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When I announced on Facebook that I was preparing National Journal's first -- and probably last -- ever quadrennial election guide for the perverse voter, some of the more twisted and marginal among my readers got the wrong idea. One wrote: "Do you get to do field research for this? Does it involve strange toys and small animals?" Another, simply: "Perverts rule."

Sorry, twisted and marginal readers. The perverse voter is not interested in rubber implements and gerbils. Usually. Rather, she is the most advanced of the four basic voter types.

The naive voter votes for president on the basis of whether the candidate reminds the voter of herself and can field dress a moose. The sophisticated voter carefully evaluates policy positions, looks beyond partisanship and parochialism, and then votes on the basis of whether the candidate reminds the voter of herself and can field dress a moose.

The strategic voter looks around the bend to anticipate how other voters are likely to behave, and then tries to game the system for maximum influence, going with the moose-dressing thing to break a tie. The perverse voter -- so highly evolved that only a Ph.D. or a pundit is likely to qualify -- goes the strategic voter one better, going around the bend altogether.

Suppose, then, that you are a perverse voter and in 2008 you want to...

* Give liberals two historic policy victories. Vote for: John McCain.

For liberals, climate change and health care are the overarching priorities of our era. (Good-government types would add entitlement reform, but who cares about them?) Like Social Security and immigration -- only, if anything, more so -- global warming and health care are too large and too politically sensitive to handle on a one-party basis. Both parties must have their fingerprints on any major reform.

If Obama wins, Democrats will be inclined to ram through legislation on their own terms. If so, they would likely fare no better than President Clinton did with one-party health reform in 1993, or President Bush did with one-party Social Security reform in 2005.

If they did manage to enact something without Republican support, chances are it would be unpopular, short-lived, or both. The Republican half of the country would have no stake in making the reform succeed, and the Democratic half would be blamed for whatever went wrong.

To get a new brain, a zombie party usually needs to lose power.

McCain is running on carbon-emissions limits that are not much different from what Democrats want, and his health plan's focus on reducing costs nicely complements the Democrats' focus on expanding coverage. Put him in the White House, and bipartisan action on both fronts is all but guaranteed. Big winners: liberals.

* Restore the Republican Party's health. Vote for: Barack Obama.

What was most telling about McCain's surprise choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate was not the Alaska governor's own qualities or the gamble that McCain took in choosing her; it was the Republican base's uncritically adoring reaction. Republicans who might once have wondered where a potential president stands on major issues found it more than enough to know that Palin is a pro-life hockey mom who makes liberals angry and can field dress a moose.

Palinmania was the clearest indication yet, though not the only one, that the GOP is a zombie party. Unable to articulate any coherent or workable governing philosophy, it mindlessly pushes cultural hot buttons, repeats hardwired tropes ("cut taxes cut taxes cut taxes"), nurses tribal resentments, and ostracizes independent thinkers (including, for quite a while, McCain). Far from being rare, zombie parties are recurrent features of democracies. Think of Republicans pre-Reagan, Democrats pre-Clinton, Britain's Labor Party pre-Tony Blair, Britain's Conservatives pre-David Cameron, Japan's Liberal Democrats forever, and so on. To get a new brain, a zombie party usually needs to lose power.

It's unlikely that Republicans will find a brain if McCain squeaks into the White House running on a program that is 95 percent identical to Bush's. A spell in the wilderness under President Obama, on the other hand, looks like just what the witch doctor ordered.

* Maintain the Democratic Party's health. Vote for: McCain.

Democrats rejoice at the prospect of sweeping both branches of government, perhaps with a filibuster-proof 60-vote Senate majority. Their enthusiasm is understandable but naive.

With control of the whole government, Democrats would soon find themselves where Bush and the Republicans were from 2003 through 2006: in charge, solely culpable, and deeply unpopular. With Republicans on the sidelines, President Obama and congressional Democrats would govern from the center of their party instead of the center of the country.

It will work no better for them than it did for Bush's Republicans. One-party government would do to Obama's Democrats what it did to Bill Clinton's in 1994 and to Republicans in 2006. Sky-high expectations for a new era in Washington would be followed by disappointment as reality sinks in, followed by a political backlash against what the public regards as the Democrats' ineffectiveness and extremism. In a year or two, Obama and the Democrats would be as despised as the Republicans are today.

A 60-vote Senate majority would make matters worse, not better, by further raising public expectations, further tempting the Democrats to go it alone, and further isolating them from the red half of the country.

* Vindicate Bush's reputation. Vote for: Obama.

Harry Truman left office deemed a failure, but he had the good luck to be followed by Dwight Eisenhower, who built on what Truman got right (NATO, for instance) while correcting Truman's errors (closing out the Korean War). To achieve Trumanesque vindication, Bush needs a successor in Eisenhower's mold: calm, surefooted, realistic. A problem solver.

Who is 2008's Eisenhower? McCain is a war hero, a Republican moderate, and bald, which would seem to settle the question. Yet the oddest -- dare one say, most perverse -- turn in this year's campaign has been the unexpected juxtaposition of McCain's impulsiveness with Obama's steadiness.

When Russia invaded Georgia this summer, McCain immediately denounced Russia and called for emergency NATO and United Nations Security Council sessions. He was soon declaring, "We are all Georgians," which must have come as news to most Americans. Obama took his time choosing sides and reacted to unfolding events with a gradual rhetorical escalation. McCain's supporters charged Obama with waffling, but it was Obama's measured, realist approach that channeled Ike. In the bailout crisis and in the debates, again it was Obama who kept the more level head, McCain who was the gut player.

A President Obama might bring back the sort of studied under-reaction that worked so well for Eisenhower. Perhaps he would calmly sort out the tangles he inherits, rescuing Bush's reputation. On the other hand, rash inclinations on President McCain's part would be tempered by the equal and opposite pull of the Democratic Congress. President Obama would face no such constraint.

So how is the perverse voter to decide which administration would be more like Ike's? Perhaps by weighing two risky words: President Palin. McCain would be the oldest newly elected president in history, and Palin has given no indication of being ready for the Oval Office. Not even perverse voters are that perverse.

* Choose a good, possibly even great, president. Vote for: either.

Americans love to complain about politics, and this year's general election campaign has given them ample cause. Where was the disarmingly candid John McCain who bravely defied his own party on campaign finance, global warming, immigration, gay marriage, torture? Where was the electrifying Barack Obama whose visionary message inspired not a campaign but a movement? If all you knew about McCain and Obama was what you saw and heard after they clinched their nominations, you would never know why they once seemed so different from other politicians.

Still, the perverse voter looks up from the debates and newspapers long enough to notice that McCain and Obama, whatever their flaws, are the two most singular political talents of their generations; and that both of them -- McCain through his career, Obama through his two-year presidential marathon -- have shown fantastic fortitude and ability. Either is a step up from Bush. Both have potential for greatness. Perverse though this may sound, 2008 offers Americans the best presidential choice since Eisenhower met Adlai Stevenson in the 1950s, even if the candidates have done their best to make it appear otherwise.

So where does that leave the perverse voter in 2008? If Republican, support Obama. If Democrat, support McCain. If independent, count your blessings and decide how you feel about field dressing a moose.