Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Breakfast of runners-up.

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Retain Loser Of Presidential Election In Lower Office

Eliminate the "One side totally wins, one side totally loses" formula.
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One way to do it would be to make the loser the "Head of Congress" and give his party fifty temporary seats to give it some additional power to represent its constituent's ideals. This 10% boost to that party's power base in congress would be gathered from the losers of close congressional elections. 40 temp seats would go to the House, 10 to the Senate.

While one party would run the executive branch the other one would get a slight power boost in the legislative branch. The new office of "Head of Congress" would give the runner up a platform with which to address the concerns of that 40% of the population who, it seems to me, still have a right to be represented.

This would only happen in very close elections obviously. If the loser won say, 35% or less of the vote they'd just go home.

It seems a shame to have 40 to 45% of the voters disenfranchised every single election. The idea of a "booby prize" seat in congress kind of makes sense.

doctorremulac3, Jul 25 2015

Runners up were initially slated to be vice Presidents https://en.wikipedi...f_the_United_States
[theircompetitor, Jul 26 2015]

[link]






       Why is there only one president? If there was a board of, say, ten of them, it would be more representative.
pocmloc, Jul 26 2015
  

       There's only one president so you can have leadership in the executive branch that can act as only a single point of leadership can. You would lose that with ten presidents all acting from different points of view, which is why the idea is not to have multiple presidents, rather to give some measure of power, and some voice to ALL the people who actually got out and voted.   

       Assigning the runner up to Congress with a 10% boost to his party's base would retain the three branch distribution of power while assigning a legislative branch counterbalance to the newly elected executive branch.   

       The idea pocmloc is to make the republic more representative of its people and to address in some way the inevitable bitterness among about half the population that you have after every election.   

       If I was on the losing side in an election I'd certainly like it, and if I was on the winning side I would hope I wouldn't' be such a dick as to revel in the other side having absolutely no power at all. If almost half the citizens voted for that person it seems they should be assigned at least some power. The way we do it now seems more like a sport than a way of keeping everybody happy, which last I checked, is the whole point of having a government, no?
doctorremulac3, Jul 26 2015
  

       Wow! No kidding? Thanks for that post theircompetitor, I didn't know that. (See link)
doctorremulac3, Jul 26 2015
  

       Third party candidates should also get something.   

       Maybe a part time job in the paperwork reduction office.
popbottle, Jul 26 2015
  

       As a Libertarian (the party that nobody likes) I would agree, but it starts getting complicated pretty quickly. Can't make everybody happy. What would the debate shows talk about?
doctorremulac3, Jul 26 2015
  

       Ah yes, the perpetual party of victimhood.
RayfordSteele, Jul 27 2015
  

       I might be wrong, but isn't this roughly what a coalition government is, though I'm not sure whether it's possible on your side of the big watery place.
TomP, Jul 27 2015
  

       Coalition? We can't even get one party to agree with itself on this side anymore.
RayfordSteele, Jul 27 2015
  

       The runners-up should be sent overseas to become presidents of smaller countries.
MaxwellBuchanan, Jul 27 2015
  

       Or if we are going to keep it as it is, I say go all in: there should be a song glorifying the new president that each citizen must sing by heart or be deported. And I mean sing it with feeling, and spirit. From the diaphragm. All 8 verses.
bungston, Jul 27 2015
  

       What if anyone else takes Donald Trump seriously?
zen_tom, Jul 27 2015
  

       //Ah yes, the perpetual party of victimhood.//   

       Words are more fun when you ascribe some kind of meaning to them. Takes a little practice but you might want to give it a shot.   

       For starters I think you meant to say "the party of perpetual victimhood", unless you were describing the longevity of the party and then saying "and they're victimy". Beyond that, what you were trying to say is anybody's guess.
doctorremulac3, Jul 27 2015
  

       Well if we are quantifying the fun I think a perpetual party sounds like more fun than perpetual victimhood. Perpetual party of petulance is more alliterative if that helps the fun in any way.
bungston, Jul 28 2015
  

       I'm starting the People's Party of Perpetual Pusillanimous Petulance.   

       Our party platform:   

       1- We preach love of all humankind except those pigs who aren't in our party.   

       2- We support equality for everybody except people we don't like.   

       3- We devote ourselves to the promotion of social justice to each and every person on Earth except people who obviously don't deserve it. (We all know who those people are)   

       4- We preach solidarity of all races, creeds and colors as we work towards the dream of coming together and getting rid of people who don't agree with us.   

       5- We support the rights of people to have different points of view as long as they those points of view aren't any different from ours.   

       6- We support an open and free media except for news outlets that might disagree with us which should immediately be shut down.
doctorremulac3, Jul 28 2015
  
      
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