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Grex > Agora35 > #18: The 2000 presidential campaign item | |
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| 25 new of 406 responses total. |
brighn
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response 125 of 406:
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Sep 28 14:28 UTC 2000 |
I'd been taught that the point of the electoral college was to reinforce that
we're the United State*S*, not the United State. To do this, the President
is determined by the popular vote in each STATE, rather than the popular vote
in the the whole country. Win the popular vote in enough states, you win.
I'm confused as to why something that's happened at least twice in history
(someone who lost the popular vote but won the electoral vote became
president) would consistute a modern "problem." Regardless of who wins, it's
almost a guarantee that they'll receive a larger percentage of the popular
vote than Clinton did in '88 (when Perot got 18%, I beleive -- Nader won't
even come close to that). So they'll receive more of the popular vote than
Clinton (even if they don't win it), they'll have support of a larger
percentage of Americans, and it's already happened twice... big deal.
I'm more concerned that, yet again, the winner of the election will have less
than 50% of the vote (Nader probably WILL be that much of a spoiler). We keep
putting in leaders that the majority of us don't even agree on.
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jp2
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response 126 of 406:
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Sep 28 14:31 UTC 2000 |
This response has been erased.
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brighn
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response 127 of 406:
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Sep 28 17:07 UTC 2000 |
I'm not sure what a coalition government is.
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mooncat
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response 128 of 406:
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Sep 28 18:04 UTC 2000 |
Okay that kinda makes sense... but is the Electoral College still
needed?
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brighn
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response 129 of 406:
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Sep 28 19:40 UTC 2000 |
I think it's still important to have the policy that the presidential
candidate selected by the popular vote in the most states win (as opposed to
the candidate selected by the national popular vote). Whether the "Electoral
college" continues to be the means to that end, I'm indifferent.
Note that the Electoral College is weighted -- it's the number of senators
+ the number of representatives, so that if state A has twice the population
of state B, it won't have twice the votes, but rather less than that (but more
than the same number of votes, usually). I believe this mechanism was put in
to keep the larger states from feeling threatened by a collusion of smaller
states (the purpose of the Senate's two-per-state) and to keep the smaller
states from feeling threatened by single huge states being bullies (the
purpose of the House's reps-per-population). (And reverse those parenthetical,
I got 'em backwards. =} ... the Senate makes all the states equal, the House
makesthe larger states more powerful).
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richard
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response 130 of 406:
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Sep 29 00:57 UTC 2000 |
The electoral college also served a function in theprevious century when
there was no ready technology to count all the votes everywhere all
at once. Before there telephones and computers it could take quite long
to count votes, and ratify theprocess. So you designate electors from
your area who travel to the electoralcollege meeting andthere you have
representation all in oneplace and you have an election that can be fully
recorded.
the electoral college also indirectly helps preserve the two party system.
This is because you dont actually vote for theperson running for President,
you are voting for his slate of "electors" who will gotothe meeting of the
electoral college a couple of weeks after election day, and actually
*they* will vote forthe president. And who are the electors you will
elect to represent your vote? why party leaders of course. And Gore
and Bush willhave slatesof electors you've heard of, locally elected
officials and .etc But third party candidates wont have that luxury.
Usually whoever they will have as electors wont be well known.
Similarto the primary electionprocess, where you are not voting for a
candidate but for his slate of delegates from your area, and the more
established candidates will have the mostwell known delegates. Gore had a
distinct advantage in the primaries over Bradley in that his delegate
slates included mostof the party heirarchy.
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mdw
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response 131 of 406:
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Sep 29 01:38 UTC 2000 |
It's pretty much a given whichever candidate wins won't have received
votes from the majority. I believe in recent presidential elections,
the # of eligible people who vote is about 60% - effectively, 40% voted
for "none of the above", & a candidate would have to receive over 80% of
the remaining votes in order to receive a true majority of the votes.
This has been true for ages and hasn't bothered the politicians any.
Someone above thought the electoral college was good protection against
demagogues. I don't think so, if anything, I think it makes the system
weaker against such folks. Certainly a Hitler or a S. Hussein would
have no trouble using the electoral college to his own ends. 600 people
are a lot easier to control than 250,000,000. If I remember right,
Hitler just burned down the legislative building. The people who were
left got the message loud & clear. There is, in existance, a video of
some Iraq legislative body, in session as Hussein was consolidating his
power. Every so often, he'd point to someone, and his soldiers would
hustle that person out of the chamber, and a short while later, a shot
would be heard. Sorry, but I still think the electoral college is
obselete and should be replaced. Either a straight popular vote, or a
popular vote weighted in part by state & population.
I think it was Larry, above, who was talking about how a parliamentary
system might impact OSHA or other gov't agencies. While I probably
ought to go visit that URL to entirely appreciate what he said, I do
have to say right away that it sounds like he's talking about the evils
that the civil service was created to address.
[ Once upon a time, in *this* country, every time the
administration changed party hands, that meant a complete
turnover affecting practically everyone in gov't office as
well, down to the county rat catcher (bubonic plague was
still fresh on people's minds.) This was back in the 19th
century, before the days of big gov't, but even so, people
were quick to notice that the plum jobs always went to the
party faithfuls, who often weren't very competent, and there
was a big learning process every changeover, as the new guys
learned the little they could without help from the old
guys. The civil service was invented to correct this
problem; now there is a civil service examination, which
guarantees at least a minimal level of competency, and only
the top level executive jobs change with the new party. As
everybody knows the peter principle guarantees they'd be
incompetent anyways, this doesn't bother anyone. ]
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tpryan
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response 132 of 406:
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Sep 29 02:02 UTC 2000 |
If a straight, national popular vote was the system, then the
President count be elected by the (?what how many) biggest cities in
the country. All the campaigning could be concentrated on New York,
Chicago, Los Angles, etc.
Wasn't this part of the original plan? A city vs. farm type
of power?
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gull
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response 133 of 406:
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Sep 29 02:19 UTC 2000 |
I'm not sure I understand Richard's point. When I'm voting for someone, I
don't generally consider who their slate of electors is while making my
decision.
I also suggest we take up a collection to buy Richard a new space bar.
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brighn
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response 134 of 406:
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Sep 29 02:48 UTC 2000 |
I was going to say something similar to gull's first paragraph, and I'm
likewise confused by Marcus' comments. While technically we vote for the
electors, we don't think we are... The ballot we receive in November will
contain the names Bush, Gore, Nader, Browne, and Buchanen, not the names of
electors.
Two comments in response to Marcus. The first is in response to the verycommon
assumption that no vote = "NO" vote. i'm sure many people who don't vote are
satisfied with any likely outcome. At any rate, the non-votes are abstentions,
not NO votes... *shrug* People who remove themselves from thepolitical process
voluntarily aren't terribly relevant to the political process.
I was gonna say something else, butI forgot. =] Oh well.
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richard
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response 135 of 406:
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Sep 29 03:12 UTC 2000 |
whether you see the electors on the ballot depends on what state you
are in these days
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klg
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response 136 of 406:
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Sep 29 03:33 UTC 2000 |
From where would one get the idea that LaDuke is a practicing Jew?
Everything I've seen, including quotes attributed to her, says that
she is not.
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scg
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response 137 of 406:
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Sep 29 06:13 UTC 2000 |
In which states does the Presidential ballot show the electors rather than
the candidates?
As I think about the Electoral College system, I'm deciding I kind of like
it, despite years of being told that it's rediculous. It requires candidates
to pick up support from a rather broad cross section of the country, rather
than just having some huge concentrations of supporters. Of course, it may
also mean that the majority of voters aren't fully represented occasionally,
but statistically it seems to come out ok.
I'm not sure a parlementary system would do what the advocates of it in this
item seem to want. When a parlementary system forms a coalition government,
that's essentially the members of the minority parties doing the same thing
American voters tend to do, compromising to vote for a candidate who may not
agree with them on everything. It just takes the process a step further away
from the voters.
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polygon
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response 138 of 406:
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Sep 29 06:35 UTC 2000 |
Hmmm, so much to respond to, so little time ...
The names of electors used to be listed on the ballot. Not any more, at
least in Michigan. Most of the electors, even major party electors, are
people you have never heard of. Even *I* have never heard of most of
them.
Generally, they are or can be expected to be party loyalists. Every once
in a great while, an elector votes for someone other than who they were
elected to vote for. Most recent case I can think of was a Republican
elector from Virginia in 1972 who voted for the Libertarian candidates.
However, under Michigan law, attempting to cast a vote for someone other
than who you were elected to support constitutes a resignation, and the
remaining electors can choose someone to fill your vacancy. When Zolton
Ferency (former Dem party chair, booted for opposing the Vietnam war,
later founded the Human Rights Party) was a presidential elector in
Michigan in 1968 and felt he couldn't vote for Hubert Humphrey, he
resigned, and someone else replaced him.
Marcus referred to some points I made about the origins of civil service,
but that isn't what I meant when I referred to the parliamentary system.
I don't want to go into it right at the moment, but in a parliamentary
system government, the bureaucrats behave in a very different way than
they do under a U.S.-style government. It has to do with the enormously
different incentives that are created by the political environment. James
Q. Wilson explained all this in his fascinating book "Bureaucracy." The
differences deserve a new item if people would like to discuss it.
VERY quick summary:
A system with many power centers (like ours) leads to bureaucrats
observing rigid, abstract principles of fairness, imposing many more
fines and penalties, making few exceptions, doing things "by the book"
because of the likelihood that your decision will be questioned later.
In a typical centralized parliamentary system, where there is no
ambiguity about who is in charge, and no possibility that the other
party will investigate and question decisions that were made, the
bureaucracy tends to be much more lenient, imposes few fines and
penalties, and makes many exceptions.
That sounds like a good deal, and in some ways it is. On the other hand,
the only check on the power of the bureaucracy is from above, i.e., from
the prime minister and his/her party in parliament. If you're trying to
stop something, e.g., a proposed dam or highway, or a proposed regulation,
that may be small comfort.
The majority in parliament can pretty much do anything it wants, and since
party discipline is so strong, due to the built-in incentives, that means
the party *leaders* hold all the cards.
In a parliamentary system, there is no concept of "divided government", or
even of the Congress as distinct from the Executive. It is as if we let
the Speaker of the House move into the White House and run all the federal
agencies, with the committee chairmen transformed into Cabinet officers.
Imagine how much simpler that would be -- and how much more powerful such
a figure would be than our current Presidency. Any legislation he wanted
or needed would be passed pretty much immediately.
Many countries all over the world have this system, but as I said, I don't
think most Americans would be comfortable with that much centralized
power.
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jerryr
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response 139 of 406:
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Sep 29 13:20 UTC 2000 |
our system of government sucks....except when compared to all other systems
extant.
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mooncat
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response 140 of 406:
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Sep 29 14:15 UTC 2000 |
Okay... the electoral college makes a little more sense now, and I
guess I can see it's usefulness.
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brighn
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response 141 of 406:
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Sep 29 14:35 UTC 2000 |
Reagan received one electoral vote in 1976, from a rogue Republican assigned
to Ford.
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richard
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response 142 of 406:
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Sep 29 15:20 UTC 2000 |
hey polygon, do the methods for choosing electors vary from state to
state? how does one go about becoming an elector if one aspires to
that duty?
and since electors are techinically "elected", that makes them eligible
for the political graveyard right?
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polygon
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response 143 of 406:
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Sep 29 15:58 UTC 2000 |
Re 142. I think the methods for choosing electors vary not only from
state to state, but party to party. For Michigan Democrats, the electors
are nominated by district caucuses at the state party convention. I
thought about becoming a candidate this time, but I didn't think about
it early enough. Julie Trudell was nominated by the 13th District
caucus. Naturally, two additional electors were nominated by the state
convention as a whole.
Absolutely yes, electors are eligible for the Political Graveyard, and I
have quite a few listed. However, I want to change the formatting, so
that each party's slate is listed together. That's on my programming
Things To Do list. :-)
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jp2
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response 144 of 406:
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Sep 29 17:11 UTC 2000 |
This response has been erased.
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polygon
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response 145 of 406:
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Sep 29 18:52 UTC 2000 |
Re 144. Thank you. Send submissions to polygon@potifos.com. See the
biographical checklist (for whatever info you might have available)
at http://politicalgraveyard.com/inqa.html#Submit
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janc
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response 146 of 406:
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Oct 1 05:44 UTC 2000 |
(Evolution is a lot closer to being an "observed phenomenon" than most
people think. For an excellent, award-winning book on this, read "The
Beak of the Finch". It takes careful observation, but lots of
evolutionary change has been observed in bird and fish species in
response to environmental change, quite rapid, likely to be only a few
millimeters of changes in sizes and proportions, and likely to be
reversed by later environmental changes, but real nevertheless. There
have even been near-specization events observed - populations splitting
into two non-interbreedings subsets with different behaviors and
characteristics, persisting this way for several generations, and then
starting to interbreed again as conditions change. And the evidence for
evolution among micro-organisms is substantially better. They evolve
fast. Did you think God separately creates a new flu strain every
winter? I think the evidence for evolution is simply overwhelming.)
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jazz
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response 147 of 406:
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Oct 1 16:26 UTC 2000 |
There's another book, _Children of Prometheus_ that does a good job
of explaining to the layman what happens when there's strong selection
pressure on a species, and some of which is easily observable in a human
lifetime.
Bit of a non-issue though, since most serious Creationist apologists
differentiate between what they call micro-evolution (evolution within the
possible current genotypes for a species) and macro-evolution (change in the
possible genotype sets).
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russ
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response 148 of 406:
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Oct 1 23:08 UTC 2000 |
Evolution has much more evidence than Jan says; speciation has
been observed (as in documented by researchers in the lifetimes of
people still living) in animals as advanced as wallabies. Check
http://www.talkorigins.com (I think) and look through the FAQs.
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wyrefall
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response 149 of 406:
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Oct 2 01:42 UTC 2000 |
re41 By all means NO. Unfortunately, this nation is one of two parties,
regardless of what certain optimists may like to believe. In all actuality,
the US was not supposed to besubject of a partisan government, but it is, and
now all that can be done is to chose best between those options. ATM, the
prevailing parties are the Democrats and Republicans, and each has presented
one candidate. I, honestly, do not like either option particularly, however,
this is not a situation of optimal possibility, it is one of chosing a lesser
evil. I was merely saying, that I feel the American people (by pop poll, and
the electoral college) will not elect a democratic candidate.
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