Frank Underwood in “Unfinished Business”

Frank Underwood

The people are angry. Nine weeks ago we had an election in this country, but because two states refused to certify, neither Conway nor myself received the 270 electoral votes required for victory. So they gather here every morning to exercise their magnificent right, guaranteed by the First Amendment, to let their angry voices be heard. And so Thanksgiving, Christmas, and half of January have come and gone, and all three branches of government are in crisis: the Congress is in disarray, the Supreme Court is down a justice and doomed to deadlock, and the Executive Branch is without a boss. You see, my feeling is I think the Founding Fathers, they just got tired. And really, can you blame them? I mean, you can't think of everything — black swans, Murphy's Law. I mean, at a certain point, you just have to sign off and cross your goddam fingers and hope for the best. Or, adopt flipism, a pseudo-philosophy of life in which the most important decisions are made by the flipping of a coin. It was first introduced in the Disney comic book Flip Decision — one of my favorites — in which Donald Duck is persuaded by Professor Batty to make all of the most important decisions based on the flipping of a coin. "Life is but a gamble, let flipism guide your ramble." We've had this sort of trouble before: the election of 1800, Jefferson vs. Burr. They wound up in a tie, 73 electoral votes each — that was the number required then — and that's when Congress tried to address what the Founding Fathers just couldn't imagine. And poof, the Twelfth Amendment was born, and it says that if the states don't certify, it's the House that chooses the president and the Senate that chooses the vice president. Now, the House is a bit of a mess, but the Senate is rather democratic in how they choose the VP: one person, one vote. But, if there's a tie — and this is where Donald Duck comes in — it's resolved by the toss of a coin, a solution that's elegant as hell. But then there's no elegance in modern politics; it's mostly hell. The identity of the next president of these United States is once again in the hands of a bunch of self-serving, money-hungry, boot-licking, power-seeking politicians who can be seduced or sucker-punched or blackmailed into submission. And all I need is just one more vote than the other guy. As you can see, the Founding Fathers didn't plan for this. But I did. Meet your new daddy.