progressive cyberdadaism from our nation’s capital
It’s much too nice outside today to dwell on the political machinations of Czar Bunnypants or the Czariness-to-be or her sister, not-Czariness-to-be.
But I noticed this thread at the Huffington Post that had some interesting comments. The point of the original post was to alert people to the initiative in California to use proportional voting in the electoral college. If this change is implemented before the 2008 election, well… let’s just say we don’t want to go there.
Hawthoria points out that if you look at the last few presidential races, proportional representation across the board, meaning all states and DC, would have swung votes to the Republicans. That’s certainly counter-intuitive. Shouldn’t the percentages be the same as the popular vote count?
Well, no. The whole purpose of the Electoral College is to statistically weight rural states to even out states that have large urban areas. The effect of this is that if you live in NYC, Boston, Philadephia or DC your vote doesn’t count as much as those that come from Befuddle Creek, Idaho, Beaverbelt, Arkansas, or Veryflat, Kansas. At least when you’re voting for President.
Now how good an idea was this? It was such a great idea that no other newly formed democracy would ever again consider it. Don’t you think it’s interesting, for instance, that when we invaded Iraq we established a parliamentary form of government?
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95. Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum (I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.)
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We're asking you to put some of the money you plan to give Obama "in escrow" until he demonstrates progressive leadership on the issues we care about, like warrantless wiretapping. [Link]
The report notes that the administration has gone to “unprecedented lengths to control and suppress information about the human cost” of the wars. [Link]
"We see a tipping point occurring right before our eyes," Hansen said during his appearance at the National Press Club. "The Arctic is the first tipping point and it's occurring exactly the way we said it would." [Link]
It appeared to confirm for the first time in an official examination many of the allegations from critics who charged that the Justice Department had become overly politicized during the Bush administration. [Link]
"After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be ans [Link]
It gives me a terrible mental image of the whole country linking arms and goose-stepping in unison, with the politicians out in front doing a straight-armed salute. [Link]
BOULTON: There are those who would say look, lets take Guantanamo Bay, and Abu Ghraib, and rendition and all those things and to them that is the complete opposite of freedom. BUSH: Of course, if you want to slander America. [Link]
In a subsequent e-mail to the employee, Cargol described himself as “a rub-your-belly, grab-your-balls, give-you-a-hug, slap-your-back, pull-your-dick, squeeze-your-hand, cheek-your-face, and pat-your-thigh kind of guy.” [Link]
Democracy Now! Radio and TV News [Link]
Let's take a look at how the Los Angeles Times covered the new Senate Intelligence Committee report on the claims made as part of selling the Iraq war, and compare it to how the editorial page of the Washington Post, by which I mean Fred Hiatt, sees the e [Link]
Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan writes in a new memoir that the Iraq war was sold to the American people with a sophisticated "political propaganda campaign" led by President Bush and aimed at "manipulating sources of public opinion" an [Link]
Hertzberg's analysis is noteworthy because he appears to be able to allow several ideas to coexist in his head simultaneously, which quite an achievement these days. [Link]
That night, George Stephanopoulos, who was then a top aide to Mr. Clinton, declared that it was “mathematically impossible for Brown to get the nomination” — the start of a campaign to declare Mr. Clinton the presumed nominee, even as several other [Link]
If Obama is the nominee, Tonay said, McCain will be just fine with her. "In the end, I won't vote for Obama because I don't know who he is, and I don't trust him," she said. [Link]
Robert Reich, who went to Yale Law School with Hillary Rodham and Bill Clinton and later served in the Clinton administration, called Hillary Clinton's attack on Obama "absurd,&q~ adding: "That carries guilt by association to a new level of absurdity. [Link]
Some speculate the Senator Clinton would want the spirit-killing Vice Presidency because she would be willing to wait for two terms so as to be the likely nominee in 2012. I believe that she could well contemplate this scenario. [Link]
A subsequent study by the National Bureau of Economic Research showed that gas prices fell by 3 percent, meaning that only three fifths of the savings from reduced taxes was passed on to consumers. [Link]
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is filing a complaint with the IRS today challenging the conservative group Freedom's Watch status as a non-profit. [Link]
For Barbara, Hillary has become the screech on the blackboard. From First Lady to Lady Macbeth. [Link]
So what's changed? I asked Reich. "I saw the ads" — the negative man-on-street commercials that the Clinton campaign put up in Pennsylvania in the wake of Obama's bitter/cling comments a week ago — "and I was appalled, frankly. [Link]
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August 18th, 2007 at 6:22 pm
The California proposal is worse than that. It doesn’t award the electoral votes proportionally. It awards one electoral vote for each congressional district according to who wins the popular vote in that district, plus two statewide electoral votes that go to the popular vote winner for the state. So it’s affected by the gerrymandering of the congressional districts, and the unfairness of the electoral college is repeated at the district level rather than the state level. Candidates would vie for a handful of competitive districts, but most of them would be solidly red or blue and their residents would be even less likely to have a meaningful vote than they are now.
And of course with only California, among the big states, playing by these rules, it would be extremely likely that we’d have lots more elections in which the popular vote winner doesn’t win.
Fortunately it appears that the Californians are getting over their love affair with ballot measures.
August 18th, 2007 at 9:23 pm
That’s a pretty disturbing proposition.
I hope you’re right that Californians are a bit more circumspect regarding initiatives like this. Because, if you take away the math, the concept sounds appealing.
Without looking, I’m going to guess that our ole buddy Sal Russo and the gang that invented “Move America Forward” is connected to this.