I've been seeing ads around Los Angeles lately for Recount, a new film on HBO about the 2000 election and Florida's role.  A film concentrating on not a presidency but how a presidency was achieved...the old movie studio heads in the days of the "great man" biography would never have imagined this.  There aren't many great men or women anymore, and the matter of who should lead our country has become more hotly contested and intense than ever.  All of us remember how 2000 turned out, then 2004 was only a smidgen less close (though this time George W. did win the popular vote), and now in 2008 the fiercest fighting is happening before the candidates have even been officially nominated!  Through it all, I hear a lot of bitterness, sadness, complaints.  That our system of primaries and the electoral college is flawed.  That the best candidates never reach the center ring and we're left to pick between compromises.  That our votes might not really matter.
As a matter of perspective, I offer the case of another presidential election this year, the race in Zimbabwe, which has been covered in admirable detail by The Economist among others.  
For those of you who don't know, Zimbabwe has been ruled since it gained independence by Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party.  Originally perceived as a benevolent leader of the independence movement and cross-ethnicity uniter, Mugabe became a despot after his initial election, and among many moves he threw out Zimbabwe's white farmers and shot a once-strong economy to hell.  But he never had an opponent strong enough to challenge him until this year, when two rivals emerged in Simba Makone, his now-independent ex-finance minister, and even more so, Morgan Tsvangirai, founder of the Movement for Democratic Change.  
What happened at the end of March was that ZANU-PF finally lost their majority in the legislature and Tsvangirai won the election...but with 47% of the vote to Mugabe's 43%.  Lack of a majority under the constitution requires a second round between the top two candidates, but the MDC claims that the tallying is flawed thanks to Mugabe's usual strong -arm tactics: he has already intimidated voters and burned villages in his losing effort.  Further complications: the MDC is considering a principled refusal to compete in the run-off--which would make Mugabe the winner by default--and international diplomacy is getting nowhere because, despite the UN's support of change in Zimbabwe, Africa's most powerful head of state, Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, ranges from noncomittal to pro-ZANU-PF.  Of course, a run-off election would provoke even more atrocities from Mugabe, who is determined to remain entrenched.
Our system, I admit, may not be perfect, but at the very least we walk into the booth on election days knowing our votes WILL in the end count for something, and we sleep at night without fear of Democrats or Republicans possibly laying waste to our home out of anger...and so far, the rest of the world has not had to step in to control an American election.  God save us the day that happens.