I just heard an analogy that has totally changed my opinion on the electoral college from against to for.
In baseball,it’s not really runs that get you a pennant, its games. If you score 100 points a game, yet win one less game than another team in your division, you still lose. Therefore, you have to fight for every game.
Similarly, if you think of votes as runs and states as games, you have to fight for every state to win. If you went by votes, one could concentrate only on a few high-population-density areas and screw the rest of the country. Al Gore only won in 600 counties to Bush’s 2400, yet won the popular vote. Therefore if one went by votes, a large portion of the country would be left out of the process.
Well, Bush won 2400 counties, but that indicates just that he likely won a greater geographical area. We however govern on behalf of the people, not the land.
I don’t think its fair to go based solely on the popular vote because the canidates won’t pay any attention to issues in Alaska or Wyoming, but I think that some type of hybrid needs to be reached which gives more creedence to the will of the people while protecting each states relevance.
Tough call, but your anaolgy makes sense. I however can think of a handful of sports anaolgies to support the other side as well.
Maybe if every state split its electoral votes by district and only dedicated its 2 senatorial votes on behalf of the entire state we could find a better balance. The all or nothing strategy seems too unfair.
I like the analogy, and think the Nadarites should adopt their own baseball analogy. Their position is like a sacrifice bunt, giving up this election for a stronger future position, just as a baseball team give up an out in exchange for getting a runner into scoring position.
Yes, we govern for the people, but for all the people, including those in Wyoming and Alaska. The vote was evenly split showing that the sum of the least populated areas equals,approximately, the sum os a few smaller but highly populated areas.
The philosophy put forth by Omnicient, also could lead to short sighted government policies on farming (i.e. food production), the environment, and energy production in favor of more urban needs like mass transit, urban development and “big business”. The electoral college requires teh candidates to strike a balance on the issues to get elected.
