Kucinich wants to change the Democrats. Gravel wants to give us the power to change the system.

Polling in France is much less predictable than in the US. Just look at the EU constitution referendum. All the polls said that it would get approved by the population, and in the end it was rejected.

I also voted for Nader in 2000 (in Palm Beach, Florida no less) and this is the first French presidential I've been able to vote in. I had looked forward to voting in the first round for Voynet (Green candidate), but after the lessons of 2000 in the US and 2002 in France, I chose the "useful vote" and picked Sego.

I can't understand a leftie voting Bayrou, unless you also voted for Perot in 1992. In that case, I can excuse it as an obsession with the national debt and a fascination for big ears.

What fun you have, being able to take part in two national elections. I'm behind Kucinich this time around - the only candidate of principle and a past which backs him up. Made the mistake the last time of voting for Kerry who so quickly surrendered a hideously corrupted election that I've always wondered if he didn't get a call from Skull & Crossbones at Yale.
Great explanation of the French election system. My French "son" tells me that they still hand count their ballots under careful observation. I guess we can trust the French people as well as any on the Earth.
And maybe our congress will one day learn that "French fries" are an American, not French product.

Having no say in this election, I am nonetheless fascinated by the complexities and strategies of multi-party democracies. It sure beats our two party primary system.

I believe it is the Bahai faith that calls education one of the highest callings. My 8th grade history teacher was a brilliant maverick. Having served in Vietnam when he returned to the halls of education, he was not afraid to speak the truth. He told us that ONE day a year he would (without any prelude) morph into a Soviet style communist, and we (students) would have to defend our way of life to this "individual." When he boasted that his nation had elections, we laughed and responded, "yeah, with only one real candidate," to which he snarled back, "So what, you get only two." Although no sane democrat would have raped the US treasury, used a platform of anti-gay rights/abortion to further his political agenda, sadly, Nader was not far off in stating that in important areas there is (and was) no discernible difference between the parties. As other writers have commented on this site, the DLC chooses pre-fab candidates and their clone-line response of "all options are on the table" posed as a political sci-fi version of The Stepford Wives. As Michael Moore pointed out, Clinton (Republican lite) was our best REPUB president. For all the mystery surrounding the high percentage of high office candidates who formerly were initiated by Skull and Bones, more frightening is the cost factor in running for office, and the fact that any who make that bargain with the devil, end up serving their corporate masters. Which of course brings to mind the prophecy rendered by Eisenhower: beware the military-industrial complex. When the nation has to invent war to boost its economy, what kind of moral abyss is that? The sad irony is that the fruits of this poisonous tree are such that now our nation's economy is indentured to those of Asian nations, and our debt, a virtual prison... as bees leave, weather proves unstable, and the nation carries a psychic divide. Paul Loeb said, "let's save pessimism for better times." I try.

Thanks for the article. I'm not a French national, but I do read Libération and Le Monde on the internet each day and have been muttering darkly about M.Sarkozy for some time. A dangerous, demagogic man, I think. If it helps, I, too, would have been tempted to vote for Bayrou in the hopes of stopping Sarkozy, even though, like you, my heart is with Bové and I believe that la mondialisation is one of the greatest present threats to democracy. Its logic, followed to the bitter end, will turn us all from citizens into mere consumers, voting with out purchases. I argued on some French language forums that the E.U. constitutions proposed in 2005 included hundreds of pages of neo-liberal economic doctrine that have no place in a constitutional documents. Such questions are matters of policy that Europe's leaders wanted out of the hands of citizens once and for all. I've pointed out to many here in the U.S. that the rejections of the constitution wasn't France pouting, and that, in fact, if presented to citizens in referendums, it would have lost in many countries -- Britain, for sure, despite the Thatcherite posturing of so much of the British press on the matter.

Living in France now almost one year, I have been absolutely fascinated by these elections. First of all, the shortness of the official campaign season, but even more by the effects of public financing of the two phase election. What a difference from the USA! Mr. MacArthur and I are of the same mind on the candidates and the issues and now my great hope is that the French will keep Sarkozy in line with respect to the EU constitution.

I live in France and though I can't vote here I've been following the electoral campaigns. It is so refreshing to see candidates really going after the issues, as happened in yesterday's debate between Sego and Sarko! It never happens in the US where presidential candidates are so careful that they only speak in (previously approved) sound bites and the debates are simply formal platforms for each to express his/her official position. American candidates seem so terrified of having something they said used against them that it seems there aren't any real people behind the artificial talking points. And the money, which drives US elections.

The US could learn a thing or two about real democracy from France.