The "white margin to watch"... is that the way we talk now? I find that pretty unpleasant, and it's also odd to be talking with such specificity — 61-39! — while rejecting the powerfully specific mechanism that is the Electoral College. Once you tip to a plurality in a state, it doesn't matter how many white or nonwhite voters go this way or that (except in Maine and Nebraska). So polling that ignores the Electoral College is inherently inaccurate in a close election.
The campaigns are designed around winning the Electoral College. George Bush explained it well, when challenged about his 2000 win that lacked a popular vote majority. (Despite what it says at the link, that interview took place on Dec. 5, 2000.)
You know... had this been an election on who got the most popular votes I suspect we might have had a little different strategy.Typical Bush humor. Of course, he means he would have had a completely different strategy.
For example, I might have spent more time in my own home state of maximizing the vote here. One of the reasons why the Electoral College is in place, is it forces candidates like me to go and spend time in some of the smaller states that candidates might ignore. And so I-I-you know, I understand the results. But my whole strategy was based on securing enough electoral votes to become the president.As I wrote in a law review article on the Electoral College (“Electoral College Reform: Déjà Vu,” 95 Northwestern University Law Review 993 (2001)):
Who will not admit that George W. Bush could have stirred up another half million votes by campaigning hard in Texas, a state he knew he would win, and in southern California and upstate New York, states with large numbers of voters where he could not expect to achieve a plurality?But there's no equivalent safeguard precluding a racial strategy. You can concentrate efforts on winning huge majorities of particular groups. There's something unpleasant about that, so there is something of a safeguard in the way Americans rebel against racializing politics. You can't go too far without losing the good opinion of people whose votes you need.
But you can go kind of far. Obama only needs 39% of the white vote. Supposedly. Ignoring the Electoral College, which does complicate matters, but I assume the Obama (and Romney) strategists are doing the appropriate calculations — for example, in Wisconsin, a swing state with a relatively low percentage of black and Hispanic voters. If winning Wisconsin is determinative, 39% is not the key number. But surely they know about the real, complicated game of racial politics in the United States.
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217 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 217 of 217Just don't take Ritmo's bait. Notice every time he gets involved in a thread, his comments are 50% of the total. It's trolling par excellence.
We have a 50/50 electorate and a winner take all electoral college that disenfranchises millions of conservative Californians and liberal Texans. More and more one hears the case being made for a move to a national popular vote, but that has potential problems because fraud in just a few precincts could throw a close national election.
The best approach would be to have the electoral votes of states with multiple congressional districts awarded the way they are in Maine and Nebraska. That would require candidates to campaign all over the country and reduce the number of citizens whose vote effectively does not count under the present system. It would also isolate and reduce the impact of fraud.
It would be even more of an improvement to take redistricting out of the hands of elected officials and turn it over to a computer.
Blah Blah.. whites.. blah blah Nazis.. blah blah Black vote.. blah blah Hispanic vote.. blah blah illegal.. blah blah effin blah.
Ok here's a puzzle for you:
If whites voted 95% for only white candidates in 2008, how is Obama the President? If Blacks had a 60/40 split, would Obama be the President today?
Knock off this race crap. Start respecting Voters, and not "racial voting blocks"
Ann is right.. this is disturbing, to say the least.
Yes, there is racism in this country. But tell me please, who is really the cultivator of it? Who profits from the continuance of racial debate, in a country that elected a Black President?
I'm sick of it.. Blah Blah Blah.
Seriously, grow up.
Clearly if he wasn't black he would have never been elected to the Senate, never mind to the Presidency.
It's Illinois. You aren't elected, you're appointed. Votes are garnered till the democrat one wins.
"The "white margin to watch"... is that the way we talk now? I find that pretty unpleasant"
Althouse strongly favors affirmative action, the mechanism by which corrupt dems buy hispanic, black, and female votes. Why wouldn't white males (the non stupid ones) vote against those perpetrating affirmative action? It is strange that Althouse can't see the inevitable "unpleasant" consequences of affirmative action.
O Ritmo Segundo,
Let me see if I understand things correctly.
In the 111th Congress, the Democratic Party had the presidency, a minimum of a 253/178 seat majority in the House and a minimum of a 56/42 seat majority in the Senate, including enough seats to prevent a filibuster from July 7, 2009 through August 25, 2009 (49 calendar days), and again from September 25, 2009 through February 4, 2010 (132 calendar days). This not enough of a majority to implement any significant economic policy changes to address our unemployment issues.
In the 112th Congress, the Republican Party did NOT have the presidency, a maximum 47/53 seat minority in the Senate, and a maximum 242/190 seat majority in the House. This is more than enough of a majority to implement many significant economic policy changes to address our unemployment issues.
Because of the state-by-state winner-take-all electoral votes laws (i.e., awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in each state) in 48 states, a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide. This has occurred in 4 of the nation's 56 (1 in 14 = 7%) presidential elections. The precariousness of the current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes is highlighted by the fact that a shift of a few thousand voters in one or two states would have elected the second-place candidate in 4 of the 13 presidential elections since World War II. Near misses are now frequently common. There have been 6 consecutive non-landslide presidential elections (1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008). A shift of 60,000 voters in Ohio in 2004 would have defeated President Bush despite his nationwide lead of over 3 million votes.
RE: the comment about Milwaukee
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 as Arlington, TX) is only 19% of the population of the United States.
Suburbs and exurbs often vote Republican.
Under National Popular Vote, every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would be included in the state counts and national count. The candidate with the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC would get the 270+ electoral votes from the enacting states. That majority of electoral votes guarantees the candidate with the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC wins the presidency.
National Popular Vote would give a voice to the minority party voters in each state. Now their votes are counted only for the candidate they did not vote for. Now they don't matter to their candidate.
And now votes, beyond the one needed to get the most votes in the state, for winning in a state are wasted and don't matter to candidates. Utah (5 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 385,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004. 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).
With National Popular Vote, elections wouldn't be about winning states. No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps. Every vote, everywhere would be counted equally 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 political reality would be that when every vote is equal, the campaign must be run in every part of the country.
Candidates would need to build a winning coalition across demographics. Candidates would have to appeal to a broad range of demographics, and perhaps even more so, because the election wouldn’t be capable of coming down to just one demographic, such as soccer mom voters in Ohio.
The current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes maximizes the incentive and opportunity for fraud and voter suppression. A very few people can change the national outcome by adding, changing, or suppressing a small number of votes in one closely divided battleground state. With the current system all of a state's electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who receives a bare plurality of the votes in each state. The sheer magnitude of the national popular vote number, compared to individual state vote totals, is much more robust against manipulation.
National Popular Vote would limit the benefits to be gained by fraud or voter suppression. One suppressed vote would be one less vote. One fraudulent vote would only win one vote in the return. In the current electoral system, one fraudulent vote could mean 55 electoral votes, or just enough electoral votes to win the presidency without having the most popular votes in the country.
The closest popular-vote election in American history (in 1960), had a nationwide margin of more than 100,000 popular votes. The closest electoral-vote election in American history (in 2000) was determined by 537 votes, all in one state, when there was a lead of 537,179 (1,000 times more) popular votes nationwide.
For a national popular vote election to be as easy to switch as 2000, it would have to be two hundred times closer than the 1960 election--and, in popular-vote terms, forty times closer than 2000 itself.
Which system offers voter suppressors or fraudulent voters a better shot at success for a smaller effort?
Dividing a state's electoral votes by congressional district winners would magnify the worst features of the Electoral College system.
If the district approach were used nationally, it would be less fair and less accurately reflect the will of the people than the current system. In 2004, Bush won 50.7% of the popular vote, but 59% of the districts. Although Bush lost the national popular vote in 2000, he won 55% of the country's congressional districts.
The district approach would not provide incentive for presidential candidates to campaign in a particular state or focus the candidates' attention to issues of concern to the state. With the 48 state-by-state winner-take-all laws (whether applied to either districts or states), candidates have no reason to campaign in districts or states where they are comfortably ahead or hopelessly behind. In North Carolina, for example, there are only 2 districts (the 13th with a 5% spread and the 2nd with an 8% spread) where the presidential race is competitive. In California, the presidential race has been competitive in only 3 of the state's 53 districts. Nationwide, there have been only 55 "battleground" districts that were competitive in presidential elections. With the present deplorable 48 state-level winner-take-all system, 2/3rds of the states (including California and Texas) are ignored in presidential elections; however, 88% of the nation's congressional districts would be ignored if a district-level winner-take-all system were used nationally.
Awarding electoral votes by congressional district could result in third party candidates winning electoral votes that would deny either major party candidate the necessary majority vote of electors and throw the process into Congress to decide.
Because there are generally more close votes on district levels than states as whole, district elections increase the opportunity for error. The larger the voting base, the less opportunity there is for an especially close vote.
Also, a second-place candidate could still win the White House without winning the national popular vote.
A national popular vote is the way to make every person's vote equal and matter to their candidate because it guarantees that the candidate who gets the most votes in all 50 states and DC becomes President.
The National Popular Vote 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. Historically, virtually all of the major changes in the method of electing the President, including ending the requirement that only men who owned substantial property could vote and 48 current state-by-state winner-take-all laws, have come about by state legislative action.
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). Support for a national popular vote is strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in virtually every state surveyed in recent polls in closely divided Battleground states: CO – 68%, FL – 78%, IA 75%, MI – 73%, MO – 70%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM– 76%, NC – 74%, OH – 70%, PA – 78%, VA – 74%, and WI – 71%; in Small states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK – 70%, DC – 76%, DE – 75%, ID – 77%, ME – 77%, MT – 72%, NE 74%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM – 76%, OK – 81%, RI – 74%, SD – 71%, UT – 70%, VT – 75%, WV – 81%, and WY – 69%; in Southern and Border states: AR – 80%,, KY- 80%, MS – 77%, MO – 70%, NC – 74%, OK – 81%, SC – 71%, TN – 83%, VA – 74%, and WV – 81%; and in other states polled: AZ – 67%, CA – 70%, CT – 74%, MA – 73%, MN – 75%, NY – 79%, OR – 76%, and WA – 77%. Americans believe that the candidate who receives the most votes should win.
The bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers in 21 states. The bill has been enacted by 9 jurisdictions possessing 132 electoral votes - 49% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.
NationalPopularVote
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The US immigration policy is all about minimizing the white margin needed for Socialists to win. Over in Europe, they are further along so they speak openly of it, the EU (OR UN?) Commissioner on Immigration stated that they needed to let immigration undermine national homogeneity, and a Labor Secretary famously admitted that the policies in the UK were about shifting the electorate.
Brilliant.
Lets let Texas, California, and New York pick our presidents from now until eternity.
After all, popular vote is *obviously* the most righteous.
Particularly if you've gotten your civics education in a public school.
BTW, In the Subject post both Ann Althouse and George Bush clearly explained why the popular vote makes popular vote gaining strategies inevitable.
All anyone needs to win forever, is most of the voters in major urban areas.
Screw flyover populations. They don't know what's best for themselves anyhow.
Texas already controls our textbooks for the entire nation. Texas and California.
"Flyover" states ARE screwed now. "Flyover" means they literally are flown over, ignored by presidential campaigns.
The current state-by-state winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but since enacted by 48 states), ensures that the candidates, after the primaries, will not reach out to about 76% 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.
Presidential candidates concentrate their attention on only a handful of closely divided "battleground" states and their voters. There is no incentive for them to bother to care about the majority of states where they are hopelessly behind or safely ahead to win. 9 of the original 13 states are considered “fly-over” now. In the 2012 election, pundits and campaign operatives agree, that, at most, only 12 states and their voters will matter. They will decide the election. None of the 10 most rural states will matter, as usual. About 76% of the country will be ignored --including 19 of the 22 lowest population and medium-small states, and 17 medium and big states like CA, GA, NY, and TX. This will be more obscene than the 2008 campaign, when candidates concentrated over 2/3rds of their campaign events and ad money in just 6 states, and 98% in just 15 states (CO, FL, IN, IA, MI, MN, MO, NV, NH, NM, NC, OH, PA, VA, and WI). Over half (57%) of the events were in just 4 states (OH, FL, PA, and VA). In 2004, candidates concentrated over 2/3rds of their money and campaign visits in 5 states; over 80% in 9 states; and over 99% of their money in 16 states.
More than 2/3rds of the states and people have been merely spectators to presidential elections. They have no influence. That's more than 85 million voters, 200 million Americans, ignored. When and where voters are ignored, then so are the issues they care about most.
The number and population of battleground states is shrinking as the U.S. population grows.
As of March 10th, some pundits think there will be only Six States That Will Likely Decide The 2012 Election
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/the-six-states-that-will-likely-decide-the-2012-election/
With National Popular Vote, every vote would be equal. Candidates would reallocate the money they raise to no longer ignore more than 2/3rds of the states and voters.
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 as Arlington, TX) is only 19% of the population of the United States. Suburbs and exurbs often vote Republican.
If big cities controlled the outcome of elections, the governors and U.S. Senators would be Democratic in virtually every state with a significant city.
A nationwide presidential campaign, with every vote equal, would be run the way presidential candidates campaign to win the electoral votes of closely divided battleground states, such as Ohio and Florida, under the state-by-state winner-take-all methods. The big cities in those battleground states do not receive all the attention, much less control the outcome. Cleveland and Miami do not receive all the attention or control the outcome in Ohio and Florida.
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 knows. When and where every vote is equal, a campaign must be run everywhere.
With National Popular Vote, when every vote is equal, everywhere, it makes sense for presidential candidates to try and elevate their votes where they are and aren't so well liked. But, under the state-by-state winner-take-all laws, it makes no sense for a Democrat to try and do that in Vermont or Wyoming, or for a Republican to try it in Wyoming or Vermont.
Even 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. If Los Angeles cannot control statewide elections in California, it can hardly control a nationwide election.
In fact, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland together cannot control a statewide election in California.
Similarly, Republicans dominate Texas politics without carrying big cities such as Dallas and Houston.
There are numerous other examples of Republicans who won races for governor and U.S. Senator in other states that have big cities (e.g., New York, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts) without ever carrying the big cities of their respective states.
The main media at the moment, TV, costs much more per impression in big cities than in smaller towns and rural area. Candidates get more bang for the buck in smaller towns and rural areas.
In the 2012 campaign, so far, “Much of the heaviest spending has not been in big cities with large and expensive media markets, but in small and medium-size metropolitan areas in states with little individual weight in the Electoral College: Cedar Rapids and Des Moines in Iowa (6 votes); Colorado Springs and Grand Junction in Colorado (9 votes); Norfolk and Richmond in Virginia (13 votes). Since the beginning of April, four-fifths of the ads that favored or opposed a presidential candidate have been in television markets of modest size.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/08/us/politics/9-swing-states-are-main-focus-of-ad-blitz.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
Candidates would need to build a winning coalition across demographics. Candidates would have to appeal to a broad range of demographics, and perhaps even more so, because the election wouldn’t be capable of coming down to just one demographic, such as soccer mom voters in Ohio.
With the current state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes, winning a bare plurality of the popular vote in the 11 most populous states, containing 56% of the population, could win the Presidency with a mere 26% of the nation's votes!
But the political reality is that the 11 largest states rarely agree on any political question. In terms of recent presidential elections, the 11 largest states include five "red states (Texas, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, and Georgia) and six "blue" states (California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New Jersey). The fact is that the big states are just about as closely divided as the rest of the country. For example, 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.
Among the 11 most populous states in 2004, the highest levels of popular support, hardly overwhelming, were found in the following seven non-battleground states:
* 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
To put these numbers in perspective, Oklahoma (7 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 455,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004 -- larger than the margin generated by the 9th and 10th largest states, namely New Jersey and North Carolina (each with 15 electoral votes). Utah (5 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 385,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004. 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).
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