We’re not living in a free country. We’re not living in a free country because I’m only allowed to vote once in the 2008 Presidential Election.

The problem is not that I want two separate votes, it’s that I want to elect both the Republican and the Democratic candidates to the office of president. What I want to vote for is Co-presidents.

Let’s eliminate the vice-presidential role and elect two presidents. These people are all bad; they’re just bad in slightly different ways. The solution is to have Co-presidents and let them take turns making bad decisions.

Republicans, for example, could make the bad decisions on Mondays. Unfortunately, this means you won’t be able to get an abortion on Mondays. Fortunately, you’ll be able to get one on Tuesdays.

Taxes will go up on Tuesdays, but they’ll come back down again on Wednesdays.

Taxes will go back up on Thursdays, and then they’ll go up again on Fridays. Remember, Friday is Republican day, but it’s also Casual Day. (The Republican President reserves the right to hold Casual Friday on Mondays as well as Wednesdays, so expect higher taxes on those days, too.)

On Saturdays, the United States will surrender from whatever war the Republicans started on Friday. Thus the Democrats will succeed in preventing unnecessary deaths until the next domestic attack, which will be even more brazen and catastrophic thanks to the Co-presidents cooperating in fighting the wrong people and then running away from them.

In order to retain the traditional seven-day week, Sundays will need to be shared. It’s probably out of the question to put both Co-presidents in a steel cage and make them fight it out for the right to the day’s decisions, so I think we’ll need to let them both make a few.

My concern is that each Co-president will crank out as many Sunday decisions as possible in an effort to tip government in one direction or the other. Sooner or later, we’ll have competing Sunday Committees, and while most of America is in church and/or sleeping off a hangover, a couple of Co-presidents will be speed-reading new regulations off a teleprompter. Therefore, to prevent an arms race of regulations, we must limit Co-presidential decisions to an equal number. I say we keep it simple: one decision a piece.

With any luck, Sundays will result in a 24-hour game of chicken. Each Co-president will wait until the last possible moment to make a decision, in the hope that he can make the last decision and override his fellow Co-president’s decision. Since Mondays are Republican days again, anyway, Sunday’s decision will be moot. Whether we have socialist health care for half a second and prayer in schools for an eighth of a second, or a complete ban on the use of electricity for a third of a second and wall building along the Canadian border for a twentieth of a second, it doesn’t really matter.

(You might say we just give them the day off on Sundays, but I like to see my government working.)

In the long run, my plan will succeed in moving the country forward into the same toilet it’s destined for now. The advantage is that it will feel like it’s taking seven times longer to get there.

I think that if “Co-presidents” were a real option on election day, it would have a decent shot at winning. The harder the election is to predict, the greater the chance that voters might want to hedge their bets. With Co-presidents running the country, at least you’ll have your guy running things half the time. And three and a half out of seven ain’t bad.