Tuesday, September 21, 2004
Electoral College Nonsense
On election day, Colorado will vote on a resolution that would proportionally distribute their 9 (I think it's 9) electoral votes.
That's potentially big news. IF this had been the case last time, we'd have a different president right now.
I hate the Electoral College. It makes no sense. And I'm not just saying that for any partisan motivation I might have -- because we don't know who would have won the last election under a direct election. You can't compete under one set of rules and then say that's not fair, I would have won under another.
The Electoral College disenfranchises large portions of the country -- that's my beef. Democrats in Kansas and Republicans in Mass. might as well stay the fuck home on election day because there's no way their guy's going to win. Out of 50 states, only 12 are "in play". So what does that make the other 38?
So an amazingly paradoxical thing happens -- the concerns of bullshit states like Ohio and Michigan take the forefront while more populous states like CA and NY are ignored completely.
Would gay marriage have been an issue if Bush was worried about all the votes he would lose in MA and NY and other solidly Democratic states -- hellllll no. BUT he knows he's not going to change 2 million minds in the blue states so he focuses his energy on changing 2,000 minds in OH or even 200 in FL -- who all thought they were voting for Eugene V. Debs, by the way.
And the same could be said for Kerry. How many days do you think Kerry has spent in Texas this campaign?? Probably only as long as it took to change planes. It's a goddamn joke that the potential next president of the United States sees no good reason to court and campaign to citizens of its second largest state.
The Electoral College sucks and is dumb and it's a historical anachronism and it needs to go ... but it probably never will.
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That's potentially big news. IF this had been the case last time, we'd have a different president right now.
I hate the Electoral College. It makes no sense. And I'm not just saying that for any partisan motivation I might have -- because we don't know who would have won the last election under a direct election. You can't compete under one set of rules and then say that's not fair, I would have won under another.
The Electoral College disenfranchises large portions of the country -- that's my beef. Democrats in Kansas and Republicans in Mass. might as well stay the fuck home on election day because there's no way their guy's going to win. Out of 50 states, only 12 are "in play". So what does that make the other 38?
So an amazingly paradoxical thing happens -- the concerns of bullshit states like Ohio and Michigan take the forefront while more populous states like CA and NY are ignored completely.
Would gay marriage have been an issue if Bush was worried about all the votes he would lose in MA and NY and other solidly Democratic states -- hellllll no. BUT he knows he's not going to change 2 million minds in the blue states so he focuses his energy on changing 2,000 minds in OH or even 200 in FL -- who all thought they were voting for Eugene V. Debs, by the way.
And the same could be said for Kerry. How many days do you think Kerry has spent in Texas this campaign?? Probably only as long as it took to change planes. It's a goddamn joke that the potential next president of the United States sees no good reason to court and campaign to citizens of its second largest state.
The Electoral College sucks and is dumb and it's a historical anachronism and it needs to go ... but it probably never will.
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