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Still like that electoral college?
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| Author | Message |
| etaoin shrdlu |
Posted - 8/10/2012 9:30:36 AM | show profile | flag this post
Virginia voted Democratic for president in 2008 for the first time in a generation. It's been a solidly red state -- it's Governor, Lt Governor, and Attorney General are all Republicans. It's still considered a toss up -- but Obama may now have a huge edge in winning the electoral vote in the Commonwealth. Former U.S. Representative Virgil Goode (a conservative and most recently a Republican) is running for President on the Constitution Party ticket and may soon be on the ballot in Virginia. There, in his home state, Goode's pulling 9% of the vote -- virtually all of it Republicans who would otherwise vote for Romney. That's more than enough to hand Virginia to Obama in November. That's 13 electoral votes Romney needed to pull away from Obama -- that just got a whole lot harder. http://news.yahoo.com/third-party-candidates-affected-presidential-history-101803297.html |
| blackedtaped |
Posted - 8/10/2012 11:06:52 AM | show profile | flag this post
Yes I do, and thanks for the reason A state where Richmond is the largest city would certainly not show up on anyone's radar screen and would get little or no attention from either candidate without the need for electoral votes. And NC certainly would not be getting the millions of dollars in advertisement without the electoral college. I appreciate how you keep giving such good evidence on the value of the electoral college. Keep up the good work, you do a much better job than I ever could at proving the point. Without the electoral college there would be no such thing as "swing states". |
| etaoin shrdlu |
Posted - 8/10/2012 11:57:24 AM | show profile | flag this post
Actually blacked... Virginia is one the 12th largest states in the union. The ONLY reason it's getting attention now is that it has a large chunk of electoral votes -- and is teetering between blue and red. Until 2008, it got virtually no attention from presidential nominees because it was a given it would go red. BTW, Richmond is the 5th largest city in Virginia. In order, with population, the five largest Virginia cities are Virginia Beach (437,994), Norfolk (242,803), Chesapeake (222,209), Arlington (207,627), and Richmond (204,214). But if you want to look at actual metropolitan areas -- the Arlington/Alexandria area (near Washington, DC) includes 2.4 million Virginians. The Virgina Beach metro region includes 1.6 million Virginians. Not exactly a small state. |
| it's just tv folks |
Posted - 8/10/2012 12:23:35 PM | show profile | flag this post
It's the "swing stateness" that attracts campaign dollars. If North Carolina were still a solid Jesse Helms state, no dollars, nor the Democratic Convention would be in the state. Obviously size does matter, too. Small red states like Alaska and Wyoming (3 electoral votes each) won't see any detectable money from either presidential candidate. Three electoral vote DC will financially benefit from being the major TV market for Northern Virginia. So the poster who shall not be named (blackedtaped) has Democrats like Sen Kay Hagan, Democratic voters in North Carolina and President Obama himself to thank for the campaign dollars being spent in his state. |
| etaoin shrdlu |
Posted - 8/10/2012 1:12:25 PM | show profile | flag this post
And ... virtually ALL the campaign spending has been in just nine states: Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Florida. They've sopped up nearly $350 million in ad spending during the campaign and they are where the campaign will focus their money. Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/08/06/presidential-campaign-ad-spending-focused-on-states/#ixzz239zDR8oE That field is shrinking with most of the campaign focus shifting to just four of those states in the last couple of weeks. But the odd case of candidate Goode in Virginia could rob Romney of a huge prize of 13 electoral votes and hand them off to Obama. |
| blackedtaped |
Posted - 8/10/2012 4:41:52 PM | show profile | flag this post
etaoin... You sure you don't agree with me? "The ONLY reason it's getting attention now is that it has a large chunk of electoral votes""virtually ALL the campaign spending has been in just nine states: Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Florida". With the possibile exceptions of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida those states would be ignored without the electoral college. Do you honestly think for one minute the candidates' bus tours would even exist much less go to the areas they are without the need for those electoral votes? People who otherwise would be overlooked by the candidates get a chance for a face to face encounter with their next leader. Surely such a political junkie as yourself can understand the appeal of that. |
| orthicon |
Posted - 8/10/2012 5:34:30 PM | show profile | flag this post
there's aty least one upside to all that.. we here in california won't have to put up with very much of that at all.. at least as regards the presidential race.. we're so in the bag for obama it makes no sense for either side to flood us with ads.. it'd just be wasted bucks that could and should be spent elsewhere.. thank god for small favors.. |
| mpdodgson |
Posted - 8/10/2012 9:10:45 PM | show profile | flag this post
Isn't the Electoral College basically based on the POPULATION of a state?? Well, it is. So if there was no EC, the candidates would still have to campaign in states where the population is. Let's assume Obama has California locked up, so Romney has to go to other states, and their voters. Romneys a lock on the MidWest Plains states, so Obama has to go to other states. And so on and so on. So, (again if there was no EC) the voters in every state would be important to one candidate or the other...hence the billion dollars being spent this year by both sides. Fight for every vote, every vote you can, regardless of where it is. Whoever gets the most votes win. I still don't get it, for the life of me, why that isn't what we should do. |
| etaoin shrdlu |
Posted - 8/11/2012 12:06:03 PM | show profile | flag this post
No blacked... I'm pointing out that while the campaign is focused on 4-9 states...that leaves 41-46 states...and more importantly the people in them...ignored by both campaigns. New Hampshire is ALSO a swing state. But neither campaign cares about it because it has so few electoral votes. And for more on Virginia: You have said that the electoral college forces candidates to focus on states with large rural areas. But that's not happening in Virginia. Romney's bus tour, and the Obama counter tour -- are both hitting the major metro areas of Virginia (Alexandria, Arlington -- both part of the Washington, DC television market -- and the Virginia Beach/Hampton Roads area). Why -- big cities and large to medium television markets. The tours are avoiding 90% of the Commonwealth's area that happens to be rural. Those voters don't count to the campaigns. Why? Because rural Virginia will vote red. But the large -- and rapidly growing cities -- are loaded with swing voters who've moved to the Commonwealth in the past 5-10 years. Eliminate the electoral college and candidates would not be able to focus on just large cities in just four states. They'd have to focus on all 50 states to get the most voters they could from urban and rural areas -- even in small states like New Hampshire. |
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