Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Back Into The Water...
Thinking there's no way the Dems can lose the White House in '08? Well, then wrap your head around this --
Two weeks ago, one of the most important Republican lawyers in Sacramento quietly filed a ballot initiative that would end the practice of granting all fifty-five of California’s electoral votes to the statewide winner. Instead, it would award two of them to the statewide winner and the rest, one by one, to the winner in each congressional district. Nineteen of the fifty-three districts are represented by Republicans, but Bush carried twenty-two districts in 2004. The bottom line is that the initiative, if passed, would spot the Republican ticket something in the neighborhood of twenty electoral votes-votes that it wouldn’t get under the rules prevailing in every other sizable state in the Union.Now, California is not the only state to do this -- it's just the biggest one. And I have no idea if something like this is even constitutional. But do I even want this to go to the Supreme Court? No way.
There's only one way to win and that is to win big. Really big. Big enough that this kind of stuff won't matter.
Interestingly enough, while not prohibited, I think that when you read the text of Art 1, Sec. 1, Para. 3, the Calif proposal is more in keeping with the original scheme as envisioned by the founders than the current winner-take-all system.
Only in the event of a tie or plurality does the one State, one Vote method take over in the House -- which is more like the winner take all system we have now.
Maine has been doing this since 1969 and Nebraska since 1988. It's constitutional. It also prevents, if enacted universally, a coalition of a bare minority of States, 26, who nonetheless represent only about 16% of the population from controlling the government -- which is what we have now. Link for the math
If California does this, the rush is on in every state house to do the same thing. One of the Carolinas is considering it right now, which favors Dems more than GOPer's just like CA doing it favors the GOP. Watch Texas follow suit, which will offset the CA move. Watch Ohio get around to it by 2320, or never.
OK, so here's my question: if we go to proportional allocation of electors, then what's the point of the Electoral College at all?
All you need is one more Republican taking the White House while losing the popular vote and say goodbye to the Electoral College (perhaps even our form of government as we have known it) forever.
And no reason to think, “there's no way the Dems can lose the White House in '08.” Rudy Guliani polls ahead of both of our leading prospective candidates in some theoretical match ups – unf*cking believable as that may be. We've met the enemy and they are insane.