JoeB131
Diamond Member
In this series, I will examine what the GOP needs to do to avoid political irrelevence in the coming years and make a comeback in a changing America.
1) The Electoral College is not your friend. And heres the problem. In states Democrats have won in the last 6 elections, Democrats get 242 Electoral votes. The Republican make noise every year about how they are going to contest them, and they are usually called before 9 PM. In three other states theyve won 5 of the last six times, they get another 15. So in short, the Democrat pretty much starts at 257. That just allows them to pick and choose which state they put their chips on while Republicans have to cover all the bases.
More to the point, it lets party apparatuses atrophy in Blue states where there are still a lot of voters who would be happy to vote for you. That could make you more competitive in Senate and House races.
The GOP should make this a signature issue, for no other reason than making the Dems ironically defend the mechanism that put George W. Bush in office. And there are two levels they can fight this fight. One is pushing to have more states do it the way Nebraska and Maine do it (by congressional district). The other is to push for a constitutional amendment.
The reasons why the GOP will resist. Part of it is their recalcitrance to admiting old Dubya was a huge mistake. The other is that there are a lot of what I like to call "constitutional fetishists" out there who think that the Constitution was written on Stone Tablets, and if their 18th century minds didn't think of it, it must not be valid.
1) The Electoral College is not your friend. And heres the problem. In states Democrats have won in the last 6 elections, Democrats get 242 Electoral votes. The Republican make noise every year about how they are going to contest them, and they are usually called before 9 PM. In three other states theyve won 5 of the last six times, they get another 15. So in short, the Democrat pretty much starts at 257. That just allows them to pick and choose which state they put their chips on while Republicans have to cover all the bases.
More to the point, it lets party apparatuses atrophy in Blue states where there are still a lot of voters who would be happy to vote for you. That could make you more competitive in Senate and House races.
The GOP should make this a signature issue, for no other reason than making the Dems ironically defend the mechanism that put George W. Bush in office. And there are two levels they can fight this fight. One is pushing to have more states do it the way Nebraska and Maine do it (by congressional district). The other is to push for a constitutional amendment.
The reasons why the GOP will resist. Part of it is their recalcitrance to admiting old Dubya was a huge mistake. The other is that there are a lot of what I like to call "constitutional fetishists" out there who think that the Constitution was written on Stone Tablets, and if their 18th century minds didn't think of it, it must not be valid.