I was thinking about this also, against the arguments made to abolish the
electoral college. In four years I'll be old enough to be President. It's
about time we had another red-haired President like Washington or Jefferson.
Hopefully the electoral college will be gone by then. I'll have one campaign
plank: "It is obviously tougher to live in a city than a rural area.
Everything costs more. So my only task as president will be to pass a large
city income tax relief bill. If you live in an area with more than a million
people then your income tax will be reduced 100%. To make up the difference,
if you live in an area with less then a million people your income tax will
be raised 150%." I'll run just a few ads on the national networks and not do
any actual physical, greet the people campaigning. (I don't really like
people). I won't even worry about being on the ballot in small states.
The electoral college was set up to quell the mass rule. There could be a
lot of issues that would favor small areas/large population over large
areas/small population. How about the defense missile shield? Let's say we
can protect 100 cities but not the whole country. How happy would you be if
you lived in city 101 and they said they stopped the research?
Even the house of representatives isn't an absolute slice of populations. I
don't have the breakdown but I'd wager that the variance between the
smallest by population congressional district and the largest was more then
10%. America is a collection of states, fifty laboratories of democracy. The
office is President of the United States. He has to decide fairly on issues
that affect the very rural and the very urban.
Maybe bookies in Las Vegas can start posting odds: which will come first?
The name of the new President or the winner of the Super Bowl (Jan. 28).
Kevin Tarr
