I Think We Lost the Election

There’s a jury pool in every political district. Call up members of the pool for jury—that is to say, nominee—duty. Let voters in primaries act like prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges, excusing some and dismissing others. When the pool has been culled to a reasonable size, the general election voters can pick whom they like. Nothing would prevent common politicians from running on third party or write-in tickets. But they’d be easily identifiable as what they are—politicians.

Then we’ll know when we’ve won an election: We’ll know we’ve won when every candidate who is voted in begins his or her acceptance speech by saying, “Oh, #@*!”

P. J. O’Rourke, a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard, is the author of a new book, Don’t Vote: It Just Encourages the Bastards (Atlantic Monthly Press).