Forty-eight states allocate their Electoral College votes on a winner-take-all basis (the exceptions are Maine and Nebraska). That’s quite likely to change, especially in my home state of Pennsylvania. Each state’s share of the Electoral College is based on their two senators and however many members of the House of Representatives they happen to have. In Maine and Nebraska, the winner of the popular vote automatically wins the two Senate delegates. The rest of the delegates are allocated according to the winner of each congressional district. In 2008, Obama lost Nebraska but won in one of its congressional districts. As a result, he was awarded one delegate from Nebraska.
There was nothing illegal or unconstitutional about that, and the same will hold true if Pennsylvania (or Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, or Florida) changes their delegate-assignment system.
Under the Republican plan, if the GOP presidential nominee carries the GOP-leaning districts but Obama carries the state, the GOP nominee would get 12 electoral votes out of Pennsylvania, but Obama would only get eight—six for winning the blue districts, and two (representing the state’s two senators) for carrying the state. This would have an effect equivalent to flipping a small winner-take-all state—say, Nevada, which has six electoral votes—from blue to red. And Republicans wouldn’t even have to do any extra campaigning or spend any extra advertising dollars to do it.
What we might see is a real effort by the Republican Party to take advantage of their control of state governments to change the rules in a way that the Democrats will be unable to match. Retaliation is not possible because the Dems do not have total control of the government in any red states other than West Virginia and Arkansas. How many congressional districts is Obama likely to win in those two states?
Left unsaid in the above excerpt, is that making such a move would reduce Pennsylvania’s importance down to roughly the level of New Hampshire. The award for winning the state would only be two Electoral Votes, and the fight beyond that would be over only two or three swing districts. Maybe Obama could carry eight congressional district instead of six, and wind up splitting the delegates 10-10. Either way, the Republican would have pocketed ten to twelve delegates they would have otherwise lost. Repeat that in several other sizable states and suddenly it becomes quite likely that a Republican candidate could win the presidency while getting absolutely thumped in the popular vote.
It’s a recipe for civil war, but I guess that’s where we’re headed anyway, right?
Well, I can’t even say I’m surprised by this strategy. Oh, well.
Oh, well?
I hope that is not the collective response.
Well what the fuck else do you expect us to do? Our only hope is making the electoral college irrelevant like California is proposed to do (if they didn’t do it already).
This is actually a great opportunity to bring up the whole http://www.nationalpopularvote.com issue. (He said, Pollyannaishly.)
I guess the only other thing to do is start preparing to pull the same trick with what? Ohio, Florida, etc., if we ever take back the legislatures.
the trick doesn’t work for Democrats because we are concentrated in cities.
Also, remember that this could easily backfire for the Republicans, as they could easily win Pennsylvania and yet lose six to eight electoral votes.
Ah. Yeah. Good points.
I think we’ve gotta stick with the National Popular Vote, then–which is also less cynical.
As you said, civil war. That means violence is all we have to look forward to.
Bloody hell is a more appropriate response. How can we fight this? Have you seen any significant media coverage of this, coverage that explains what it actually means? Seems unlikely, as they are also not covering all of the other assaults on voting while democratic.
We fight this by asking for the resignation of every dem official who doesn’t have the stomach to do the same thing. This is politics and it’s ugly but we need to find leaders who are willing to fight back instead of crying every time the GOP plays dirty.
Typical. Republicans are destroying this country and a Lib suggests going after Democrats.
So we’re all supposed to rally around failed leadership? No thanks. Republicans are doing what they always do, and which they’ve gotten really got at lately: seizing and maintaining power. If you have a good suggestion on how to deal with that development, other than by institutional reform as I suggest, I’d love to hear it.
Do you expect the Democratic Party and the WH to come out and organize against this? I don’t. I saw this bit of news the other day on TPM and it made me very angry for awhile.
And then I remembered that the Republicans have balls and have some plan, no matter how evil, for keeping or regaining power unlike our weak, feckless excuse of a party.
That’s my response.
Yes, in fact, I do expect people to go absolutely batshit bananas over this.
Who? Elected Democratic officials? Anyone in the White House?
No, not the White House. Jesus. The executive branch is supposed to be a functionary and a diplomat, not an activist.
I’m dubious as to the successful potential for a new national civil rights 2.0 movement to act against these blatant voter discrimination regimes that are cropping up in every Republican controlled state.
But for all the big talkers online and involved in democratic politics, you want the “grassroots” to do something important?
This is something important.
The executive branch shouldn’t be activist? Who, then? The Democratic Party, excepting the leaders of the party, who should be diplomatic about it? The big talkers online? They’re suddenly gonna … what? Commandeer the national narrative? The ‘grassroots’ movement? A march? What?
I wish this stuff worked bottom-up, but it doesn’t. We’re just not gonna go batshit bananas in any effective way without leadership from above. Hell, the Progressive Caucus is in Congress, and they can’t get any traction.
Yes, this is important. So what? I don’t even know what in theory we should do about this. Where’s the leverage? I’m honestly asking. We agree that this is important, and we should go batshit, but how? Who?
The Democratic Part and the WH? They will do what they can. WHERE ARE PROGRESSSIVES? WHERE ARE ALL THESE LIBERAL GROUPS?
I agree. Where are they?
well, remember: progressives are fucking retards, and their input isn’t necessary until election day when the votes are needed.
at least that’s my understanding. you don’t need us, we’re not really part of the base. In fact, I’ve been told as much by some of the very people whining in this comment thread.
What are your thoughts on the National Popular Vote initiative? Obviously the reality of the situation is that none of the major battleground states are going to pass something like this with Republican controlled state legislatures, but in a vacuum it seems like the natural foil to the Republican plan.
We had control of state legislatures and governorships from 2006-2010. Why didn’t we implement these types of institutional reforms? What about the Bush years made our elected officials think that the GOP wasn’t capable of this sort of stuff? If you’re a dem official and you don’t have the stomach to do this sort of stuff as well, please resign. You’re a dinosaur, better fit for a time that has long passed.
If this goes through, I put Obama’s reelect chances at about 30/70. Between this, citizen’s united, and unemployment which will be at best about 8% and possibly as bad as 10% I’m not sure how Obama even gets the numbers that Kerry got. So we’re back hoping that the GOP nominates Perry and the media doesn’t shy away from showing how crazy he is.
Because redistricting doesn’t happen until now. Of course they wouldn’t have done it regardless, but even if they wanted they couldn’t have done anything like this that would have been advantageous.
Besides, a reform like this institutionally helps the GOP even in good years for Democrats.
Our version of this is making the Electoral College irrelevant, as has been done in some states:
http://washingtonindependent.com/110123/california-approves-of-national-popular-vote-initiative
I mean in a more general sense: using power to tilt the playing field in your direction. There will always be ways to reform the system in your favor, in big ways and small; the only variable is whether you have the power and the guts to do it. Its ugly stuff I agree, but we need party leaders who are up to the task.
The goal should be to make government more genuinely democratic, small “d.” That will bring good results for people generally, but also in this system for the Democratic Party, for the left-of-center. It’s a left-of-center country in terms of the actual policies that people want.
Back in 2004, a friend of the family asked me if I thought there could ever be another civil war here in the US. When I answered that I thought it entirely possible, given the radical nature of the nihilists on the Right, he literally laughed at me. Well, things have only gotten worse, as far as I’m concerned. Perhaps it’s time for a velvet divorce, not unlike the partitioning of the former Czechoslovakia. Then, let’s see how long the South’s parasite states survive without Northern tax dollars.
And I’m only half-joking.
Reminds me of this old classic.
With repatriation, right?
Besides Wisconsin and Michigan are red now.
Canada wouldn’t want the northern states. And Jesus wouldn’t want the rest.
this is the story of America.
when a BLACK PERSON WINS BY USING THE RULES SET UP BY AMERICA..
White folks CHANGE THE RULES
if it’s happened once…it’s happened a million times.
period.
And let the church say “amen”.
Sh*t never changes, and it never will. They want their country back. Well, I’m at the point of saying, “F*ck it! Take it back and stick it up your as@!”
Just to add a bit more….
1 – We’re up against conservatives who feel entitled to run the country. (After all, that’s what Reagan’s victory was all about—the return of power to the country’s rightful rulers (corporate interests and “real” Americans)). As Fredrick Douglass said, “Power concedes nothing without a demand.” These folks ain’t conceding.
2 – Every great wave of immigration in US history has led to a nativist backlash. E.g., the spectacular rise (and fall) of the Know-Nothing Party in the 1840s and 50s, the Red Scare and rebirth of the KKK in the 1910s and 20s. We’ve got another one going on now, and it’s exacerbated by the racial backlash against the first generation of African-Americans who can (legally!) live and work wherever they want, and marry whomever they want. These backlashes eventually exhaust themselves, but they’re ugly while they’re happening.
3 – Add in the slow but powerful demographic change forced by the coming of age of the “millenial” generation. For fearful, reactionary, older white people, this means that many of their worst dreams will literally come true. Dark-skinned people will be taking their jobs (well, after they retire anyway), taking their land (actually, buying their houses when they die or move to a “retirement community”, and marrying their children (or grandchildren).
Electing Barack Obama president was not the equivalent of Joshua and the children of Israel taking possession of the Promised Land. It was the equivalent of Israel crossing over Jordan and staking a claim to the Promised Land. Next comes the long and difficult battle with the “Canaanites” who think the land belongs to them.
Walk together children. Don’t you get weary. There’s a lot more work to be done before the progressive claim to the “Promised Land” is won.
The past decade has seen the Republicans violating various unwritten rules and using the letter of the law to get their way. I hope I’m wrong, but given the pattern, it’s hard to seem them not attempting to take advantage of this.
I have to say that I’m no fan of the electoral college system as it is, but it is subject to the Constitution and the 12th Amendment, which is of course by definition the Constitution too.
I lack legal training but I would imagine that anything mandated by the Constitution occurs at the Federal level, which suggests equal protection issues.
I understand that we have a couple states that play according to their own rules as far as counting electors goes, but is that a matter of legal precedent or simply one of nobody ever bothering to challenge a the system of counting electors in the first place?
Of course, if a legal challenge could be mounted, it would by definition be retroactive and useless to all of us, but seriously, where is the notion of equal protection under the law if your vote is counted and tabulated by different rules according to what state you live in?
I’m all for either abolishing the Electoral College or returning it to its original design, or something that makes better sense that what we have now, but my tiny-brain legal opinion suggests to me that as this is a Constitutional matter: all states play by the same rules, and if they don’t, then unconstitutional favoritism occurs.
hz, I’m not a lawyer and I don’t play one on TV, but my understanding is that this is a relatively straightforward issue, constitutionally speaking.
Article 2, Section 1: “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice-President chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows:
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.”
Congress can determine “the Time of chusing (sic) the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes”, and that’s it.
Each state legislature has the power to set the laws for choosing that state’s electors. Maine, for example, has for many years apportioned its electors by congressional district, with the remaining two electors going to the winner of the statewide balloting.
Sometimes I wish it were so simple as to divide the country in two. The liberal portion would quickly turn in to something like Canada, where people at least feel pretty equal. The conservative part would quickly turn into something like Mexico, where people are definitely not equal.
People in Pennsylvania really need to fight this. Ed Rendell could be a good leader for the effort.
At least there’e a little good news today. Elizabeth Warren put out her Announcement Video.
when Nebraska did it in the last election.
So they are doing it because they can: we would probably due the same if we could.
Civil War? There has to be two sides under arms. I only see one fighting force taking the field.
“Our side” will remain a confused former “loyal opposition” until it’s way too late to realize what’s happened. It’s our fatal flaw: a commitment to democracy.
When they take back America….they will rebuild it just like they rebuilt Iraq. Disband the national guard and let everybody arm a militia. Complete chaos.
In the wake of the 2000 election, I felt that this was the way to go anyway. I would like all 50 states to adopt this.
In the short run, there is a bit of an asymmetry problem with some states doing this while others do not. So Pennsylvania reduces its “swing state” stature while other winner-take-all states maintain their swing state prestige.
In the long run, however, it becomes important to implement this in every state. Look at how many Dem reps are in deep red states (e.g. Jim Clyburn), and “every state or no state” becomes a necessary rallying cry for Dems.
Like term limits, in concept this is a good idea. In reality, the piecemeal approach to implementation is a concern. Thus, if you can’t stop Repubs from implementing this somewhere, then the response is to implement it everywhere.
“In concept this is a good idea”. Well, if the concept includes congressional districts that aren’t gerrymandered. As CDs are currently drawn, Democratic votes are disproportionately grouped together (e.g., districts in which Democratic candidates routinely get over 80% of the votes). As a result, Republicans control a disproportionately high number of CDs.
So, in the world as it is, this concept is not a good idea; it’s a bad idea.
The Electoral College was put in the Constitution so that the country’s elites would have a pocket veto over some crazy choice the not-as-elite-as-required voters might elect in. It is entirely an nti-democratic mechanism in the first place.
Of course it is going tobe gamed. It EXISTS to be gamed.
The nation is overdue for a couple amendments. And I don’t include the one that would all Der Ahrnold to run for POTUS.
Well sure, the Constitution’s overdue for many amendments. It’s overdue for a constitutional convention. But that’s not going to happen any time soon.
Booman’s point is that this is another longstanding cultural norm in American politics being challenged by extremist Republicans. They are challenging it not because they are “anti-elitist”. They are challenging it to thwart the will of the majority.
You can agree or disagree with them and their motives. But let’s try to pay attention to, and deal with, what’s happening in the real world.
Obama’s new site attackwatch.com to fact check, interesting
…for my money the way Maine and Nebraska do it is a slight improvement over the winner-take-all system most states use. I wish all states split their vote a la Nebraska. The more numerous and smaller the voting blocks the better.
Better still would be the elimination of the Electoral College entirely.
the country would move so far to the right you wouldn’t recognize it if we had all states using congressional district delegates. It might be good in theory, but in practice our country has a lot of 80 and 90% Democratic districts and almost none like that for the Republicans. It’s called cities.
I don’t know that your assumption is true however. Or probably put another way, some years it would help the GOP other years it would not.
My thought is that it is harder to game 488 Electoral Vote entities than it is to game 50. But that’s probably truer some years than others too.
The bottom line though is the EC is the problem. It owes its very existence to a desire to have a system for the elites to game.
Quicklund, Booman’s not making an assumption. It is a fact that more Democratic House seats are heavily Democratic than Republican House seats are heavily Republican. Thus, for example, with Republicans controlling the redistricting in Pennsylvania, it’s entirely possible that Obama could receive a solid majority of popular votes but end up with a minority of electoral votes in 2012.
Perry/Romney could win 12 congressional districts by relatively narrow margins, while Obama could win 6 congressional districts (in and around Philadelphia and Pittsburgh) by relatively wide margins. Obama could win the state narrowly, thus giving him 2 additional electoral votes for a final total of 8. Repeat this scenario for Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin, and we’re easily looking at an election-flipping scenario. (And that’s not including the voter suppression laws being passed in Florida and elsewhere.)
As more states go this route, it becomes more important how the Congressional Districts are gerrymandered into existance.
I expect a Federal Case could be made for fixing the redistricting process if it will effect the outcome of the Presidential race.
How people of another state pick their Congresspeople isn’t as important to me as how they pick my President.
More to come…
I’m in favor of refighting the Civil War.
However, this time, we need to be smart and let the south win their independence.
(More seriously, one of the most illuminating thing I read over the last year was a profile of Rush Limbaugh, which noted that 7 of his ancestors fought in the Civil War…all on the side of the Confederacy. It’s kind of hard to believe, but the divisions of 150 years ago are still there.)
I have been arguing for quite some time that progressives were too geographically concentrated. It affects the composition of the House and it affects the ability to get legislation through the Senate.
Please tell me once again why Democrats cannot be competitive in so-called red states? Why is it that a sufficient number of people cannot be persuaded to vote Democratic when the Republicans are behaving like they are right now?
Democrats have so bought into the red-state blue-state crap that they are unwilling to fight.
And now it might come back to bite them on the Presidency.
And I have had this sig since 2006.
This is a self-inflicted wound by Democratic candidates listening too much to DC “Democratic” consultants.
I see it the other way. It’s a mistake to move to a Red state, at least politically, and I think it isn’t good for the soul either.
Every ten years, the Blue states of the northeast and Great Lakes lose a bunch of electoral votes, and mostly they go to southern states. If you are a Democrat living in a blue enclave like Austin or maybe Huntsville, your vote gets swamped by the rest of the state, and you are contributing, in your own small way, to the electoral college power of a red state.
Huntsville is a blue enclave?
Here is what I have noticed. The folks who move from the Northeast or Midwest to the Atlanta, Charlotte, or Raleigh area (I’ve lived in all three) often “go native”. For some of them, voting Republican is a family tradition that goes back to the heyday of Taft and Eisenhower Republicans. Or further. They did not notice that folks like Newt Gingrich and Jesse Helms were different from those ancient Republicans.
The other side of the coin is that there was up until the 1980s and the Reagan years a plurality of folks all over the South who remembered FDR or who had parents that considered FDR the savior of the farmer and textile worker. That no longer is the case as Republicans have made churches their vehicle for making local politics more extreme.
The issue of Pennsylvania is that not every state is doing it. In South Carolina, there would be one, maybe two of the CDs go to Obama. Likewise, in Georgia, Missisiippi, Lousisiana, Texas. There would be CDs that went for Obama.
The failure of Democrats to try to compete makes them even less competitive than if they competed. There used to be progressive Democrats (except on the main issue) from the South. But no one has tried to sell a liberal populist message in the South for 40 years.
And don’t go to a blue enclave. Let some of the hard red enclaves see what a real Democrat (instead of some Fox or Limbaugh caricature) looks like. It will bring some folks you would not think of as liberal or Democratic out of hiding.
All of the excuses that the DC consultants are putting out are just a form of a lazy way to make big bucks.
Has it occurred to you that moving into a big city actually makes people more liberal, by being exposed to a multi-cultural society in close confines? By contrast, if you move out to a rural area where you feel safe and distant from anything foreign, you might become more xenophobic, as you are not forced to deal with anything foreign to you?
That’s been my experience anyway. I BECAME liberal by living in a big city when I never had before. Before I moved to San Francisco and lived with such beautiful foreign people, I had no idea that they even existed, because I grew up in such a sterile, suburban/rural environment that I had to re-evaluate the way I saw the world. Suddenly I had Palestinian, Chinese, Korean, Filipino and Egyptian neighbors and shop-keepers (and their families) who I loved. And blacks and Mexican-Americans that I also loved like family. It changed me for the better. And I only initially moved there to eliminate the commute. It was the best move I’d ever made, yet it changed EVERYTHING in my world.
I would never have it any other way now. No way in hell I’d move to a suburban or rural community now. I just couldn’t. I like being around diversity. Maybe that’s just me.
So moving out of cities and segregating, as happens in the suburbs and beyond, may not be the best idea. That just makes more xenophobes, I think. More people should be encouraged to live in big cities. Also, encourage your kids to travel Europe and Latin America as a young adult to get a feel for the real world.
Nothing personal. Just had to get my 2 cents in.
But we need to re-evaluate how we gerrymander our congressional districts, for sure.
I’ve lived in rural areas, cities, and suburbs in several states, and I have not found there to be a rule anywhere like that.
Everyone’s experience is different.
I found rural Wisconsin to much more liberal than many neighborhoods in Chicago.
And multiculturalism is handled differently in different cities and states. In some places there are strong efforts to embrace it. In others it makes folks more fearful, withdrawn, and bigoted. Probably the poster child for big cities not creating liberal populations are Phoenix, Houston (3rd largest), Dallas, Oklahoma City, and Tampa.
And diversity is not limited to large cities anymore. There are many small towns (Mount Airy, NC, for example — the original Mayberry) that have manufacturing plants (yes, they still exist) that have brought in all sorts of cultures — Swedish managers, Indian, Chinese, and Middle Eastern engineers and IT personnel, Hispanic construction workers. And they have brought their relatives. So you see Chinese, Indian, Mediterranean (North African and Levant) and Mexican restaurants; Hispanic construction firms; Palestinian, Iraqi, Indian, Pakistani, Egyptian, Libyan convenience store owners. Foreign professors and teachers at formerly rural colleges and community colleges. And African-American executives, engineers, workers, and so on. Not all of these are in Mount Airy alone, but in the 100 counties of NC, you can probably find several examples of each of these. There is even a convenience store near Fort Bragg run by a guy named Osama. And yes, folks still respect him. And then you have a college town like Murfreesboro, TN (Middle Tennessee State University) where the local have gone paranoid about a mosque.
And it is exactly this hodge-podge that makes the sort of stereotyping like the red-state/blue-state division of the country so insidious. It allows Madison County, Idaho, to think of itself as more moral than any other red county — but there are still 1600 Obama supporters there. And go look at the demographics.
DC is probably the most blue county (92.46% Obama), and yet there were 17,367 votes for John McCain.
For most of the 3080 counties in the US, the splits are in the 40%-50% range.
Here is a better picture of where there is a Democratic edge, a Republican edge, and a degree of swing.
Purple counties.
I don’t want to pick a fight here and I always respect your views. Really, you have a LOT of wisdom to share.
All that I wanted to point out was that moving from the rural and suburban areas to a major city can force someone (like me: white guy with some money) to re-evaluate their previous ignorance toward minority groups simply by being exposed to them up-close and personal. And, by contrast, when you live in rural/suburban areas you allow distance to form between cultures.
Perhaps it would be good to encourage/help alot more minorities to move into the ‘burbs now that the property values have dropped so much and it’s easier to afford. That would educate the youngsters going to school in nearly all-white schools. And many neighborhoods might become more minority-tolerant. It’s always been tough to get the integration to happen but now might be a good time to push for it.
Consider this:
This makes my point. When Democratic GOTV energies are applied broadly, Democrats win more broadly.
I think there’s a pretty strong disincentive for a swing state to put this into effect. It’s good to be a swing state. You get a lot of attention. Your needs get addressed. Millions and millions of dollars of ad money flows into your media. It will be interesting to see if a state like Pennsylvania or Florida or Ohio or Wisconsin will adopt this. It’s an interesting conflict of state interests versus national party interests.
If this goes through in those four states, I think the chances of a Republican winning the 2012 go to about 95%. Those states have 77 electoral votes. If you figure that the Republicans will win at least the majority of those (a pretty conservative estimate considering how the Congressional lines are being drawn), that gives them 39 votes from those states. Add this to the 206 votes that are GOP locks, and they are 25 votes from the White House. If the GOP wins NC and either Indiana or Missouri, they are in.