Freak Power redux? (or, getting the right lizard in)

Interesting that Obama's success in mobilising people who wouldn't normally vote - especially the younger electorate - is being written up as a new thing, or a phenomenon peculiar to the digital age. Getting non-voters to vote because they think something genuinely different is on offer reminds me of nothing so much as Hunter S Thompson's celebrated Freak Power campaign to become Mayor of Pitkin County, back in the 1970s, ultimately thwarted by a deal between the Republicans and Democrats to keep him - and his constituency - out. For me, the wisest comment on voting comes from Ford Prefect in Douglas Adams' Life, the Universe and Everything:

'"Ford Prefect, of course, had an explanation for this, as he sat with Arthur and watched the nonstop frenetic news reports on television, none of which had anything to say other than to record that the thing had done this amount of damage which was valued at that amount of billions of pounds and had killed this totally other number of people, and then say it again, because the robot was doing nothing more than standing there, swaying very slightly, and emitting short incomprehensible error messages.

"It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..."

"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"

"No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."

"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."

"I did," said Ford. "It is."

"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't the people get rid of the lizards?"

"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."

"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"

"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."

"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"

"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard
might get in. Got any gin?"'