[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>This year has the perfect example - New Mexico. Both candidates
>campaigned in New Mexico this year. If not for the electoral college, no
>President, and no Presidential Candidate, would care two wits about New
>Mexico. Instead, both candidates campaigned in New Mexico and had to be
>exposed to New Mexican issues and needs.
>
This arguement has always struck me as non-persuasive. In a popular vote
election the candidates need to address the needs of the individual voters.
Many voters will have similar needs and experiences and this will be
detemined in large measure by geography. Voters in the southwest will share
concerns which candidates will seek to address. In a popular vote there is an
automatic definition and sharing of interests due to common needs of
individuals in the same region or sharing the same economic niche.
This independent of the articial boundries produced by state lines. The
voters of contiguous portions of New Mexico and Arizona probably have the
same concerns as do the residents of the metropolitan New York area (NY,NJ
Conn). There is no need to invest the states with additional rights. The
notion that small sparsely populated regions will receive less attention is
based on the false logic that if we were to actually allow the american
people to have an equal say that they will always and exclusively vote their
own short range interest. Humans are more humane and smarter than that. A
voter in NY may have different concerns than a voter in New Mexico but both
shoudl be able to see the need for the government to protect all of the
country.
