[lit-ideas] Re: Yo, Californians!
- From: "Julie Krueger" <juliereneb@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2007 02:50:23 -0500
Yeah, I considered using the "over" word, but on reflection suspected the
more liberal CA'ians were in the Southern parts.
Just colour the blue states pink.
Julie Krueger
On 8/27/07, Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Not all of us over (not "down") here are commie pinko preverts. :-)
>
> Lawrence
>
> San Jacinto, California
>
>
>
> ------------Original Message------------
> From: "Julie Krueger" <juliereneb@xxxxxxxxx>
> To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Date: Sun, Aug-26-2007 11:01 PM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Yo, Californians!
> What the hell are you guys doin' down there???
>
> Julie Krueger
>
> August 24, 2007
>
>
> *(CNN)* — California voters are inclined to support a proposed ballot
> measure that Democratic leaders fear could doom the party's chances of
> winning back the White House in 2008 by giving Republicans a chunk of the
> state's large block of Electoral College votes, according to results of a
> poll released this week.
>
> By a margin of 47 percent to 35 percent, the Field Poll found voters
> supported a GOP-inspired ballot measure replacing the state's
> winner-take-all method for awarding electoral votes with a system that would
> give one vote to the candidate who won the most votes in each of the state's
> 53 congressional districts and two votes to the statewide winner.
>
> Had that system been in place in 2004, President Bush, who lost California
> to the Democratic nominee, Sen. John Kerry, would still have captured 22 of
> the state's 55 electoral votes. Under the winner-take-all system, Kerry got
> them all.
>
> The proposed change would be damaging to Democrats, who have come to rely
> on California's block of votes — the largest haul available in any state —
> as part of their arithmetic to get to an Electoral College majority. For
> instance, in 2004, if Bush had taken those 22 California electoral votes, he
> would not have needed to carry the pivotal state of Ohio, with 20 electoral
> votes, to go over the top.
>
> "This would all but guarantee that the Republican nominee would get 20
> extra Electoral College votes, which could certainly impact the outcome of
> the election," said Allan Hoffenblum, a Republican strategist.
>
> And that is exactly what has Democrats crying foul.
>
> "The Republicans are doing this in California because they want a chunk of
> our vote," said Darry Sragow, a Democratic strategist.
>
> The Field Poll found that when voters were told of the possible political
> implications of the ballot measure, support shot up among Republicans and
> dropped among Democrats, and the margin of support narrowed. Overall,
> though, supporters still outnumbered opponents, by a margin of 49 percent to
> 42 percent, with a sampling error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.
>
> A group called Californians for Equal Representation is trying to qualify
> the initiative for next June's statewide primary, which would put the change
> into effect for the 2008 election. To get the question on the ballot,
> supporters will have to collect about 424,000 petition signatures from
> registered voters by Nov. 13, according to the Secretary of State's office.
>
> Collecting enough signatures to qualify a statewide initiative "takes
> about a million dollars," Sragow said. However, under state law, there are
> no contribution limits for ballot measure campaigns, which makes it easier
> to raise large amounts of money.
>
> The initiative was submitted by Thomas Hiltachk, a Sacramento election
> lawyer who is also general counsel for Republican Gov. Arnold
> Schwarzenegger. The purpose of the change, according to the language in the
> initiative, is to make California more relevant in presidential elections by
> forcing candidates to campaign in the state, which a Republican hasn't
> carried since 1988.
>
> Under the Constitution, each state gets a number of electoral votes equal
> to its representation in Congress, including both representatives and
> senators, and the District of Columbia gets three. State governments decide
> how to award those votes, and 48 states give all of them to the candidate
> who wins the largest number of popular votes, as does the District of
> Columbia.
>
> Two states — Nebraska and Maine — have adopted the system that is being
> proposed for California, assigning their electoral votes based on who wins
> individual congressional districts, with the statewide winner getting the
> two votes derived from senators. But this has not generated controversy
> because both states have just a handful of votes and the results have never
> resulted in splitting them between candidates.
>
> The disputed 2000 election, in which Bush won the electoral vote — and the
> presidency — while losing the popular vote, has generated a flurry of
> proposals to abolish or alter the Electoral College, both at the federal and
> state level.
>
> In 2006, Colorado voters rejected a constitutional amendment that would
> have divided up the electoral vote pie in proportion to each candidates'
> share of the popular vote. Also, a group called National Popular Vote is
> lobbying state legislatures to adopt a system where all of a state's
> electoral votes would be pledged to the winner of the national popular vote,
> which, if enough states adopt the plan, would ensure the popular vote winner
> always became president.
>
> A group of California Democrats are trying to counter the GOP-backed
> ballot measure with a proposition of their own that would implement the
> National Popular Vote plan in the Golden State, as long as states with a
> majority of the electoral votes also agree to use the same system.
>
> However, the political implications of that change could be even worse for
> Democrats. If that method had been in place in 2004, Bush, as the winner of
> the national popular vote, would have taken all 55 of California's electoral
> votes, despite the fact that Kerry beat him by 10 points statewide.
>
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