Posts
Stop over to http://www.electoral-vote.com/ for an early peak at the Electoral College. Obama 317 and McCain 194 and 27 tied. The remarkable thing, however, are the number of states that have been bright red GOP states, but are barely pink: Georgia (Links to polls at Real Clear Politics: GA), North Carolina (NC), Indiana (IN), Virginia (13 EV), and even Mississippi (Huh?! MS). Miss-ahh-freakin'-sippahh!
Projected Dem pickups (vs. 2004): CO IA MO NM OH VA
Play around with the projections at NPR:
NPR Interactive Map
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Sigh. It's going to be a very long time until November...I refuse to speak or respond to any pollers anymore. It's rather maddening how poll results seem to drive everything these days. The reporting of opinion, I think, actually forms opinion.
ReplyDeleteThe corruption in federal elections, huge amounts of monies being used to buy support from interests, deny any widespread belief in a republic in the United States. Electoral procedures are not responsible to the people, but to political and corporate elites who manipulate elections and voting regulations.
ReplyDeleteMcCain and Obama are figurheads who are given celebrity status by a Public Relations and Advertising Campaign organizations.
I'll read widely in the US and Foreign Press and hope to be somewhat informed...hold my nose, and vote Nader or None of the above.
All three are interesting cooments, but...
ReplyDeleteIssue polls can lead candidates to trim their positions, but I don't have a problem with candidate polls. And the candidates are going to do their polling, so we may as well know the results.
And to be honest, I enjoy the horse-race aspect of it.
McCain and Obama are both members of the elite, but it ignores reality to think it makes no difference who wins. I look at voting for Prez as a pragmatic act: we gotta have one and here are the 2 choices. Wisconsin has gone Dem by razor-thin margins.
I think I have blogged about national popular vote before. It's an interesting idea, but you have to wonder. Did people not care that Bush won the Electoral College (for sake of argument), but had fewer votes than Gore?
I don't knw enough about the electoral college one way or the other to have an opinion, but one thing I've heard goes something like this:
ReplyDeleteThe electoral college serves to keep candidates interested in low population areas - Wyoming, for instance. If we go strictly with popular vote, then rural areas will not be important. Candidates will only concentrate on highly populated areas, i.e., large urban areas where most of the US population is concentrated. So, I dunno, will we trade one thing for another? Right now the concentration is on so-called battle ground states, but will a popular vote winner simply concentrate the attention in another way?
As for McBama? I don't agree they are the same at all. One only need look at what could happen to the supreme court and a woman's right to control her body to see that it DOES make a difference who is elected.
Comment: "The electoral college serves to keep candidates interested in low population areas - Wyoming, for instance. If we go strictly with popular vote, then rural areas will not be important."
ReplyDeleteYes, but...I think you have stated the pro-EC argument pretty well. The EC, however, OVER represents low population areas because evry state gets two EC votes for its senators PLUS whatever it deserves based on population.
You could preserve part of the attention to rural areas by keeping winner-take-all, but basing the EC votes solely on population. Thus, Wyoming would get ONE EC vote and not three.
Right now, the system has the truly perverse effect of discouraging national campaigns from going to Texas, Illinois, California, and New York because they are non-competitive. I think one reason so many 'red' states stay so red is that they never actually see national Democrats in their state. A benefit of the long Clinton-Obama campaign is that Democrats actually went to texas and spent time and money campaigning.
On a selfish note, Wisconsin has gotten a lot more attention than it 'deserves' because it is in play - either party can win it. Change to a popular vote system and we are just a few million votes.
As I recall, the electoral college and why it was created.
ReplyDeleteIt had nothing to do with putting a check on the popular vote and the whims of the public.
Let's say the country wanted to elect a president who wanted to change our form of government to something less-than deserible and the public bought it hook, line and sinker.
The electoral college could say no thanks.
Frankly, I think voting by popular vote would be terrible. I would rather see the current system or move to a more parliamentary system, as there are many issues that cut across geographic lines.
This was the original plan around the senate.
Anything that requires a constitutional change is not going to happen - the small states won't go for it.
ReplyDeleteWhy would election by popular vote be terrible? We do every other elected office that way.
...the public is fickle and can be manipulated beyond belief.
ReplyDeleteTake for example any dictator or King who has risen to power for the last 100 years? They remain in power because the masses are (well, you know). My god, man, these people had just watched the french revolution and saw how easy it got out of hand.
This was a concern of the founding fathers.
Frankly, I would argue that our democracy has already turned into something that they would not like or would reject..and thought the indirect appointing of senators and the electoral college would check....the two party system.
Currently, each side manipulates and stirs the passions of an (generally) uneducated voting body over issues and matters that do matter in the long-run.
Do you not believe that is what OBama and McCain will try and do in different fashions or heck have already done during the primary?
(Please, do not go down the road of Obama is different....I may have to run and hide.)
Issues of substances have not been debated or aired since Bryan and McKinley...maybe Hoover and FDR...at the national level.
The battle is done until the two party system is stopped...and it almost has happened on a number of occasions and it will eventually happen.
OK-Let us go to the source...Federalist paper no. 68 states:
ReplyDelete"The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States. It will not be too strong to say, that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue. And this will be thought no inconsiderable recommendation of the Constitution, by those who are able to estimate the share which the executive in every government must necessarily have in its good or ill administration. Though we cannot acquiesce in the political heresy of the poet who says: ``For forms of government let fools contest That which is best administered is best,'' yet we may safely pronounce, that the true test of a good government is its aptitude and tendency to produce a good administration."
Now, I am not so sure that the electoral college does the above, but a winner via popular vote is...well I need some convincing and right now Federalist Paper no. 68 is pretty reasonable.
Here's another excerpt from Federalist No. 68 that really lays bare the elitist assumptions, let a few men pick the leader and avoid tumult and disorder:
ReplyDelete"The Electoral College was created for two reasons. The first purpose was to create a buffer between population and the selection of a President. The second as part of the structure of the government that gave extra power to the smaller states.
The first reason that the founders created the Electoral College is hard to understand today. The founding fathers were afraid of direct election to the Presidency. They feared a tyrant could manipulate public opinion and come to power. Hamilton wrote in the Federalist Papers:
"It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations. It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder. This evil was not least to be dreaded in the election of a magistrate, who was to have so important an agency in the administration of the government as the President of the United States. But the precautions which have been so happily concerted in the system under consideration, promise an effectual security against this mischief."
Comment: "...the public is fickle and can be manipulated beyond belief.
ReplyDeleteTake for example any dictator or King who has risen to power for the last 100 years? They remain in power because the masses are (well, you know)....The battle is done until the two party system is stopped...and it almost has happened on a number of occasions and it will eventually happen."
MD: First, let me say, the tone of the dialogue is getting awfully elevated with double-digit comments on the Electoral college. (Ok, this is a good thing).
Are you advocating that we adopt a party system? You seem to think the 'people' are a bunch of idiots not worthy of self-government, but also want more parties and more sophisticated debate.
How about we divide Monona up into 5 or 6 irregular districts, elect two people from each district and let them choose the next mayor?
"They feared a tyrant could manipulate public opinion and come to power"
ReplyDeleteDo you not agree that the two-party system is broken? (and it will be destroyed in the next 100 years) DO you not agree that the current candidates on both side manipulate the public with issues that blur real issues and are figureheads for industrial-military complex.
Do you want examples?
I think so...Again, we have not seen a real election with real issues since WJB vs. McKinley and we all know who loss.
SO, the college was suppose to check that and it did work...it was a model that was used by the Romans...I do not understand why, but does not seem to work. BUT, I do know that a direct election will not solve the problem either....a move to the UK style would be better.
"How about we divide Monona up into 5 or 6 irregular districts, elect two people from each district and let them choose the next mayor?"
Well, I think districts for Monona would be a good idea. It would get around this silly "vote only for me" strategy that is used by nearly all the candidate for local office.
I mean people are doing themselves no favors by following this avenue.
As far as them appointing or voting for the Mayor...it is an interesting idea.
At my heart, I want to be in the Jeffersonian crowd....but the Hamilton crowd seems to be correct...imho.
What, you find this more interesting than chickens? Well, me two...but this chicken thing is still pecking at the back of my mind.
Hey, it was these same folks that gave us slavery as a commodity, and counted them as 3/5ths human for voting purposes. You vote your property and forget those who have no property.
ReplyDeleteNo-non-white-males-without-property need apply!
Now the franchise is used to legitimate the wealthy and power classes, the same ones who manipulated the votes to do the same thing the early franchise.
You gotta get up early to beat those who make money off politics, or anything else for that matter. The rest of us had George Carlin for a while...may he afflict the comfortable wherever he may be.
"Hey, it was these same folks that gave us slavery as a commodity"
ReplyDeleteOh bother-debating slavery? These people had it more correct than incorrect...in terms of the model.
Heck, it is people in our generation who did not permit blacks to vote, homeless and the less goes on-do you want me to go on? THe list is long.
Mr. G. the question is the model, you wanted a higher level of debate. Let's Go. Do not switch the issues.
So, was the model correct or incorrect? I sense you think a popular vote would be "better." Again, I think not. It would be worse.
On a another note, the mayor is different. I can see him, hear him, sense what is doing and who is.
On a national scale, I get some manipulated-message points the campign puts out....see recent article about McCain's time in prison and how he is high energy and how there is a softer side to Michelle Obama and Obama's managment style....I mean how should I know..like they are telling me something that they do not want to be known....we all consume these articles and then think we know something and it could not be further from the truth.
Further, if I do not like the mayor and his style...it is fairly easy to run for office myself.
So, a relative small area a direct vote is not a bad idea and seems to work.