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Nov. 11th, 2008 12:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wileypeterI'm generally happy about the local and national election results. Things like Prop 8 passing sour the milk, but I want to focus on the Presidential race.
Four years ago I said my fondest dream was that Kerry would lose the popular vote and win the Electoral College, because the system needed to be overhauled and it wasn't going to happen as long as one side thought it might benefit them. GWB highlighted the stupidity of the system to Democrats and progressives, but until the Republicans and conservatives got screwed they wouldn't have any motivation to overhaul that relic of slavery-era politics. (The Electoral College is where that whole slaves-equal-3/5-of-a-person part of the Constitution came in, meaning slave states got Electoral votes and Representatives equivalent to the whole free population and 3/5 of the slave population. Pretty disgusting. Really it made the slaves negative 3/5 people, as it gave those who benefited from slavery augmented electoral power equivalent to 3/5 of their immediate power over their human properties.)
This election might be the needed push. No question that Obama won. But the margin was something like 7% of the popular vote. This is nothing to sneeze at, but the Electoral College, as results stand now, gave Obama a margin of about 40%. It was a landslide, and it wasn't. And if this level of support from the Electoral College emboldens Obama and the increased Congressional Democrats (which on a personal level I hope will happen) I can see the other side of the aisle getting peevish enough to make this a one-vote-is-one-vote nation.
I can dream, anyway.
Four years ago I said my fondest dream was that Kerry would lose the popular vote and win the Electoral College, because the system needed to be overhauled and it wasn't going to happen as long as one side thought it might benefit them. GWB highlighted the stupidity of the system to Democrats and progressives, but until the Republicans and conservatives got screwed they wouldn't have any motivation to overhaul that relic of slavery-era politics. (The Electoral College is where that whole slaves-equal-3/5-of-a-person part of the Constitution came in, meaning slave states got Electoral votes and Representatives equivalent to the whole free population and 3/5 of the slave population. Pretty disgusting. Really it made the slaves negative 3/5 people, as it gave those who benefited from slavery augmented electoral power equivalent to 3/5 of their immediate power over their human properties.)
This election might be the needed push. No question that Obama won. But the margin was something like 7% of the popular vote. This is nothing to sneeze at, but the Electoral College, as results stand now, gave Obama a margin of about 40%. It was a landslide, and it wasn't. And if this level of support from the Electoral College emboldens Obama and the increased Congressional Democrats (which on a personal level I hope will happen) I can see the other side of the aisle getting peevish enough to make this a one-vote-is-one-vote nation.
I can dream, anyway.
