Obama is Kicking Louisiana’s A$$

Time to tar and feather him.
Do they make white tar?

...made clear that he will not offer real help to the struggling people of Louisiana and the Gulf Coast. In his speech, he presented no specific action plans and instead relied on lame platitudes. In contrast, he made clear his support for a destructive national energy tax and a horrible cap-and-trade energy bill, which will devastate Louisiana's economy. Obama is using the tragedy of the oil spill to further his political agenda, all at the expense of Louisiana jobs.

And Texas jobs, etc etc.

I hope Jindal runs in 2012, he's a good candidate and he would remind people of this fiasco everyday.

Apparently Obama didn’t like some things about Louisiana. Namely this:

http://www.thesttammanynews.com/articles/2010/04/23/news/doc4bd0c7cc492cb424381502.txt

That “directing” language has to do with how the electors are appointed, not how they’d vote. Of the electors chosen, those who get to cast their votes are those committed to whichever candidate received the most popular votes in the state for the slate of electors.

If you read your 2008 ballot, you voted for an elector for McCain/Obama/Whomever. None of us actually votes for the individual running for POTUS.

Typically, the electors are the elected Members of Congress, with party officials and activists of the prevailing party voting in lieu of the Congressmen/Senator(s) from the losing party.

For instance, VA has 2 Dem Senators and 11 Representatives, of whom 6 are D, 5 are R. Let’s say that balance remained in ‘12 (not likely). Each party in the state would designate 13 electors, including the elected officials, before the election. They are basically a slate.

If in ‘12 the Republican wins VA .. the 5 GOP Representatives would be voting electors. The VA GOP, as directed by the legislature, would have designated the 8 remaining electors. All of them would have been committed to the GOP presidential/VP candidates, and would cast their votes accordingly in the electoral college.

Conversely, if the Dems carried VA in ‘12, the Dem party of VA would have designated its slate of electors, with 5 non-elected among them.

Bingo!

Typically, the electors are the elected Members of Congress, with party officials and activists of the prevailing party voting in lieu of the Congressmen/Senator(s) from the losing party.

Somehow I doubt that . . .
Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector.

The point was that the legislature does not dictate how electors vote. The state legislatures are not authorized to “direct” its electors to vote for or against any candidate.

Given the Senators/Reps do not vote themselves as electors, they would, in effect, appoint them, recommending their party’s most active local folks to vote in their stead. Only the most partisan citizens ever get to be electors for either side. It’s all very ‘inside politics.’

But, as to WHO the electors are, with rules varying from state to state:

According to the U.S. Office of the Federal Register, “Generally, the political parties nominate electors at their State party conventions or by a vote of the party’s central committee in each State. Electors are often selected to recognize their service and dedication to their political party. They may be State elected officials, party leaders, or persons who have a personal or political affiliation with the Presidential candidate. Then the voters in each State choose the electors on the day of the general election. The electors’ names may or may not appear on the ballot below the name of the candidates running for President, depending on the procedure in each State.”

http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa120300a.htm

The point was that the legislature does not dictate how electors vote. The state legislatures are not authorized to “direct” its electors to vote for or against any candidate.

Given the Senators/Reps do not vote themselves as electors, they would, in effect, appoint them, recommending their party’s most active local folks to vote in their stead. Only the most partisan citizens ever get to be electors for either side. It’s all very ‘inside politics.’

. . . which generally turns out to be a distinction without a difference.
I am saying that a given state could, at the direction of its legislature, create a ballot without any electors who are pledged to Barak Obama. Or it could direct a particular Republican to name the electors - say, the governor, if s/he is a Republican, without any popular vote at all for the office of elector.
'Course any state whose legislature was ticked off enough to do that presumably would be so solidly Republican that there wouldn't be much doubt of the outcome of a popular vote, either . . .
I just kind of like the states' rights principle of the thing.

IF I understand your idea, a state legislature could essentially keep an otherwise qualified candidate* for federal office off the ballot? Or deny a qualified candidate any electors supportive of him?

(*presumably qualified - we’ll put aside the entire eligibility issue for purposes of this discussion)

If your concept is what I am inferring, I think you’d be hard-pressed to find even one state legislator of any party or stripe in any state to support it. The repercussions would be too far reaching and no doubt unconstitutional.

I doubt it’s within the purview of a state legislature to keep a qualified candidate for federal office (or his electors) off ballots within the state. I think there’s a whole other process for determining who is eligible to be on the ballot, i.e., thru the various Secretaries of State. Some third-party candidates are on some state ballots but not others. The various states’ legislatures are to determine only how electors are chosen, now who can or can’t be on the ballot.

Now, presumably a state legislature could designate the governor to appoint all electors, and he could appoint ‘faithless’ electors for the opponent, but that would be political suicide without getting into legalities.

I don’t see it as a states rights issue at all. And that’s the beauty of it: states like LA are not, and never were, likely to elect Obama.

I doubt it’s within the purview of a state legislature to keep a qualified candidate for federal office (or his electors) off ballots within the state.

Article 1 Section 2. The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several states, and the electors in each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislature.

Section 3. The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each state, chosen by the legislature thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. (This was modified by the 17th Amendment, but that's beside the point).

Article 2 Section 1. Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector.
It would have been so simple to say that the people of each state would elect the electors of that state - but that's not what the Constitution says. My point is, quite simply, that you could come closer to arguing that "appoint" is opposite in meaning to "elect" - and that there should never be presidential elections in the first place.
Certainly the Bush v. Gore decision could have been quite different, and much simpler, if SCOTUS had simply noted that there was no blatant fraud shown in the actions of Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris - and that she had in good faith certified the election on the timetable specified by FL law. And that the Electors had already cast their ballots, and GWB had won. That would have been a lot cleaner for SCOTUS, by way of keeping its nose out of State of Florida business. SCOTUS was openly queasy about its decision, to critique Florida's high court. It should have simply said that the matter was settled de facto when Harris certified the electors and they cast their ballots.

But in fact the word "election" does not appear in the text - and the only conclusion is that ratifiers of the Constitution understood that the states would select the electors of the president - and could do so in the same way that they could (and, before the 17th Amendment, did) select their US senators.
I quite agree that for a state legislature to do anything other than allowing the people to elect the state's presidential electors would violate tradition - and it would therefore dramatize a legislature's opposition to the actions of this president. But then, the president himself is not above breaking tradition himself.