September 29, 2008 is my guess on the end of the Obama era...
...you may be correct, but victory is written with electoral votes, which pay little attention to percentages, being all or none, for each state...extremely dumb system, IMHO...if 49% of Pennsylvanians vote Pub, why shouldn’t 49% of EV’s go to them...but I digress...tell me, which of the Kerry states will McCain flip in order to acheive this remarkable landslide victory?
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Yes, what were The Founders thinking???? C'mon!
That “extremely dumb system” kept algore from office.
It’s a genius system,
and it’s based on the same system through which we are represented in Congress.
It isolates vote fraud.
Imagine election 2000 if we had to just go off of popular vote. Algore would have been demanding recounts in ever place in the country that he had an advantage.
Two States have a proportional system, and the "winner take all" system isn't established by the Constitution or Federal law. Heck, until 1824, South Carolina never had a Presidential election, the State legislature decided who got South Carolina's electors.
As to which Kerry States: New Hampshire, Michigan, Minnesota and Pennsylvania would be my guesses. If figure Obama will flip New Mexico and Iowa. That would give McCain a 326 EV win, not a true "landslide", but bigger than Nixon's win in 1968.
Of course, if Biden keeps talking about how Clinton would have been a better VP pick, and Obama keeps pissing off women voters, we could be looking at a true landslide. I.e. Not flipping New Mexico and losing Wisconsin, Washington, Maine, Maryland, and New Jersey. That would give McCain a 367 win, 3 points shy of what my Presidential politics Professor "technically" considered a landslide.
The electoral college (as opposed to popular vote) is still the way to go but we need to amend the Constitution to allow states to split their electoral votes by county.
Remember, the electoral college was designed to keep the big cities (which at the time was Boston, New York and Philadelphia) from having an unfair advantage over rural areas in choosing the president. Due to the massive populations of some of our larger states (California, New York, Florida, Illinois, Ohio, etc.), they now have the very unfair advantage our founding fathers were trying to protect us from.
Far from a dumb system, the Electoral College embodies the essence of our Republic -- and separates our form of government from those of unstable democracies.
The people are directly represented in the House of Representatives on a proportional basis. The States are represented in the Senate, where each state has equal standing. The President of the United States is just that -- the president of the States -- and is chosen by the States in a formula that balances the direct will of the people (electors are distributed by population, as in the House of Representatives) and the will of the States (winner takes all in each state). The separate wills of the People and their States are represented in the two Houses of Congress, and are balanced against each other in the States' election of their President. It is actually quite brilliant.
[Note: The 17th Amendment detrimentally altered this balance by introducing the popular election of Senators. Prior to 1914, Senators were elected by state legislatures to represent the States as the Founders had envisioned and had stipulated in the Constitution. We can thank the "Progressives" for that debasement of our balanced republican system.]
The Electoral College may be difficult for some to understand or appreciate, but it is just another example of the Founders' wisdom in protecting us from the instability and ruinous perils of pure democracy. And never forget why Democracy is to be feared: Democracy is best defined as three wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner!
It was a stroke of genius to have that embedded in the constitution.
Small state minimum electoral votes 3, 1 determined by population + 2.
Large state no more than 2 + number of representatives determined by population.
If popular vote were the only determination you would never see campaigning in small states.
And of course in 2000 it was Al Gore who was attempting to steal the election not George Bush.
The Founders decided it was much preferable to have somebody win with a thin margin in a large number of states, than have somebody win with a large margin in a few states, but be hated in the rest of the country.
An example of what can happen is the 1860 electoral map. Lincoln won only the Northern states, with his opposition split three ways. Lincoln won, but the result was a civil war which cost 620,000 deaths (and that's just soldiers dead).
Thank God for this system. It is the best way possible to minimize the impact of vote fraud and insure that smaller states are not abused by larger states. If you go by popular vote all a corrupt party like the Rats has to do is control the ten largest urban areas, manipulate the vote in them, and they are guaranteed perpetual power.
