On Wed, 6 Feb 2008 08:44:49 -0800 (PST), California Poppy
<GoldenStatePoppy@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>California may have a voice in November
<snip>
>As it happens, Tuesday's election coincided with the abandonment of a
>petition drive to change California's allocation of electoral votes
>from winner-take-all to congressional district voting. The drive had
>originally been financed by a sup****ter of former New York Mayor Rudy
>Giuliani and was denounced by Democrats as an effort to steal the
>presidential election by diverting about 20 of the state's electoral
>votes.
I notice that in the primaries, California weighs itself
pro****tional to the popular vote instead of as winner-
take-all, whereas in the real election it's winner-take-all.
I don't see the sense of that. If the idea is that California
should have influence as a bloc so as to have greater
bargaining power as a single entity, then winner-take-all
makes sense for both primaries and the real election.
If the idea is that popular vote is im****tant and the
state as a unit is insignificant, then ap****tionment makes
sense for both the primaries and the real election. If
California ap****tions and other states do not, then
California has allowed other states to have influence as
a bloc while denying that advantage to itself.
The mixed approach does not seem a sensible way
to go about things, in my view, in terms of internal
consistency before one even gets to deciding the
most effective way for California to behave in general.
I well remember the attempt to change California's
election voting to ap****tionment rather than as a bloc.
It was, of course, an attempt by the Republican party,
to get some of the California pie since they could
usually not hope to get all of it, and it was of course
not accompanied by any attempt to hold other
states who usually voted mostly Republican to the
same standard so that the Democrats could get some
votes from those states in return. I found the whole
attempt downright transparent and offensive, and I
think most Democrats in California felt the same way,
so it went down to defeat, quite rightly so.
If we want to eliminate the whole electoral system
and go by popular vote only, I have no objection to
that. I do object to parties picking and choosing,
not at all on the basis of fairness, but on the basis of
gaining asymmetrical advantage.
<snip>
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