As any chess player knows, there are many ways of setting things up, and most of them are sound. It took hundreds of years for chess players to figure that out, though; even 50 years ago, players had a very exaggerated idea that there was an extremely narrow range of correct play. Now, anything goes.

The same goes with government -- many kinds of government can work. It's the total system that counts. This goes for two-party vs multiple party system, for example. They both can work.

The advantage of the two-party system is that a majority or near-majority almost always rules. A party that believes in abortion but really doesn't care about other issues is not likely to take power here, and that is just an example.

The two parties are similar because they are both trying to appeal to the majority of the people, and only certain ideological mixes have a chance to win the vote. It is more or less impossible for a Communist or Nazi party to be viable.

The electoral college of course existed to begin with because the Founding Fathers didn't trust the American people all the way. It was a kind of escape hatch if the people went crazy, or against the interest of the propertied classes, which is who the Founding Fathers were primarily interested in.

Cases in which the electoral college is important are quite rare. We have had a few recent examples, but in the long run it is a very minor issue. I am not sure I would rather an election be determined by the electoral college or by the fact that certain states happened to have rainy days and thus turnout in those states was low.