By Ron Kantowski · November 4, 2008 · 12:36 AM

NOW:

There are two things that happen every four years that trigger regret, at least for a little while.

One is that I do not hold dual citizenship in Jamaica and did not develop a passion for the bobsled.

Two is that the Whig Party did not survive.

The Whig Party operated from 1833 to 1856. I like it not so much for what it or its two presidents (William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor) stood for, but just because Whigs is a cool name. Next to the Free Soil Party and the Know-Nothing Party, it's my favorite of all the political parties.

You can't count the Bull Moose Party, or I would. But that was just the logo Teddy Roosevelt used on his big stick. Its official name was the Progressive Party, which almost sounds as boring as Republican and Democratic.

Just once, I'd like to go into the voting booth on Election Day, then come out from under the little curtain to summon one of the frantic poll workers and ask the following question:

"So how does a guy vote a straight Whig ticket?"

Anything to get out of punching the name of one more district court judge I've never heard of.

THEN:

When I was 11 or 12 years old, a bunch of us neighborhood kids would sleep over at another kid's house, where we would play "Monopoly" or "Risk" or "Landslide," Parker Brothers' interpretation of the political process, until the wee hours of the morning.

In "Landslide," the object was to collect these vote cards, which could then be traded in for these electoral vote cards. You only needed a couple of vote cards to carry Montana or Vermont; you needed a lot more of put New York or California in your column.

But like the other two games, "Landslide" could take forever. Only you couldn't knock the little houses off Ventnor Ave. or eliminate the massive militia some other kid had assembled in Kamchatka with your elbow when nobody was looking, thus hastening the end of a game.

So we learned how to pass votes under the table.

At the time, we didn't know that pretty much mirrored real-life politics.

We just thought of it as cheating.