Presidential Politics

[RAG1247]

some people like coke, some like pepsi - you are probably never going to get one to change to the other so why bother

[Five-Flags]

Originally Posted by jryan

Look, you all are just waisting my time! I say something and you respond with something completely away from what I said in the first place. You are choosing what I say and it is not actually what is being said.
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Thanks and have a great day!

Jeremy Ryan

Jeremy, I really am not trying to waste your (or my) time. I believe I understand what you are trying to say, and I am trying to explain how that is irrelevant.

Originally Posted by Five-Flags

According to Wikipedia, the top nine states in population contain slightly more than half of the total population. The twenty-five lowest-population states contain less than one-sixth of the total population.

What I was trying to point out is that the popular vote does not exist in this country, and the politicians' campaigns are ALL based on the Electoral College principles. It would not make any sense to do otherwise, just as you would probably NOT plan a train or airline vacation and bring along your personal arsenal of firearms. (I know, I know -- just kidding to make a point) You would plan your trip according to the rules that are currently in place.

In the same way, politicians (and their consultants/advisors/seers/alchemists) plan the campaigns in accordance with the existing laws, to accumulate the highest number of electoral college votes in order to win election to their selected office.

Let's have an election! The rules are simple: we drive for 10 miles and count each Wisconsin license plate we see as a vote. At the end, whoever has the most votes wins! I suspect you might win that race, as I live in Florida. But I may want to object to the results, since I saw more white cars than you did (remember, this is Florida). Obviously this is a travesty, as history will show that there were far more white cars than any other color.

The popular vote count is almost as irrelevant to the election results as the white car count in my example. Neither side of the contest paid any attention to the overall count, because it wasn't applicable to anything. After the loss, all of a sudden, "We were robbed, because there were more white cars (whoops, wrong race) popular votes."

If this country used the overall population's vote for the election process, the only States that would have any campaigning would be the top fifteen or so. The candidates would not spend any time or advertising in the others, as it would be a waste of resources. (Hey, I'm beginning to LIKE this idea!) As it is, they have to balance the time, money, and effort spent in order to gain the highest number of electoral votes. The Bush campaign did that balance better, and thus won the election.

Hopefully, you'll be able to see that the "popular" vote count isn't really any more relevant than the number of white cars in the country. It's an interesting statistic, but that's all it is.

[jryan]

Originally Posted by Five-Flags

Jeremy, I really am not trying to waste your (or my) time. I believe I understand what you are trying to say, and I am trying to explain how that is irrelevant.



What I was trying to point out is that the popular vote does not exist in this country, and the politicians' campaigns are ALL based on the Electoral College principles. It would not make any sense to do otherwise, just as you would probably NOT plan a train or airline vacation and bring along your personal arsenal of firearms. (I know, I know -- just kidding to make a point) You would plan your trip according to the rules that are currently in place.

In the same way, politicians (and their consultants/advisors/seers/alchemists) plan the campaigns in accordance with the existing laws, to accumulate the highest number of electoral college votes in order to win election to their selected office.

Let's have an election! The rules are simple: we drive for 10 miles and count each Wisconsin license plate we see as a vote. At the end, whoever has the most votes wins! I suspect you might win that race, as I live in Florida. But I may want to object to the results, since I saw more white cars than you did (remember, this is Florida). Obviously this is a travesty, as history will show that there were far more white cars than any other color.

The popular vote count is almost as irrelevant to the election results as the white car count in my example. Neither side of the contest paid any attention to the overall count, because it wasn't applicable to anything. After the loss, all of a sudden, "We were robbed, because there were more white cars (whoops, wrong race) popular votes."

If this country used the overall population's vote for the election process, the only States that would have any campaigning would be the top fifteen or so. The candidates would not spend any time or advertising in the others, as it would be a waste of resources. (Hey, I'm beginning to LIKE this idea!) As it is, they have to balance the time, money, and effort spent in order to gain the highest number of electoral votes. The Bush campaign did that balance better, and thus won the election.

Hopefully, you'll be able to see that the "popular" vote count isn't really any more relevant than the number of white cars in the country. It's an interesting statistic, but that's all it is.

Thank you for that clarification! Yesterday and today have been horrible days. I came to this thread yesterday hoping to see something intelligent and instead I saw an ignorant, smart alleck remark! That made it even worse and I may have rubbed off a little hostile. After that I joined livechat and the first post I saw was yet another smart alleck remark and when said person left, I got ridiculed in another sense. It was just joking but it touched on a topic you do not touch on so seemed to be ridiculing. One of the people involved, I know didn't mean it as such and has apologized!

The fact is my temper probably wouldn't have flared here, nor would the sarcasm in livechat have bothered me had personal issues not been so off. I will not go into detail as I doubt many here really care about what is going on in my life, but let's just say I had a lot of April fool's that weren't really fools! Now all I was saying from the beginning was that to say the people voted someone in, means, to me and I know many others a majority. I said nothing of the laws. The poplular vote may be irrelevant and that may be a good or a bad thing! Regardless or not of how relevant it is it does show the vote of the PEOPLE in the U.S. as a whole.

That is all I was trying to say. It spun into more than was really needed and I think that was on both our ends!

Jeremy Ryan