<a href='http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/29/opinion/29sun1.html' target='_blank'>http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/29/opinion/29sun1.html</a>

Yea, and while we're at it, let's just get rid of every law or national policy that doesn't favor the Democrats :rolleyes:

The sad thing is that most Democrats might agree with that.

The Knight Time Wrote:The sad thing is that most Democrats might agree with that.

Might agree?

The founding fathers knew what they were doing when they decided this would be a republic and not a democracy. They also knew what they were doing when they established the electorial college.

The fact that the NY Times and SF are all for this show how far from the ideals of this country today's democratic party is.

Ninerfan1 Wrote:

The Knight Time Wrote:The sad thing is that most Democrats might agree with that.

Might agree?

The founding fathers knew what they were doing when they decided this would be a republic and not a democracy. They also knew what they were doing when they established the electorial college.

The fact that the NY Times and SF are all for this show how far from the ideals of this country today's democratic party is.

I agree. We live in a federal republic. I mean, if the electoral college makes the Presidential election undemocratic, than by that definition, the United States Senate is undemocratic as well, because Rhode Island and Wyoming have as many votes in it as California and Texas, even though the latter make up like 25% of the country.

It ticks me off a bit that the Democrats are at a disadvantage in the EC right now, but I also realize that in 15 years that could be totally different. You can't just go changing the rules of the game because they don't favor your side.

Additionally, an election without an EC would mean that urban and suburban issues would dominate the election every time, with candidates only spending time and money in the top 15 or 20 metropolitan media markets. Huge segments of the rural population and their interests would be completely frozen out of the process. Now, its true that some states that are reliably Blue or Red are frozen out now, but on balance, the issues that are hot in the battleground states reflect a BROAD cross-section of interests. In Iowa, for instance, farm issues are important. In Ohio, manufacturing issues. New Mexico has a high hispanic population, while New Hampshire and Washington state care about the technology sector. Concerns of the elderly are important in Florida and Arizona. No interest group is completely shut out of the process. Moving to a direct election in a country as big as the united states will effectively disenfranchise small communities and entire interest groups like agriculture, and alienate them from the political process, something that is always unhealthy for a democratic country to play around with.

The funniest thing is the fellow with the sign. What is little johnny's financial status?

Quote:I agree. We live in a federal republic. I mean, if the electoral college makes the Presidential election undemocratic, than by that definition, the United States Senate is undemocratic as well, because Rhode Island and Wyoming have as many votes in it as California and Texas, even though the latter make up like 25% of the country.

Exactly. An election of the president by the popular vote was a proposal that was on the table for the framers. However, it was rejected for a number of reasons. It wasn't that the framers distrusted the people, but rather because the larger populous States would have much greater influence than the smaller States and therefore the interests of those smaller States could be disregarded or trampled (you outlined that in you point above). Additionally, a nationwide election would encourage regionalism since the more populous areas of the country could form coalitions to elect president after president from their own region. With such regional preferentialism, lasting national unity would be nearly impossible. The electoral college synthesized two important philosophies established in the Constitution: (1) the maintenance of a republican, as opposed to a democratic, form of government and (2) the balancing of power between the smaller and the larger States and between the various diverse regions of the nation.

Quote:It ticks me off a bit that the Democrats are at a disadvantage in the EC right now, but I also realize that in 15 years that could be totally different. You can't just go changing the rules of the game because they don't favor your side.

I don't know that I agree on this. The democrats begin every election with California, NY and Mass. in their column. That's a big advantage if only because the Republicans have to make it up with smaller states and electorial votes and have much less room for error.

I agree with the rest of your post, very well put.

Metro Versus Retro
Should We Abandon the Electoral College?

BreakPoint with Charles Colson

September 02, 2004

Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley.

Retro, Metro. Retro, Metro.

If those words seem familiar, you may have seen an ad campaign talking about a “great divide