Friday, September 24, 2004
Colorado's effort to become irrelevant politically
Colorado is trying desperately to take itself out of consideration in national politics. How? By proposing to split its electoral votes by the proportion of popular votes in the State. This superficially and emotionally appealing concept falls apart upon any kind of careful analysis.
For a nice concise history and explanation of the Electoral College, look here.
Colorado being a smaller, more rural state has a slightly greater say per capita in Presidential elections than larger states like New York, California, or Texas. For that reason, presidential candidates take us seriously enough to actually visit here. If we split the votes, one thing we can be sure of: we will never again get a nickel's worth of visits or campaign information. Why would Kerry spend a nickel here to get five instead of four votes? Why would Bush stop here during a campaign? We will disappear.
The Electoral College system has worked beautifully for hundreds of years. It stabilizes the two party system. It balances the need for popular vote and regional representation in a complex nation.
And one thing the populists forget. Remember 2000? Can you imagine the national chaos if we had direct popular elections and the candidates had had to bring their armies of lawyers to all 50 states to contest all of the results in all of the counties in the country? It makes me wonder if the opponents of the Electoral College are really anarchists who want to take us down. There are people like that out there. Or, alternatively, perhaps it is a bunch of underemployed attorneys?
The Electoral College has provided stability to this country for over 200 years. Like the division in Congress between population (the House) and region (the Senate), it has been an effective compromise for the Executive branch. It prevents a few large population centers from totally dominating political thought in this huge and diverse nation. I can't imagine why Colorado would want to unilaterally take itself out of the debate for the Presidency of the United States and I hope you will vote against this ill-considered proposal.
For a nice concise history and explanation of the Electoral College, look here.
Colorado being a smaller, more rural state has a slightly greater say per capita in Presidential elections than larger states like New York, California, or Texas. For that reason, presidential candidates take us seriously enough to actually visit here. If we split the votes, one thing we can be sure of: we will never again get a nickel's worth of visits or campaign information. Why would Kerry spend a nickel here to get five instead of four votes? Why would Bush stop here during a campaign? We will disappear.
The Electoral College system has worked beautifully for hundreds of years. It stabilizes the two party system. It balances the need for popular vote and regional representation in a complex nation.
And one thing the populists forget. Remember 2000? Can you imagine the national chaos if we had direct popular elections and the candidates had had to bring their armies of lawyers to all 50 states to contest all of the results in all of the counties in the country? It makes me wonder if the opponents of the Electoral College are really anarchists who want to take us down. There are people like that out there. Or, alternatively, perhaps it is a bunch of underemployed attorneys?
The Electoral College has provided stability to this country for over 200 years. Like the division in Congress between population (the House) and region (the Senate), it has been an effective compromise for the Executive branch. It prevents a few large population centers from totally dominating political thought in this huge and diverse nation. I can't imagine why Colorado would want to unilaterally take itself out of the debate for the Presidency of the United States and I hope you will vote against this ill-considered proposal.
# posted by Unknown @ 9:21 PM 
