So many lovely memories.
The stories about how the "Republican" Supreme Court stopped the vote count and foiled the will of the people.
Not so many stories about how the overwhelmingly "Democratic" State Supreme Court had come up against the fact that the State law provided certain time lines for "contesting" or "challenging" the election. Gore had chosen badly and wanted a redo but there wasn't time. Solution: The court just shredded the statute and rewrote the rules on the spot AFTER the election was over.
NBC's best, Tim Russert, provided top quality political analysis: "If one side wins the electoral vote and the other wins the popular vote, then it goes to the House of Representatives."
Early in the evening of election night it looked like Gore was going to win the electoral vote and lose the popular vote. A Bush supporter asked "What do you call someone who wins the electoral vote and loses the popular vote?" He sadly answered his own question: "Mr. President".
When the result went the other way the Democrats did not take it so well.
Of course, all of those "intended" votes. Gore's people argued that it was not what the voter did that counted, but rather what they had intended to do. This led me, in the spring, to play a round of "democratic golf". I would hit the ball and go down to where the ball was. But then, instead of hitting it from there, I would pick it up and take it over to where I had "intended" for it to go. I then hit it from there. My score improved dramatically.
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Marjorie Taylor Greene
6 hours ago
btw . . .
ReplyDeleteThe National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections.
The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes–enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
The bill uses the power given to each state by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for president.
Support for a national popular vote is strong in virtually every state, partisan, and demographic group surveyed in recent polls
The National Popular Vote bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers, in 21 small, medium-small, medium, and large states, including one house in AR (6), CT (7), DE (3), DC (3), ME (4), MI (17), NV (5), NM (5), NY (31), NC (15), and OR (7), and both houses in CA (55), CO (9), HI (4), IL (21), NJ (15), MD (10), MA(12), RI (4), VT (3), and WA (11). The bill has been enacted by DC, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Washington. These seven states possess 76 electoral votes — 28% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
NationalPopularVote.com
Toto has presented this argument here before. But he quit the debate when NPV 4b came up last summer. Now it appears again in the next post.
ReplyDeleteDemocratic golf. Love it.
ReplyDeleteSort of reminded me an Onion spoof of a panel of educators who were advocating similar kinds of "democratic" testing of students. Said one of the faux experts: Shouldn't we test what students know rather that what we want them to know?
(FWIW, I'm still a registered Democrat at this point. But I take Wayne's "Is it time for a new party?" post from 11/29 very seriously. I'm thinking very seriously about changing my party affiliation -- for the reason that right now I feel like I'm abetting what I see as the current dysfunction of the two-party system. I'm thinking of registering as a Yellow Armadillo... Is that possible?)
I am thinking that the general voting population lacks knowledge of the electoral college and the consequences of a "National Popular Vote". They may not see how it protects the states with smaller populations from the urban jungles out east and west. So, I am suspect the statement:
ReplyDelete"Support for a national popular vote is strong in virtually every state, partisan, and demographic group surveyed in recent polls."
Side note: I guess I became suspect of polls in general when they became hard news by the news organizations.
I am not saying that the electoral college is perfect, but it amazes me at how well it does work in giving states like New Mexico an actual impact on the election whereas with a National Popular Vote candidates would spend all of their time in California and New York.
Just saying...
Why California and NY? The State borders would be irrelevant with popular vote elections.
ReplyDeleteThey would go to the cities!!!
Perhaps that that is what these folks are really after.