A US Election First For Fifty Years

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And I can hear the breaking hearts from over here.


If like me you are not au fait with the strange workings of the American electoral system then this is the article for you. Nice and concise in a couple of pages

As the Iowa caucuses and the impending New Hampshire primary remind us, there's one prediction that can be ventured with almost absolute certainty: in early November 2008, the United States will have selected its next president.

This must be so, because in the aftermath of Franklin Roosevelt's unprecedented four electoral triumphs, the Senate passed a constitutional amendment in 1947, prohibiting any future president from serving more than two full terms in the White House.

So George W Bush cannot stand for re-election again. And not only will he not be running again, nor will his deputy Dick Cheney, who doesn't wish to gain the presidency himself.

Which means there'll be neither an incumbent president nor an incumbent vice-president seeking re-election this autumn - something that hasn't happened in the US for more than half a century.more