Elizabeth Warren’s attack on Electoral College pandering at its worst

Boston Herald ^ | 3/19/19 | Joe Battenfeld

[raccoonradio]

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s blatantly partisan push to eliminate the Electoral College would disenfranchise vast swaths of America and make liberal cities the Kingpins of presidential politics.

Warren’s new push for a popular vote is pandering at its worst — dangling an idea that would unabashedly aid the Democrat-controlled coasts of the country and turn the country into virtual one-party rule.

Switching to a popular vote would only widen the current cultural divide that is gripping the nation, pitting the East and West coasts against the Heartland and rural America.

The cities of Los Angeles and New York already decide what movies, TV shows and plays get made — under Warren’s plan they would also disproportionately decide presidential contests.

Presidential candidates in the general election would hop from one large city to the next — passing over huge sections of the country where Republicans tend to live.

The founding fathers designed the Electoral College to make sure that smaller states didn’t get the shaft when it came time for presidential elections, and that system has worked for more than two centuries.

The nation’s less populous states, like Wyoming, Alaska, Vermont and North and South Dakota, right now are protected by the Electoral College, which gives them more power than they would have under a popular vote system.

Switching to a popular vote would make voters in those states virtual recluses, cut off from power when it comes to electing presidents.

Boston, which is dominated by Democratic voters, would make out great if the Electoral College is abolished. Presidential candidates would be far more likely to court voters in the state’s largest city than they do now.

Warren received loud cheers from the crowd of Democrats at a CNN town hall in Mississippi but her plan, ironically, would diminish the power that the state currently holds under the current Electoral College system.

While it’s true that candidates rarely visit Mississippi in the general election, the Electoral College actually gives the residents of the relatively small state disproportionate power. So Mississippi would lose under Warren’s plan to abolish the Electoral College. But that doesn’t matter to Warren, because all she cares about is burnishing her liberal credentials in her presidential campaign — and relatively few liberals make their home in Mississippi.

This is all about revenge politics. Democrats didn’t get their way when Al Gore and Hillary Clinton lost the Electoral College votes in 2000 and 2016 and so now they are determined to throw out the whole system.

They know that Democrats dominate the big cities, and would gain a huge advantage in a popular vote system.

So let’s not pretend this is some way to make the country more democratic. It’s a way to make the country more Democratic — with a big D.

[entropy12]

I don’t know of any of the declared democrat candidates who are for keeping the electoral college. Warren is not alone.

They all want CA & NY & IL to rule the country.

[entropy12]

“The Associated Press finds that Clinton won 487 counties nationwide, compared with 2,626 for President-elect Donald Trump”

[realcleanguy]

Or to establish a dictatorship, or communism

[dead]

Two thirds of both houses of congress have to pass an amendment, then three quarters of all states have to approe it.

So, basically, the rest of the country has to reject their own right to select a president and leave it to California, New York, Florida, and Texas.

It will never happen.

[Newtoidaho]

If it gets us closer to CW2 I’m OK with it, this country needs a massive cleansing in the worst way.

[palmer]

Warren received loud cheers from the crowd of Democrats at a CNN town hall in Mississippi but her plan, ironically, would diminish the power that the state currently holds under the current Electoral College system.

Of course they cheered. They want Mississippi's power to be reduced (to nothing). They want the Feds to control everything.

[palmer]

They all want CA & NY & IL to rule the country

That is true, but to be more precise they want liberals to run the country. They don't care where the liberals live.

[raccoonradio]

One youtube video showed a prediction of Hillary winning about 80 percent of the electoral votes, maybe even more. It didn't happen in part because of the so called blue wall--states that normally may vote Dem...oh, surely she'd win WI, MI, PA, OH etc, right? The rust belt. Those 4 states alone combine for 64 electoral votes. Add Florida and you get a total of 93.

Sure Hillary won CA with 55. NY with 29 (much of the state red but not NYC)
Take those 4 states I mentioned first and give them to Hillary instead

Final vote with Trump winning them
Trump 306
Clinton 232

Final vote if she'd won them
Trump 242
Clinton 296
Why bother campaining in MI or WI? She's gonna win them anyway, right? OR the voters there just said no thank you.

On election night PA was said to have put Trump over the top

She won Pittsburgh and Philly but much of the state was red, giving him a big margin of victory in those non-blue areas.

Eliminate the electoral college and you may as well eliminate the Senate. Why should Wyoming have the same amount of senators as California? (But the House makes up for it..as does the EC)

In 2000 Bush beat Gore in his home state, 51 to 47 per cent. That was 11 electoral votes

Final results
Gore 266
Bush 271

Had Gore won TN:
Gore 277
Bush 260

AP:
"Not only did Al Gore lose his home state of Tennessee, but he also lost the congressional district he represented for eight years. The 6th Congressional District he represented from 1976 to 1984 doesn’t have the same makeup today as it did 16 years ago, but if the votes in the 17 counties it once comprised were added up, George W. Bush would have 166,025 to Gore’s 140,992.

"That is an additional embarrassment to Gore, who had never lost an election in Tennessee until Tuesday. It is also another indicator of the state’s Republican shift in recent years. In Tennessee, Gore was considered a moderate until he started inching toward the national stage. Once an opponent of abortion and gun control, Gore now supports the right to choose and tighter restrictions on gun sales _ neither of which plays well in rural parts of the district he once called home.

"'Generally Gore just trended to the left, and I think Tennesseans want someone in the middle of the spectrum or a little to the right,' said Rep. Bill Jenkins, R-Tenn. 'He left Tennessee. Tennessee didn’t leave him.'"

---

Even without Florida factored in, Gore lost because he lost his home state. That's the Electoral College. ("Gore got more!", screamed the libs.)

"This is what democracy looks like!"

No, this is what a REPUBLIC looks like.

[Adder]

relatively small state disproportionate power.

Simply not true. The power of a state in the college is determined by its congressional representation. It is not disproportionate. Unless they are thinking that each state has 2 senators regardless of size.

[zaxtres]

Let the demonrats fight about the EC. It won’t do them any good until they get the requisite number of Congress critters to vote aye on the Constitutional Amendment and then at least 38 states to vote in the affirmative to change the Constitution. Until there is sufficient backing by all of the players in the game, then talk about the EC is just that -pandering.