I ran across this strange passage ... oh, somewhere online, in some old science fiction story:

Mr. Kemmelman had once been a protestor, as I have learned from various sources at the Hawthorne Academy. He once led faculty opposition to many of the policies of the Board of Trustees, and when most of the Board had wanted him terminated, it was Jack Wheelock who had saved him. Wheelock had persuaded the Board that it was better to grant the faculty a few concessions than to risk creating a martyr.

Now Mr. Kemmelman was a player in Wheelock's inauguration, about to demonstrate to the nation the depths of his support for the new president. This is what becomes of protestors in the new America. A way is found to turn them. The lucky ones, that is.

All the October polls had showed Wheelock behind. According to the media, there was no way he could win—but then he did win, decisively. He found the support he needed when he needed it, in places no one else had thought to look, and this leads me to a heretical thought:

Perhaps the framers of the Constitution were more correct than we would care to admit when they designed the Electoral College to keep power away from the people.

It's just a story, though. I don't know why I even brought it up.