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The Electoral College Is ‘the Exploding Cigar of American Politics’ The Electoral College Is ‘the Exploding Cigar of American Politics’
(14 days later)
Hey, it’s election season! Think about it: A year from now, we should know who the next president is going to be and …Hey, it’s election season! Think about it: A year from now, we should know who the next president is going to be and …
Stop beating your head against the wall. Before we start obsessing over the candidates, let’s spend just a few minutes mulling the big picture. Really big. Today, we’re going to moan about the Electoral College.Stop beating your head against the wall. Before we start obsessing over the candidates, let’s spend just a few minutes mulling the big picture. Really big. Today, we’re going to moan about the Electoral College.
Yes! That … system we have for actually choosing a president. The one that makes who got the most votes more or less irrelevant. “The exploding cigar of American politics,” as Michael Waldman of the Brennan Center for Justice called it over the phone.Yes! That … system we have for actually choosing a president. The one that makes who got the most votes more or less irrelevant. “The exploding cigar of American politics,” as Michael Waldman of the Brennan Center for Justice called it over the phone.
Whoever gets the most electoral votes wins the White House. And the electoral votes are equal to the number of representatives and senators each state has in Washington. Right now that means — as I never tire of saying — around 193,000 people in Wyoming get the same clout as around 715,000 people in California.Whoever gets the most electoral votes wins the White House. And the electoral votes are equal to the number of representatives and senators each state has in Washington. Right now that means — as I never tire of saying — around 193,000 people in Wyoming get the same clout as around 715,000 people in California.
It’s possible the system was quietly hatched as a canny plot by the plantation-owning Southerners to cut back on the power of the cities. Or it’s possible the founders just had a lot on their minds and threw the system together at the last minute. At the time, Waldman noted, everybody was mainly concerned with making sure George Washington was the first president.
Confession: I was hoping to blame the whole Electoral College thing on Thomas Jefferson, who’s possibly my least favorite founding father. You know — states’ rights and Sally Hemings. Not to mention a letter he once wrote to his daughter, reminding her to wear a bonnet when she went outside because any hint of the sun on her face would “make you very ugly and then we should not love you so much.” But Jefferson was someplace in France while all this Electoral College stuff was going on, so I’m afraid it’s not his fault.