On 2/6/08, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > In a message dated 2/5/2008 11:19:17 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, > [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > Let's use the democrats as an example, since I actually know a couple of > their names. > In the present campaign then, the primaries would be determining if Obama or > Clinton would be the candidate in the real election, which isn't really an > election since some other electing body (the Electoral College?) actually > elects the president based on lord only knows what criteria? > > I think my eyes are bleeding. > > Gads, I suppose I should just google this. > > William Robb > > ============ > Technically. But I think only two times in history (okay, maybe a few more > but I'd have to look it up), has the popular vote and the electoral vote > differed. The thing that's throwing you is that one of those times was the > Gore/Bush election, but that was the first time since I don't know when, > ages ago. > Gore had more popular votes and Bush had more electoral votes. (Someone > really > wants to get precise about it, feel free to jump in.) > > That part is a bit Byzantine, I agree. And periodically people get steamed > up about doing away with the electoral college. But to date, it hasn't > happened. > > The historical roots for that are that originally only white men could vote > (not women, not blacks, etc.) and they didn't trust the unwashed masses and > wanted to limit the power of the popular vote. Of course, now it's one > person, > one vote, and I think we could well do away with the electoral college. > Smaller states with low population though like it because it gives them more > say. > > Sure you could, re google, but heck we can give you the Reader's Digest > version. :-) > > The thing is what a big country we are, it slows everything down. And it > costs a lot these days to win an election, so it all takes time. But I > wouldn't > mind it being a tad quicker. > > The other confusing thing is political pundits (and ordinary people) will > discuss someone's future election chances years before the primaries even > roll > around. It doesn't mean the election has started, it just means we are always > talking about future elections, four and eight years down the road too. They > were talking about Hillary's chances years and years ago. So all of that > future speculation also makes it look longer than it really is. It really > takes > about a year, but that included prep time, not the primaries. Primaries to > general vote take less than a year (and if someone wants to be specific about > that, jump right in.) Bit late here and my brain is a bit fogged. > > HTH, Marnie > > > >
Actually the historical roots of the Electoral College comes down to a compromise between the small colonies and the large ones. They needed to balance influence between the two groups to prevent the large states from utterly dominating the presidential selection. The ELectoral College long predates the popular vote, as at the time the only voters were landowners small and large (even the rich didn't qualify necessarily, only landowners. But outside of the large states & the plantations most heads of family were landowners of some sort) -- M. Adam Maas http://www.mawz.ca Explorations of the City Around Us. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
