Posted on 11/09/2004 12:43:37 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Bad. Bad idea.
We're not. That's not some minor technical debate. I like how they try to use Bush's win as evidence that the EC should be abolished, as if they'd give a crap if Kerry won electorally.
Interesting that he makes such an inane statement without supporting it with facts or figures. Of course it still holds true!
What a great idea. Just imagine a close election nationally where we have to recount the ENTIRE NATION. Fighting over all the overseas ballots, absentee ballots, provisional ballots, etc. It would be four years before we determined who the winner was...
>Bad. Bad idea.
I agree, it's definitely a BAD idea... the founding fathers knew how important this was, and had good reasons to come up with the EV.
In my old Libertarian days, I abhorred the Electoral College, as it pushed marginal parties to zero national representation.
(if you're into math, the LP was in the nullspace of the electoral map...)
But as I've gotten older and wiser, I've come to love the EC as a brilliant extension of checks and balances. I disagree that "every vote counts" is the cornerstone of the American republic. I place much more value in the idea of protecting the minority. That's the point of the College, and the Great Compromise, and the First Amendment, which protects the right of faith and opinion for the least among us.
Look at how the EC took Bill Clinton's bare plurality and 'smoothed' it into a runaway victory. The College requires that any winning candidate has both enough support and a enough range of support.
If our schools taught any civics, maybe a generation of Americans would understand why the EC was and is necessary. But hell, i went to a private Jesuit school and didn't learn about it.
I get a bad, bad reaction to any suggestion of dibanding the Electoral College, Cinci.
All the stumping and speechifying would be barraged on the major population centers (Cities. Not states) like LA, San Fran, Manhattan, Seattle, Atlanta, Dallas/Ft.Worth, Chicago, Detroit, Boston)
Once you have those. You don't need anything else.
Bad, bad, bad idea!
Jack.
Yep.... rotten idea. Figures Hillary supports it.
The pained pretense of objectivity. . .for those who have eyes. . .they will see.
It is not pretty however. . .
The Electoral College MUST stay; and the only way to guarantee that; is to NEVER vote for a Demrat for anything - ever. (yes. . .not even dog catcher)
Bump!!
Oh yeah. Good idea. Then NY and CA and FL would decide every election.
To hell with the rest of the country.
Sorry, but if that's done then all the populated cites where the liberals want to live together would be electing our President. I for one like the system the way it is.
Here's an even better idea, one that will, far from letting big cities control the elections, will do just the opposite.
Keep the electoral college system, but require that to win a state's electoral votes, you must win in a majority of the counties in a given state's popular vote count. So not only do you just count it at the state level to figure out how the electoral votes go, but also count it down to the county level to see how many counties a given candidate wins. It would dilute the clout of big cities and give more power back to suburbia and rural areas.
Also, go to the "automatic system" rather than the EC. State's electoral votes automatically go to the winner--to eliminate the faithless electors...
I'd like us to return to the original thought....The States pick their electorates from the best of the best. You send these electoral college folks out to a big room and let them tell us a while later who they picked.
No campaigning, no liberal propaganda.....and hopefully an end to lawyers running the country
Just what I want. Presidents elected by the states with the most population, which means the blue states, not the red. Just what the liberals want, actually. However, if one were to use this election as an example, at least the liberals would have had a chance under the electoral system, as it came down to one state (Ohio) that cinched the election for the Pubs. If Kerry would have won Ohio, he would be President. It all hinged on one state, electorally. However, if it had been based on the popular vote, Bush, with his 3.5 million lead in the popular vote, would for sure have won, not Kerry. So Kerry's best chance to have won would have been under the electoral system, not the popular vote. Last election, Gore would have won, but that was last election, this is now. So it still would be a crap shoot under either electoral or popular vote. The difference would be (under popular vote) is that all the small states with small electoral numbers, would be totally ignored and have minimal political effectiveness, as Colorado figured out in voting down the referendum to do proportional parceling out of electoral votes. Good thing they figured out that they would lose any clout and voted wisely against the proposal.
Another Democrat Party paper calling to end an institution that keeps shutting them out of national power. Vane, transparant and hopeless.
Bump!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.