Posted on 06/03/2011 7:25:02 PM PDT by EternalVigilance
Popular-vote pact picks up steam
A once-sleepy movement that would upend the Electoral College, reverse two centuries of constitutional practice and elect presidents by direct popular vote has quietly picked up momentum in recent days, with Republican Party leaders scrambling to stanch a steady stream of defections by GOP state lawmakers to the plan.
*snip*
Under the idea introduced in 2006 by Stanford University consulting professor John Koza, states that join the NPV compact pledge to give all of their electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote - even if a majority of the state’s voters supported another candidate. If a group of states with an accumulated tally of 270 electoral votes - the bare majority - sign on, the practical effect would be that the popular-vote winner instantly becomes the Electoral College winner as well.
*snip*
A rash of Republican state legislators have signed on as co-sponsors and even sponsors of this year’s spate of NPV bills. At a May 12 news conference, two prominent Republicans — former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee and former Gov. Jim Edgar of Illinois — endorsed the compact.
“We’re perpetually kind of rolling the dice in presidential elections in this country and risking electing someone who didn’t get the most votes,” Mr. Thompson said at the event. “It’s an unnecessary risk.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Exactly — unfortunately, many conservatives fell for the con, including many here.
Okay, guys, put up or shut up. Give with the details. What was this clever plan, other than Fred not being able to campaign in 2007 until September, because of contractual obligations and liability to NBC, that kept him out of the money chase for whatever limited contributions were available from reluctant early-money GOP donors who'd concluded already that 2008 was going to be a Democratic year and Her Thighness was going to be crowned POTUS?
Fred a stalking horse? Sorry EV I don’t buy that. Too many candidates are accused of that in absence of all proof. I don’t believe Fred wasted his time and energy running for President just to help McCain.
As for the EC, in principle I support the popular vote and thus disagree with most freepers. In 04 Kerry lost Ohio and the election by a much smaller margin that he lost nationwide. It would have tremendously pissed me off if he had won with the overall popular majority still going to Bush. I’d be very curious to have seen the reaction to that on the right.
Practically though popular vote is likely to help the democrats more often than not (like in 2000) because of the big cities and their massive fraud. And it opens the door to nationwide recounts, which would be disastrous. And while on principle I don’t care much about empowering smaller states in POTUS elections, those states mostly lean our way so empowering them is positive.
So Fred is wrong, we need the EC to protect us from the aforementioned problems. I’m a realpolitik kind of guy. Lost in the discussion is that it’s exceeding unlikely for the EC and popular vote to actually produce different winners.
I wasn’t on the Fred train at the time in 08. I got on it in hindsight. Since then I’ve learned many things that make me like him less, this is another one. Still like him better than Rudy McRombee.
You are “troubled” that he doesn’t think the founders were demigods?
I agree with him, they were mortal men. And in their wisdom they made the constitution amendable. Most of those amendments have been positive.
Right. Two-thirds of the Congress. Three-quarters of the states. Uh-huh. That’ll happen. /S
How happy do you think SCOTUS will be with a gerrymandered Lege like California's picking the State's representatives to the Electoral College based on cronyism and corruption? How is that guaranteeing "a republican form of government"?
In Texas, the state house of representatives is overwhelmingly Republican, but it's run by the 'Rats, acting through a RiNO speaker of the state house who has strong powers, and a RiNO lieutenant governor presiding over the state senate who likewise has strong powers, who, collaborating with the 'Rats and a few RiNO's, regularly put the majority conservative Republicans in a corner?
The state house just voted for a new redistricting map which pairs eight conservative GOP legislators off against each other in new districts. A record killoff of conservatives, by a RiNO speaker working hand-in-glove with the 'Rats.
What if the Texas Lege pulled something similar with Texas's Electors, and handed the Presidency to Nancy Pelosi?
One theory is that, JFK having received the presidency in 1960 from the hand of Sam "Momo" Giancana of the Chicago Mob, when he and RFK damaged the Cosa Nostra with the Joseph Valachi papers and testimony, "Momo" and the boys sent Lee Harvey Oswald to repossess it.
My own theory is that it was LBJ; other people like Nikita Khruschev. I can't wait for the day that that affair is finally elucidated -- all I know is that the LBJ and his Warren Commission have pissed on our heads for 45 years and told us it's raining.
</OT>
These are enormous questions of power and right. Let's listen to people who are warning us about electoral fraud.
Individually, they were quite flawed, but collectively, they were darn near perfect. The electoral college is brilliant and absolutely shouldn’t be messed with. Besides, it makes election night more entertaining.
The Electoral College concept is sound, its the current 48-state winner-take-all concept that is flawed [the exceptions being ME and NE].
The winner of the popular vote in each Congressional District within a State should be awarded it’s electoral vote. The overall winner of the popular vote within that State should be awarded the remaining 2 electoral votes as a “bonus”.
This method most accurately reflects the political beliefs of ALL of the people of the United States AND it would ENCOURAGE candidates to campaign in ALL districts throughout the country - since EACH electoral vote [except the remaining 2] would be up for grabs on an individual basis.
Interesting. I find it “troubling” he DOES think they were demigods. Even the greatest political leaders in history did not have the right position 100% of the time. And the pro-creationist loons claim those of us who believe in evolution use it as a religion. I never claimed the theory of evolution was perfect and without flaws, but these “abolish the 17th amendment” types apperently have a new religion called Founding Fatherism with the premise that anyone who worked on the constitution was incapable of error. I’m glad these guys weren’t around in the 1860s to explain to us mere mortals that slavery was OK because the founders said so.
Yes, it makes it more entertaining for Democrat political machines who can use the early totals to swing an entire state their way and steal the election, as was demonstrated in 1960 when the Dems flipped Texas and Illinois to JFK by "finding" a few extra votes in a handful of counties and overturning the rest of the state. And of course in 2000 when the Democrats were able to use early exit polls to "project" Gore winning Florida, Michigan, and Pennsylvania (when the polls were still open on the west coast!) thereby depressing GOP turnout and damn-near giving Gore national electoral victory based on a fake "lead" in Florida.
The funny thing is, if you actually look at what "the founders" had to say about allocating the electoral votes, they were completely silent on how states would distribute the electoral votes each had, and left it up to the state governments to decide for themselves. They could aware all their electoral votes to the candidate will the tallest height if they wanted to.
That means post #148 (and many other freepers) suggestion of allocating all electoral votes based on congressional district (as Maine and Nebraska ALREADY do) wouldn't "mess with the founders intention" at all.
In fact, in the early days of the Republic, some of their states allocated electoral votes based on who the state legislature wanted for President, and regardless of who the citizens of their state wanted, so you "abolish the 17th amendment" types would have been quite pleased that they selected your President the same way they selected your Senators back then. Plenty of backroom deals happened with that method in effect, Presidential candidates could "win" states where they were insanely unpopular just by greasing a few palms. I think that's why that method of allocating electoral votes pretty much disappeared by the national stage by the 1830s, which was totally doable without a constitutional amendment thanks to the founders being silent on how the electoral votes would be distributed. Good thing, too. 90% of the state legislatures in this country are run by scumbags career politicians who only care about enriching themselves and could care less what's best for the state.
Indeed, doesn’t he know that if we had a popular vote system presidents would craft their policy’s to appeal to urbanized ignoring the needs and interest of the smaller more rural states?
Does he not also realize that in the United States States run elections and still control the registration process and thus the potential for fraud?
That going to a popular vote would as such reward states that craft laws that favor high turn out over legitimate elections...
This is a corruption disaster waiting to happen a disaster that will serve to further upend our election system in all 50 states rewarding the more corrupt while diminishing the more honest.
Not to worry, a bunch of freepers have assured us that despite being a Massachuttes Democrat elected by mobsters and the same Chicago machine that produced Obama, JFK was "more conservative than today's Republicans".
So once elcted, JFK's support for the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, opposition to Israel creating nuclear weapons, massive new federal funding for education, federally provided medical care for the elderly, economic aid to rural regions, government intervention to halt the recession, abolishing the mandatory death sentence for first degree murder, and producing the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 that caused an explosion in third world immigrants with no skills (written by his brother Ted on JFK's request) was all far more "conservative" than anything you'd get from Michele Bachmann or Paul Ryan.
< /sarcasm>
And these are the same "conservatives" who constantly accuse the GOP of being nancy staters while applauding JFK's legacy.
We are playing checkers while the RINO big guys are playing chess. It looks like maybe the 2008 race was full of intentional distractions such as Fred Thompson and I am sure that all of them got their rewards for playing the game.
You really can’t go by their words, it is whether they really mean those words, which many of them don’t. Many politicians are just slick actors. They play their asigned roles, some play liberals and some play conservatives. They know their lines and the professional speech writers know them even better. Does anyone remember that Robert Redford movie “The Candidate” about all of the manipulation of the candidate that goes on behind the scenes? We Republicans have to get it through our heads that we too can be fooled. It is not just the Democrats who can be manipulated and wrapped around Obama’s finger. We can be manipulated just as well. The political operatives study us and they know exactly which category we fit into and which type of verbage works with us. I have learned a bitter lesson in the past 6 or 7 years. We cannot be gullible again.
Senility's a bitch, eh Fred?
Yes that’s another thing straight popular vote would be very boring from an election spectator standpoint.
Doling out the E votes by congressional district would probably make it more fun to analyze, and benefit us.
“We had to destroy it to save it.”
I'd also like to see the Constitution amended with items such as:
1. English is the official language of the USA.
2. No anchor babies given citizenship, etc.
3, Marriage is a him and her. Goodbye fags.
Think a good Emperor Palpatine combined with Maximus from Gladiator.
You've forgotten that this is supposed to be a republic and you were supposed to be a Republican.
Now, fade away into obscurity!
To think I once considered voting for that idjit.
You just said the word “*uckabee.” That negates everything you said prior.
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