Still Cheating After All These Years

They're at it again. The people who brought you the Florida Chad Mess, the Supreme Court Debacle and the Ohio Ballot Stuffing are now trying to steal the upcoming election by the innocent sounding "Proportional Electoral System," which a local California Republican is trying to shove down the voters' throats come next June's primary. According to this proposition--which is likely to gain a place on the ballot because, well, there are enough zanies in California to sign anything--the electoral votes in California's upcoming presidential vote will be awarded according to which candidate wins each individual congressional district. The result of this supposedly democratic reform would be to split the humongous 55-electoral vote pie in some proportional way that even a losing Republican (a sure thing in 2008) would receive maybe 20 of those votes. In a tight election, like the past two, that could easily provide a winning margin even if the Dems pick off a few western states like New Mexico and Colorado.

To be fair, there are idealistic reasons for proportional sharing, as inexact as that would be. But only if every state in the nation were to do that. Currently a few do, and the Democrats in North Carolina are trying to pull the same trick (as most politicos are ethically challenged). But three or four votes out of North Carolina's share would be insignificant compared to chopping up the prize of California, upon which Democratic hopes depend.

Now I admit to a partisan interest in the defeat of such a proposition in California. I expect that come next June, with the Presidential candidates decided and the campaign heating up, that this provision will get quite a lot of attention. Republicans will innocently cry "fairness!" and the Democrats will respond with "What will they think if next to steal the election?" Stridency aside, I expect that the electorate will probably be prone to listen to the Democrats after the Republicans have so bungled the century so far. It will be a very loud and expensive campaign, with a lot of Democratic money--including some of mine, I project--going toward the defeat of the proposition lest it allow the Republicans to maintain the White House through this back door move. In fact, the columns and bloggers and periodicals are already trumpeting this issue, so it won't fall on deaf ears or California apathy.

This kind of maneuvering, as potentially harmful as it is, is simply an offshoot of the appalling Electoral system that brought us the ascendancy of George Bush in 2000, even though he lost the popular vote by a considerable margin of half a million votes. Since no politicians have the guts to simply listen to the Vox Populi and try to constitutionally change the Presidential voting system, these kinds of end-around manipulations will pop up all the time. The presumption that aborts this process is that enough small states with tiny electoral input would veto the amendment because then they would receive fewer visits from candidates--as though that would be a bad thing. Okay, and maybe secure fewer promises of pork from those same candidates. It would just take 16 noes from little legislatures.

Some of those same legislatures are trying another intriguing tack, which would be to throw all their electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the popular vote, regardless of who wins in that individual state. That seems a little fairer, but would, as in the case of the California concept, have to be accepted by a critical mass of, say, least thirteen other states who would agree to do the same thing. Well, good luck on that. Adjacent states can't even agree on which vegetables are safe, or at what age their young people can start legally poisoning their livers with alcohol.

In other Endless Campaign news, the most interesting development is that Hillary Clinton is actually gaining adherents and is pulling away from the attractive though somewhat specious candidacy of Barack Obama. There is a perception now that her White House advocacy experience, plus her successful run as senator, have provided her with the only impressive resume of all the Presidential hopefuls. I've gleaned this not only from the columns and poll results, but from a comment by a close relative, a recently staunch (and somewhat apologetic) Neocon Republican, who opined that she was the best of all the Democratic candidates, and probably more capable than any current Republicans. And I think that included the shadow candidate/actor Fred Thompson. Fred (much as I'd love to have a President with that first name) is wise to stay in the shadows, for the media scrutiny on him will be intense, and the bubble is likely to burst on the Reaganesque image his proponents are spouting.

Hillary, on the other hand, has been through the gauntlet, having fought through the mud sloshed in her direction for two decades. There is little than can be said about her that will shock her friends or convert her enemies, so her profile will remain pretty stable. Plus there is the regret factor that Bill was so badly treated by the Impeachers, who felt that a sexual escapade or three or four were somehow more detrimental to the Constitution and our National Health than the desecrations that Bush and Cheney have regularly vomited forth. Can you imagine if Bill Clinton had sucked up our rights to privacy, waged pre-emptive wars for falsified reasons, condemned millions to die early by prohibiting promising medical research, lobbied for the Usefulness of the Dark Side, legitimized torture, and shot a friend in the face? Okay, the friend was a lawyer, but still.

The Republican activists understand the problematic scenario for 2008, which accounts for the electoral ploys. Changing the rules in the middle of the game as has worked so well for them, as has the Swift Boating, that the manipulations have just started to emerge. Look out.