Something about Vice President Joe Biden’s snarky smirks in his debate against Paul Ryan tells me he wouldn’t work too well with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. And something about Mitt Romney’s twist of the hokey and the debonair tells me he wouldn’t appreciate Biden’s quaint quirkiness.
There’s been more than a little speculation about the potential results of the upcoming presidential election. Some say it’s possible Romney could win the popular vote and lose the Electoral College, failing to reach the White House, much as Al Gore did in 2000. Others wonder about the possibility of an electoral tie, in which the Republican House of Representatives would inevitably elect Romney for the presidency and the Democratic Senate would choose Joe Biden as Vice President.
Which begs the question — why is the outdated and esoteric Electoral College still in existence in the first place? No other modern democracy elects high-ranking officials the way Americans do today — an indirect “election” that convolutes the results of the popular vote and adds potential for tragic misinterpretation of public opinion.
I’ve argued for distancing government from the direct voice of the people in the past, including my proposition that California ditch its initiative and referendum system. Time magazine columnist and CNN political analyst Fareed Zakaria argues bravely for the “undemocratization” of American politics by removing burdensome and overly abundant gauges of public opinion from everyday decision-making in his 2004 treatise, The Future of Freedom. I couldn’t agree more. But the Electoral College smells of deception and feels like theft. American politicians continue to act as if the president is popularly elected when instead he is appointed by a questionable assembly of party loyalists and political elites.
If Mitt Romney or Barack Obama wins the forthcoming election without the popular vote on his side, the American people will inevitably sit tight and allow the government to march onward just as they did in 2000. In reality, the tremors of justice in this country aren’t any stronger than the United States’ natural tendency toward social order and complacency.
The Electoral College isn’t the root of the problem facing America’s political future, of course. Rather, the institution is a symbol of the hard times American democracy is experiencing. The Electoral College is just another reminder that there is an entrenched economic, social and political elite trying to win one more presidential election in this country. And if all goes as planned, the elites are a lock for the White House in 2012.
The reason middle-class conservatives are so dispassionate about Romney and that everyday liberals are so disappointed in President Obama is that both candidates, or at least their campaigns, appear to be members of the old-guard elite. One is a wealthy Massachusetts pseudo-intellectual flip-flopper, while the other is a well-connected, politically calculating Chicago community organizer who puts on a show of being a Washington, D.C., outsider. Both candidates have chattered incessantly about this year being a perfect choice between two competing ideologies, but their ideologies are insignificant. Both Obama and Romney were built by the same machine of elite connections, excessive wealth and East Coast hierarchy. As the President has said himself, albeit in a joking fashion: “We … both have degrees from Harvard. I have one, he has two.”
In 2008, four of Obama’s top campaign contributors were major Wall Street investment banks — including the infamous Goldman Sachs with gifts of more than $1 million. And Romney hasn’t fared much better in becoming financially independent of Wall Street hacks — every one of his top six campaign contributors thus far in 2012 is a major financial institution, according to the campaign watchdog opensecrets.org. Obama can report a somewhat significant decline in Wall Street funding for his 2012 campaign, but considering Romney’s Bain Capital background and Obama’s continued anti-Wall Street rhetoric in this election cycle, it takes little imagination to conclude why. It’s not that Obama doesn’t want the money — it’s that Wall Street’s found a new puppet to play with.
In this day and age, American elites aren’t captains of industry. They might own or manage some of the largest companies in the United States and in the world, but they didn’t create them from the ground up. No, modern American elites are much less altruistic than the innovators of America’s past. They live on the ingenuity of others, diving in at just the right time to cash out. It’s Americans with exorbitant wealth, flaunting their unearned megabucks and directing the politics of this “democratic” nation from behind the scenes — call them the “New Millionaires,” and they aren’t Warren Buffett.
In the end, super PACs and special interests, New Millionaires and investment bankers, East Coast family dynasties and legacy admissions are just as undemocratic as the Electoral College. They add to the lie that the voice of the people in American politics is ultimately sovereign, when in fact that voice has become just another tool for political entrepreneurship.
And regardless of the ebb and flow of popular opinion, this struggling democracy will march on.
Image Source: pb-n-james via Creative Commons
Contact Connor Grubaugh at [email protected]
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I’d suggest the issue isn’t as big as the author suggests. The results of the electoral college as opposed to popular vote may be- and historically have been- the same. If the end result is so often the same, why quibble over the method?
And what’s to say there’s more wisdom or a better result by a mass vote as opposed to a vote by representatives elected by that very same mass vote?
Presidential elections don’t have to be this way.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps. There would no longer be a handful of ‘battleground’ states where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in 80% of the states that now are just ‘spectators’ and ignored after the conventions.
When the bill is enacted by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes– enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538), all the electoral votes from the enacting states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC.
Pure democracy is a form of government in which people vote on policy initiatives directly. With National
Popular Vote, the United States would still be a republic, in which citizens continue to elect the President by a majority of Electoral College votes by states, to represent us and conduct the business of government in the periods between elections.
The current system does not provide some kind of check on the “mobs.” There have been 22,453 electoral
votes cast since presidential elections became competitive (in 1796), and only 17 have been cast for someone other than the candidate nominated by the elector’s own political party. 1796 remains the only instance when the elector might have thought, at the time he voted, that his vote might affect the national outcome. Since 1796, the Electoral College has had the form, but not the substance, of the deliberative body envisioned by the Founders. The electors now are dedicated party activists of the winning party who meet briefly in mid-December to cast their totally predictable rubberstamped votes in accordance with their pre-announced pledges.
Federalism concerns the allocation of power between state governments and the national government. The National Popular Vote bill concerns how votes are tallied, not how much power state governments possess relative to the national government. The powers of state governments are neither increased nor decreased based on whether presidential electors are selected along the state boundary lines, or national lines (as with the National Popular Vote).
The presidential election system that we have today was not designed, anticipated, or favored by the Founding Fathers but, instead, is the product of decades of evolutionary change precipitated by the emergence of political parties and enactment by 48 states of winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution.
The bill uses the power given to each state by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for President. Historically, virtually all of the major changes in the method of electing the President, including ending the requirement that only men who owned substantial property could vote and 48 current state-by-state winner-take-all laws, have come about by state legislative action.
In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all
of a state’s electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). Support for a national popular vote is strong among
Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in virtually every state surveyed in recent polls in recent closely divided Battleground states: CO – 68%, FL – 78%, IA 75%,
MI – 73%, MO – 70%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM– 76%, NC – 74%, OH – 70%, PA –78%, VA – 74%, and WI – 71%; in Small states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK – 70%, DC – 76%, DE – 75%, ID – 77%, ME – 77%, MT – 72%, NE 74%, NH –69%, NV – 72%, NM – 76%, OK – 81%, RI – 74%, SD – 71%, UT – 70%, VT – 75%, WV – 81%, and WY – 69%; in Southern and Border states: AR – 80%, KY- 80%, MS – 77%, MO – 70%, NC – 74%, OK – 81%, SC – 71%, TN – 83%, VA –74%, and WV – 81%; and in other states polled: AZ – 67%, CA – 70%, CT –74%, MA – 73%, MN – 75%, NY – 79%, OR – 76%, and WA – 77%. Americans believe that the candidate who receives the most votes should win.
The bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers in 21 states. The bill has been enacted by 9 jurisdictions (including California) possessing 132 electoral votes – 49% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.
NationalPopularVote
Follow National Popular Vote on Facebook via NationalPopularVoteInc.
“modern American elites are much less altruistic than the innovators of America’s past.”
I think that is a gross generalization in an otherwise well written article. Have you never heard of “robber barons” in junior high history classes? These 18th century elites got rich by paying slave wages to immigrant workers and even hired young children to work in unsafe factories. By comparison modern American elites try hard to donate to charity and support their local communities. Mark Zuckerberg still wears hoodies and flaunting one’s wealth is no longer fashionable.
The end may have been the best piece I’ve ever seen on the DailyCal.. great writing sir.
Excellent article.
Why was this picture chosen? Nobody cares about the July Revolution of 1830…
While we’re at it, why not eliminate “states” and just have voting districts. Why should Rhode Island, California, and North Dakota each have the same number of Senators – shouldn’t the Senate be elected from more equitably-determined regions? – etc. –
The US was originally a federation of States. That has been eroded over time, and is heading toward a poll-based populist “Athenian democracy,” possibly one of the most dangerous forms of government. Without the “checks and balances” provided by the States’ positions being represented by persons selected by the State legislators, balanced by the House being composed of popularly elected persons, the States have become less and less significant and the Federal greater in scope and power.
Having the people elect trusted, honorable persons to act in the best interest of those they represent seems a good idea, but in practice leads to abuse. Having the electorate decide each issue, each person for herself, leads to mob groupthink. The constitution attempted to reconcile these by creating a bicameral legislature. It may be time to re-visit the Constitutional amendment providing for the direct election of Senators, and to have the names of the electoral college placed on the ballot, instead of only the persons they are “pledged” to support.
I think we are so far away from the original concepts and compromises between the “Jeffersonian” and “Hamiltonian” ideas that we will never be able to move back. Time will tell.
Unfortunately for us “Americans” the above article is true. Though it saddens me to think this is the truth, I remain hopeful that we will evently fund our elections publically and elect our leaders by popular vote and the corrupt “election game” as we now know it will be discontinued. We Americans must come together for the good of the county and of our fellow American’s. We must remember we are American’s first, then we are our socioeconomic class, then our religion, then our enthnicity….then our………
The electoral college is on of the most reliable ways to protect the interests of the country without succumbing to spurious or irrational mob voting. The U.S.A. is not a Democracy. The U.S.A. is a Constitutional Republic with like-democratic procedures. This opinion piece is far left of center.
We are not a “modern democracy.” We are a republic that has outlasted many modern democracies. The wisdom of the Constitution in things like the electoral college is one reason why.
True. but try to explain some fundamental American history to these brain-dead indoctrinated students and they think you’re some type of extreme right-winger.