Here goes:
Our guy keeps losing, so I want to abolish the electoral college. That way I can call the majority of the country ‘Jesusland’ and shit all over them and not have to pay a price. Plus, even though it will anger them, the smart people will be running things, so they will be better off even if they don’t recognize it.
Terry
Marty Peretz, editor in chief of The New Republic has an oped in today’s WSJ that addresses some of the lunacies voiced by nutjobs, such as Marshall. Here’s an excerpt:
“Still, the extreme and bitter judgments against the citizenry after this election are especially tendentious. For what the electorate did on Nov. 2 was essentially (or maybe just merely) turn down John Kerry, a candidate who until very late in the Democratic primaries was almost no one’s choice as the nominee, the party’s last option because it could rally around no one else. What a pathetic vessel in which to have placed liberalism’s hopes! A senator for two decades who had stood for nothing, really nothing.”
Slartibartfast
Hmmm…retroactively abolish the electoral college, and Kerry still loses. Go back another four years, though, and Bush loses. Which may be the whole point, here.
Ricky
Even shorter: “We can’t win if we play by the rules, so we need to change the rules”
Dave M.
That has to be the silliest and most disengenuous analysis of what Marshall said in his post that can be imagined. Did you even notice when he said: “I’m not doctrinaire on this issue. In fact, I’d say I’ve only recently come to this position… I’m putting this out less in the mode of advocacy than to generate a discussion.” But I guess honest discussion will now be forbidden.
Arndt
If honest discussion were forbidden then Dave M. wouldn’t post here. OTOH if it is forbidden then that’s not Dave M.
JKC
It’s also fair to point out that had Kerry won Ohio, it would have been a reverse of 2000: Bush would have won the popular vote but lost the election.
Marshall’s arguments have merit. Don’t dismiss them just because you dislike the messenger.
The Lonewacko Blog
JC is from one of those cherished swing states. Meanwhile, the 30 million (?) residents of California are continually ignored. We do have a few problems caused by the federal government (such as their unwillingness to enforce the immigration laws), but because of the electoral college Bush doesn’t need to worry about us.
Slartibartfast
The electoral vote of California counts for just over 10% of the electors. Those who voted in California this time accounted for 8.6% of the popular vote.
Yep, California is getting screwed, all right.
Bloggerhead
Jumpin’ Jehosephat, John. You spent–what?–three minutes composing this post. Next time, would it kill you to devote at least as much time to reading the link that you’re seeking to ridicule. Even the hackneyed “Shorter…” formulation requires at least a tenuous connection between link and post.
Sure, you can claim to be reading between the lines to come up with Marshall’s imputed resentfulness and elitism, but then you’re laying yourself open to similarly sloppy claims imputing your own inferiority and persecution complexes.
Shorter Balloon Juice: paranoia, the new Breakfast of Champions.
JKC
Slarti-
I think the bigger point is that as things currently stand, the Presidential election is increasingly fought out in a shrinking number of “battleground states” while “safe” states are ignored by both candidates. That may have been great fun for you in Florida* or for residents of Ohio, but citizens of solidly Red and Blue states were ignored by both parties.** I, for one, can see a lot of merit in having national elections contested… well, nationally.
*At least it must have been a welcome distraction in between hurricanes.
**Neither President Bush nor Senator Kerry saw fit to visit me here in upstate New York and ask for my vote. I was hurt.
Ricky
Yeah, an election on the popular vote alone would be soooooo much more fair.
Candidate A: “I propose that we implement a tax on the smallest 40 states that would pay for the benefits of the largest 10 states, with added goodies to the largest 10 cities in the nation. What, I’m popular in the urban areas? I’m shocked!”
Gee, I wonder what caused Josh to ‘recently’ consider changing the constitution? (BTW, did he not know that there was a high-profile visit from both camps to the small state of Hawaii on the last weekend?)
Look, the only people who are complaining about the EC are the losers. And, as Arnold said, recently: “why would I pay attention to losers?”
JKC
Earth to Ricky:
Your side won. Popular vote AND Electoral College. Fair and square. Could you stop whining for thirty seconds about how everyone else is a “loser?”
As for this absurd statement:
You forgot about the United States Senate, where all 50 states have two senators each. Such a proposal would never pass, even if there were a candidate on either side stupid enough to consider it. Your scenario is about as likely as John Ashcroft opening a Hooters franchise.
KFC
Josh Marshall must be missing his checks from George Soros about now. That’s why he’s not thinking very clearly. But give him a few months to drink it off, and another month or two in rehab, and he might start making sense, for the first time in his life.
That would be something to see!
Slartibartfast
Ah. Well, all is good then. It’s arguable whether hurricanes succeeded in delivering Florida to Bush; nothing endears a state to the Fed like disaster relief. Without the four hurricanes, Florida might have been a much tighter race.
shark
JC is from one of those cherished swing states. Meanwhile, the 30 million (?) residents of California are continually ignored. We do have a few problems caused by the federal government (such as their unwillingness to enforce the immigration laws), but because of the electoral college Bush doesn’t need to worry about us
California, ignored? You’re fricking kidding me, right? Hey, if you want attention, stop voting for the Democrat electors reflexively, and put your electoral votes in play. 55 votes, watch how much attention you’ll get.
JKC
Slarti-
The bit about the hurricanes was meant as a joke. I doubt very much that disaster relief put Florida “over the edge,” and in my most cynical moment I don’t believe that George W Bush would play politics with disaster relief.
Ralph Gizzip
Perhaps Josh could be summed up thusly, “If we had some ham, we could have ham and eggs…. if we had some eggs.”
lockstep
“Josh Marshall must be missing his checks from George Soros about now. That’s why he’s not thinking very clearly. But give him a few months to drink it off, and another month or two in rehab, and he might start making sense, for the first time in his life.
That would be something to see!”
Such intelligent commentary makes one so proud to be “right.”
Slartibartfast
I, on the other hand, was quite serious. I’m unconvinced by my own argument, but I find it plausible. Florida is a state that teeters between Republican and Democrat. The only thing I can think of that put it that far into R territory is the hurricanes, and ensuing federal disaster relief.
Harry in Atlanta
“You forgot about the United States Senate, where all 50 states have two senators each. Such a proposal would never pass, even if there were a candidate on either side stupid enough to consider it. Your scenario is about as likely as John Ashcroft opening a Hooters franchise.”
JKC, while senators from the smaller states would put the kabosh on this idea it probably would still get the nitwit who proposed it elected President by the blue state elitists left-wing nutjobs. Because from what I’ve been reading recently, including what is in the MSM, no conspiracy theory is out of bounds for those bigoted Christophobic Chicken Little kooks.
Rick
I’m not in love with the Electoral College, but until we can develop voting systems that can banish fraud (fond hope), it’s a valuable “firebreak” or compartmentalization of damage from such fraud.
And I do know that the D’s practice it far more than the R’s, because they have so many more opportunities (one-party precincts).
Cordially….
Ricky
No, loser. Hey, that was just a joke…..seriously, I’m not trying to come across as a complainer and I apologize for the crass humor, but that opening was just too wide. No hard feelings. :)
As pertaining to the “absurd” statement, I was going from the position that reality had been suspended and senators from the smaller states had agreed to do away with the electoral college, which was the entire premise of Marshall’s post (wasn’t it?).
See, I went an entire paragraph without calling Josh Marshall a loser. :)
Bloggerhead
“And I do know that the D’s practice it far more than the R’s, because they have so many more opportunities (one-party precincts).”
Rick:
In the face of your irrefutable evidence of opportunity yielding direct effect, I humbly offer the following link:
http://ustogether.org/Florida_Election.htm.
Certainly, there is more than one way to hack, er, skin a cat, and the opportunities abound. Just saying…
JKC
One last point for my conservative freinds to ponder:
Had Ohio gone for Kerry, we’d all be getting used to the phrase “President-elect Kerry” even though George Bush won the popular vote by a much greater margin than Al Gore did in 2000. I’m not sure you’d be so vocal in your defence of the EC if that had been the case.
Max M
That way I can call the majority of the country ‘Jesusland’ and shit all over them and not have to pay a price.
No, see, if you did that, the MAJORITY wouldn’t vote for you and you’d lose the popular vote. That isn’t necessarily true for the electoral college. How you manage to so completely and utterly miss the point is quite… baffling, amusing, no?
Just like Ricky, who inadvertantly made quite a good argument against the electoral college:
Candidate A: “I propose that we implement a tax on the smallest 40 states that would pay for the benefits of the largest 10 states, with added goodies to the largest 10 cities in the nation. What, I’m popular in the urban areas? I’m shocked!”
The exaxt reverse, approximately (although its more of a bipartisan effort), is what the case today is with farm subsidies, cotton subsidies etc. etc. Really, there is no excuse for it, it’d be hard to come up with a better way to screw impoverished third world nations, and its due in a large part to the electoral college.
Ricky
I kept seeing that prior to the election when so many lefty pundits & pollsters were predicting that Bush would have an easy popular vote win and Kerry may eek out an EV victory….has anyone on the right or any Republican actually stated that they’d suddenly change their minds, based on election results, in the manner that Josh Marshall has suddenly found his new religion?
The founding docs are what they are…whoever gets the EVs is the winner. I’ve yet to see a righty say otherwise, yet I’ve seen many lefties do just that ever since Gore lost.
Had Kerry won, I’d be calling him President Kerry (and I’d be a ‘loser’). :)
Ron
Let’s see, the blue states are richer, and the mantra is that we should transfer wealth from the richer to the poorer, but its bad that we’re transferring wealth from the richer states to the poorer states.
I love Lefty thinking…
Max M
I’m in favour of progressive redistribution as a general principle for education healthcare etc, but against generous benefits for the unemployed in specific. Similarly, farm subsidies.
If the capacity to make value judgements between various uses of tax-payers’ monies is lefty thinking, you boys need to start using the other side of your brains more often :-)
Ricky
Rick
Bloggerhead,
Thanks for the nice thought, but I perused, pointed and laughed at the usatogether site before writing anything here.
My point remains: I do believe Dems are more dishonest, but their elevated fraudulent voting activities are mainly due to greater opportunities. If ‘pubbies had as many chances to cast phantom votes, then I fear the GOP would succumb to the temptation as well.
Cordially…
Slartibartfast
What a freaking joke. “Expected” votes? Based on what? If they’d even bothered to inspect the 2000 results, they’d have had a different expectation. All of the Florida counties that they’re insisting had huge, unexpected Republican vote swings voted Republican in 2000. You can’t calculate an expected value based on nothing other than your notion of which way the votes ought to split, you have to do it based on which way the votes do, in fact, split in those counties.
Still, it’s one of the most beautiful piles of horseshit I’ve seen in a while.
Max M
Your reasoning fell apart when you said it was “bipartisan”, ergo making it something both the more urban-dwelling Dems and more rural-dwelling GOPers vote for.
Jesus, boy, you have problems with logic. Bipartisan as in rural D’s and rural R’s cry bloody murder. Your mind goes well there are more D’s in urban areas so you must be talking about them, nya nyaaah! Well, uh, no, I didn’t say that. Sorry.
Aaron
The electoral college makes the election process more interesting. It’s fun to follow the race state by state.
If it was gone, it would be BORING, not too mention, I think its a slippery slope from popular vote to “hey why not have proportional representation.”
Aaron
I wonder why the dems aren’t thinking more about the PRIMARY SYSTEM that delivered them Kerry the candidate.
Isn’t that one even more messed up than the electoral college? Like Iowa and New Hampshire being so critical…and how they cater to the wing of the party.