What Long Wait?
Just because today is the actual vote for President of the United States [as noted by Mustang Bobby] I would like to offer a major dose of STFU to all of the ‘pundits” talking about the problems of the long gap between selecting a President and having one take office: less than two weeks is not a long time.
Once again: people don’t get to vote for President, they get to vote for some number of the 535 people who get to vote for President – the Electoral College. The Electoral College votes in mid-December, but the votes are counted by the newly elected Congress when they convene for the first time on January 8th.
There is only a “President-elect” from January 8th until inauguration at Noon on January 20th.
10 comments
*BIG GRIN* Ah Bryan… You are far too sensible and knowledgeable about such things. 😀 The cool-aid drinking fantasy land inhabitants there (of which there are a multitude it appears) must surely despise you. LOL (That’s a good thing BTW) 😉
The primary type of person that really annoys me are the ‘Rationalists’! Why do so many people confuse fact-based logic with rationalism? They seem to think that because something can be rationalized, it must also be logical and factual. *shrug* I see and hear people rationalizing arguments and *facts* all the time. We humans are past masters at rationalizing anything we want to believe, that neither makes it logical (and usually it isn’t) or factual. You have had eight years of a ‘Rationalizer-in-Charge’ running the USA. And the second type that really annoys me, are people with an abundance of *good intentions*! Ahh yes… The road to Hell is indeed paved with good intentions! *sigh* I better not get started on that… could be a very long rant!
Bah! A bullet is too kind for the lot of them! We should round them all up (and we surely do have our share here, we had Howard re-elected after all), and send them off to Pluto or an island with an active volcano about to erupt. Let them rationalize that!
At the risk of taking that bullet that is too kind for me, I’ll observe that the effective political time span, from the popular Election Day (11/4 this year) to Inauguration Day (1/20/2009) is, in fact, far too long. It’s the time during which lame ducks may freely wreak havoc; for an ongoing example, look at any political web site.
IIRC, the 1/20 date is set by a constitutional amendment. [Update: it’s Amendment XX.] Article II Section 1 says that Congress sets the date (uniform for all states) that the electors meet to vote, so that’s mutable without overwhelming effort. The popular Election Day is set by federal statute, and thus even easier to change.
Should it be changed? IMHO, yes; that period should be shortened, and the potential for havoc-wreaking reduced. I presume that’s the proposed change the pundits are chattering about, not the actual casting (today) or counting (1/8) of electoral votes.
(The bullet now, please… I have a helluva headache.)
LOL Yeah… I could use a bullet also. The pain killers (even codeine) aren’t as effective as they are when I began taking them a couple weeks ago. I only take them now when the pain makes working (or getting to sleep) too difficult, which thankfully is happening less often now.
Anyway… I think Steve you are talking about the entire process time span, and Bryan is talking about the idiots complaining that the part between the actual public elections in Nov and the inauguration at the end of Jan is far too long because they don’t seem to understand or choose to ignore the reality of the situation. Perhaps it could be shortened if Congress actually spent more time working instead of taking a lot of long breaks. But then they’d just have to also have a major pay raise to shave a couple weeks off their hectic break schedules. 😀
I’ve always said that doing away with the electoral college system would be a great idea, but sadly very difficult and impractical to accomplish. *shrug* The fact is, the people who would have to agree to the change have no interest in the *common good*. They only have self-interests (for the most part).
Fortunately, Kryten, there’s Constitutional Amendment XXVII, that prevents Congress from changing its own pay immediately; any changes are deferred until the next election of Representatives (i.e., the next two-year congressional term). Actually, that amendment was proposed along with the Bill of Rights, but for some reason, it took a couple hundred years to be passed. I wonder why. 🙂
You are right about the Electoral College: it isn’t going to change. There are things that can be done short of repealing it, though: all states could do what Nebraska and Maine already do… apportion electoral votes based on popular votes, rather than allocating them winner-take-all, as in all other states. The usual proposal is 1) one electoral vote for each congressional district in the state, determined by the popular vote in that district, plus 2) two electoral votes based on the popular winner in the whole state. That would almost agree with the national popular vote every time; it would be difficult to contrive a situation in which it didn’t. But then a lot of campaign consultants would be out of a job, and you know how tough the jobs picture is in America today… 🙂
I’m surprised that amendment was ever passed actually! Was there a lynching party after? 😀
Hah! Awwww…. you’re breaking my heart for the poor sod’s! Diddums… Ummm… not really!! They may have paying job’s, but I’m sure most have no idea whatsoever about the concept of actually *working* for a living! Who’d hire them in the real world anyway? Maybe they could be garden gnomes? Door stops? LOL
I agree with you about the way the votes are apportioned, and it would be a good change. I won’t hold my breath though! 😉
Obama, and any administration that is going to take over the overextended mess that the US government has become, especially when you have the Hedgemony’s policy of more people to do less, needs the time in November and December to find the first and second tier people for just the major political jobs in government.
You are not going to get an amendment through the Senate that down grades the political power of small states, especially since the majority of them belong to a single party.
We aren’t helped when the media has headlines today saying “It’s Official” regarding the Electoral College vote, since, as the Constitution clearly states, it isn’t “Official” until the new Congress counts the votes on January 8.
The spelling may be a little weird, and the language a bit stilted, but the Constitution with all of the Amendments isn’t very long. It would be nice if people read it, especially the 535 people in Congress, 9 Supreme Court justices, and the resident of the White House. Maybe then we could convince the media to give it a try. The stuff that includes dates is pretty cut and dried.
“You are not going to get an amendment through the Senate that down grades the political power of small states, especially since the majority of them belong to a single party.”
Bingo. That’s why the Electoral College will never go away. It seems to me that in a federal system comprising states of vastly differing populations, this is inevitable: no state, no matter how small, wants less than one pair of Senators and one Representative.
Two good things about the scheme I mentioned above: one is that it does not require a federal constitutional amendment (some states may have to change their constitutions), and the other is that it can be implemented gradually, with each additional state contributing to the [small-d] democratic character of the vote. Of course, even that can be gamed, as the GOP attempted in California, knowing that when California switches, it will diminish the number of [large-D] Democratic electoral votes.
My best bet: it will never happen, we’re stuck with what we’ve got, and all those consultants who know how to game this particular system have more job security than all the rest of us put together.
Assigning it according to Congressional district doesn’t offer power to minority party voters in small states, but it’s probably the closest we are apt to see to a popular vote for President, and will make redistricting even more important than it is now.
It will ensure a majority of Florida’s votes will go to a Republican for a very long time.
You know how you get those half remembered quotes you read somewhere that just stick in your head sometimes? I’ve had one bumping around trying to be fully remembered on-and-off for Months now. I wasn’t even sure why at first, then realized it was appropriate to all the discussion of change people are expecting with Obama as President of the USA, even people in other Nations seem to have very high expectations. Anyway, it finally annoyed me to the point where I had to spend some time to look it up! So, here it is:
“And it ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions…”
— Niccolo Machiavelli
People would do well to remember that. 😉
If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard “But we’ve always done it that way”…
People hate change, even change that will benefit them over the long haul, and if that change will in any way impact them in a negative manner, then the old system becomes a “holy relic” to be disturbed only at the “risk of your immortal soul”.
One of the biggest problems of the current political system in the US is that the people who are benefiting from the current mess we are in, are also almost the only people who can get the ear of those in power.