John Prestwick

We all know what happened in the 2000 election. Al Gore got 51 million votes and 266 electoral votes,and George W. Bush got 50.45 million votes and 271 electoral ones. And if they'd actually bothered to count the votes in Florida, Al Gore might well have won the electoral vote as well.

Then in 2004, we had another close election. George W. Bush got 62 million votes and John Kerry got 59 million votes. This was reflected by the electoral vote of 286-251. But in Ohio, Bush got 2.86 million votes and Kerry got 2.74 million votes, a narrow win. If Kerry had won Ohio (with 20 electors), the result would have 266-271 and Kerry would have won the election, despite getting 3 million less votes than Bush.

So if we'd have had 2 botched elections in a row, one in favor of each party, would we still have electoral college as a result?

Basically, every month or so the President would have to come before Congress (probably a joint session with the House and Senate) where both parties would take it in turns to ask him questions, and he'd have to answer them on the spot.

John McCain proposed this during his Presidential campaign, and I believe Obama did a similar session with the Republicans as a one-off. I think it would help keep everyone alert.

State: Sarah Palin (she does actually have some foreign experience. Her state is right next door to Russia and feels the might of Vladamir Putin)

Treasury: Newt Gingrich (oversaw the failure of the 1995 budget, causing a shutdown, alledgedly because Bill Clinton had made him sit at the back of the plane on a journey)

Defence: Rich Iott (a candidate who got into trouble for wearing a Nazi Uniform, later said he was fascinated at Germany's military "accomplishments")

Justice (AG): Ann Coulter (once said to a group of gay conservatives that marriage is not a civil right because they are "not black")

Interior: Joe Barton (was forced by the rest of the Republican party to apologise, after defending BP over the oil spill)

Agriculture: Andrew Breitbart (he's caused trouble in this department already, so why not?)

Commerce: Sharron Angle (complained that the government were mistreating BP by setting up an escrow account set so they could cough up compensation)

Labor: Joe Miller (Senate candidate that complained that the minimal wage is unconstitutional)

Health & HS: Christine O'Donnell (competition for this was difficult, so they decided to assign someone who could faithfully support their healthcare plans)

Housing & UD: Carl Paladino (called Manhattan "Home to smug, self-important, pampared Liberal elistists". Not a good strategy in the New York gubernational election)

Transportation: Michele Bachmann (perpetrated the rumour that Obama's India trip costed $200 million a day)

Energy: Rush Limbaugh (another fiercely-contensted positition, but this guy suggested that environmental nutjobs deliberately blew up the BP oil rig and caused the spill)

Education: Cynthia Dunbar (responsible for the controversial curriculum changes to the Texas Curriculum last year)

The VA: Donald Rumsfeld (he's caused enough problems in Iraq, but maybe he can apologise to the soldiers by giving them their benefits)

Homeland Security: Glenn Beck (okay, I had to put him in somewhere. But as well as needing to sniff out conspiracy theories and security threats, the Department also has to respond to natural disasters. Beck complained that the only victims of Hurricane Katrina he saw on the news were "scumbags" and expressed delight at the California bush fires. Maybe he's a bit too far down the line of succession)

(You can be selected for the Cabinet if you're already on Congress, but you have to resign from Congress)

To Conservative Readers, I challenge you to come up with an even worse left-wing version!