I disagree with Hightower.

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Friday, June 3, 2011

electoral college

Another way the Elec. coll helps Rs. Money is more fungible than union hands.

Added after Tom's first comment and moved from 5-29-11 to 6-3-11:
This was a brief reminder to write something.
Taking a traditional theme that the Rs get the support of the money people and the Ds get the support of unions which is the form of money and people to turn out the vote etc.

The money that the Rs get can be moved around from one state to another more easily than the people that the Ds have.

It was kind of a throwaway and perhaps that is what I should have done with it.
Posted by Unknown at 6:00 AM
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2 comments:

  1. TomJune 2, 2011 at 7:53 AM

    I have not yet been able to connect the dots - can you s'plain?

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  2. TomJune 3, 2011 at 8:17 AM

    Interesting triangle involving money, unions, and election of the President by the states (the Electoral College). I like it. It is, however, too difficult for me to get my mind around in the abstract. During an actual election cycle the candidates can talk about a specific state, their economy, the mix of conservative vs. liberal voters, right to work status, number of electoral votes, etc and decide where they should spend more money and time.

    As has been previously suggested on this blog; switching to a popular vote for the election of a President would completely change how the candidates and their parties would allocate their resources and change their priorities if the US were one big voter pool instead of 50 smaller pools of varied sizes and importance. Again, in the abstract, I cannot get my mind around exactly how things would reshape. I am not sure the major political parties can either and that is why polls are used so extensively in our current system.

    Would the money Party lose an advantage if we moved away from the College? I’m unsure, and since the Ds spent more than the Rs in 2008 and O is expected to raise more than 1B for 2012 perhaps the Ds are the new money party as far as campaign funding is concerned.

    As for the union influence on elections my first thought is that their influence would be diluted in a national voter pool. For example a heavy union influence helps wins NY (and a ton of electoral votes) in the present system, but in a national popular vote would that influence be reduced to the point that it would not being enough to make a difference?

    A deliciously complicated triangle indeed.

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