“What’s wrong with America these days,” a friend of mine asked me recently. “Why do Americans keep trying to vote for someone they want to have a beer with, rather than someone they think would be good at leading the country?”

Sadly, I think the answer may be tied up with JFK and television. It’s often considered bad form or sacrilege to say anything bad about John F Kennedy, but if you think about it, he was no statesman. He was a rockstar with showbiz personality, who nearly got us involved in a thermonuclear war with Russia. Why do we celebrate this? What’s so special about him? Why, every election since, has the sound byte become more and more of an issue than any issue we’re having? Why can’t we deal with serious issues – and not be worried about pigs wearing lipstick or the religious convictions of the governor of Alaska?

I think it’s because we’re too caught up in the cult of personality we’ve erected around our elected officials – and the parties they come from – rather than any real desire to elect someone we think would be a good leader for our country. And then there’s all this pressure to vote for one of two candidates – and an implicit assumption that if you are pro-choice, you are also anti-death penalty, and pro-medicare. Or, if you’re for the NRA, you’re also a supporter of the Religious Right and the war in Iraq. Why do we have a two party, winner takes all, system? Why have we married ourselves to this binary approach to governance? Why can’t you pick and choose your issues from a broad spectrum of possibilities? If you were to tell Joe Q Public that come November, they could vote only for Democrats or only for Republicans they’d be pissed – as you are taking their choices away – but tell them on national TV they can only vote for Obama or McCain, and they are ok with it?

Or is this the real reason we have such low voter turnout in the US?