Posted on 01/31/2013 11:13:56 AM PST by fractionated
"We must stop being the stupid party," Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal warned fellow Republicans recently. "It's time for a new Republican Party that talks like adults."
Many Republicans apparently weren't listening, because they insist on doing stupid things. Exhibit A: lawmakers in a half-dozen states who are trying to alter the Electoral College system to give Republicans more votes.
This is a desperate and ultimately self-defeating reaction to the changing demographics of America. The GOP calculus seems to be: We can never appeal to minorities, and we cannot win the presidency without them, so let's rig the system to reduce their influence -- and, in the process, really tick them off. The result will be to make minorities feel even more unwelcome in the Republican Party than they already do, and more likely to step up their organizing and voting efforts.
In all but two cases, Maine and Nebraska, all of a state's electoral votes go to the winner of the popular vote. Republicans loved this system when they were regularly capturing the White House (five of seven times between 1980 and 2004). But Barack Obama's two victories have scared the heck out of them, and with good reason.
In 1980, the electorate was 88 percent white, and Ronald Reagan won 56 percent of that vote in easily defeating Democrat Jimmy Carter. Last year, Mitt Romney actually bested Reagan among whites, winning 59 percent. But whites accounted for only 72 percent of the total vote, and Obama crushed Romney with minorities, taking 93 percent of blacks, 73 percent of Asians and 71 percent of Hispanics.
These minority voters, often clustered in urban areas, provided key margins for Obama in swing states such as Ohio, Florida and Virginia. So, figured those brilliant GOP strategists, perhaps the law could be changed to allocate electoral votes by congressional district, thus boosting the leverage of rural areas and undercutting that Democratic advantage. If that alternative system had been in effect last fall in Virginia, for example, Romney would have won nine of 13 electoral votes -- even while losing the state by 150,000 popular votes.
From a crass political viewpoint, it might be worth enraging minorities if the GOP ploy had any chance of working. But it doesn't.
Smart Republicans are appalled. "It's not going to happen in Virginia," insisted the state's ambitious Republican governor, Bob McDonnell. State Sen. Jill Holtzman Vogel called the scheme "pretty shortsighted." Then a state Senate committee controlled by Republicans killed the bill.
Even if these proposals somehow became law, they would immediately be challenged in court as racially biased. And that's exactly what they are. State Sen. Charles Carrico, the lead sponsor in Virginia, candidly explained his motive in The Washington Post: "The last election, constituents were concerned that it didn't matter what they did, that more densely populated areas were going to outvote them."
Most federal judges will surely understand that "densely populated areas" -- along with "urban" and "metro" -- are code words for race. And by the way, Sen. Carrico, that's how democracy works. The majority wins. Blacks in Alabama and gays in Idaho also feel outvoted.
Just because an idea is stupid doesn't make it surprising. Attempts to rig the Electoral College flow from the same motives that inspired Republican lawmakers to pass laws limiting voter participation in a dozen states last fall. Many of the laws were tossed out on legal grounds, but they gave Democrats in "densely populated areas" a pitch-perfect rallying cry.
The Nation quoted Matt Barreto, a pollster specializing in the Latino vote: "There were huge organizing efforts in the black, Hispanic and Asian communities, more than there would have been, as a direct result of the voter suppression efforts." The Rev. Tony Minor, an African-American minister in Ohio, added: "When they went after big mama's voting rights, they made all of us mad."
Sanity has not completely deserted Republican ranks. In Florida, state House Speaker Will Weatherford told reporters that Republicans don't need "to change the rules of the game" and offered a different option: "I think we need to get better." Fellow Floridian Sen. Marco Rubio is doing exactly that, bravely joining a bipartisan group of U.S. senators in proposing a reasonable compromise on immigration reform. Jeb and George Bush have both proved that Republicans can win a decent share of Hispanic support if they respect and understand those voters.
Subverting democracy by suffocating minorities is the opposite of respect. It ignores Jindal's advice and damages the Republican brand. Talk about stupid.
I say we use every legal tool and strategy at our disposal.
The commies commit mass felonies, spread lies/propaganda through the MSM, and force taxpayers to subsidize them at every step.
After watching the fiasco last November, I think we need a savvy street fighter as our leader.
Romney lost partially because he was too innocent to imagine that the rats would commit vote fraud on a vast scale.
Here in Michigan its pretty much pointless to vote in presidential elections because Detroit and Flint will determine the outcome. In fact, they refuse to turn in their vote tallies till the rest of the state is counted and they know how many votes they need.
Wholeheartedly agree!
Thanks!
strategerist said: So why should your opinion and vote count more if you live in a rural area than in a city?
You need a better answer than "because that will help Republicans to win" or "I agree with people that live in rural areas."
The fact is, strategerist, we live in a Republic NOT a democracy, regardless of what the one politician in this article claims. In a Republic it is NOT majority rules, the wishes of the minority are taken into consideration also. In fact the Electoral college was invented in order to prevent heavily populated states from running over smaller states with the popular vote.
To break the electoral votes down by counties merely takes the idea of the electoral college to the final step, a process that should have been taken long ago.
This does not give rural votes a higher value(BTW, your question is beyond stupid and shows you are probably a liberal at heart)over those in the city but it keeps a city from running over the rest of the state, CA for instance. Right now the majority(land mass wise) of the country didn't vote for the communist in the white house but he won any way and he won with what might as well have been the popular vote and people from more conservative areas were just sh** out of luck.
Splitting the electoral college votes up by counties is the thing to do to restore balance to our elections and to help prevent voter fraud.
Steve & Cokie are very worried. If this happens the rats can no longer count on California.
I support it.
I want conservatives to win, not necessarily Republicans. And I certainly want democrat/socialists to lose!
The thing is, right now, the winner takes all means the democrats have a lock on states with huge urban masses that only vote lockstep with the plantation owners, er, democrats.
So perhaps proportional allocation is a more balanced system. I live in a rural area, and while Alabama is mostly conservative (thank God!), I’d be completely ignored if we had a Afro/Leftist-megacity (Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago, Portland, San Francisco, Milwaukee, etc) like other states.
Once again, Republicans cower down in the face of liberal media criticism and refuse to play hardball when it’s time to do so.
The left gets to shamelessly race-bait it’s way into trying to stop voter ID, and Republicans barely do anything to combat that.
You wonder if the consultants within the GOP are actually Democrat operatives
Um pal having it go by congressional district is not the same thing as rural votes “counting more”
It’s the same principle as the electoral college applied to the states. That you should have some kind of wider geographic appeal and not just run up the numbers in a certain area. What the hell is the problem with that? Note that congressional districts are based on population so rural districts are not smaller than city districts in the same state.
As to explaining it to a Black guy in Chicago I say good luck explaining it to any member of the politically ignorant and simple masses. “Electrical college”? What’s that?
I’d also say that 9 of 10 Black guys in Chicago wouldn’t vote Republican if you payed them so who cares what they think. They have all their eggs in one basket so the GOP has little reason to seek their input. That’s their bed that they are choosing to lie in. The 1 in 10 that are Republicans would support this.
Frankly this is the best idea the GOP has had in a while. To hell with this disingenuous propaganda article and the 10000 others that have been written (by liberals).
I don’t believe fraud was Obama’s margin of victory but it certainly padded it. It’s time to fight back, this is an innovative, good, and legal way to do it. And there is little they can do to stand in the way to stop it, only weak -willed wussy Republicans can stop it.
If every state did this it would be keeping more with the principles of the EC. Back then they were worried about state versus state, North versus South. Now it’s dem-packed urban strongholds within states against the rest of the state.
Just to break up the RATS getting all of CA and NY it’s worth it.
“As to explaining it to a Black guy in Chicago...”
Thank God the NHL is back!
First the gerrymandering problem needs to be solved.
I’m pushing it in my state and I don’t care what others do.
The Detroit fraud alone makes it hard for rural districts to justify voting at all. We know we’re going to lose so why bother.
Making all the districts within a state electorally equal makes perfect sense.
Why the GOP’s electoral vote gambit won’t work...As The Fix’s Aaron Blake noted, proposing such a dramatic change is best done as far away from the next presidential election as possible, in hopes of avoiding a backlash over seemingly gaming the system for your side’s benefit.
But for the governors in the states where the overhaul is being floated, it’s impossible to look beyond 2014. Endorsing a new system that clearly helps the GOP would risk alienating independents and Democratic crossover votes, something those Republican governors can hardly afford at this point.
Worry about your own state.
Well if you want a Republican elected in 2016 you should “care “ about what the other states do as well.
MI and PA are the 2 states where this needs to happen the most.
Well said.
Next POTUS election is in 2016, next redistricting is in 2022. The districts are gonna be the same for 10 years.
I want the other states to do it but I’m not going to push them to do it. I’m a big states rights supporter.
I also wish there was a way of dumping the 17th amendment without having to risk a constitutional convention.
To clarify I would still support this if it was nationwide (which it’s not) but I’m more than happy in doing it in a few states to help us win and not even considering doing it in Texas or any state we easily win statewide. States get to choose their own methods of dolling out E votes. Dems don’t like it? Tough.
If a really liberal state ever did it (Cali rejected something like this that was on a ballot initiative) that would be GREAT.
I predict that even after this lockout, hockey is gonna get more popular.
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