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To begin with, the framers of the Constitution knew that self-government would only function among a people who clearly understood that the welfare of the nation must supersede their own blind ambitions and interests. Thus all citizens of the nation could actually have a stake in the process of elections as well as their outcomes. But while this process was under attack from the earliest days of our nation, its degradation has accelerated in recent years.

Ultimately, the fortunes of such a government will rise or fall in direct proportion to the honor and integrity of its participants. Voters can go to the polls in "banana republics," but the ballots they cast do not necessarily portend a bright and glowing post-election future for their nations. Nor can the American electoral system provide any guarantee of a worthy outcome as its process increasingly departs from the worthy manner in which it was originally devised. A few recent examples present alarming evidence of how far things have descended.

Americans across the political spectrum well remember the pandemonium that ensued in Florida in the aftermath of the 2000 presidential election. Rarely mentioned by the liberal media is that the overriding reason that matter was not settled with a single recount was that Democrat operatives, including the Florida Supreme Court, were desperately seeking to concoct a scheme by which to count votes from those areas of the state that might shift the outcome to Al Gore.

So ingrained is this manner of thinking among Democrats that they are no longer even quiet about it. Hillary and Obama, as well as their cadre of supporters, even including Democrat National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, are openly pondering the inclusion and/or exclusion of the Florida and Michigan delegates in the upcoming Democrat convention, based not on what is a proper assessment of the votes, but on which candidate might benefit from the particular decision rendered. In the midst of such machinations, any regard for "the people" is of absolutely no importance.

Meanwhile, both candidates continue to play their respective versions of the "race card," proving to the public at large what conservative America has known for a very long time. In the minds of liberals, "minorities" are highly valued only insofar as they can be utilized to empower the "ruling class."

So, while the Clinton camp points with palpable derision towards Obama's nearly monolithic support from black voters as proof that he cannot garner a win among the middle American electorate (read: white voters), Obama likewise reverts immediately to some suggestion of prejudice among any opponents who find his brazen leftist philosophies and allegiances repulsive. In the end, each seeks to gain an edge in this theater of the contest on the basis of victimhood.

At the onset of this election cycle, one Democrat camp sought its place at the top on the basis of inevitability and experience. The other made its case on stirring but empty oratory about "hope" and "change," without a whit of substance to the soaring words. Now the political and intellectual bankruptcy of both camps has been made known to the American people, by the hands of the competing camp.

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