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[SalmonGod]

Jill Stein has been arrested again.  Charged with trespassing, but the real issue is she was attempting to bring supplies to the Keystone XL blockaders.

Alright.  I'm voting.  I didn't think there would be a candidate this year that I would care about, but I've found myself almost completely in alignment with Stein's platform and she has physically demonstrated her resolve multiple times now.  She deserves it.

[Kogan Loloklam]

Why there are two Senators per state:

The arguments for and against made by the people who formed the system can be found pretty easily, but some people don't realize the arguments for both sides exist played out in the real world.
The strongest argument against representation by population, in my opinion, is the Russian Revolution and rise of Communism. Not because I hate Communism, but because the foundation of human existance is the food we eat. A farmer is paper rich but really broke. They might own property worth millions of dollars, and millions of dollars worth of Equipment. The problem is they keep reinvesting most of their profits back into the land rather than cashing out. They survive well enough, but still have to work every day of their lives. They probably work even harder than the factory worker, even though their situation more resembles the factory owner. Sure they hire "hands", though usually those hands have their own stuff and it becomes a collective effort instead of a strict enployment one.
SO, what happened to these guys in Russia? They became labled as class enemies because their industry was so small. Massive purges, and then Massive starvation.

This isn't a Randist example. This isn't a group of people who stopped producing, instead this is an example of a tyranny of the masses. A concept formed in the city based on paper wealth, and the thousands of wolves in the cities just had more clout than the hundreds of country bears. The sheep were already eaten by this point.

Our system of government in the United States of America has multiple mechanisms to stop that. Our founders understood how easy a tyranny of the masses was to establish. I've been in a Minority where discrimination was not opposed (religion in the Military) and can tell you with certainty that the US is NOT special in our masses. They are as Tyranical as any dictatorin history.

Now humor me for a moment, picture the European Union. Imagine it as a solid object, one color. As if it were the country. Now color in your head each country as a different shade of that color. Keep that thought in your head for a moment.
State was never origionally supposed to mean what it means to Americans. State is a soverign Entity. The whole European Union is what the United States really is. The states in their alliance documentation establish a collective power to determine extra-state relations. We have a very unique system in that, in which we have individual open borders and other advantages to member-states. EACH STATE IS STILL A SOVERIGN ENTITY! This is why we really have 2 senators for each state, because each is an independant entity in the alliance of united states.
We have the house of representitives established in it's way to give each state power representitive for it] population. If you look at the historical powers each one gets, you will find they match that role. Senate deals with land, house with people.

Now the electorial college is based on the house, in theory to give the best representation on population-power. It's actual makeup is left up to the States. This is to allow each state it's soverignty. Currently most states concentrate their power into blocs to allow them to have a greater effect.
This has an interesting effect when the most powerful states do this. This creates an effect where large portions of the population can support something, but it's rejected by the states.

An electorial college victory without popular support usually means the dense, large population, urban areas are enforcing their will against the rural and small areas. Seriously. It CAN mean the opposite, but usually doesn't. So, what is a poor californian to do to stop being so damn pushy? Easy. STOP TRYING TO EXPORT YOUR DAMN IDEAS. Focus on electorial representation in your own state, and allow the soverign people of other states to make their own decision in how to best let their voice be heard.

And stop moving to Colorado and fix your own state, or at least leave it's policies behind.

Yes, I support the electorial college system. I want Colorado to change to a Representitive state with "features" instead of winner take all, mostly to take stupid battles out of our state. That's a different topic though.

[Aqizzar]

An electorial college victory without popular support usually means the dense, large population, urban areas are enforcing their will against the rural and small areas. Seriously. It CAN mean the opposite, but usually doesn't. So, what is a poor californian to do to stop being so damn pushy? Easy. STOP TRYING TO EXPORT YOUR DAMN IDEAS. Focus on electorial representation in your own state, and allow the soverign people of other states to make their own decision in how to best let their voice be heard.

Two big problems with your textbook explanation of the Senate.  First is that it creates the opposite problem of your "californians exporting their damn californian ideas" issue, because one-sixth of the population constitutes half of the Senate.  For as much as people crow about those dang urban centers forcing their will on the countryside, nobody ever seems to raise a stink about the countryside forcing its ways on the cities.  Except y'know, people who live in cities, but what do they know right?

The other thing that you have to remember is that the Constitution as we know it was not the first government the United States had.  There was this little thing called the Articles of Confederation that somehow managed to create a semi-functional interstate government to carry through the revolution and a little while after before everyone figured out that a government that can't raise money can't really do anything.

When Ben Franklin and George Washington called their war buddies together in an act of treason to hold the Second Constitutional Convention and dispose of that slapdash system, they had to convince the rest of the states that it was worth signing on to.  The Confederation was a one-body government, run entirely by a Congress that gave every state exactly one vote.  The whole "check on majority power" aspect sounds great and all and certainly factored into the Senate's design, but it was also largely to sell the small states on joining at all after the advantages they'd had under the old system.

Especially in the last few years and all the talk about "going back to the Founders' intent", it amazes me that nobody seems to know about the Articles of Confederation.  A government with no head of state and no functional supreme court, with essentially all power invested a unicameral legislature with equal say for each state, requiring a nine of thirteen supermajority to do virtually anything, no authority to regulate interstate trade and no power to enforce international trade laws, and no ability to raise money for itself except tariffs it can't enforce and begging the states for donations.  Sounds like exactly what John Boehner's been looking for.

[RedKing]

Nate Silver bets Joe Scarborough $1000 that Obama will win.

This is pretty awesome. I don't think it's any great surprise that I'm a big fan of Nate Silver (of FiveThirtyEight fame). Not only is he pretty damn scrupulous with his math, but he takes great pains to explain why he uses the math he does, and openly admits when he's making an educated guess (and the rationale behind that guess).

Joe Scarborough, on the other hand (along with a lot of cable TV pundits), is basically just an ideological blowhard with nothing real to back up their assertions other than their own willpower. So Silver has come in for a lot of criticism from the right-wingers the last few days for projecting Obama with a 79% chance to win when "national polls" (which we all know don't determine the election) show a tie or a slight Romney lead. Nate got tired of being called an idiot and an ideologue, so he basically challenged Scarborough to put his money where his mouth is.

Gonna love seeing if Morning Joe will welch out on the bet.

[Aqizzar]

By the by, as much as I love extemporizing on the nuts and bolts of American history, I just remembered there's a thread down the page for doing just that.  This being my thread, I'm going to ask all further discussion of the Electoral College et al go over there.  I'll be along soon enough I'm sure.

Gonna love seeing if Morning Joe will welch out on the bet.

I'm more interested to see how his bet with David Axlerod's mustache goes.  The bet: if Romney wins Michigan, Minnesota, or Pennsylvania, senior Obama adviser Axlerod will shave his lifetime 'stache.  If Obama wins North Carolina or Florida, Joe Scarborough will grow one.  The money bet he'll probably be solid for, the mustache I have my doubts.

For the record, I actually have a lot of respect for Joe.  I don't blame him for sounding like a blowhard, since he is on MSNBC after all and that place would drive him to be a blowhard even if he and Pat Buchanan weren't the only Republicans in the building.  And I've never heard the guy say anything I would explicitly disagree with that he didn't admit he was just saying for effect.  Reminds me of my relatives.

[RedKing]

I'll grant that he's not as full in the Kool-Aid as the crew on FOX  (that bit of him facepalming at the Romney/Ryan chant fail was awesome). But he's still essentially the sort of guy that Colbert parodies: confident, tough-tallking, and working purely on "gut feeling" rather than fact.

I was sitting with a couple of friends the other day watching CNN's storm coverage, and it dawned on me that really all you need to have a cable news network these days is some slick touchscreen monitors, and a small army of people combing Twitter, YouTube and Tumblr looking for new content. That's all news networks do anymore: just aggregate and regurgitate.

[SalmonGod]

Anything less than firsthand news is basically meaningless anymore.  Mainstream news sources have spin down to a science, when they're not just saying whatever they want because they know the vast majority will never fact check.  Meanwhile, the people involved in any news item conceivable are sharing their experiences and thoughts directly via neutral channels, often as events are unfolding.  Uprisings in the Middle-East?  Get on social media and watch the livestreams and communications between people who are there.  You can even get involved.  The only thing 'The News' does for me is notify me that something is occuring, prompting me to tune into firsthand channels, and inform me of varying observer opinions/perspectives.

[darkrider2]

People always look at me weird when I say I don't watch the news. And that's basically why I don't.

[Kogan Loloklam]

-snip-

I am aware of the Articles of Confederation. As for the rural farmers enforcing their will, I challenge you to go back to every election where the popular vote and electorial vote was not the same and give the top 5 states by population a representitive split for their electorial college.

It's interesting, but within the rights of the states to focus their votes, because it may be in their best interest.

As for taking Electorial College discussion elsewhere, Forgive me, but this is the American Megaelection thread, right? And we are now less than a week away from the point where the Americans have their election day? And this IS the system under which that vote is applied to pick the president, correct?
Seems to me that for the next 12-14 days, that is more important than the presidential canadates themselves now for who is elected President, so is quite on topic and appropiate here.

[Aqizzar]

As for taking Electorial College discussion elsewhere, Forgive me, but this is the American Megaelection thread, right? And we are now less than a week away from the point where the Americans have their election day? And this IS the system under which that vote is applied to pick the president, correct?
Seems to me that for the next 12-14 days, that is more important than the presidential canadates themselves now for who is elected President, so is quite on topic and appropiate here.

Except that it's my own damn thread, and I've heard more than enough one-man circular symposiums about the superiority of X voting system a million other places before.  This is a topical thread, not really a theory thread, even if I haven't been captaining it that much.

[RedKing]

Yeah, I just spent ten minutes re-reading the OP because I was sure there was a rule about not getting bogged down in metadiscussions about the electoral system. There wasn't, but then I got sucked into reading Aqizzar's description of the Republican candidates. Good times.

[Kogan Loloklam]

As the x we are talking about is currently the focus of national news as it is expected to not fall on a smooth national vote line, it's relevent to the topic. There's even talk of the possibility of the president being chosen by congress. We're well into obscure election law now, because it's a real possibility now.

Either way, I expect to see a mountain of legal challenges to both sides and alligations of election fraud. I wonder if we will be protestless again if a Florida Repeat happens?

[RedKing]

I don't think so. The electoral math is such that I don't think any single state (other than California) flipping will make the difference. I don't believe this is going to be a 271-267 kind of victory. Ohio is being held up as this "make or break state", but not because it inherently will provide the winning margin of victory. Instead, it's because it's an indicator of larger trends. If Romney wins Ohio, it means he's outperforming polls and is liable to win a number of other states where the race is close such as Virginia and Colorado. If Obama wins, it means his narrow lead there should hold up similarly in other battleground states and his "lean" states are essentially safe states.

It's very easy to construct plausible scenarios where Romney winns Ohio and still loses the election. The reason it's unlikely is that the states don't exist in a bubble. Whatever event or narrative that would exist to push the numbers Romney's way in Ohio would also be at work in the other 49 states.

The talk about Congress being involved (in a 269-269 tie) is just the media running out of shit to talk about and going "Wow, wouldn't it be crazy if?"

[FearfulJesuit]

The talk about Congress being involved (in a 269-269 tie) is just the media running out of shit to talk about and going "Wow, wouldn't it be crazy if?"

What scenarios- theoretically, of course- would give us a 269-269 tie?

Of course, there's always the question of a faithless elector or two...boy, that'd be fun. A faithless elector throwing the election would have to go into hiding because half the country would be baying for his blood.

[RedKing]

The talk about Congress being involved (in a 269-269 tie) is just the media running out of shit to talk about and going "Wow, wouldn't it be crazy if?"

What scenarios- theoretically, of course- would give us a 269-269 tie?

Of course, there's always the question of a faithless elector or two...boy, that'd be fun. A faithless elector throwing the election would have to go into hiding because half the country would be baying for his blood.

There's a number of ways that could pan out, but most of them are unlikely. A lot of it has to do with the fact that Maine and Nebraska allot their Electoral votes by district (each has 2) rather than both together. So it's possible to use that to tweak scenarios by a single vote.