POTUSChris

I agree that a district system would be better because it would even things even more. I also agree that we probably won't see the overthrow of the EC in our lifetime. Think about it, if the candidates had to campaign in every state we would see some pretty crappy campaigns and know even less about the candidates then we do today. And one of the reason for that is because it's almost impossible to campaign in every state. Nixon tried. He failed. Furthermore, you think candidates spend too much money now? Think of how much they'd spend if they had to campaign in 50 states.

Yes, ChiSoxy is right, I am a girl. But I'll totally take that beer.

I think a major reason why so many people feel the EC is unfair is because of 2000. The truth is the last time someone was elected president and didn't have the majority of the popular votes was in 1888. There were two other times that it failed: 1876 and 1824. That's 4 times out of 44 elections. That comes to 9.1% of the time it failed. And actually, I left out 9 elections because the popular votes for those 9 are unknown, but with them you have 53 elections meaning the EC failed 7.5% of the time. It's not perfect, but what system is? And the point is, the EC makes those smaller states matter. Smaller states' issues are far different from larger states' issues. If there was no EC, the candidates would focus on larger state issues and almost entirely neglect the small state issues because larger states have significantly more votes than small states. The EC levels the playing field.

Larger states do have more influence. They have more votes. California has 55 votes. Nevada has 5. Many only have 3. The map could be almost entirely red tomorrow because Bush will most likely win a lot of the small states. It could only be blue in a few areas because Kerry took the larger states. Kerry could still win because the larger states have more votes.

FoxNews but that's because I'll be at a Election Night Party with all the College Republicans, so that is what will be on. I'm curious, are other colleges having election night parties? Mine is having three (well, official parties...there will be tons more in dorms and what not)...a non-partisan one, a Democratic one, and a Republican one. Just wondering.

It's more fair to the smaller states because it makes their votes matter. Without the electoral college, the larger states' popular votes would dominate. One of the reasons why Al Gore had more of the popular vote is because he had more of the larger states and in those larger states he won by a decent margin. Bush won a lot of the smaller states, and without the electoral college their votes would not matter as much. Which would also mean that without the electoral college, the candidates would spend all their time in larger states trying to get as many votes as possible and neglect a lot of the smaller states since they just don't have the votes. The point I'm trying to make is without the elector college when I did phonebanking I would have been calling California and not Nevada.

1988 was the last time the GOP won Illinois, and I know Chicago is the reason why IL has gone to the Dems the last few elections. I just wanted to point out that Illinois is more Republican than some thing. Just don't think I did a good job of voicing it. If the state party stopped being stupid, there would probably be more Republicans in the state.

I just wanted to point out that outside Chicago, Illinois is Republican. Just look at the US Representatives. The majority of the Democratic Representatives are in the Chicagoland Area and the Republicans are in the rest of Illinois. Plus, there are more Rep Reps than Dems, and the Governor is the first Democrat since the 1970s.

I voted weeks ago for Bush.

Happy Birthday!

Australia and New Zealand!

Overall I was pretty happy about this too. I was indifferent about Carl, but like someone already said, if he busts his butt and gets into better shape and performs like he did in Texas 2 years ago, then I will be happy.

I was forced to be a nerd! Stupid Political Science course requirements

Landmines?? Are we using those now?? Funny, I would think blowing up people is not the best way to get their information.

Yeah, I know. It's called a 95% confidence level which means that the researcher is 95% confident that the actual results will be within the margin of error. But even with a 95% confidence level, when the candidates are within 2-3 points of each other the poll pretty much tells you nothing. It could say Kerry has 49% and Bush has 46% when in fact it's the exaxt opposite and Kerry has 46% and Bush has 49%. Florida in 2000 is the perfect example of this. Furthermore, these polls are usually being done by telephone interviews. About 97% of the country has telephones, but you have to think are there differences between the people who agree to the survey and those who don't? What time of day is the interview being done? How many of the people doing the survey are actually going to go out and vote?

Yeah, due to the margin of error, pretty much all those polls say is that there is a tie in all three of those states. I don't know about you guys, but I'm definitely in the group that doesn't think we'll know the winner Wednesday morning. There's so many close races in states that you know the chances are high there will be a problem somewhere. You know what else makes me completely ignore polls. Did you know to get a margin of error of +/- 3% only about 1000 people need to be interviewed? That's crazy.

I'm going to go with everyone else and say just call them. Most likely they have your information and your registered, but they just haven't had the chance to send out your card yet. I remember it took a while to get my card and that wasn't an election year. They were probably backed up because of absentee ballots.

Quite a few of my friends have blogs so I read theirs. I have a blog, and it's one that's mainly used like a journal although I talk about politics and sports sometimes. So yeah, I don't read an obscene amount of blogs but I read some.

The most volunteer work I did was on the state level. I would like to do the national level, but every time I do, something comes up and I'm unable to go.

Happy Birthday!

Thanks for the info, aboz. That's more I can use against my roommate who suddenly thinks she's a Red Sox expert. Go Cardinals!

The Cards have been my pick for the last few weeks and I'm sticking with them. Plus, I currently live with someone who suddenly thinks she's a Red Sox expert (so it's like living with a Cubs fan), and I just can't root for the same team she is.

Yeah, maybe harried wasn't the best word to use, but let me tell you with all the traveling I do, there are days when I do feel harried. Especially when security starts yelling at me that I will need to take my laptop out of my bag, and I'm holding my laptop in my hand cause I took it out 5 minutes ago. All I'm saying is that security can be pretty rude. I know they're doing their job, but they don't need to be so b****y about it. I find it amazing that 320K is pocket change has been left behind, but I can understand it. As soon as I'm through security, I'm definitely in a rush to get the heck out of there and get to the gate.

I think it's fair to say that more celebrities are Democrats than Republicans, so even if the Bush supporting celebrities spoke up more it would still be an "unfair advantage." Personally, I ignore the celebrities, but I know there are people out there who don't. The celebrities have a right to speak out just like everyone else does, but the unfairness is that the celebrities know they're not like "everyone else" and will speak out solely to influence people to do what they want them to do. I don't think that's right.

Happy Birthday!!