As a rule, we don't elect likable people, and consider affableness to be a major character flaw in our leaders. Whereas if given the chance, I would quite enjoy being able to shoot the shit with either Obama or McCain, none of the party leaders running for office in Canada are someone I'd want to talk to, or even to look at directly. Seriously, look at those guys. Talking with any one of them would be about as pleasant as receiving oral sex from a muskrat. Because our elections can happen at any time, and with only a month's notice, our campaign seasons are more shorter than the ones in the U.S. It's not that we don't want to hold year long election campaigns - it's that we have stuff to do. What's your deal America? Don't you have stuff to do? Although we do have political ads in Canada, they're nowhere near as vicious as American ads. Political ads in Canada generally involve the candidate loudly boasting about various features their automobiles have and making unlikely claims of past sexual accomplishments. We don't have punch cards or electronic voting or any other system which necessitates the use of a machine or friendly robot to count our votes. We write an X beside a name on a piece of paper and put it in a box. The box is made of cardboard. Later, a team of elite professionals opens the box, looks at each piece of paper, and using advanced counting skills, count the X's. We think it's hilarious that anyone could screw this up. _