If no one ran for president what would happen?

And what will happen if it does come down to Clinton and McCain two people who polarize even their own parties.

From the site filibustercartoons.com

Almost all countries in the world with an executive, decision-making president allow the voters to elect him or her directly, in an open, nation-wide election. This happens in the US as well, of course, but the American system is distinct because of the presence of the United States Electoral College.

The American electoral college is the closest thing to an American parliament, in the sense that it selects the head of government in a similar manner in which most parliaments select their nation's prime minister. Each state elects a certain number of members to the College, and the members assemble and collectively vote to choose the President of the United States. Of course, nowadays this is just a huge formality. They no longer even put the names of Electoral College candidates on the US ballots anymore. Americans just vote for their president, and the party whose candidate gets the most votes sends some figurehead delegates to symbolically cast their votes for the same person.

What makes the College controversial is the fact that there is always a narrow possibility that the formalities do not go quite as planned. Because the electoral college is a "first-past-the-post" state-based representative body it is possible for a candidate to win more seats despite winning a minority of the popular vote. This is what happened in the 2000 election, when George W. Bush won the most seats but Al Gore got more of the popular vote.

Anyway, the point is, no other country with a directly elected president has to go through such shenanigans. In countries like France, Finland, Ireland, and all of South America, the president is chosen solely on the basis of whoever wins the largest percentage of the popular vote, with no middleman.

The closest equivalent occurs in some countries with figurehead presidents, like India, Germany, and Israel. In those cases the presidents are elected by the national parliament (sometimes along with state legislatures). But since their presidents are largely powerless nobodies, this is not of much practical relevance to the government.