Wow. I’m not used to seeing angry sweeping generalizations about whole segments of the population on this site. Listen, I grew up in a tiny tiny logging town in Oregon. I love being out in the sticks, hunting, fishing — absolutely freaking love it. But truth be told, it was in a city that I learned about different types of people, music, food, and culture. Your remarks remind me of the ignorant rednecks who never ventured out of my little town and are just straight-up bitter and close-minded.

Big cities have upsides and downsides, small cities have upsides and downsides, rural areas have upsides and downsides…don’t generalize — one generalization validates all generalizations — so if you can say that a place like, say Chicago “feminizes men”, then it’s equally valid to say that a place like say, rural Missouri, is full of ignorant inbred racists.

Maybe the nation needs more “rural, conservative” values instead of the putrid mess of the “enlightened, progressive” strongholds.

Putrid is the right word. I grew up on a farm in Kansas. Later in life I moved to Kansas City, I’ve also lived in Chicago and DC and Mexico City for short periods. I’m now in a relatively rural area of Missouri — thank you GOD!

The urban lifestyle is totally unnatural and dispenses a variety of perverse psychological mutations. It feminizes men (see “metrosexuals”) and turns women into a angry man-hating battle-drones. It turns children into disrespectful, fat little cretins that have no respect for the food they eat. Most of those poor kids have never been fishing or seen a live cow.

People are not meant to live on top of each other like roaches — and instead of escaping, all the roaches want is a bigger roach motel. This is what passes for progressive enlightenment.

However, you then go on to complain that Obama would’ve “only” won by 70 electoral votes instead of the 190 that he actually won. But, the District method STILL would’ve had Obama win by a greater margin of electoral votes than he won in popular votes. 53% to 47% (popular vote results) would’ve been 285-253 in electoral votes – only a 32 vote difference.

Sooo, which is it?? Do you want electoral votes to more accurately reflect popular votes (as you seem to believe should’ve happened in 2000), or do you want the president to win by a significantly disproportionate margin (the bigger – the better, as you clearly enjoyed in 2008)??

Seems hypocritical to me….

Personally, I’d like to see national candidates stop pandering to the heavily populated areas and pay a little more attention to the more rural states. As it is now, they largely ignore about 50% of the population because it’s spread over about 80% of the area and focus on the 50% of the people crammed into about 20% of the country.

Frankly, the per capita welfare rates, crime rates, drug usage, single-parent households and government corruption are higher in heavily urban areas compared to rural areas. Maybe the nation needs more “rural, conservative” values instead of the putrid mess of the “enlightened, progressive” strongholds.

As far as I can tell there is only one possible way to beat the Compact in Court. It doesn’t have Congressional approval, and Article 1, Section 10 says compacts are supposed to be approved by Congress. But that’s not going to be difficult to get if they’ve got 270 Electoral votes. It’s kinda hard for a Rep from a state in the Compact to oppose the Compact.

Fact is, the electoral college was a founding constitutional compromise approved by each and every state, and it can’t be blithely washed away. The only fair and reasonable way to change from the electoral college system is to have a constitutional convention or pass an amendment, and that’s very unlikely to happen.

I know that progressives still steamed about Gore’s loss think that a comp[act can be passed to end around the electoral college, but I have 99.9% confidence that the states are not stupid enough to do this. And I have 100% confidence that if they do, it will be overturned due to issues of individual state sovereignty.

Obviously redistricting is a closely related issue. The people need to do a much better job of keeping their elected leaders honest. We have to come up with a much better way to craft congressional districts.

That’s why all 50 states have “Republican governments” as per Article 4, Section 4. All Governors are directly elected by popular vote.

Currently this reform benefits the GOP. In 2000 they dominated state governments, so they got to gerrymander more districts than we did. In Michigan, for example, the Republicans won 7 of 16 seats in 200. With their new gerrymander they won 9 of 15. There was no GOP wave in Michigan that year. But there were new district boundaries. So in practical terms all this reform will do is make the 2009 and 2010 state elections do or die. If either side actually succeeds they end up with a huge advantage in Presidential politics for a full decade.

BTW in several states the winner-take-all method is clearly the best system for that individual state. Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida are big deals because a few hundred thousand votes in any of them switches dozens of electors. Lesser swing states (Iowa, Virginia, Michigan) also benefit. In other states it only benefits one party. But most Texans vote Republican so they keep winner-take-all.

The only way to level the playing field once and for all is go with a popular vote and get rid of any segmentation. That way every vote counts the same.

Thereby demolishing our republic in favor of a pure democracy — so the rancid squalor of the urban welfare-state can forever dominate the political landscape and we can all be blessed with centuries of “community organizers” as our leaders.

You are correct that full implementation of the District Method would change the nature of Presidential campaigning, which is exactly why I support it.

Justin,

Unless you’re willing to take an eraser and get rid of all the state boundaries, the logic for the Electoral College is as compelling and correct as it was in 1787.

Case in point…let’s take your Bush v. Gore situation. Gore still would have won the popular vote and yet lost the electoral by 30 points instead of tying? Also, Obama wins the popular by 9.5 million votes, but instead wins the electoral college by 70 instead of 190? That system clearly favors Republicans. It’s a complete non starter.

The only way to level the playing field once and for all is go with a popular vote and get rid of any segmentation. That way every vote counts the same. Done and done.

I don’t think Congress can or should mandate this. However, for it to happen, we’d probably need some sort of organizing group and maybe even a multi-state compact or agreement.

Ordinarily, the big winner-take-all states could blunt this simply by staying as they are, making states with fewer electoral votes reluctant to “self-balkanize.”

But these days, only FL among the 4 really big EV states is seriously contested. CA, TX, and NY are rubber stamps. Then the medium sized states are mostly contested pretty vigorously.

So the challenge seems to rest with getting the small and medium small states, mostly reliably partisan, to vote to go with district apportionment. That’s a real challenge, because invariably each state’s legislature matches that state’s electoral proclivities.

I don’t think that Congress should mandate this and I am very skeptical of those interstate agreements that surround the so-called National Popular Vote Movement. For one thing, I don’t like the NPV as an idea since I think the Electoral College still has value. For another, there’s a very good case to be made that such interstate agreements without approval of Congress are unconstitutional.

Personally, though, I’ve come to think that the District Method may be the one thing that saves the Electoral College from a populist onslaught. Although I will say this — if the result in 2000 didn’t create enough political momentum for a Constitutional Amendment to eliminate the Electoral College, then it’s likely that nothing will.

Just to respond to he commenter above, this was proposed in California, and it was opposed by the Democrats because it would eliminate their lock on the California block vote. And, to be bipartisan about it, one assumes that if this were to be proposed in Texas, the GOP would oppose it for the same reasons. Partisan utility may or may not be a goofy reason, but what is goofy is that the opposition will feel obligated to make believe about their incentives; instead of being candid about partisan motives, they will make up some reason – which will probably be goofy – that purports to be neutral.