Arts Goddamn Majority Rule!
I first read about it in this the New Yorker: Another attempt to circumvent the electoral college (which, I shouldn’t have to remind you, cost the Dems a little presidential election a coupla years back). Instead of amending it out of the constitution, this group (from Chicago? I don’t have the issue and can’t find the article online) proposed rendering the college meaningless by making a pact that all states would cast their electoral college votes for the winner of the popular vote. The main benefit, according to the New Yorker piece, would be spreading a bit of the presidential attention and accountability out of the battleground states and into the rest of the country.
The yahoos over at my new favorite site (redstate.com), responded thusly:
The left wing politicos in America know that turning the national elections into populist referendums will benefit their candidates.
Um, isn’t a national election supposed to be a populist referendum? Or is that just me?
No, it's NOT supposed to be a populist referendum. The Electoral College is certainly far from perfect, but the idea of it is to bring some sense of fairness and balance into the elections process.
Sure, weight is still given in the College to the bigger states, but without the college what's to prevent presidential candidates from skipping whole states entirely?
Why should a Democrat visit the fly-over states when votes could simply be racked up in California and New York and Massachussetts, for example?