[Vision2020] Presidential Elections
Don Kaag
dkaag@turbonet.com
Wed, 16 Jul 2003 18:47:50 -0700
Tom:
Here's another idea vis a vis the "Electrical College". It does serve
a purpose, and that is to involve the several States in the
presidential electoral process and to give states with small
populations, like Idaho, some say in the outcome.
The problem is that 48 of the 50 states are "winner take all", i.e., if
California votes 51% for a candidate, all of the state's electoral
votes go to the winner, effectively disenfranchizing 49% of the state's
electorate. The other two states apportion electoral votes (each state
has the same number of electoral votes as they have representation in
the Congress... two senators and however many representatives each...)
based on the vote in the respective voting districts, so it is possible
to, for example, have Idaho have two electoral votes for one candidate
and two for another, or one and three.
That seems to me to be a laudable change that more accurately reflects
the real popular vote, but still keeps the Electoral College in the
equation, as the Founders intended. Completely doing away with the
College would almost completely marginalize the votes in a state our
size.
Regards,
Don Kaag
On Wednesday, July 16, 2003, at 03:14 PM, Bob Hoffmann wrote:
> Yo, Don! Mega Dittos!
>
> At 01:18 PM 7/16/2003 -0700, you wrote:
>> Tom:
>>
>> Here are some of the other thoughts you solicited.
>>
>> I agree with Doug on choice in U.S. presidential elections. From my
>> perspective, the "choices" offered to me by the two party system in
>> the U.S. have been no choice at all.
>>
>> I am 59 years old, and was born while FDR was still president. I
>> began voting at the age of 21, and I have never missed exercising my
>> franchise. I have never voted FOR anyone for president that I
>> thought reflected my view of what America ought to be, and have
>> rather felt compelled to vote AGAINST what I saw as the worst of two
>> evils.
>>
>> John Nance Garner, FDR's second vice-president, once said, "There's
>> not a nickel's worth of difference between the Republicans and the
>> Democrats", and in many respects he was right.
>>
>> It has almost come to the point where if a politician indicates
>> interest in being president, he should not be allowed to run. The
>> political whoring and compromising to raise the money to run, and to
>> obtain his party's nomination, and then to win the election brings
>> someone into the Oval Office that has already given up any pretense
>> of doing what is for the short-term or long-term good of the country
>> for the more practical goals of paying off his political debts and
>> getting reelected to a second term.
>>
>> Now that Republicans also spend money like drunken sailors, there is
>> precious little difference that I can see between them and the party
>> that pretends to be concerned about poor people, but whose party
>> apparat is full of rich ones that look on the nation's poor as a
>> "safe" voting bloc, and an underclass best amused with bread and
>> circuses.
>> It's pretty much a wash. There is something critically wrong with a
>> system which fails to attract the best and brightest of us to public
>> service---and there are bright, dedicated, hard-headed, qualified,
>> citizens out there---and instead presents us with either minor league
>> lawyers or the the scions of political dynasties like Al Gore and
>> George W. Bush as our choices for the highest office in the land.
>> Our founders fought a revolution to get shet of a hereditary
>> aristocracy, and they must be turning over in their graves.
>>
>> If I didn't have abiding faith in the ordinary, decent, people of
>> this country, and if I didn't truly believe in what this country
>> should stand for, rather than what it is, I would be in despair.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Don Kaag
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wednesday, July 16, 2003, at 10:28 AM, thansen@moscow.com wrote:
>>
>>> Douglas Wilson stated:
>>>
>>> "The last presidential election where Americans had a real choice to
>>> go in one
>>> of two opposite directions occurred a long time before I was born."
>>>
>>> Please elaborate. Every federal presidential election in which I
>>> have
>>> participated since I was of voting age (and that has been several
>>> days ago) has
>>> clearly consisted of at least two choices (and in some cases three
>>> or more).
>>>
>>> In my opinion for presidential election results to truly reflect the
>>> peoples'
>>> choice is to eliminate the electoral college and base the outcome
>>> stricly on
>>> popular vote. In the event that a candidate does not attract the
>>> majority vote
>>> (defined as 50% plus one), there should be a runoff between the top
>>> two
>>> candidates. It is clearly that simple.
>>>
>>> Any other thoughts?
>>>
>>> Tom Hansen
>>> Moscow,
>>> Idaho
>>>
>>> ---------------------------------------------
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>>
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> Bob Hoffmann
> 820 S. Logan St.
> Moscow, ID 83843
>
> Tel: 208 883-0642