The fact that the USA is a ‘Constitutional Republic of States’ is a major reason Federal Gov has never had a lot of control over anything outside of what the Constitution (and amendments) says it has. Hell would have to freeze before the States would relinquish any control over anything they don’t have to. We currently have a similar situation here. Most Aussies (who for the most part don’t really understand how things work) thought that now we have the ALP controlling the states, territories and Federal Gov, we could finally centralize all those things that should be. The phrase “No way in hell!” pretty much sums up the chance of that happening any time soon! 🙂 One change that *may* happen now is that perhaps we can finally become Republic, completely independent of the UK. But, that can only happen with a National referendum.

‘Common sense’ and ‘common good’ have nothing to do with Politics. (and I don’t just mean in the USA). There is a reason that history is littered with civil wars and revolutions.

US Democracy certainly is a prototype. And I don’t believe it’s fixable on the election level anyway. It’s not so much the fact that it’s corrupt (and in many ways it is), it’s the fact that it needs a total rewrite. Election rules/laws need to be Federal for a Federal election. Or it just isn’t fair. States can have their local laws, etc., for city/county/township. We need a national primary and national rules. After the revolution, maybe.

In Florida, for example, there are 67 counties, and each of those counties conducts their elections for every office in a slightly different way. There is no consistency as the state election law keeps inserting “at the discretion of the county” at critical points in the process.

Looking at a US election, few realize that the 50 states are using 50 separate systems, and some of those 50 systems, like Florida, have a layer below, so you end up with thousands of different election procedures. These are the joys of the Federal system and “states rights”.

Don’t misunderstand me, whilst you may not be a ‘Democracy’ in the ancient Greek meaning of the word, your system *should* in fact be better (as I stated). The problem is (as I see it) that your system has been corrupted (some might say hijacked) and made so complicated almost no person can understand it. It’s taken a long time to get to the state your system is in today, and perhaps Bush & co should be given some minor recognition for showing how flawed it is. 🙂 It’s difficult to find any solution if one is unaware of the true nature of the problem. 🙂

It has taken a long time to corrupt the system, it will probably take a long time to fix it. At least now you can see the problems and begin the task of fixing them. You have one advantage these days, mass communication. The two things any despots fear above all else are knowledge and communication.

And, believe it or not, and in spite of everything, you do have friends out here. 🙂 Possibly more than you might imagine. 🙂 (You also have a lot of enemies, but that’s the way of the World sadly).

The history of the USA is littered with examples of minorities winning. Slavery, the suffragettes (womens rights), and many other inequalities have been changed by what were seen as minorities. Don’t get too hung up on the technicalities, the most important point is that change is possible and has happened before. 🙂

Cheers!

E.g., we can never get rid of the Electoral College because it advantages small states, and there are too many of them ever to allow such a constitutional amendment to pass. And then there’s the matter of winner-take-all electoral votes. Four states (I think) have ameliorated the problem by distributing their electoral votes according to the popular vote in one or another fashion, but the remaining 46 states have no interest in doing something similar, as both major political parties seek the big clumps of votes available if they win a state even by a tiny margin. And if some states switched to distributed electoral votes but others didn’t… well, just read what the Republicans tried to do in California this year for an example of how antidemocratic (and anti-Democratic) that would be.

Some changes would be desirable, but they’ll never happen. It’s all a matter of whose Gore is axed. Um, I mean, whose ox is gored.

My solution is a real national primary, as I’ve already said, because then we’d know.

Kryten, every time you point out that some facet of the American scheme is obviously undemocratic, people fall back on “we’re a constitutional republic, not a democracy” which is true but disingenuous. No one is interested in what voters want, because that probably doesn’t coincide with their business plan.

The current non-system is designed to support the election business in a couple of states, and the ad sales of media conglomerates, not to find a leader of the country.

Jack, I wouldn’t count out the importance of Oregon to somebody. You have the same number of electoral votes as Iowa, and everyone knows how vital winning Iowa is to the Presidency.

It’s amazing how freaked out people are over the possibility that the convention might actually mean something. Too bad John Edwards couldn’t stay in, because then we would have some real fainting couch scenes.

Only the beach is local. We have sand, red clay, water, pines, and live oak. There are no rocks on the Panhandle; for years crushed oyster shell was used instead of gravel in building roads. The sand is quartz, not silicon, which is why it is sugar white.

We Orygonians haven’t been disenfranchised in the same way that Florida and Michigan Democrats have by the dictates of the party, but it is still looking as though – for reasons so perverse that no sharp-eyed expert could have predicted them – our vote still won’t matter, given that there will be so few delegates remaining to be handed out on May 20 and thereafter that the Orygun Democratic primary won’t tip the scales in any direction…

BTW, I like the new look, too, although the first few header photos made me say “Hey, Bryan has some shots of the Florida Panhandle”, so the desert scene took me somewhat by surprise…

I only mention this because I have nothing much to add to the topic of discussion (that you haven’t heard before anyway). 🙂

My only comment might be that the majority of Australians, and indeed the rest of the World, don’t understand America’s *brand* of Democracy. As far as we can see, Americans don’t seem to have any real democratic election system. Here, for example, we have none of this pre-election candidate selection. Any candidate capable of running for the Senate or Parliament can have their name on the ballot (assuming they pass the rules governing candidacy), and the voters make their choices known at the ballot box. Our system isn’t perfect (in our eyes) either. Deals are done and we have things called *preferences*, where a candidate or party can give their preferences (redirect their votes) to another candidate or party. However, those preferences have to be allocated before the election so the voters know who gets what. We can either vote for an individual or a party. Most people simply vote for a party as it’s much simpler than ranking 10 or 20 candidates by personal preference. Still, the option is there (and the election last November showed that many more people used that personal selection option).

It’s not perfect, but it seems much more democratic than the American system (even allowing for the fact that the USA is not in fact a ‘Democracy’, but a ‘Constitutional Republic’ which should, in fact, be a better system). In a *true* Democracy, majority always rules. In a Republic, a minority can win. The USA system is really neither. You vote and chose, then another minute group of people can decide that they don’t like your decision and choose differently. Americans talk about *Representation* and *voice*, but the reality seems to us that you have neither in fact. It’s a nice theory, practice has proven to be very different.

So, to us, all this discussion and campaigning for popular vote, is at best a placebo. It seems that if you get what you think you want, it’s purely coincidental. The decisions have already been made, and the average American will find out what that decision is when the Presidential election comes around.

Maybe we are wrong (and I have lived in the USA through an election campaign), but that is how it seems to us.