I was having dinner this evening in Stockholm with a very high ranking minister in the Swedish government. To my delight, he was very intelligent, extremely thoughtful, and impressively well-informed about matters relating to how government might improve education.
Our long and wide-ranging conversation touched on many topics. At some point the conversation came around to the topic of elections. He mentioned, rather tongue in cheek, that Saddam Hussein had once won reelection in Iraq with 99.5% of the votes.
“I have always wondered about that,” I said. “I mean, all things considered, why didn’t Saddam win with one hundred percent of the votes?”
“Ah,” the minister replied, “that was for plausibility.”