[geeks] California Proposition 14

[gsm at mendelson.com]

On Sun, Jun 06, 2010 at 11:57:56AM -0400, Lionel Peterson wrote:

>
>The electoral college still makes sense, though it is hard for some 
>to see that when their candidate won a popular vote but lost in the 
>electoral vote.


Not to me at all. In the last election, McCain got around 47% of the vote
and Obama got slightly over 50%. It was a relatively close election, 
but not close enough that there ever was a doubt.

If there was a viable third party candidate on the conservative side it
would have been far different but with the same outcome, possibly 50% Obama, 
35% McCain and 15% for the third party candidate. 

If they had been a liberal, it would probably have gone (around) 45% McCain,
35% Obama, and 15% for the other. All of these are speculations based on
15% for the third party candidate and 2% "defection" from the other
candidates.

How this would of affect the electoral college is a mater of speculation, but
if they had been popular in the north, they would have been a problem for
Obama, and if they were popular in the south, for McCain.

IMHO if Jews had not deluded themselves over his Israel policy, or
conservatives who thought McCain was too liberal and did vote at all,
had voted for McCain it would have been a very close election and could
have gone either way.

HOWEVER, if you look at the electoral college, his votes were a landslide,
around 3 to 2.

This to me means that people who lived in states less represented at
the electoral college's votes were worth a lot less, in fact almost by half.
(the opposite side of 3:2 is 1 to 1.5) than other states.

It's a form of gerrymandering, and IMHO should be abolished.

Geoff.

-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel gsm at mendelson.com  N3OWJ/4X1GM
New word I coined 12/13/09, "Sub-Wikipedia" adj, describing knowledge or
understanding, as in he has a sub-wikipedia understanding of the situation. 
i.e possessing less facts or information than can be found in the Wikipedia.