You are, of course, right about the many ways that politicians (and those who pull their strings) have crafted to discourage citizens from going to the polls. Southern Democrats were famous for this prior to the 1960s. Since then, it has become the centerpiece of virtually every national Republican campaign.

I thought about acknowledging that issue but decided that my comments would run too long if I did so. I do a lousy job editing myself. So I apparently came across sounding like someone who thought that my fellow Americans just needed a motivational speech?

Damn! That's the last thing that I intended to imply. Voter suppression is an issue--as is apathy and a sense of powerlessness. And all of these have dogged American political campaigns, I suspect, since representative government was adopted by the Massachussetts Bay Colony in 1634.

What is needed is structural change: (a) abolish the electoral college; (b) reduce the senate to an "advise or delay" body; and (c) most radical but also most important, institute mandatory voting, such as they have in Australia.

In my previous, inartful comments I simply meant to urge you to not let us off the hook so easily. The government may not reflect the best of us, but neither is it other than us. It is way too easy for us to rationalize dropping out and ignoring the ugly mess that the American political process has become--but change begins with we, the voters, taking back our power and our responsibility--and I know that will take a lot more than an occasional rant from me.