Walz: No more electoral college

Must be almost boring by now, reading about the issues around this guy. Does no one vet a candidate any more? Or do they just not care? Rhetorical questions at best, I suppose – seems like the true controllers of the parties like their candidates as they are, warts and all. Must make them easier to control.

Walz did indeed say the Electoral College is something we should do without – popular vote all the way, baby! – not just once but twice at two different campaign stops.

“I think all of us know, the Electoral College needs to go. We need a — we need national popular vote,” he said. “But that’s not the world we live in. So, we need to win Beaver County, Pa. We need to be able to go into York, Pa., and win. We need to be in western Wisconsin and win. We need to be in Reno, Nev., and win. The Hill

Actually, on a winner-take-all basis, to get PINO Joe’s 80 million people, you only need 10 counties in the entire COUNTRY: and Reno isn’t one of them (but Las Vegas is.) In order of population, we have LA, Cook, Harris (Houston), Maricopa (Phoenix) San Diego, Orange, Miami-Dade, Dallas, Kings (Brooklyn, NY) and Riverside. Just over 80 million population there as of 2023.

Now, if they want to get rid of the Electoral Collage, they will also have to dump the winner-take-all (the REALLY disenfranchising system beloved by pols*) system. So then to get to 80 million they have to add Clark (Las Vegas) King (Seattle King (Seattle), San Bernadino and Tarrant (Ft. Worth) if you postulate a 50% voting population.  This also presupposes that everyone in those counties is a registered voter, and in the real world you have underage, felons, illegals, in Cook county the dead…it ain’t as simple as that “only 10 counties would win the country’ trope folks like to bandy about. But a popular vote would allow those 15 counties disproportionate influence, wouldn’t you say?

Luckily that would take a Constitutional amendment and party action no one wants to sign up for. But it tells you something that Wal-tze airs that to riotous applause.

Since Tuesday, however,  he has been walking that back like a bandit – initial response from outside his rallies was immediate and forceful. Now he is saying things like “I support what the campaign wants (which I think translated from Chinese to German means “I vill be a gut soldiare and obey orders!”) or this word salad below.

“The point I’m saying is: I’m in five states in two days, we’re out there making the case that – the campaign’s position is clear, that that’s not their position. Their position and my position is – is to make sure that everybody understands their vote, no matter what state they’re in, matters.” CNN

Keeps leading me back to my constant thought, and source of no small number of headaches: “Are these four idiots the best we can do? Seriously?

*Winner-take-all states – if a candidate gets just ONE more vote than the other, they get ALL the electoral votes. If you are a Republican in Chicago, possibly a Democrat in TX – your Presidential vote is nullified and you, my friend, are a non-person. Me, I’d love to see something more representational – maybe splitting a state’s electoral votes based on the popular vote? It will be interesting to see what the results of the last several elections would be on that basis. Given the concentration of Dem voters in big cities, I am not all that sure Bush or Trump would have presumably lost. Just a thought.

Category: "Teh Stoopid", 2024 Election