Sweating the Rules

I was waiting to see something like this. It's John Podhoretz' hedge on the popular vote vs. the Electoral College. It's a bitch and moan you haven't had to worry about much until the Bush years.

I didn't expect to see an article on it this time around because everyone was expecting Obama to trounce McCain in both the popular vote and the Electoral College count. He still might, but I guess Podhoretz had some sleepless nights worrying that state polls might be wrong.

Some of my friends have trouble with the concept of the Electoral College. They think it's weird, and they're right. It's unique. They also think it's unfair, which is a laugh coming from people who vote in parliamentary systems. I tell them that they have to put the popular vote concept out of their mind when looking at a US presidential election. It's irrelevant, like applying the NFL rulebook to a baseball game. (And let me add, again: the place is called the United States. States. States. States. Get it? That word means something. Or should).

Yesterday, Podhoretz expanded on his worry that if McCain wins the Electoral College, but Obama creams him in the popular vote, there will be a "national crisis."

No there won't.

There will be only a half-national crisis: people that voted for Obama. But I don't believe that they will freak out and try to burn down the country.

Americans are very rigid about rules. Obama hopefuls would eagerly take an Electoral College victory over a popular win, because they know that's the way to gain the White House. Though they'd hate it if it swung that way for McCain, they know deep down that they'd praise a win on the same terms.

Says Podhoretz:

A McCain presidency under these conditions would be a model of institutional paralysis. With the exception of the veto, which McCain would of course relish more than any other presidential power, he would be among the weakest chief executives in modern times, if not the weakest. And it would be interesting to see whether the Electoral College itself could survive it. (It would be abolished, presumably, not by amending the Constitution but by passing laws in the states requiring electors to vote for the nationwide vote winner; such a law already exists in a few of them.)

That's quite a leap. Don't like the constitution's election rules? Change the playing field immediately. That dovetails nicely with Obama's philosophy that the constitution is a flawed document in need of changing, though he is running for the job of defending it. Besides, if Poderhetz thinks states like Texas would gladly forfeit their choice of president to toe some national line, he's insane. (And again, Johnny: States. Say it with me. You can do it).


Podhoretz is bipolar on the issue. In the same article, prior to saying that McCain would be a lame duck and the Electoral College would disintegrate, he write this:

It is true that the existence of the Electoral College is crucial to preserving some sort of balance in the United States between the small states and the larger states, and serves as yet another mediating institution — another means by which unbridled political power is checked.

All this is true. But it is beside the point in 2008.

And there we have the true liberal philosophy of the 21st century: "If it doesn't give me whatever I want, it must be bad." Poor John. He doesn't realize that the Electoral College is in the constitution to protect the country from people exactly like him: people that think unbridled political power is "beside the point."

Podhoretz believes that one year's election should supersede over two centuries of national law and tradition. Why? Because he exists.

Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.