The Day America Ceases to be 'America'

Seemingly as advance guard for the upcoming presidential primaries one familiar specter has again reared its ugly-- and unconstitutional --head: Abolition of the Electoral College. Hillary publicly mused about abolition just after the 2004 election, as did several other politicians and talking heads immediately after the 2000 elections, both after Democratic losses. The latest cry for 'reform' comes from Hawaii.

Proponents say going to the 'Popular Vote' would "enfranchise" millions of voters; and while this may be true... MAY be true... what it would certainly do is DIS-enfranchise millions of others. The political equivalent of steeling from one segment of society to give to another; a redistribution of political capital, but the only ones who would benefit are the presidential candidates.

Right now candidates have to visit every state in the union to ask for our vote. This is an expensive endeavor, which is why candidates have to be able to raise huge sums of money to compete in the biggest political race in the world. Right now, every vote in even the poorest state counts; races can be decided by any state however large, small, rich or poor. But take away the electoral college and all that changes.

Candidates will then only have to visit major metropolitan areas. Iowa will cease to play a pivotal role in the primaries. Iowa may in fact cease to see candidates traipsing across their landscape hoping to impress genuine middle Americans. Rural counties will cease to play any significant role in the election of our President, especially when you consider that major cites overwhelmingly vote Liberal/Democrat. What hope then for a fair, honest choice between political ideologies? Democrats and Liberals know this, and so like the idea of abolishing the Electoral College.

In the last election Ohio was solidly Republican until the the major cities began posting their returns, and the gap between Democratic and Republican votes began to rapidly close. What will happen when the Electoral College is abolished? Rural Americans may as well stay home on election day for all their votes will count for anything; the metropolitan areas will always out vote the rural areas.

When the Electoral College is done away with New England, the West Coast, and the major cities in between will choose this nation's Presidents. By seeking to enfranchise one segment of society, Liberals and Democrats seek to DIS-enfranchise another.

But leave it to our founding fathers to wisely provide a solution to the problems inherent in a Popular Vote. It's called 'The Electoral College' and embodied within this system of election is a means of 'checks and balances'-- seemingly a common theme among the framers of our Constitution. Each state is awarded a number of votes based on population (which is why census' are so important, and mandated every ten years) which also redistributes the number of Representatives each state gets, assuming the change in population is large enough in opposite proportion to another state's change in population. Our present system allows everyone the opportunity to play an important role in the election of the President of the United States.

In 2000, Florida played a pivotal role; not because of the butterfly ballot used in some Florida counties, or because of Democratic efforts-- largely successful --to disenfranchise tens of thousands of Military absentee ballots (They're second-class citizens anyway, you know?). No, the Florida vote was important for a number of reasons, not the least of which was Gore's inability to win his own state. Differing time zones within Florida also played a role in voter turnout.

It's a numbers game, plain or simple. It's all about who wins which state and how many of those are states with larger 'Electoral' counts. In this manner, even the smallest, seemingly insignificant (at least in the minds of those who do not live in said...) states, can for one evening have the entire nations attention riveted upon them; a chance to show the nation that they are indeed a vital member of the United States of America. But take away the Electoral College and these same states may as well sit down and shut up for all the voice they will have in the halls of Congress.

Furthermore, it is quite conceivable that the divide which currently exists in the House and Senate between powerful Representatives and Senators from larger more affluent states and their not-so-powerful, less-affluent partners from the rest of America may only widen. What then would be the point in running for a Senate seat, say, in Mississippi if Senators in states like New York, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Nevada and California can with ease marginalize their presence by simple virtue of the fact that their state's popular vote counts for far more than puny Mississippi's and much of the rest of red-state America?

Realistically, the chance of this nation doing away with the Electoral College is all but non-existent only as long as the citizens of 18 states have sense enough to see the Electoral College as the fairest of the two systems. But with the Left controlling education in this country, how long-- realistically --before the dumb-downed, unwashed-brainwashed masses come to believe a popular vote is the fairest of the two?

That is the day America will cease to be America. The great experiment that is this world's ONLY genuinely successful Constitutional Republic will roll over and die. We will usher in something new, something slouching, something... altogether indistinguishable from the rest of the world's nations. We will, in short order, become quite irrelevant, and the very beast blue-America routinely paints this nation... Totalitarian. Or on its way to becoming.