MEDIA PUNDITS, STOP TALKING ABOUT THE SAME THING:
DO SOMETHING USEFUL AND PLOT TO CASTRATE THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE
Okay, media honchos, so the
presidential race is over, mercifully decided quickly with Obama the
winner by a substantial margin. Out of 125 million voters, he beat
McCain by eight and a half million, a percentage of 53 to 46 of the
electorate who took part. In the Electoral College the margin is 365 to
162, with Missouri and its eleven votes still undecided.
After a cursory analysis of all the states it's clear that if some
of the razor thin victories (Florida, Indiana and North Carolina) and
even the relatively close victories (Virginia and Ohio) were reversed,
Obama still would have won -- but here's where I'm headed -- he would
have won, but just barely. Even with a very large popular victory,
though arguably not quite a landslide.
It's conceivable that had Obama beaten McCain by three or four
million -- still quite a chunk but half as much as he accomplished --
McCain might have won the presidency by adding votes here or there, and
such a possibility should not be acceptable.
Amazingly, with all the frenetic emotion of the 2000 election
nothing was done -- certainly not accomplished -- no effective media
outcry -- to abolish our outmoded and increasingly stupid Electoral
College. Whatever purpose our founding fathers had in mind has long
since gone asunder, just as counting blacks as 3/5 of the population
and having our U.S. senators appointed by state legislators.
We have checks and balances in our government -- that's why we have
the Senate and the House of Representatives -- but in a federalist
government such as ours it makes no sense nor is it particularly
honorable to cede the will of the popular vote to the Electoral College.
Al Gore rightly won the 2000 election, as did Grover Cleveland in
1888 and Samuel Tilden in 1876. They each won more votes than their
opponents, yet Gore and Tilden never got the White House key and Grover
Cleveland temporarily had to turn his over to Benjamin Harrison. In the
only turnaround case yet in American history, Cleveland got it back
four years later when he bested Harrison again and also in the
Electoral College.
Even with a tiny victory, such as that won by Al Gore, the fact
remains he beat George W. Bush by half a million votes. Not a huge
percentage, but that's a lot of people who were in effect told their
votes didn't count.
Media strategists have explained that a constitutional amendment
wouldn't work, because fairness is not what politics is all about. That
having been granted the right to such disproportionate power in the
selection of our president, small states will not quickly hand it over.
Since it takes three quarters of the states to ratify an amendment, it
would take a heavy dose of ethical soul searching to get the state
politicians to do what is morally right.
Which leads me to another solution bandied about, wherein the larger
states would agree to assign their electoral votes to the winner of the
national popular vote. States have the right to distribute their
electoral votes in the manner they see fit, as Nebraska and Maine have
demonstrated this year giving some of their votes to the winner in each
congressional district.
Maryland (10 votes), New Jersey (15), Illinois (21) and Hawaii (4)
have already enacted the National Popular Vote Bill that would give
their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote if states with
a combined majority of the electoral votes do likewise.
Consider the
following:
Florida (27 votes) is a swing state, and so is Ohio (20). North
Carolina (15), Virginia (13) and Indiana (11) have demonstrated things
are clearly changing. Texas' vote (34) was much closer than in past
years, as was Georgia's, whose fifteen electoral votes have made it a
formidable force. Missouri (11) is still a nail biter. If these states,
along with those cited in the paragraph above, joined California (55),
New York (31), Pennsylvania (21), Michigan (17), Massachusetts (12),
Washington State (11), Minnesota (10), Wisconsin (10), and Colorado (9)
it adds up to 372 votes, more than enough to elect the president of the
United States.
Republican leaning states would have as much to gain as Democratic
states, because in a close election the tide could turn either way. And
even if some states were stubborn and, for example, Texas refused to
participate, it's likely that a consortium of smaller eastern states
such as Connecticut (7), Rhode Island (4), Delaware (3), Vermont (3),
New Hampshire (4), Maine (4), and D.C. (3) would join in, plus possibly
Oregon (7), too and their collective 35 votes would more than cancel a
possibly non-compliant Texas' results.
Let's do it, media pundits. And what better time than with electoral
rage not being at the forefront? Let's plan for the future calmly,
recognizing that whatever purpose the Electoral College served its time
has passed.
The American people have every right to choose their president. Our
system no longer makes sense -- if it ever did -- and should allow our
future presidents to be elected based on the simple fact that more
voters preferred them than their opponents.
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