Eliminate the Electoral College

by Robert Tishkevich | Jan 23, 2017 | Politics

Is there anyone who prefers the archaic electoral college system over an election decided by the national vote total? By the way, I don’t believe the term “Electoral College” is in the Constitution. I think they’re referred to as “Electors”. In the 2016 election, Hillary won the popular vote by more than 3 million. Whether you preferred Hillary or Trump is irrelevant to me, this is a dumb system.

During a Presidential campaign, the candidates essentially ignore most of the nation and concentrate on what is known as “the swing states”. They include Florida, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, among others. These states make up the only unknown in the election. All other states are either deep red or blue, so candidates completely ignore them. Do we want a large percentage of our country ignored during a Presidential campaign?

As for residents of a state which isn’t a swing state, they often feel their vote is wasted. If you live in a deep red state but want to vote blue, your vote essentially doesn’t count because you know the red party candidate will win the state. However, if the Presidency is determined by a national tally, then your vote has more meaning. In fact, every vote counts if we go with the popular vote.

Are you aware of the National Popular Vote Plan? It’s an effort to create an agreement among states that vow to elect the president of the United States using the national popular vote instead of the final vote count in each respective state. States who agree, will no longer cast their electoral votes for the winner in their individual state, but will instead cast them for the winner of the national vote. This is an attempt to bypass the complexities of amending the Constitution. Some believe only about a dozen key states need to agree with this new policy to seriously impact a 270 electoral college majority.

I’m sorry I can’t give credit to the author, but I copied the following points from an email message I received which I thought was fascinating. It highlights some very interesting statistics from recent Presidential campaigns.

In the 2016 general election campaign:

Over half (57%) of the campaign events were held in just 4 states (Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Ohio).

Virtually all (94%) of the campaign events were in just 12 states (containing only 30% of the country’s population).

In the 2012 general election campaign, 38 states had no campaign events, and minuscule or no spending for TV ads.

More than 99% of presidential campaign attention (spending on ads and visits) was invested on voters in just ten competitive states..

Two-thirds (176 of 253) of the general-election campaign events, and a similar fraction of campaign expenditures, were in just four states (Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and Iowa).

Over 87% of both Romney and Obama campaign offices were in just the then 12 swing states. The few campaign offices in the 38 remaining states were for fund-raising, volunteer phone calls, and arranging travel to battleground states.

President Donald Trump

by Robert Tishkevich | Jan 17, 2017 | Politics

These words are difficult to say, but Donald Trump is our new President. Hillary was a terrible candidate who never connected with the voters. I get that, but at least she was qualified for the office.

Our new President is in no specific order:

• An egomaniac of epic proportions
• A pathological liar, he wouldn’t know the truth if it smacked him in the face.
• Trump would say ABC on Monday, DEF on Tuesday, and on Wednesday he would say GHI, while denying he ever said ABC or DEF earlier in the week. Then a reporter would say, we have you on video tape saying ABC and DEF. Trump will then deny it again while verbally attacking the reporter.
• This may be his worst character trait, he’s never wrong. Trump will never admit he made a mistake about anything, it’s always someone else who was wrong or they’re attacking him.
• The above means he has no respect for facts and the truth.
• Trump believes every right-wing conspiracy theory
• He portrays the national press as his enemy. Smart people understand Trump does this because he doesn’t want the truth about him exposed. He understands that If he vilifies the press, his supporters won’t listen when the press exposes Trump lies and devious actions. They will instead react by ignoring the storying while saying Trump was right, the press is out to get him.
• He isn’t a very bright man and appears to be incapable of analyzing complex issues.
• He’s a 70-year-old man who acts just like a high school bully. He will be the perfect role model for American Male high school bullies.
• We know what he thinks of women. Our wives, girlfriends, and daughters should shudder at the thought of a Donald Trump Presidency.
• He refused to release his tax returns and he repeatedly refused to provide specific answers to most of the questions about his vague policies. He did that when he was a candidate. Who knows what he’ll do in the office?
• That means, Trump supporters elected a President but they don’t know what he’s going to do. They have no idea what his health care plan will be, his policy on illegal immigration, ISIS, etc.

Trump said the election was rigged and trashed the polls. Remember, that’s the same guy who at every one of his primary rallies, bragged that he was number one in the polls. But when he’s behind in a poll, suddenly they’re rigged.

In the end, we learned the polls were not rigged because he won the election. In addition, Trump never stopped whining about the press attacking him. What he didn’t tell his supporters is the press got him elected. You might ask how did the press get him elected. The answer is obvious to anyone who understood what was going on. From August 2015, until election day in November of 2016, Trump was headline news in the national media 24/7. I’ve never seen a candidate get so much free press coverage in my life. He was on the news all day and night 7 days a week, non-stop.

At the same time, the same national press brought up Hillary’s Email Scandal every day as if nothing else was happening in her campaign. That’s when I figured out Hillary was in big trouble. So instead of attacking main stream media, Trump should thank them.