I’m a advocate of having Congress meet via teleconferencing with the Congresscritters staying home at an office in their own districts.
The Electoral College give voters in small states too much power over the national policy, but I don’t see them giving the power up.
]]>It’s outdated and needs to go away. I suppose at the time it was needed as a concession to states interests, but it also says the citizens were not to be trusted to choose a leader. Only to choose the wise and all knowing electors, who would choose on their behalf.
We will never have a viable third party as long as the electoral college system persists. And that may be why it won’t be eliminated. The current two parties don’t want competition.
This is not the way a free country should choose their leader. This should have gone in the dust bin years ago. I think the US is the only country that uses this convoluted system. And I don’t mean that in a good way. I know this subject is taught in high school; did everyone sleep through that class? Wake up people. Grrrrrr.
]]>There is no party discipline in the US. They keep referring to the “big tent”, the idea that you can accept anyone to use your party’s label because it “grows” the party. That is a fundamentally flawed concept. If you don’t have core principles that everyone has to agree to before they can use your label, the label is meaningless.
To win, the Republicans accepted the Southern Democrats who bolted when the Civil Rights Acts were passed in the mid-196os. Those “Dixiecrats” then took over the “party of Lincoln”. The Republicans were once based in the Northeast and Midwest, and now they are based in the South and West. This strategy only worked when traditional Republicans could still get elected in their former strongholds, but this is no longer true. The Democrats have picked up the people in the Northeast that would have formerly been “moderate Republicans” and combined them with their big city and coastal base.
All of the things that Republicans like to complain about today, like the income tax and government regulation of business, were enacted by Republican Presidents and Congresses in the early 20th century.
The Republicans keep complaining about “welfare” and fail to mention that the majority of the people “on the dole” are rural white people living in Republican states, not the urban minorities in Democratic cities.
We really need viable third parties, but we just can’t get traction because the two big parties do everything they can to prevent it.
The core problem is that we don’t have a parliamentary system where a bad government can be replaced at any time by an annoyed populace. Hell, nobody is really sure that recalling Congresscritters and Senators is constitutional in the few states with laws that allow for it. I’m sure that LIEberman’s constituents would love to swap him out for a new model, but he is not a Democrat any more; he was elected as an independent after losing the Democratic primary. Independents get to chose which side of the aisle they sit on, and he chose the Democratic side.
]]>There were no parties or nominations in this concept. The College could pick anyone who was born in the United States and 35 years old. The “campaign” was their discussion of the various people that the College itself suggested for the job. It worked well for the elections of George Washington and then turned into a combat zone with the birth of political parties based around John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. It wasn’t designed to work with parties, and it doesn’t.
The biggest problem is that the nation keeps subdividing. Originally you had the North v South. Then you had the West added. Now you have more than a half dozen regional areas that are still being represented by two parties. It doesn’t work. The parties are fracturing, with a loss of brand identity. A Florida Democrat and a California Democrat don’t share much more than a party name with a New York Democrat or each other.
There are only two national elected officials and the nation should elect them.
]]>Perhaps Obama can pull a rabbit out of the hat. 😉 He won a couple States most people thought no Democrat would… Anything is possible I suppose. 🙂
The one advantage you have now is that Obama does at least seem to be a man who will listen to the public. So, if enough of you want chance, maybe you have a chance. 🙂 Under a Republican, they would only listen when you speak the party line, and often, not even then.
]]>We need to get rid of the College and let the President be elected by the nation. It would eliminate a lot of the gaming of the system that goes on. It would also reduce the “time zone effect”, as it would be almost impossible for anyone to amass enough votes that what happens in Alaska and Hawaii became meaningless. It might encourage people to turn out if their votes were actually going to be counted.
]]>It is state law that governs how electors are selected, and a legislature can change that law any time before the November election. In Florida, which has term limits, there is nothing to stop them from doing it.
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