Posted on 08/15/2011 10:45:37 AM PDT by Aunt Polgara
So Republicans should like this because it ostensibly “helps our side”?
Last time I checked, principles were principles. Just because something supposedly “helps our side” doesn’t make it right.
Choosing your stance on an issue based on whether it’s good for you personally is exactly what’s wrong with our politics today.
How about we instead decide on a core set of principles and stick to them? Gee, what a novel idea...
Absolutely! /s
California will come back into play, when Conservatives go there and fight for the state. No, they may not win the first election, but exposing the voters of California to sound Conservative principles will pay off.
When people see those principles lofted with that great a spot-light on them, they will see the value of them. Right now, in California those values are argued quietly in small setting, which many people tend to never hear about, or ignore.
If the Republican party would contest California broadly, with ten visits, it would help to turn the state around. We would see more local Republican leaders. We would see more state level Republican leaders. We would see the state move more to the right. We would see our presidential contenders return to a viable status in the state.
Folks, we haven’t had a serious full blown Republican presidential campaign in the state since Ronald Reagan. We’re talking 1984. 27 years without a serious Republican presidential run in the state, and we’re asking why the state is so far Left.
Pete Wilson was a luke warm milk-toast. Since him the Republican leadership has only supported Leftist leaning Republicans for governor here. Conservative guys didn’t get any state or federal support.
By Contrast, the Democrats bring out big names even for local elections. They compete for every single office in the state. Our Party doesn’t.
It’s like having a student show up to Biology class for five days one semester, and then question why he didn’t pass the class.
We have to expose the populace to Conservative principles with a very loud bullhorn. We’ve been doing it with a whisper.
Exactly! If, as is widely expected, the GOP candidate wins in 2012, we can expect the Rats to challenge NPV in court and for Brown to refuse to defend it (the same way Arnie refused to defend Prop. 8). It's a win-win for the rats in CA. If the GOP candidate wins the NPV, the rats still take CA through the courts. If Obama wins the NPV, the rats take CA through NPV. If you are a rat, what's not to love??
No no and NO. There is a reason why the founders, some of the wisest men to ever walk the face of the earth, established the electoral college. They warned us over and over and over of mob rule and pure democracy and the dangers therein. Too bad some so called conservatives are buying into this.
No, actually, the original method was that the state legislatures selected the electors for their state, which gave the states a lot more power than they have now, which I actually think was a better method. It made for a much more balanced state/federal power structure. Gradually, more and more states went with the direct election of the electors, most states opting for a winner-take-all system for their state.
A system that allots electors by congressional districts also erodes the power of the states, but some states have gone that way. We truly do need to get back to a system in which the states have more power up against the feds.
Right now, there are three and only three states which decide presidential elections-- Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida. Win any two and you eek out a narrow win (Bush in 2004, 2004). Win all three and it is a cakewalk (Clinton in 1992, 1996, Obama in 2008).
These three are really only all that matters, because they are the best demographic representation of America as a whole.
Turn them all into the CD method and a Republican has incentive to campaign in California; a Democrat in Texas. Under the NPV method, only the biggest population centers of the biggest states matter.
If anything, a state like California would like lose a LOT of influence with a national popular vote in place because representation in Congress (and hence, Electoral Votes) is based on population, not registered voters. So a state where illegal immigrants or other unregistered voters make up a sizeable portion of the population is going to see its influence diminished compared to other states.
If California wants to split its electoral votes in the name of fairness that’s just fine with me. Hopefully just New York, Illinois, and Oregon would follow suit.
“If California wants to split its electoral votes in the name of fairness that’s just fine with me. Hopefully just New York, Illinois, and Oregon would follow suit.”
That will never happen as long as CA is a reliable rat state because it will dilute rat power here.
Yes! The 17th Amendment has shown such wonderful effect, we should definitely use direct election for the POTUS. In fact we should completely eliminate the outmoded Constitution and all public offices and go with direct democracy for every issue. It is only fair and everyone knows that mob rule is best. Look at London, France and Greece.
“They lost me when they used “California” and “GOP” in the same sentence.”
Ditto
Do you know when the States moved to winner take all? Honest question, I do not know. The Constitution provides for multiple candidates from the states.
At one time or another, some 19 states used the congressional district method. Today, only Maine and Nebraska do so.
“They lost me when they used “California” and “GOP” in the same sentence.”
You do know that Jim Robinson lives here in CA, don’t you?
It's actually popular here in CA among the leftist circles that think Al Gore was cheated out of the election because he won the popular vote but lost the election. There's far more liberals supporting it than conservatives in CA (even by percentage).
I don't know that *I* support it. Part of me feels like if you're going to effectively circumvent the Constitution, you may as well just amend it. The electoral college was a good counterweight to the power of cities, until the cities got so large they engulfed whole regions. Now, it's not a counterweight, but an anchor around our neck. The electoral college basically creates huge power centers which are havens for voter fraud and entitlement mobocracy.
The entire point of the elector college has been turned on it's head, so getting away from it is probably a net gain for conservatives in a major way.
This is a rare instance where the Democrats math-crippling passion actually might work in our favor.
THAT is ANOTHER Constitutional quesion ...
Can a state [say MA] that participates in the NPV Compact DEMAND a recount in ALL 50 states and the territories if the initial result of the NPV goes the GOP way in a close election ???
Good to hear from you.
In order to FULLY understand this, you need to do the electoral math ...
With winner-take-all, a given candidate simply BYPASSES the SMALL states with 4 or less electoral votes [whether they are heavily FOR or AGAINST] since there is no bang for the buck. States FOR and AGAINST are gonna vote that way NO MATTER WHAT and the pay-off in electoral votes is marginal. A given candidate ALSO bypasses LARGE states that are going to vote the other way NO MATTER WHAT - IT IS A LOST CAUSE. ONLY the swing states are the battleground ...
With NPV, it is THE SAME as winner-take-all - ONLY drilled down to the state level. It IS TRUE that a given candidate will have MORE incentive to campaign in a given state, BUT population centers within the state leaning heaavily ONE WAY or the OTHER will STILL be bypassed. Only the swing population centers are the battleground ...
With the Congressional District method, EACH District IN ALL 50 states is given EQUAL weight [with the remaining 2 votes going to the state-wide winner]. WILL there STILL be districts BYPASSED? OBVIOUSLY - but to a MUCH LESSER degree than with winner-take-all or NPV. A given candidate has MUCH MORE incentive to campaign in the state since he can pick up electoral votes on a district-by-district basis ...
AND, in a CLOSE state-wide election, a candidate that LOSES in the total District electoral count can ACTUALLY win the 2 outstanding electoral votes, if he wins the state popular vote ...
IS IT PERFECT - HELL NO !!! BUT, it is MORE fair and MORE representative of a state’s will than EITHER winner-take-all OR NPV ...
Yes and I do too so that makes two of us. Anyway, I didn’t mean there were no Republicans, just no real party.
That would make it a purely "republican" process. It was placed in the hands of the electors.
The Constitution, in Article II, Section 1, provided that the state legislatures should decide the manner in which their Electors were chosen. Different state legislatures chose different methods:[3]
| Method of choosing Electors | State(s) |
|---|---|
| each elector appointed by the state legislature | Connecticut Georgia New Jersey New York (a) South Carolina |
|
Massachusetts |
| each elector chosen by voters statewide; however, if no candidate wins majority, state legislature appoints elector from top two candidates | New Hampshire |
| state is divided into electoral districts, with one elector chosen per district by the voters of that district | Virginia (b) Delaware |
| electors chosen at large by voters | Maryland Pennsylvania |
| state had not yet ratified the Constitution, so was not eligible to choose electors | North Carolina Rhode Island |
(a) New York's legislature deadlocked, so no electors were chosen.
(b) One electoral district failed to choose an elector.
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