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agreed
Why the Right Wing Is Petrified of Letting Voters, Instead of the Electoral College, Pick Presidents
Republican Senator Mitch McConnell calls it “absurd and dangerous.” The Wall Street Journal says it deserves to “die.” The Heritage Foundation calls it “uncons utional.” The Washington Post calls it “flawed.” A Republican National Committee resolution says it is a radical, un-American, “questionable legal maneuver.”
“We need to kill it in the cradle before it grows up,” McConnell told a Heritage Foundation audience last December.
Right-wingers like Uhlmann say that because human nature cannot be trusted, the founders created key governing bodies that were not elected, but instead consisted of wiser "elders" whose decisions put brakes on more impulsive majorities.
correct about NPV’s support. Majorities of American overwhelmingly back replacing the current Electoral College system with popular vote election of the president, according to Gallup, whose polls have tracked the issue for years. And it is not just Democrats who support this, although 71 percent of Democrats said they did, compared to 61 percent of Independents and 53 percent of Republicans polled last fall. But the Republicans who support NPV are cut from a different political cloth than the RNC leadership or conservative think tanks.
(NPV) “It is born from a frustration of a system that is inherently broken, a system that allots two-thirds to three-fourths of resources in a presidential campaign in the last six or seven weeks to six states. That isn’t democracy,”
“Any Republican and conservative who signs onto it needs a psychiatric examination. These people aren’t foolish. There are real constraints imposed by the Electoral College system.”
what of the right-wing critics who will continue to assert that America is not a democracy but a cons utional republic where the majority of voters should not get to vote for president—and for good reason, because of the tyranny of mob rule?
“Open a dictionary,” Koza replied. “Whether you are a democracy or not has nothing to do with whether you have a winner-take-all [Electoral College] rule. The president will still serve for four years. The federal legislature will still serve for two or six years, and they will make decisions on behalf of the public between elections. That’s the definition of a republic. These people who babble about democracy versus republic have never looked in the dictionary.”
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/154027
If the conservatives and Repugs are violently against it, aka litmus test, then you know NPV is a wonderful idea.
agreed
NPV, as described at the website :
http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/p...xplanation.phpUnder the U.S. Cons ution, the states have exclusive and plenary (complete) power to allocate their electoral votes, and may change their state laws concerning the awarding of their electoral votes at any time. Under the National Popular Vote bill, all of the state's electoral votes would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538).
sameThe bill has been enacted by 9 jurisdictions possessing 132 electoral votes — 49% of the 270 necessary to activate it (VT, MD, WA, IL, NJ, DC, MA, CA, HI).
"they will make decisions on behalf of the public between elections"
Slipped a lie in there. The public doesn't figure in their decisions.
...
Last edited by boutons_deux; 02-09-2012 at 01:44 PM.
It got GW elected.
Last edited by Bill_Brasky; 02-10-2012 at 03:39 AM.
@boutons:
why fuss over the manner of election when the UCA/MIC/VRWC has captured the government irretrievably? all the candidates are presumably groomed for power and prepositioned by the 1% -- we vote for a candidate of their choosing in any case.
what difference does it make if the 1%'s preselected man is elected directly or indirectly?
good point, the candidates are selected, or at least permitted, by the 1%, so there's really no way to reform the system.
So go ask the Repugs/conservatives why they so desperately want to "conserve" the status quo rather than switch to NPV.
why the OP then? and why castigate the GOP for standing in the way of illusory reform?
repeat:
"So go ask the Repugs/conservatives why they so desperately want to "conserve" the status quo rather than switch to NPV."
They must see some risk in NPV or they wouldn't care.
If there is no operational difference whatsoever, by dint of the UCAMICVRWC, between the current system and the NPV, why do the progressives (If that is indeed the case) push NPV? They must see some benefit or they wouldn't care.
Pom, meet Pom
lol having to remind boutons he's a lazy nihilist
give me reasons why I should be optimistic about Human-Americans' and the environment's prospects.
electoral college won't be abolished.
The "young" US republic is already as constipated as concrete, politically paralyzed, no major changes (progress) possible.
thanks for nothing, then
I would imagine Republicans are against the popular vote is because demographics are moving against them. This country is heading towards become a minority majority nation. As minorities tend to vote Democratic, the electoral college is the best bet the Republicans have at getting the White House. Eventually it won't matter as white Republican majorities are going to fall in all states over time.
demographics may be destiny, but political loyalties change over time.
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