Scary questions dilute comic relief

Ha ... ha ... ha.

This joke's on the Democrats.

Or is it?

Pardon the extended gloating. But eight days after Hillary Clinton's belated concession, the needlessly protracted, revealingly bitter and even racially insensitive Democratic presidential-nomination melodrama still stirs random fits of giddy hilarity in many conservatives, including this one.

And the final outcome — finally — triggered not just comic relief but relief.

OK, so Barack Obama's no conservative. He's no Hillary Clinton, either.

So much for her overrated political skills. So much for the degraded political skills of her increasingly cranky, has-been husband.

Lingering questions from the Democrats' unseemly spectacle:

How can a party that so inefficiently picks its nominee efficiently govern?

How harmfully will the contrast between the mush-headed Democratic "proportional" allotment of delegates and the hard-headed Republican winner-take-all approach expose the former's weakness for pushing balkanizing "inclusion" past reason's bounds?

How could a proudly "Democratic" party stoop to such undemocratic "superdelegate" depths?

Who won the Democratic primary season's popular vote?

That last answer depends on whether you go by primaries alone (including Michigan's, which left Obama off the ballot) or both primaries and caucuses.

But far less amusing questions block the drilling of much laughing gas from the Sturm und Drang of the Clintons' debacle:

How can a party that won the presidency in 2000 without winning the popular vote credibly ridicule popular-vote disarray in the opposition's 2008 primary season?

How can John McCain win in November while both running against charismatic change agent Obama and away from a very unpopular president of his own party?

The election-year joke is on whom?

And a question for all parties: Should we amend the Constitution to scrap the Electoral College?

The traditional case for that constitutional method of electing presidents:

It enhances small states' voices by raising the stakes for their electoral votes. It enhances the prospects for a mere plurality winner in the popular vote gaining an electoral majority, including these candidates: Abraham Lincoln (1860, 39.8 percent of the popular vote), John F. Kennedy (1960, 49.7 percent), Richard Nixon (1968, 43.4 percent), Bill Clinton (1992, 43.0 percent; 1996, 49.2 percent).

The modern case against the Electoral College:

It risks reversing popular will while rendering millions of votes virtually meaningless in states — like this one — that are presidential "locks." It risks dumping a "winner" into the losing game of governing an electorate that rejected him (or her), as it did not just in 2000 but in 1876 (Rutherford Hayes, with 47.9 percent of the popular vote, beat Samuel Tilden, with 51 percent).

That last risk is rising:

-- 2000: Al Gore lost to George W. Bush despite getting roughly 540,000 more popular votes.

-- 2004: Bush would have lost to John Kerry despite getting roughly 3 million more popular votes if only 60,000 Ohioans who voted for the incumbent had instead voted for the challenger.

-- 2008: Obama looks like a 'lock' in the popular vote — but not in the Electoral College. Obama could win the popular vote by 5 million or more with blowouts in New York, Illinois and California while McCain wins the presidency small by taking three or four thrillers out of Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan.

Such a result would reflect the 18th century American consensus of our Founding Fathers. It would not, however, reflect the 21st century American consensus of fair self-governing play.

Five days ago, South Carolina's primaries were decided by popular vote, an easily understood — and widely respected — measure of the people's wishes.

As for the Constitution, what happened to its wise limits on presidential powers?

Gene Healy, a senior editor at the Cato Institute, provides intriguing insights in his book "The Cult of the Presidency." And he provides this essence of that libertarian theme in this month's Reason magazine:

"The chief executive of the United States is no longer a mere constitutional officer charged with faithful execution of the laws. He is a soul nourisher, a hope giver, a living American talisman against hurricanes, terrorism, economic downturns, and spiritual malaise. He — or she — is the one who answers the phone at 3 a.m. to keep our children safe from harm. The modern president is America's shrink, a social worker, our very own national talk show host. He's also the Supreme Warlord of the Earth."

So as you ponder not just who should be president but how we should select him (or her), ponder, too, our absurdly expanded expectations of the person who holds that office.

Because when we demand more from a president than he (or she) can deliver, the joke's on us all.

Frank Wooten is associate editor of The Post and Courier. His e-mail is wooten@postandcourier.com.