Comments

1
This is even more pointless than Humphrey's polls. And that's an amazing accomplishment.
2
"Republicans stay in rural areas, Democrats try to work the urban areas. That might have something to do with the persistently rabid Us Vs. Them-ism of the last few elections."

I've found that Republican and Democrat are only cultural affiliations, these self-adopted titles are baseless when it comes to politics or policies, and these titles more resemble support for sports teams than political philosophy. These titles certainly have nothing to do with urban or rural geography, though there is geographical boundaries to "Republican" and "Democrat" areas just as there are geographical areas to any culture. I think there's some truth to the urban/rural concept in areas like the North West, but throughout the Mid-West and South voters tend to lean Republican in both urban and rural areas.

So if you take a household where both parents are OSU fans and Republicans, if their children want to rebel they will go to UO and become Democrats. When, in fact, both the parents and the children can have strikingly similar (that is mainstream) support for what should be contentious political issues. This hypothesis can extend to a larger area: if you're a person like StJohnRules, clearly this person feel like an outcast from typical Portlanders, and so this person supports the opposing political-team in order to feel distinguished from the rest of Portlanders. It’s really not any different than a person who hates living in Eugene, who walks around with a Beavers hoodie all day – or who secretly despises their neighbors and hangs a yard-sign in opposition to their neighbors.

This is yet another reason I see no utility in stoking the “fight” between Republicans and Democrats, it doesn’t matter which party wins or has control. Obviously there are minor differences in a couple domestic issues, but these are artificial creations and unrealistic divisions. People like Paul Constant might as well be writing articles about why the Huskies are better than the Beavers, and how last night’s game was definitive proof that we should always and forever accept this maxim of truth.

As far as this concept of reforming the electoral college, just think about how it will change things: Obama would be in California, Romney in New York (or Houston), and Ohio would be ignored (just like Oregon).
3
there should *never* be a situation where the legitimate winner of the overall popular vote doesn't win the election. we've already done this. it's fucked. it's WAY fucked.

and the fact that we've failed to put measures in place to prevent it from happening again, especially after having over a decade to do so, is downright stupid and shameful.

we deserve what we get.

apathetically pathetic.
4
There are two issues here that are often conflated in this discussion. One is the anti-democratic process of allowing surrogates called electors to cast votes for President, instead of allowing actual voters to do so.

That practice is outdated, ridiculous, insulting, etc...

The second issue is that of "winner take all" states. There's nothing in the Constitution that says a state has to award all its electors to the winner in that state. Some don't do it that way, but most do --the reason is that it maximizes their influence.

If states awarded electors proportionally, then each state would end up giving the winning candidate slightly more than half of their electors, and the losing candidate gets slightly less than half --because Presidential elections are fought out among the small number of swing voters.

So you're right that it would make every city and county more equal and force candidates to campaign everywhere. But it also would make every precinct in every town in America the next Florida 2000.

As it is, nobody cares that much about election fraud in Oregon (let's say) because the outcome is going to be lopsided and a few votes around the margins don't change anything. By creating a nationwide rule that does away with winner-take-all states, every pudunk county in the country would be litigating hanging chads, etc.

I'm not defending the Electoral College --it's outdated and makes a few thousand Ohians' vote more important than millions of Californians'. But we need to be careful if going to a pure popular vote would make every election into a Bush-Gore.
5
I am for a republic not a democracy. We have parts of both. The electoral college is another part of the division of power in the government. Doing away with it only weakens the division of power. Electors have nearly always voted with the popular vote and the so called "faithless lectors may have been wiser than we know. The system also helps keep down the excesses of the popular vote. Those who argue against a republic have simply not done their homework on the abuses of democracy. IMHO
6
"I think there's some truth to the urban/rural concept in areas like the North West, but throughout the Mid-West and South voters tend to lean Republican in both urban and rural areas."

Great thought fidelity. Perhaps you should check out your facts before you spout things off. Look at county level election results from just about any year since the 1970s. The actual "big" cities in the South vote solidly Democratic. Check out Birmingham or Atlanta. Many smaller college towns do to like Athens, GA or Chapel Hill, NC. It's much more about education level, class, and race than anything. That's true everywhere, not just up here in the "cool Northwest where we get it" or whatever it is you're trying to imply.

This proposal seems like a good way to go to try and fix this problem.
7
@nat_a_nat - I'm not finding any evidence to suggest what you're saying. Don’t bother throwing me a link to the Washington Post or NYtimes, please take a look at the actual data. County-by-county results show a split in rural and urban areas for both Democrats and Republicans, neither group controls the majority of urban or rural areas. I've been following election statistics for years...and here's a site that provides all the data you'll need:

http://uselectionatlas.org/

As for your theory on education, class, and race, there are some incidental parallels, but correlation is not causation. I still believe that self-identified Republicans and Democrats are cultural groups, not political groups. As an example of this, it might be popular in this area to say “Democrats represent the middle class”, but in other parts of the country actual middle class people would vehemently disagree. This is one way that both groups are able to reverse their political positions by 180 degrees every couple years, if they were a truly principled political organization, this would be much more difficult.

Please wait...

Comments are closed.

Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.


Add a comment
Preview

By posting this comment, you are agreeing to our Terms of Use.