Vote Anti Incumbent

The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and the District of Columbia).

The bill has been enacted by states possessing 61 electoral votes — 23% of the 270 necessary to activate the law (Hawaii, Washington, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland).

The bill has passed 29 legislative chambers in 19 states (Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington).

The National Popular Vote bill has been endorsed by 1,777 state legislators.

The shortcomings of the current system stem from the winner-take-all rule (i.e., awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in each state).

Because of the winner-take-all rule, a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide. This has occurred in 4 of the nation’s 56 presidential elections (and 1 in 7 of the non-landslide elections). A shift of fewer than 60,000 votes in Ohio in 2004 would have defeated President Bush despite his nationwide lead of 3,500,000 votes.

Another shortcoming of the winner-take-all rule is that presidential candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, or organize in states where they are comfortably ahead or hopelessly behind. In 2008, candidates concentrated over two-thirds of their campaign visits and ad money in just six closely divided “battleground” states. A total of 98% went to just 15 states. In other words, voters in two thirds of the states were essentially spectators to the election.

The U.S. Constitution gives the states exclusive and plenary control over the manner of awarding their electoral votes. The winner-take-all rule is not in the Constitution. It was not the Founder’s choice (having been used by only 3 states in the nation’s first presidential election in 1789). The fact that Maine and Nebraska award electoral votes by district is a reminder that a amendment to the U.S. Constitution is not required to change the way the President is elected.

Under the National Popular Vote bill, all the electoral votes from the enacting states would be awarded, as a bloc, to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC). The bill would take effect only when enacted by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes — that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538).

The bill has been endorsed by the New York Times, Chicago Sun-Times, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Sacramento Bee, Common Cause, and Fair Vote.

State polls (mostly taken in 2009) show strong support for a national popular vote (AR–80%, CA–70%, CO–68%, CT–73%, DE–75%, ID–77%, IA–75%, KY–80%, ME–77%, MA–73%, MI–73%, MS–77%, MO–70%, NH–69%, NE–74%, NV–72%, NM–76%, NY–79%, NC–74%, OH–70%, OK–81%, PA–78%, RI–74%, SD–75%, UT–70%, VT–75%, VA–74%, WA–77%, and WI–71%). Support is strong in every partisan and demographic group surveyed.

The National Advisory Board of National Popular Vote includes former congressmen John Anderson (R–Illinois and later independent presidential candidate), John Buchanan (R–Alabama), Tom Campbell (R–California), and Tom Downey (D–New York), and former Senators Birch Bayh (D–Indiana), David Durenberger (R–Minnesota), and Jake Garn (R–Utah).

Additional information is available in the book Every Vote Equal: A State-Based Plan for Electing the President by National Popular Vote and at www.NationalPopularVote.com.

They say most people never read another book in their whole lifes after they are out of school.   Hard to believe but that may explain some of the ignorance you see all around.

I lived watching C-Span, especially the Book TV programs where either they interview an author, an author gives a lecture about their book, or there is a book fair with a panel with several authors discussing a related subject.  I have obtained and read several books after hearing about them on Book TV.  Their web site is booktv.org and it is a great resource.  It lists the books you see on book.tv, has news about books, their programming, book fairs and even a video library.  They cover Nonfiction, my favorite type of books.
I am placing a link on this blog for future reference.

In an article titled “Are Americans a Broken People? Why We’ve Stopped Fighting Back Against the Forces of Oppression” author Bruce Levine raises some good points that can be observed these days but not much commented on.

He asks: Can people become so broken that truths of how they are being screwed do not “set them free” but instead further demoralize them? Has such a demoralization happened in the United States?

And goes on to imply the answer by asking another question:Do some totalitarians actually want us to hear how we have been screwed because they know that humiliating passivity in the face of obvious oppression will demoralize us even further?

It sure seems so. I do hear this myself, people frustrated with the daily disasters in Washington and Wall Street that keeps going and it seems to them there is nothing they can do about it.  And I see the despair and even the passive, dis-couraged situation people are in.  My friend asked me not to tell him any bad news at our scheduled lunch. I stopped doing that, so I am included. People don’t want to watch TV for more bad news.
The author goes on to imply that the government and those in control are actually doing this on purpose over and over again, in full view, so the population just gives up any resistance at all and would rather be illusioned and entertained rather than face their dire reality.

Well I do agree that the effects he described are present.  Not sure I agree on the causes are that calculated, but they could be. What do you think?

Just when I thought the Conservatives took over the Republican Party forever, I see many of them now are identifying themselves as Independents and Anti Incumbents.  My how times changes when the parties change. Well welcome on board brother. I say vote them all out. But we both know that is not going to happen.  Human nature says to vote out the other party, but not your own.

Sure I realize the Conservatives are disappointed in the spending and the fiscal irresponsibility of their Republican party. But are they really going to leave? I wouldn’t think so unless they get a Conservative like Sarah Palin to run on a third party ticket, call it the Conservative Party maybe.

You know how citizens get upset and want to vote out members of congress but yet still vote for their own representative.  I think something like that may be going on, but at the end of the day it will be interesting to see what happens. Now it really would be something useful if the American people actually did start voting out the incumbents every time for a while at least.

I just downloaded from my Netflix account the move Ralph Nader: An Unreasonable Man.  This movie was good.  It covered how hard it is for a third party candidate to get recognized and how the two parties control the presidential debates. The idea that the two parties that run the government are “a corporate snake with two heads”.  Well I guess Obama has proved that.

Nader’s life has been amazing to say the least.  General Motors had him trailed and harassed when after college he started looking in to car safety when a college friend was hurt badly in a car crash.  Nader stood up to GM and won over $400,000 in a suit against them for their harassment, and ironically that money help start his organization and to support his causes.

In the 2000 election he was denied entry to the presidential debates because he was not a factor, then when Gore lost, they blamed it on Nader.   He replies that if he was not big enough to be included in the debates, then why was he blamed for losing the election for the Democrats.  Good point.
Anyway you may want to take a look at this movie if you have ever wondered why there are not more third parties.  It was released in 2006 but just as relevant today.