ray

Regardless of your feelings on these 3 issues, I don't understand why he is considered a Tea Party darling.

A lot of the polling on the republican nomination divided respondents into all republicans, anda subset of tea party members.
I suspect the media is reporting about enthusiam reported in these polls and in Tea Party events...
Perhaps the enthusiasm for Perry was that the TP members weren't actually informed ?
What happens when they find out NJ governor Christie likes Obamas educational policies, touts a road to citizenship for illegal aliens, and isn't always 100% critical of Obama?
Will style trump the candidates "substantive stands" on key TP issues?

GMTom wrote:Curious EC vote change in PA
One question, would this now make PA more or less important to "target"?

PA is sometimes one of those "Battleground States" where the victory could go either way.

Sorry it has taken so long to weigh in on this queston. I think it is something of a recognition that in Presidential elections Pennsylvania is, realistically, no longer a "battleground state". It hasn't gone Republican in something like 5 Presidential contests. Realisitically, the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh metro areas are reliably Democratic and now out number the Republican "T" of central PA enough the state will probably never go Republican again.

GMTom wrote:Overall I like the new idea, but I see some big reasons to keep it the way it is as well. And if all states were to switch, then the whole EC "theory" kind of falls apart???

I don't see how the whole EC falls apart. After all this was kind of exactly what the Founders envisioned when they created the EC., a group of educated, knowledgable gentlemen making the decision of who should be President.

As I mentioned previously, the first two Presidential races the majority of the states used by Congressional District winning. It wasn't until the 1800 election that every state had abandoned it.

danivon wrote:I think it's unlikely that the hurdle of having to win in an electoral district will help the smaller parties much.

Well, I think the reason for that belief (which I sort of agree with) is that it might be easier to pick up EC votes by winning on the CD level as opposed to the entire state. For example, I think there are at least 2 PA congressional districts that would find the Libertarian Party platform rather attractive. It would be a lot easier to blanket those two districts to win the vote then trying to win the entire state. This could then make the LP a powerbroker.

danivon wrote:Proportional Representation is the best one for allowing small parties into legislatures. The election for a single President probably needs different rules (and PR doesn't seem to fit, to be honest - a run off as per the 1969/70 attempted amendment would, or an Alternative Vote system)

Well, considering the way congress is set up, I think that would require an entire Constitutional rewrite which isn't going to happen so let's try to work with what we have.

ARJ - back in 1969/70 the Amendment to do it got through Congress. It was the lack of 2/3 majority of State ratifications that sunk it. I realise that Congress has changed a bit, but I suspect that it's not the major blocker, given that some states will value their prominence under the current system, and parties that are strong in states won't want to allow that to be diluted by removing their influence.

danivon wrote:ARJ - back in 1969/70 the Amendment to do it got through Congress. It was the lack of 2/3 majority of State ratifications that sunk it. I realise that Congress has changed a bit, but I suspect that it's not the major blocker, given that some states will value their prominence under the current system, and parties that are strong in states won't want to allow that to be diluted by removing their influence.

I don't think this is correct Dan. First off, it takes 3/4 of states to ratify not 2/3. Further, I am only aware of 2 proposed amendments that have passed the U.S. Congress but failed to get the required number of states before they expired, the ERA and D.C. Statehood.

Now there are 4 amendments that have passed Congress and are still awaiting sufficient state approval because they did not include an expiration date. However, none of them deal with PR. They are;

1. Congresional Apportionment Amendment (1789) that deals with the number of citizens in each congressional district
2. Titles of Nobility Amendment (1810) which revokes the citizenship of any American that accepts a foreign title of nobility
3. Corwin Amendment (1861) which forbade attempts to amend the Constitution to give Congress the ability to interfere with slavery
4. Child Labor Amendment (1924) which would give Congress the power to legislate child labor issues.

There have also been a number of amendments that haven't passed out of Congress but none of them deal with proportional representation.

Well, I was half-remembering a wikipedia article (and excuse me if the nuances of the majority needed for ratification elude me, I am but an ignorant outlander).

Going back to check, the situation was that the Bayh-Cellar amendment passed in the House (339-70), had the support of the President (Nixon), and was expected to get 30 of 50 states to ratify (that, I think is where my 2/3 comes from, thinking they were 4 short, not 8) but in the Senate, despite majority support, it failed to get past cloture (being 13 votes short).

That amendment would have meant direct elections for the Presidency, which is what I was talking about (as you can't have PR for a single position really), with the most popular candidate winning if they had more than 40% in the first round, or the winner being decided by run-off if no-one met the threshold.

Didn't stop the idiocy of Prohibition though, eh?

danivon wrote:That amendment would have meant direct elections for the Presidency, which is what I was talking about (as you can't have PR for a single position really), with the most popular candidate winning if they had more than 40% in the first round, or the winner being decided by run-off if no-one met the threshold.

Ah ok. Well PR and popular election of the President are two completely different issues. I would also say that bill has been around for years if not decades. The two latest incarnations are the Every Vote Counts Amendment(2000) and the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. While I support a movement away from the current winner take all method of allotment of Electoral delegates, I do not agree with doing away with the EC altogether.

I do not agree with doing away with the EC altogether.

Why not?

It waters down the limited power of the smaller states in an election. Would any candidate even consider going to NH or Delaware instead of NY and PA? More votes per campaign stop potential. You are a stats man, RickyP. That one was easy...

Archduke Russell John wrote:Ah ok. Well PR and popular election of the President are two completely different issues. I would also say that bill has been around for years if not decades. The two latest incarnations are the Every Vote Counts Amendment(2000) and the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. While I support a movement away from the current winner take all method of allotment of Electoral delegates, I do not agree with doing away with the EC altogether.

They are not completely separate. The idea being that each voter's ballot is more equal than it is at present is a common thread to both.

It waters down the limited power of the smaller states in an election

No. Actually it artificially enhances the power of smaller states. And in the primary system, the timing of primaries also artifically enhances the importance of small and very much non-representative parts of your nation to influence the final choice of candidates...

The electoral college was a vestige of an aristocratic heritage. Your founders didn't think that the great unwashed could actually be trusted with the important decision of choosing a President. Therefore let them select a committee of wise men to take on this task.
The electoral college is a way to legally disenfranchise the voter. (example: A democratic elector in, ignored the fact that he was elected to vote for Humphrey and voted for George Wallace...)
Its uneven application simply makes the math of voting even more uneven. Where 40% of the voters in California end up not counting towards the choice of president you've veered away from democracy.
One man, one vote is made a mockery by the electoral college.

rickyp wrote:One man, one vote is made a mockery by the electoral college.

Well, that was the intent. The Founding Fathers (tm Pres Harding) agreed that one man, one vote was not what they wanted in all cases. For the Reps, fair enough. Later on, for the Senators. But for the President? No way! Populism was seen as a threat, giving someone the powers of a 'king' on the basis or mere popularity

So, instead it relies upon getting more support from a broad number of states. Still the most influential states are the large swing states. Who care if Vermont switches it's 3 votes, when Ohio has 18 up for grabs? And why bother with Montana when it's unlikely to switch. At the extreme, a candidate can win with the support of just the (ooops maths!) 11 largest States. The remaining 39 could overwhelmingly vote for the other guy, and those 11 could all be decided by marginal 51-49 results.

One middle road may be to weight each State by the EC rules (so the smaller states are more influential), or an inverse factor of population to increase the strength of 'small state' votes.

But the real change would be to limit the power of each 'State' compared to the electorate within it. After all, each State is just a collection of people. If you have majority voting for President, or PR for a chamber, then it means that every vote is about the same weight. While a big state contains more voters, the real battle will be to convince any voter anywhere who may swing.

Also, the real divide is less likely to be between states themselves, but between urban, suburban and rural areas. Some states are dominated by a city or two. Some are more about large towns in rural zones. Others have large populations in many cities, even though they also have a significant rural population as well (such as Ca and Tx).

Also, states and areas with lower turnouts may become less important, areas with high turnouts would be more valuable.

The remaining 39 could overwhelmingly vote for the other guy, and those 11 could all be decided by marginal 51-49 results

I beleive this is Obamas plan for 2012.

So the slams against Christie has begun. I have read 2 columns this weekend that have slammed him on his weight. I find this interesting because Christie isn't actually all that conservative. He is a northeastern Republican and is as conservative as they usually are.

The man has supported 1st Trimester abortions, civil unions and cap n trade. Now I personally have no problems with this (except for possibly the cap n trade) but there is no way the people who are looking for a "savior" in the Republican primary will.