Should straight party ticket voting be eliminated?

Clearly although voting at all levels of government is important it is clear from increased turnout every four years that many people place a premium of importance on their vote for POTUS. If living in a swing state your vote for POTUS could have much more political impact than a vote for your 1/50 senator or 1/400 congressman.

The problem with Presidential elections is your choice is purely binary. Therefore a poor choice of President will often lead to poor choices in coat-tail victories in other lower branches of government.

A Republican's strong emotional or single issue reason for voting Bush probably would not be valid at the state or local level. Does a dog catcher have anything to do with foreign policy? This shows the absurdity of political parties. Even if united on very broad idealogical goals the numerous, numerous disagreements on the fine points of policy should make such two faction accommodation distasteful.

The point of political affiliation is the ability to raise boatloads of money, which of course translates into political power. Does anyone know what percentage of votes in this election were straight ticket, and of those how many were Republican? I felt no shame voting straight Democratic ticket as the limited number of choices were best suited by choosing a Democrat over a Libertarian or Republican in absence of a Green.