November 6

There is one fact of life that I not only did not get in grammar school; I have not been able to get it to this day. Such a fuss is made about how we live in a democracy with the rule of “one person, one vote” and the person with the most votes is elected. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work? I suppose that the election debacle in Florida where the guy with the least votes got to be president should have washed away any lingering illusions I might have had that votes actually mean something, but I still don’t get it. In the U.S. presidential election, held on November 6, 1888 incumbent Grover Cleveland received 5,534,488 votes and the challenger Benjamin Harrison received 5,443,892 votes. So, who was elected President? Cleveland? Nope. Harrison got more votes from the Electoral College, personally I think they were swayed by the beard, so he became the big cheese. (My apologies to those involved in the manufacture of dairy products.)