California has more electoral votes than Iowa, but each Californian's vote only counts for about 4/5 of the amount of each Iowan's vote at the electoral college level. You could argue that the state of California is more important than the state of Iowa in electoral terms, but it's just completely wrong to say that Iowans are not as important as Californians in those terms.

Rural states are already over-represented in Congress and wield disproportionate power.

The point is the needs of swing states are elevated above both the needs of the big states and the small rural states due to the EC, which is ridiculous on face. Candidates don't give a **** about what happens in Wyoming or Montana just as they don't give a **** about NY or CA. But because FL is a huge swing state it gets to shape national policy on social security/medicare and even U.S. relations with Cuba.

Points have already been brought up in this thread. I believe you’re satisfied with the political outcome of the electoral college nowadays so you seek to justify its existence. People are so concerned about tyranny of the majority and now we have the one thing that is worse; tyranny of the minority. The sad part is it won’t work for long as states like Arizona and Texas turn blue you WILL have tyranny of the majority, and that majority will remember how the other side acted when in power. Trump has killed the Republican Party (which went along with it all a few exceptions withstanding). I’m not looking forward to one party Democrat rule but that is what will be coming about.

Yeah. Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Maine, New Hampshire, Hawaii, Idaho, West Virginia, Nebraska, New Mexico, Kansas, Mississippi, Arkansas, Nevada, Iowa, Utah, and Oklahoma have about as many people as California, and get 20x as many Senators, yet conservatives still cannot stop crying about how rural America would have no power at all if not for the electoral college

And more populated states get extra seats in the House.

Not in proportion to their population. The states I listed have, as I mentioned, 20x as many Senators as California, and about the same amount of House reps.

That list of 20 states has the same number of people as California, equal power in the House as California, and 20x as much power in the Senate.

Would you agree that the founders wanted a system where laws would be hard to enact, or overturn?

They developed system where the next guy couldn't just rewrite everything?

I am really against Trump utilizing so many executive orders. Same as Obama.

Slow change by groundswell opinion allows us to adapt to change of the world, but is a backstop against tyranny.

Furthermore, the EC is not actually a method of empowering rural states. It's a measure of empowering swing states.

Go ask rural North Dakota, or rural Vermont, how much their voice matters in the presidential election thanks to the EC. It doesn't, because Democrats cannot win North Dakota and Republicans cannot win Vermont.

Iowa is not benefited because they are rural. They are benefited because you can't automatically color them red or blue at the start of an election. Other states receiving this benefit include Florida, the third most populous state in the country.

It's the opposite. Small rural states are still favored. California has 1.3 reps per million people, and Wyoming 1.6.

Allowing outsized power to small states is not some backstop against tyranny but rather enshrining their own tyranny.

In your opinion, is taking tax dollars to provide farmers subsidies tyranny, or appropriate government intervention to preserve our national interests?

I think the founders were kind of naive in some respects and did not foresee the amount of partisanship that would occur in American politics.

The bicameral system was put in place because small states and big states would otherwise not have agreed to a union and there was an impasse after months of debate. I don't think it was some prescient master plan check against being able to pass bills in any sort of efficient manner.

The founders' vision was also for a state's EC votes to go district by district, not winner takes all. It was the individual states that saw the loophole in the Constitution as written and realized that they could leverage more political power by ensuring that their EC votes would all go to the same candidate, and passed such laws on the state level. So this system, besides being bad, is not even working as intended.

Somewhere in between. I don't think all farm subsidies are bad, but I think they have gotten out of hand, even if they are a smaller problem than oil subsidies.

Philosphoically, all taxation and redistribution is tyranny.

Practically, are we going to wake up and all of our airlines are just gone?

Anyway, I think the founders crafted the perfect document. If justices would go by it and we only legislated through consitutional amendment, Federal government would be manageable.

Nah. Philosophically, land ownership is tyranny

Sure, I'm not a big fan of first past the post-voting, I think it goes against the core principle of democracy, that your vote should count. In first past the post, it will be quite common that it does not.

I was commenting more that there is a certain merit to giving a slight edge to less densely populated regions, so that they don't get crushed under the political weight of urban regions.

Sometimes I can't tell if Smudgers is being a hypocrite, touch with reality or doesn't know how math works.

His "Iowa lives matter" recent posts are dense and got rebutted several different ways by several different posters. Somehow Smudgers pulls a "Iowa votes matter" while glossing over how all votes matter. Almost 130 million Americans voted in the last presidential election, I respect ever vote.

Trump lost the popular vote by 3 million votes. Romney lost the popular vote by 5 million votes. McCain lost the popular vote by 9 million votes. GW Bush lost the popular vote by ½ a million votes. Dole lost the popular vote by 8 million votes. GHW Bush lost the popular vote by 6 million votes. Where I come from we call that an ass whooping. But Smudger somehow want to gloss over that and instead say, "Al Gore lost Tennessee."

That is 6 out of 7 elections where Republicans got their ass handed to them to the tune of millions of votes. It didn't matter if the Democrat was H Clinton, B Clinton, A Gore or B Obama. No matter who the Democrats fielded, they absolutely destroyed the Republican candidate in 6 out 7 of the last elections. And the 1 out 7 GOP win was in 2004 with GW Bush being able to run as an incumbent president even though he might have actually lost in 2000.

Over the last 30 years Democrats have destroyed Republicans on the national stage. Win 6 out of 7 times at anything over a 30 years span and people will be calling that an impressive dynasty. But the GOP got gifted 2 victories on the out dated electoral college. But according to Smudger's silliness and deflection, Iowa votes matter and Al Gore lost Tennessee. The fact that all Americans go to the voting booth and are averaging 4 million more votes for the Democrat seems to be immaterial to Smudger.

I laugh at Smudger's cherry picking bull crap.

I watched the debate (all of it) and I think Trump missed a huge opportunity.

In the 2016 election Trump lost all 3 debates badly but it didn't matter. I believe it was because he targeted rust belt states with a relentless pandering to steel and auto jobs by warning about imposing import taxes on China. And Clinton had no answer and never responded.

In this debate Trump spent most of his time trying to goad Biden into a street fight. Trump constantly lied about what Biden had said (which will be believed by Trump supporters but not Democrats and many Independents) and Trump also relentlessly pursued attacks on Hunter Biden. Which allowed Joe Biden to ultimately talk about his son's addiction and how proud he was that his son overcame it. In the rust belt arena Biden held his own by claiming that Trump had lost jobs in the manufacturing sector and that by requiring the US government to "buy American" Biden would create many jobs.

Trump also made the really misguided mistake of criticizing Philadelphia. Extraordinary really. Giving unmotivated Philadelphians extra incentive to vote. And undecided Philadelphians another reason to vote Biden.

Prior to the debate past polls had indicated that undecideds were more likely to go for Biden than Trump. In 2016 they went overwhelmingly for Trump in the last 3 days of the election.

CNN had post debate polls at 60% Biden and 28% Trump. This means that Biden took virtually all of the viewing Independents and Democrats watching. This is extremely bad news for Trump in Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, NH, PA, and Wisconsin, where Trump needs to eat into Biden's support which is close to or just over 50% in recent polling. Only Nevada at 48.8% is under 49.9%. If Biden wins all of these states he will win the election (he won't need Arizona, Florida, Me-2, Ne-2, North Carolina, or Ohio all of which he is currently leading by small margins).

The only swing state that doesn't have early voting is New Hampshire and Biden is leading with 50.4% in recent polls.

So Trump does not have a lot of time to turn things around in key states and aside from appealing to his base, he did not seem to be reaching out to Independent undecided voters.

It looked like he was trying to tear down Biden the way he used the email scandal to tear down "Crooked" Hillary Clinton but, unlike Hillary, Biden isn't hated. Certainly not by Democrats. So Trump will probably lose the lesser of two evils argument this time around. And to make matters worse for Trump, Biden did not look "Sleepy" or incompetent.

Five Thirty Eight has Biden as a 78% favorite to win before the debate (note that on the day of the 2016 election they had Hillary at about a 70% favorite). It will be interesting to see what they are saying in a few days to a week from now.

As if last night's debate meltdown wasn't bad enough for Bunker Boy and Republican Senators, Cook moves Ohio and Iowa from Lean Republican to Toss Up:

Electoral College Rating Changes: Ohio and Iowa Move to Toss Up

https://cookpolitical.com/analysis/n...iowa-move-toss

Naivety is a stretch. I don’t think anybody had ever even tried a single written governing document like the constitution. They knew they were kicking the can down the road on slavery which has been by far the biggest challenge to the constitution and they were fully aware in real time. They were more concerned about the government failing in their lifetime than in 250 years.

The first post-debate polls should be interesting.

Double Down:

After listening to this:

https://www.npr.org/2020/10/01/91902...ic-writer-says

and Trump's Tuesday night debate performance, I'm afraid you could very well be right.

I listened to Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer and "fixer," being interviewed last night on CNN. Admittedly Mr. Cohen has an axe to grind, but he pointed out that multiple state-level prosecutors are in the process of preparing criminal indictments against Trump which will go to grand juries as soon as Trump leaves office - assuming he loses the election. Trump is acutely aware that he faces criminal prosecution (and possible conviction) after he leaves office.

The only sure way to avoid/delay this fate is to be re-elected as it is generally accepted that a sitting United States President cannot be indicted (and tried) in criminal court while in office. If all this is accurate, Trump is looking at re-election as his only viable option for avoiding prison! Given this reality, it's not a leap of imagination to understand that Trump will [literally] do anything to win the election - including "stealing" the election if he deems that necessary.

I'm afraid you (and Barton Gelman) may be right: We could be looking into the abyss of a constitutional crisis.

funny how smushed FL, OH, GA, NC are getting. biden about as close to a blowout as trump is to a win

Five Thirty Eight: How Trump Could Spark a Full-Blown Election Crisis

https://fivethirtyeight.com/videos/h...ection-crisis/

Double Down's prognosis, (i.e. that we're headed for a long drawn out cluster****), is looking more and more likely.

If there's a foreign policy crisis while all this turmoil is underway, it's anybody's guess what could happen.

Yep. Right now, Biden is as likely to win Alaska as Trump is to win Michigan.