James Madison is known as the "Father of the U.S. Constitution." He helped write it, and helped get it ratified while writing under the pseudonym "Publius" in the Federalist Papers.

People tend to forget that the reason that he helped write the Constitution was that he believed that the Articles of Confederation - the charter on which the nation was founded - was a system that simply did not work.

Today, it is an almost universal truth that our system of government is not working - at least not for the people. And this is not a condemnation of parties, politics or politicians, but the nature of our system of government itself. Our choices are corrupt incumbents or corrupt challengers, and like the Articles of Confederation, the way we elect our representatives in government has produced a government that cannot meet our needs.

It is this blog author"s belief that the United States would be better served by adopting proportional representation systems for Congress and instant runoff voting for the Presidency.

Madison changed his country not just by participating in the political system but by changing the political system for the better. It is high time we stop bickering over artificial partisan differences and start looking at ways to do the same.

We're excited to see this one grow.