{"id":4597,"date":"2011-09-19T11:41:09","date_gmt":"2011-09-19T16:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stonescryout.org\/?p=4597"},"modified":"2011-09-19T11:41:09","modified_gmt":"2011-09-19T16:41:09","slug":"pennsylvania-flirts-with-irrelevancy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/?p=4597","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania Flirts With Irrelevancy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Republican legislators in the Pennsylvania state government are pushing a bill that would relatively proportion their presidential electoral votes based on the results of the individual congressional district presidential votes. The (Republican) governor says he would sign such a bill.<\/a> This is a bad<\/em> idea.<\/p>\n

The suggestion came up in Colorado and California in years past, and failed in both cases. The Electoral College is actually a very good way of apportioning votes, ensuring that a President has both a sufficient<\/em> number of votes and also a diverse<\/em> support base; broad<\/em> support favored over the most<\/em> support in close races. I posted a number of reasons why the Electoral College is a good idea here<\/a>, with a link to the history of the EC.<\/p>\n

As a side note, Markos Moulitsas, the "Daily Kos" himself, split his support over the Colorado and California efforts<\/a>. One of them he called a "bad horror movie" and an attempt to "game the system". The other he called "brilliant" and suggested that "every state should allocate EVs in this manner". Why the difference in tone? As you can probably guess, it’s all about politics over principle. When Colorado wanted to do it, it would benefit Democrats, so he was all-in. When California wanted to do it, he had nothing but disparaging comments for anyone who even considered it. This clearly points out a pundit who a) has no appreciation for, not just history, but the status quo, and b) makes every decision based, not on what’s best for everyone, but what’s best for his political kindred. <\/p>\n

Consider this when reading opinions. I will note that I’m always against this sort of thing, including in the guise of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact<\/a>. Inform yourself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Republican legislators in the Pennsylvania state government are pushing a bill that would relatively proportion their presidential electoral votes based on the results of the individual congressional district presidential votes. The (Republican) governor says he would sign such a bill. This is a bad idea. The suggestion came up in Colorado and California in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,18,21,26,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doug","category-government","category-liberal","category-politics","category-republicans"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t