EagleTribune.com : Blogs : The Soapbox

You are so right Mr. Armerding and it goes on and on. Have you seen that ex Governor Dukakis and Speaker DiMasi both feel the Electoral College is passe’ and they think an end around the constitution is the way to go. Typical democrat thinking, something bothering them or more particularly their party so they want to change it. Not a thought to unintended consequences. Well i’ll tell you if a Massachusetts statute is ever enacted that says it doesn’t matter how Massachusetts voters vote, our delegates are to vote the way the national vote goes, I will personally files a criminal complaint against our legislature (and Mr Dukakis) for depriving me of my right to vote . Fast forward to the 2010 or 2020 census when Massachusetts loss of representives makes it officially a “small state” Who do you think is going to think it should be brought back too where it was so that it (Massachusetts) will at least have some in who is elected President. Thank God our founding fathers decided we would have a Senate (where each state (large or small ) would have equal representation

Jim, stop whining

I’m with I’mNotAnOstrich: Jim, you are certainly entitled to your opinion, but it seems like all you do is whine and crowd out every other voice. Suggesting that your right to vote is being threatened is absurd.

Taylor: Thank you for pointing out that both sides grandstand and not just the Democrats.

My personal view: I consider myself an independent. I always vote for the person I believe is most likely to operate as a centrist. I think governing by extremes is disastrous, whether it’s from the left or right. The best presidents have been the pragmatists who govern from the center. I have voted for Democrats and Republicans over the last 20 years, and as of now I’m undecided on McCain and Obama. Both have the capacity to govern from the center, especially McCain, but after the Bush years, we may need a clean break from Republican White House control.

At the state level, I’m all for getting more Republicans elected to the legislature, because both branches are larded up with a Democratic majority that cares more about pork barrel politics than the common good. More Republicans would mean a more balanced legislature to carry out the people’s will.

One more thing: Taylor, you guys need to pay more attention to this blog. If you’re only going to write once a month, the blog won’t be worth reading. Your “Hillary: Count Every Vote I Need” entry was the top entry for weeks after she ceded the race to Obama.

Mr. Brenner : It is too bad you don’t understand what the proposed statute means. If it were to be enacted, it doesn’t matter how the citizens of the Commonwealth voted, the national vote winner would get the Mass delegates votes thus they have taken away the right to vote of all Mass. voters.
Not knowing the intent of I’mNotAnOstrich, I’m going to assume that it was said tongue in cheek given the nature of Mr Amerdings post.
In regards to your thought that I crowd out every other voice, I wonder if it’s because i speak with facts and logic rather than emotion.

First , when the framers of the constitution settled on the Electoral College as the means of selecting a president, one of their primary concerns was to protect the interests of smaller states against potential domination by larger, more densely-populated states.

Second, we are a republic, not a democracy. The system created by our founding fathers has been termed by many as a “mixed government,” combining elements of popular, aristocratic, and monarchical governments in a constitutional framework. The Electoral College, which is composed of officials chosen by the states in a number equivalent to their respective congressional delegations, was intended to be a limited-term legislative body that would select the president. This system would preserve elements of representation found in both the House (who are supposed to represent the people) and the Senate (who are supposed to represent the individual states), while also preserving the powers of the separate states.

Third, history has shown that elections based on the direct will of the people does not work and promotes corruption, despotism, and totalitarianism. The Nationalist Socialist Party in Germany in 1933 is the most recent example I can think of, of an almost purely democratic election where the “will of the people” selected the chief executive. Like today’s proponents of a directly-elected U.S. president, Hitler believed that the leader of the country should be chosen directly by the people. Hitler came to power in Germany after a near-perfect democratic election. After coming to power, Hitler quickly abolished individual states rights and quickly consolidated power, turning Germany into a totalitarian state. And we all know what happened after that.

I’m not saying that what happened in Germany would happen here. But I do think if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it. The politicians pushing to dump the electoral college care about no one other than their own ambition. The system is not broken simply because your candidate doesn’t win. Don’t give them any more opportunities than they already have to stomp on the will of the people. I actually enjoy what little freedoms we still have, and don’t want any more government interference rammed down my throat.

OK, rant over….

It would seem that politicians pushing to KEEP the electoral college care about no one other than their own ambition as well. All other arguments aside, let’s not pretend that there is anything noble coming from politicians on either side of the issue.

Why don’t we use the electoral college to vote for the legislative branch? Why hasn’t our method of directly electing those officials resulted in the fire and brimstone Hitler doomsday scenarios that we’re so scared of?

The current electoral college system places too much emphasis on swing states. Voters are routinely ignored in “safe states” — everyone knew which way Texas would vote in the last two presidential elections, so why bother campaigning there? And while large states have been kept from dominating, the lowly populated states end up having MORE power per capita.

I can’t agree that it “ain’t broken” and does not need to be fixed.

I wholeheartedly agree with you, Jason, about political insensitivity, greed, and corruption existing on both sides. But, I don’t think that gutting a system that has been proven to work in favor of satisfying the whims of a few “whiners” (in keeping with the whining theme) is the answer. No election in this century has been decided in the House of Representatives, further evidence that they system, while not perfect, does work.

One set of proposals looks toward keeping the electoral college but eliminating its winner-take-all features. This shift could be brought about by choosing most electors on a congressional district basis, with only two electors per state chosen statewide. Not being a political analyst, I have no idea how well this would work either, but its an interesting idea.

I’m not sure if I can answer your question about the legislative branch not being elected by an entity similar to the EC. I would imagine that one of the reasons would be how to choose the members of the EC on the local level? For example, what would make you more qualified than me, or vice versa, to sit on a local EC? We elect our congressmen and senators by popular vote with the trust that they are going to represent us in Washington. Then, the system of checks and balances is place is supposed to keep the House and Senate from running amok in the “doomsday” scenario.

I’m not adverse to new ideas and change. I’m all for change that makes our lives easier. But I don’t agree with knee jerk reactions that would affect the lives of millions of people simply because some megalomaniac whiner (keeping with the theme again…) failed to reach their political aspirations………

Jason said: “let’s not pretend that there is anything noble coming from politicians on either side of the issue.”

Jason, if you read my first closely, I never singled out a particular party as you insinuated….did I touch a nerve?

In the 1950′s and 60′s any good school system had courses in US history. They also taught courses in government with names like “problems in democracy”. These courses taught that many of our founding fathers did not trust the “People” to make good decisions, hence they created us as a republic and not a democracy as Bilgerat has said. The government courses taught that our constitution provides for three equal branches of government with appropriate checks and balances one on another so that no one of the three branches could become too powerful.
We have a legislative branch made up of a “House of Representatives who are elected from districts of approximately equal size, hence we have redisticting every 10 years after the census.
We have a Senate made up of Two Senators from each state. This house of Congress was created at the insistence of the smaller states who feared. they could become dominated by the larger population states if it had any resemblance to the House of Representatives.
Next we have a Judicial branch which we call the Supreme Court, whose members are appointed by the President with the Consent of the Senate.
Finally we have a President, who is elected by the Electoral College. The Electoral College is made up of 535 members, one each for each member of the House and of the Senate.
Again this method was created because of the fear of poor decisions of the people felt by the framers of our Constitution and the fear of large population states dominating our government at the exprnse of the smaller states.
The politicians Jason speaks of could care less about our nation they care only about themselves and their party whch have no mention in our government.

Hi Bilge Rat,
Sorry about the mixup, it wasn’t my intention to put those words in your mouth — I just like to make sure nobody confuses either side of having noble aspirations in this debate. Or on opposing sides of almost any political debate.

It seems to me that choosing members of an EC at a local level would be just as random as it is at the state level now.

Jim Carlson,
I agree that most politicians largely care about themselves and their party. Unfortunately the current Electoral College system means that they will continue to be the only game in town. The winner-take-all approach puts third-party candidates at a huge disadvantage.
Your history lesson is a bit of a simplification. I don’t think any discussion of the framers and the voting system is complete without mentioning the three-fifths rule and the Northern vs Southern topic, on not just big states vs small states.

Surely the good school systems in the 50s and 60s covered that.

I have a idea lets give each state the same number of Electorial votes 3 this way the canidates have to go to each and every state not just california, Flordia, New York , and texas. We level the playing the feild for all states. All we need to to do is tweek it to make it much more of a national election not just a certain state election.

Now the subject at hand Where another loud mouth Texas politican Phil Gramm say we are a nation of Whiners, well lets take away all of his power and money and have him survive in SSI and see if he can get a real job and you will see he will see there is a recession. It always seem that republician’s don’t see the big picture in real life they only see it on paper, and if the news on paper is good then they can hide their heads in the sand. We need to stop bailing out Big Corporations, Airlines, and Banks. We need to start taking care of the people of the USA not the people around the world. It always seems that the USA takes care of other countries instead of the people here at home. John McCain said that all of the manufacturing jobs are gone and won’t come back. He is a typical defeatist president and does not want to do anything about it. Obama wants to get rid of NAFTA and GATT because it will force other countries and COrporations to pay tariffs once again and with high tarrifs the companies will not be able to afford to keep their business over in China and Mexico. Yes the price of products will go up but the companies will bring manufacturing jobs back. It seems like Texas politicians have ruined this nation in the past and its time for us to get away from the Texas morons.

Well, back to Phil Gramm’s comment about us being a nation of “whiners”.
I never, ever, in a million years thought I would agree with anything that came out of the mouth of the man my late father once called “the biggest crook in American politics”.
But Phil Gramm is right, in some ways.
If I had any doubts about that, they all evaporated the other day while I was on a bike ride along the New Hampshire coast and spied a humungous SUV sporting the bumper sticker “America Deserves Cheap Gas- Drill In ANWAR Now!”
Whiners, and entitled whiners at that! It’s little wonder much of the rest of the world looks at us and scratches its head in bemused alarm.
Kate Smith, if she were alive today, would probably revise the title of her clasic hit, “God Bless America” to “God Help America”.
Less than three months til I’m back in the rainforest, and I can’t wait.
At least there it’s easy to tell who the real snakes are.

Welcome back, Michael!

It seems everyone is pretty much on the same page here….”Election ’08-Screwed ’09″

sigh….

waahhhhhh!!!!

I would,considering that we were talking about the Electoral College and the Constitution. I don’t know what the Electoral College has to do with the parties or politicians.The Electoral College is 535 delegates from all 50 states with each state having the same number of delegates as it has representatives and senators. Political parties aren’t even mentioned in the Constitution. They were self invented.

That’s the whole point! The current electoral college system with the winner-takes-all approach has CREATED our two-party system, and means that it is extraordinarily unlikely that a third party will ever win.

For the amount of complaining about the two parties, I would have expected some amount of support for re-examining how the presidential elections are conducted. Where is Duverger when we need him?

Taylor/Ken: Write something new, wouldya?

I second that, Bill!

Recent hurricanes and gasoline issues are proof of the existence of a new chemical element. A major research institution has recently announced the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science. The new element has been named Governmentium (Gv) – it has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert; however, it can be detected, because it impedes every action with which it comes into contact. A minute amount of Governmentium can cause an action that would normally take less than a second to take over four days to complete.

Governmentium has a normal half-life of 4 year’s. It does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, Governmentium’s mass will actually increase over time, since each re-organization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming “isodopes”.

This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical morass. When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium – an element that radiates just as much energy as Governmentium since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons

Tom, that is superb, but i don’t think the morons and peons will get it . Congratulations if you wrote it or pass my congratulations on to the author if you didn’t.

That was fantastic, Tom!

To JC & BR:

Thank you for your kind comments. However, JC was correct in his comment that the morons and peons would not understand. BR, I truly don’t like your handle. You are far to common sensical and logical for the terminology of “bilge rat”.

At this time, sitting here in the “Peoples Republic of California” I thank GOD for people like you and Taylor for what one would call honest dissertation. Having been brought up in the Democrat way, I became a Republican. Now, I’m just a conservative. May God Bless the Republic and for which She stands.