Is the Presidency too big for one man? Hardly. The Presidency works fine, just as Reagan proved with his stunning successes at the very moment the left was asking this same exact question in response to brainiac Jimmy Carter’s utter failure. So why do leftists keep asking this? Two reasons: first, this is a defense mechanism, and secondly, they don’t like or understand our system of government.Whenever a liberal super-genius fails, the left needs to find a reason. They won’t blame their ideology, no matter how much history there is showing its total failure. But they will blame almost everything else. For example, we’ve heard them blame their opponents for frustrating their efforts. We’ve heard them spin conspiracy theories about special interest groups or corporate cabals intentionally trying to ruin things (Pelosi is the latest to claim that she’s being attacked because she’s dangerous to “special interests”. . . yeah, Boogieman Inc.). And we’ve heard them blame the ignorant masses -- an Obama specialty.
But that’s often not enough.
Eventually, leftists will get around to burning down their latest Messiahs. To keep themselves from having to reassess whether or not their own beliefs make sense, they will instead attack the person they relied upon to implement those beliefs. This is where the common liberal lunatic refrain “we just need the right leader to put these policies in place” comes from. This is why they can continue to believe in socialism despite its track record of 100% failure and its body count in the hundreds of millions. . . "it wasn’t the ideas, it was the jerks who put those ideas into practice the wrong way."
But sometimes, leftists aren’t ready yet to turn on their Messiahs. So they seek a middle ground: “there is something just wrong with the system.” This lets them continue in their delusions that their policies are not to blame for the current disasters and also that they didn’t choose the wrong Messiah. Hence, every time some liberal Messiah fails, you hear a round of “is the Presidency too big for one man?” (You may recall we told you this was coming in September.) Newsweek is the latest to ask this question.
The truth is that the Presidency is not too big. Reagan proved it. Clinton proved it. Others will continue to prove it. Obama’s failure, just like Carter’s failure, does not mean the job is too big. Obama’s failure was not the result of anything inherently wrong with the job, it was what he tried to do with the job.
And this brings us to the other reason the left repeatedly raises this question. They don’t really grasp what the Presidency is, i.e. the job is not designed to reach the kinds of results the left wants. The President is a check and balance on the power of the legislature. The President’s job is to approve or disapprove laws, and then to enforce those laws strictly. But the left doesn’t get that. They see the Presidency as some sort of enlightened despot position, where an all powerful President delves into every minute detail of everything happening in the country. They want a President who can remake the economy, remake society, and remake the human soul with the swipe of a pen.
But the President can’t do any of that. Thus, when they finally get someone into office, they are disappointed that the despot they elected never seems to get around to making them thinner, happier or richer, making their kids smarter, or crushing the people they hold grudges against. . . "why have you forsaken me Mr. President?"
What’s worse, things always go wrong when their guy gets into office: incomes drop, unemployment soars, foreign countries laugh at us and take advantage of us, and the public gets angrier and angrier. And to them, this seems like a strange coincidence because they will never accept that their policies of raising taxes, imposing strangling regulation, and showing cowardice to our enemies are responsible for these problems. . . "no, must be something wrong with the job itself?"
This is why liberals wonder if the Presidency isn’t too big of a job for one person. They elect the smartest man on earth, he gets his policies into place, and suddenly everything turns sour. And no matter what the President tries to fix this, no matter how many magic beads he shakes, things just keep getting worse. Since there’s nothing wrong with their policies. . . and they didn’t choose the wrong despot to be their leader. . . there must be something wrong with the job itself, right?
"They want a President who can remake the economy, remake society ... with the swipe of a pen. But the President can’t do any of that."
ReplyDeleteIsn't that what executive orders and the new "czar" system they've been instituting are for?
Andrew
ReplyDeleteThe jobs not to big, it is their chosen ones who are to small.
It's funny that I have just lately been thinking about the kinds of mistakes liberals make, and how it often comes down to a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose or nature of things.
ReplyDeleteIn your case, it's the role of the President. I was thinking about the Electoral College and the left's periodic call to abolish it, and it struck me: they think that the president is supposed to be elected by the people. They don't understand that it's the states who elect the president.
Lets not forget Barry’s now infamous comment, “I’m the one we’ve been waiting for.” …and the fools parade continues as expected by those who can think. I believe the leftist dummies thought they had that covered with the Tsars, who would act as independent tentacles of the executive, circumventing the legislative process, and enhancing the power of the executive. A great example was the Stimulus bill. Which gave the executive branch a, $787billion dollar slush fund that could be distributed as Barry and his Tsars see fit. They believe that the problem in Keynesian economics is, they just haven’t spent enough money (see Paul Krugman), and though we now have empirical evidence, that it does not work, I look for them to double down on stupid. And just like with Carter, they will indeed attempt to excuse Barry’s, epic fail.
ReplyDeleteAndrew,
ReplyDeleteI think you are on to something. The "liberals" have no real concept of what the Presidency entails. To them, it is a dictatorship voted on by the public. To us, it is a highly restricted leadership position, with some leeway during war.
Obama indeed has fallen victim to the overly lofty expectations that were set by his own campaign team, and bought hook, line, and sinker by an adoring media.
ReplyDeleteThe reality is, the natural order of things economic is cyclical. Clinton was able to benefit from the dot.com boom which took place, almost coincidentally, while he was raising taxes. It collapsed, because, it was just that--a BOOM.
We were due for a collapse of the housing market. We all realize that the run-up of prices had to eventually collapse. Most of the short term harm happens regardless of party. That said, common sense tells us the accumulation of debt we are taking on is disasterous in the long run. Politicians and government (both parties) meddle mainly to try and "soften" the short term pain of their constituent voters. The effect is, instead of a slightly quicker more painful fix, the downturn is prolonged.
Markets will correct. They will do so more quickly and efficiently if the politicians stay out of the way. That includes supply side tax rates, certainty of tax implications, and the impact of massive overly complex social programs such as Obamacare.
Obama will be thrown overboard if things don't start to improve over the next year. I guess he just wasn't "the one" after all.
Crispy, Executive Orders do give Presidents a lot more power, but they are still limited by the law. Presidents may only carry out laws, they cannot make laws. If an Executive Order ventures into that area, it can be struck down in court.
ReplyDeleteThe czar issue a good deal worse because it allows the President to make laws that no one knows about because the Czar is in there cutting deals with people as if they were laws. It's a practice that the Congress needs to stop.
Tom, I think it's an even bigger problem than that -- I don't think there is a chosen one big enough because the job just can't do what the left wants it to do. Plus, their policies will always cause the kinds of problems that they keep complaining about frustrating their efforts.
ReplyDeleteMike, Very true. The don't understand how the system works or why. Take the electoral college system, as you cite, they don't understand that its purpose is to prevent the most populated states from deciding each election without any input from anyone else. Without that system, five or six cities could be enough to choose a President, and that would let them pick people who don't represent any other part of the country. But by using this system, Presidents actually need to appeal to people in every remote corner of the country because each electoral vote can be the one that swings an election.
ReplyDeleteA good example of what happens when you drop the checks and balances is California, where three or four cities run the state and they are stupidly destroying large parts of it without a single care about the people whose lives they are wiping out.
It's the same thing with all the other checks and balances. Liberals just see the world through the present. If they like someone, they wonder why anything should be allowed to stand in their way. If they don't like the guy, then they wonder why he's allowed to abuse his power and "frustrate the will of the people." They never bother to think about long term, or that the checks and balances are there to prevent tyranny, and that the door swings both ways.
Stan, The czars are indeed a problem. This is something the Republicans need to crack down on severely. We can't allow unelected people to get their hands on massive slush funds that they can then use to basically create law by putting conditions on the funds.
ReplyDeleteNot to mention that we shouldn't have any more slush funds period.
I think they'll excuse Obama for a while still, to give him a last chance to "fix it." But once "it" proves to be beyond his power to fix, then all bets are off and they will turn on him. In fact, we're already seeing that with several people suggesting that he should not run again.
Andrew: Quite simply put, the left doesn't like the Constitution because it gets in the way of the president having unfettered power. It's hard for a messiah to work his magic if those pesky checks and balances keep his genius restrained. Just think--if we didn't have that annoying Congressional opposition party and that damned Supreme Court, Obama would already have brought on the socialist utopia.
ReplyDeleteSo, it requires a man big enough to manage the unmanageable. A Lenin rather than a Trotsky.
Joel, I think that's correct. Listening to the complaints liberals make, they really do seem to think the presidency is a form of dictatorship, subject only to a mild check by the legislator, and their job is to solve every single problem that appears on television. Oh, a man was unfairly arrested, why doesn't the President set him free. Oh, there are homeless, why doesn't the President fix that? Oh, there is pollution, the President should go stop that.
ReplyDeleteThey really don't bother to understand government because they believe in checking power..... although they learn pretty quickly when they disagree with what that power is doing.
Jed, I think the issue goes well beyond economics, but you are correct that politicians are often victims/beneficiaries of the cyclical nature of the economy.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I am a firm believer that economic policies have a huge effect. The "tax and regulate everything" policies of the 1960s and 1970s brought about stagflation. Reagan's deregulation broke that cycle and brought us back to a massive period of growth with only minor (short and shallow) downturns. Clinton got lucky that the tech boom covered his mistakes, but I would also argue that the economic policies of the Republican Congress softened that blow and kept the Reagan growth wave alive.
But then we got into a speculative bubble, which I would blame on a shift to crony capitalism under Bush (sorry, but it's true) and kept up by Pelosi... and now sped up by Obama.
History has shown that imposing taxes and regulations slows an economy. Uncertainty in terms of how bad those taxes and regulations will be exacerbates the problem. Tinkering (which both the left and the supply siders love as a means of social engineering) leads to misallocations and bubbles.
The best economic policy is the one that involves the least amount of distortion -- like a small sales tax with regulation only to prevent harm, combined with some form of temporary safety net for working people who have fallen through the cracks. Once you get beyond that, you start to hurt and distort the economy and warp the economic cycle.
And Obama's problem is not just the popping of the bubble, but also that he's made it many times worse with his own policies -- tax increases, heavy regulation, huge uncertainty, dangerous deficit spending, and cronyism.
Lawhawk, That's the sense that I get from the left -- that they see the Constitution as a hinderance. And they treat it with a wink and a nod, to be ignored when their Messiah is planning to lead them to Utopia, but as something to take seriously when the bad guys try to lead us away from Utopia.
ReplyDeleteBut as with the original Utopia, Utopia ain't all it's cracked up to be.
FYI, Rangel has been found guilty of all 11 charges. Next step, the punishment phase.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree, they don't understand the role of the president or the limitations. I've also noticed that they're talking a lot about the presidency being too big for one man. Total bull.
ReplyDeleteAndrew,
ReplyDeleteI think the talk about the presidency being too large for one man is only cover for giving more official power to the Czars.
Ed, They said it about Carter too. It's become a classic liberal refrain once they realize that their guy is failing and before they turn on them.
ReplyDeleteJoel, That's a possibility. They usually use this lament to argue that the Presidency should be broken up into some sort of politburo, with teams of experts handling the various aspects of the job -- typical liberal solution.
ReplyDeleteOne of your best yet.
ReplyDeleteSomething I picked up from Sowell regarding markets & prices.
Which works better?
A. 1000 computers setting prices for 310M products
B. 310M computers setting prices for 1000 products
Change computer to people and products to personal choices and the answer is crystal clear.
Not a perfect analogy to be sure; morality is not addressed and the scale is way off...
On a daily basis, the individuals in the US make approximately 27 Trillion decisions - that's a floor number. A simple, raw calculation. Add any, any complexity and the number explodes.
That’s just one day.
But still, lefties with super-egos send another super-genius to use the same failed economic model.
Makes me wonder...what the hell are they doing?
Pretty sure it is only about power.
Democratic Party: The party of excuses. My favorite is hearing that the President has not gone LEFT enough! Genius!
ReplyDeletePonderosa, Thanks! And great example with the computers -- makes the issue very clear.
ReplyDeleteI've always like asking people to tell me everything it takes to make something like a hamburger... hamburgers are very basic, right? They mention some of the ingredients, then I ask them -- what about cattle feed? What about fuel to get to the market? What about the trucks? And what does it take to make those trucks? What about equipment to slaughter the cattle? What about iron ore to make that equipment? What about....
Then I ask them, since you can't even begin to tell me everything it takes to make a hamburger. What makes you think that one person in Washington, or even a panel of experts, could possibly come up with everything it takes to make everything that consumers need (much less want)? What makes you think they could set the appropriate prices for that? What makes you think they could figure out the logistics to get that hamburger from nothing to you? That's what your asking for when you talk about a planned economy -- that every decision is made by a small group of experts instead of the billions of people all over the world who are constantly making decisions that create the market.
No liberal has ever had an answer for that.
Writer X, There is at least one way in which I agree that Obama hasn't gone left enough.... he hasn't left Washington yet. ;-)
ReplyDeleteGreat article! The democraps don't respect our country or our government, they want this country to be run like some Euro-socialist utopia. They should leave the country.
ReplyDelete"Simple? Yet, not a single person on the face of this earth knows how to make me [a pencil]. This sounds fantastic, doesn’t it? Especially when it is realized that there are about one and one-half billion of my kind produced in the U.S.A. each year."
ReplyDeleteFrom I, Pencil by Leonard Read
Andrew: Now with state-by-state winner-take-all laws presidential elections ignore 12 of the 13 smallest states (3-4 electoral votes), that are almost invariably non-competitive in presidential elections. Six regularly vote Republican (Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, and South Dakota), and six regularly vote Democratic (Rhode Island, Delaware, Hawaii, Vermont, Maine, and DC) in presidential elections. Nine state legislative chambers in the smallest states have passed the National Popular Vote bill. It has been enacted by the District of Columbia and Hawaii.
ReplyDeleteOf the 22 medium-smallest states (those with 3,4,5, or 6 electoral votes), only 3 have been battleground states in recent elections-- NH(4), NM (5), and NV (5). These three states contain only 14 of the 22 (8%) states' total 166 electoral votes.
The 11 most populous states contain 56% of the population of the United States and a candidate would win the Presidency if 100% of the voters in these 11 states voted for one candidate. However, if anyone is concerned about this theoretical possibility, it should be pointed out that, under the current system, a candidate could win the Presidency by winning a mere 51% of the vote in these same 11 states -- that is, a mere 26% of the nation's votes.
With National Popular Vote, big states that are just about as closely divided as the rest of the country, would not get all of the candidates' attention. In recent presidential elections, the 11 largest states have been split -- five "red states (Texas, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, and Georgia) and six "blue" states (California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New Jersey). Among the four largest states, the two largest Republican states (Texas and Florida) generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Bush, while the two largest Democratic states generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Kerry. 8 small western states, with less than a third of California’s population, provided Bush with a bigger margin (1,283,076) than California provided Kerry (1,235,659). The 11 southern states provided Bush with a bigger margin (4,653,558) than the 6 states with the largest Kerry vote margins (4,428,268) in 2004.
With National Popular Vote, big cities would not get all of candidates’ attention, much less control the outcome.. The population of the top five cities (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia) is only 6% of the population of the United States and the population of the top 50 cities (going as far down in name recognition as Arlington, TX) is only 19% of the population of the United States. Cleveland and Miami certainly did not receive all the attention or control the outcome in Ohio and Florida in 2000 and 2004. A "big city" only campaign would not win.
For example, in California state-wide elections, candidates for governor or U.S. Senate don't campaign just in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and those places don't control the outcome (otherwise California wouldn't have recently had Republican governors Reagan, Dukemejian, Wilson, and Schwarzenegger). A vote in rural Alpine county is just an important as a vote in Los Angeles.
Dane, The Democrats have definitely had a perception problem on the loyalty to the country issue.
ReplyDeletePonderosa, Sadly, very true. I doubt more than a handful of people know how to make a pencil, and even few know what it takes to get all the parts.
ReplyDeleteAnon, "A vote in rural Alpine county is just an important as a vote in Los Angeles".... actually, it's not. Because you need to calculate the resources it takes in time and effort to get that vote. If a candidate can speak to a million people in the same amount of time and only a little more cost than it takes to find 10 voters in a rural area, they will go to the larger area.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the reason they look to the smallest states you mention is because of the peculiarity of their being early voting states. Many candidates base their runs on getting early momentum in Iowa, New Hampshire and Carolina. If they can't show a strong chance of winning in those states, they run out of money and quit. That's why they focus on this.
Also, most of the big states you mention aren't 51% to 49% states. Texas and California, for example, are heavily weighted in one direction. Hence, they get ignored, just as the small states that always vote consistently in one direction.
Switching to national popular vote makes the top 5-6 states the most important and they will absorb almost all of the candidate's attention because it would be a waste of resource to fight for 50,000 votes in New Hampshire when you can get 1000 times that in California or Texas.
A switch to a national vote system would result in the Presidency being elected on the coasts and a few large cities, which is not what the Founders had in mind, nor would it be good for the people of our country, who already feel ignored by the treatment of everything between New York and LA as "fly-over country."
It absolutely goes well beyond economics, but that particular issue is what is driving Obama's popularity as much or more than anything right now. Yes, public policy can and does have an impact on the economy. I just think macro economics is one of the hardest subjects for the majority of people to grasp. With the help of politicians eager to get credit for good results and shift blame for lack of same, much of the public puts far too much credit in the hands of POTUS for our booms and busts (not to mention forgetting the time lag between cause and effect.)
ReplyDeleteThis is true of most all politicians, not jus the Libs (though they are the most ardent practitioners of the art.) That is why I used the example of Clinton who raised taxes and cut the deficits. One needs to look closer to see the economy was going to boom anyway. Who knows if it might have even done better if he had cut taxes.
It also helps explain why if libs want to put in long term entitlements that will eventually go broke, it is so much easier to get away with it during boom economic times.
But that was not really the point of your essay, just one example of how it plays out. To the "true believers" it can never be their policy that is at fault, so blame others, blame execution, blame anything but the policy itself.
Jed, I got your point, I was just saying that I think tax policy and regulation really can distort the business cycle a lot -- though you are correct that the cycle will always be there.
ReplyDeleteAnd I agree entirely that the public has a hard time grasping how that policy really affects the economy because of the lag time. You do hear people assume that the minute a President takes over, his policies should take effect, even though the real effects may be a year or two out. You also hear presidents blamed for budgets they had no control over and you hear them escape the blame for mistakes when they get lucky and make those mistakes during a boom time -- as you note (an old saying is in football is that success is the best deoderant).
And I certainly agree that politicians make this worse (on both sides) by trying to grab the credit for things they did not do and pass the buck for things they did. As usual, politicians take a bad situation and make it worse -- just like their tinkering and meddling with the economy can harm the economy, but rarely help it.
Finally, you're right about the "true believers," (on all sides) they are immune to evidence and reasoning.
i propose that any of us who read here regularly could do a bang-up job at the presidency. even drunk, we'd do better than barry. but then again, he has motives that have nothing to do with what this country is, but what he wishes it to be.
ReplyDeletePatti, "even drunk" -- LOL!
ReplyDeleteI love it. Yeah, I think everyone here would do a much better job than Obama or any of his team of "experts."
The small states are the most disadvantaged group of states under the current system of electing the President. Political clout comes from being a closely divided battleground state, not the two-vote bonus. The reason for this is the state-by-state winner-take-all rule (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but enacted by 48 states), under which all of a state's electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who gets the most votes in each separate state.
ReplyDelete12 of the 13 smallest states (3-4 electoral votes) are almost invariably non-competitive, and ignored, in presidential elections. So despite the fact that these 12 states together possess 40 electoral votes, because they are not closely divided battleground states, none of these 12 states get visits, advertising or polling or policy considerations by presidential candidates.
These 12 states together contain 11 million people. Because of the two electoral-vote bonus that each state receives, the 12 non-competitive small states have 40 electoral votes. However, the two-vote bonus is an entirely illusory advantage to the small states. Ohio has 11 million people and has "only" 20 electoral votes. As we all know, the 11 million people in Ohio are the center of attention in presidential campaigns, while the 11 million people in the 12 non-competitive small states are utterly irrelevant. Nationwide election of the President would make each of the voters in the 12 smallest states as important as an Ohio voter.
The concept of a national popular vote for President is far from being politically "radioactive" in small states, because the small states recognize they are the most disadvantaged group of states under the current system.
Among the 11 most populous states, the highest levels of popular support , hardly overwhelming, were found in the following seven non-battleground states:
ReplyDelete* Texas (62% Republican),
* New York (59% Democratic),
* Georgia (58% Republican),
* North Carolina (56% Republican),
* Illinois (55% Democratic),
* California (55% Democratic), and
* New Jersey (53% Democratic).
In addition, the margins generated by the nation's largest states are hardly overwhelming in relation to the 122,000,000 votes cast nationally. Among the 11 most populous states, the highest margins were the following seven non-battleground states:
* Texas -- 1,691,267 Republican
* New York -- 1,192,436 Democratic
* Georgia -- 544,634 Republican
* North Carolina -- 426,778 Republican
* Illinois -- 513,342 Democratic
* California -- 1,023,560 Democratic
* New Jersey -- 211,826 Democratic
Keep in mind that the main media at the moment, namely TV, costs much more per impression in big cities than in smaller towns and rural area. So, if you just looked at TV, candidates get more bang for the buck in smaller towns and rural areas.
ReplyDeleteEvidence as to how a nationwide presidential campaign would be run can be found by examining the way presidential candidates currently campaign inside battleground states. Inside Ohio or Florida, the big cities do not receive all the attention. And, the cities of Ohio and Florida certainly do not control the outcome in those states. Because every vote is equal inside Ohio or Florida, presidential candidates avidly seek out voters in small, medium, and large towns. The itineraries of presidential candidates in battleground states (and their allocation of other campaign resources in battleground states) reflect the political reality that every gubernatorial or senatorial candidate in Ohio and Florida already knows--namely that when every vote is equal, the campaign must be run in every part of the state.
Further evidence of the way a nationwide presidential campaign would be run comes from national advertisers who seek out customers in small, medium, and large towns of every small, medium, and large state. A national advertiser does not write off Indiana or Illinois merely because a competitor makes more sales in those particular states. Moreover, a national advertiser enjoying an edge over its competitors in Indiana or Illinois does not stop trying to make additional sales in those states. National advertisers go after every single possible customer, regardless of where the customer is located.
The current system of electing the president ensures that the candidates, after the primaries, do not reach out to all of the states and their voters. Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or care about the voter concerns in the dozens of states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind. The reason for this is the state-by-state winner-take-all rule (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but since enacted by 48 states), under which all of a state's electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who gets the most votes in each separate state.
ReplyDeletePresidential candidates concentrate their attention on only a handful of closely divided "battleground" states and their voters. In 2008, candidates concentrated over two-thirds of their campaign events and ad money in just six states, and 98% in just 15 states (CO, FL, IN, IA, MI, MN, MO, NV, NH, NM, NC, OH, PA, VA, and WI). 19 of the 22 smallest and medium-small states (with less than 7 electoral college votes) were not among them. Over half (57%) of the events were in just four states (Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and Virginia). In 2004, candidates concentrated over two-thirds of their money and campaign visits in five states; over 80% in nine states; and over 99% of their money in 16 states, and candidates concentrated over two-thirds of their money and campaign visits in five states and over 99% of their money in 16 states.
Two-thirds of the states and people have been merely spectators to the presidential elections.
Voter turnout in the "battleground" states has been 67%, while turnout in the "spectator" states was 61%.
Policies important to the citizens of ‘flyover’ states are not as highly prioritized as policies important to ‘battleground’ states when it comes to governing.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
ReplyDeleteThe bill preserves the Electoral College, while assuring that every vote is equal and that every voter will matter in every state in every presidential election.
Every vote, everywhere would be equal and counted for and directly assist the candidate for whom it was cast. Candidates would need to care about voters across the nation, not just undecided voters in a handful of swing states.
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). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
The bill uses the power given to each state by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for president.
The bill has been endorsed or voted for by 1,922 state legislators (in 50 states) who have sponsored and/or cast recorded votes in favor of the bill.
In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). The recent Washington Post, Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University poll shows 72% support for direct nationwide election of the President. Support for a national popular vote is strong in virtually every state, partisan, and demographic group surveyed in recent polls in closely divided battleground states: Colorado-- 68%, Iowa --75%, Michigan-- 73%, Missouri-- 70%, New Hampshire-- 69%, Nevada-- 72%, New Mexico-- 76%, North Carolina-- 74%, Ohio-- 70%, Pennsylvania -- 78%, Virginia -- 74%, and Wisconsin -- 71%; in smaller states (3 to 5 electoral votes): Alaska -- 70%, DC -- 76%, Delaware --75%, Maine -- 77%, Nebraska -- 74%, New Hampshire --69%, Nevada -- 72%, New Mexico -- 76%, Rhode Island -- 74%, and Vermont -- 75%; in Southern and border states: Arkansas --80%, Kentucky -- 80%, Mississippi --77%, Missouri -- 70%, North Carolina -- 74%, and Virginia -- 74%; and in other states polled: California -- 70%, Connecticut -- 74% , Massachusetts -- 73%, Minnesota -- 75%, New York -- 79%, Washington -- 77%, and West Virginia- 81%.
The National Popular Vote bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers, in 21 small, medium-small, medium, and large states, including one house in Arkansas (6), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), The District of Columbia (3), Maine (4), Michigan (17), Nevada (5), New Mexico (5), New York (31), North Carolina (15), and Oregon (7), and both houses in California (55), Colorado (9), Hawaii (4), Illinois (21), New Jersey (15), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (12), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3), and Washington (11). The bill has been enacted by the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Washington. These seven states possess 76 electoral votes -- 28% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
Anon, I'm sorry but the arguments you make are simply not persuasive.
ReplyDeleteYou say that small states would be for this because it makes them relevant, but it doesn't. They would be less relevant.
You say that television is more expensive in large markets, but it's not 10,000 times more expensive, nor is the cost of television the only cost to consider. The idea that it's more cost effective to go campaign in small states is delusional. And the fact that national politicians rarely go to small cities outside of Iowa is proof of that.
The fact that a particular number of state legislators have agreed is irrelevant for the same reason it doesn't matter if 100 people jump off a cliff. That doesn't make it a good idea.
The rest of your numbers are simply irrelevant to anything. I can flip each number around to reach the opposite conclusion to show why switching to a national vote would be bad.
I have also written about the national vote bill you are talking about I explained why it is horribly flawed and why it will never pass. Only coastal liberals want this and the other states aren't stupid enough to fall for this.
Sorry, no sale.
This national popular vote idea is crap. Its just another attempt to tilt the playing field to the democraps.
ReplyDeleteObama = Carter
ReplyDeleteIt's as simple as that.
Dane, As I note here and in my article, I think it's a horrible idea as well.
ReplyDeleteDUQ, He is certainly morphing into Carter! LOL!
ReplyDelete