Definitely NOT a Popular Mandate

Here was an interesting article that shows just how large Clinton's popular majority be when everything is sorted out.

Atlantic 1.5 million and Growing

And something interesting.

"Do All States Distribute Electoral Votes That Way?

No, but almost all do: 48 of the 50 U.S. states and Washington, D.C., award all of their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote there.

Which States Don't Use the Winner-Take-All Method?

Only two states award their electoral votes in a different manner. They are Nebraska and Maine.

How Do Nebraska and Maine Distribute Electoral Votes?

They allocate their electoral votes by congressional district. In other words, instead of distributing all of its electoral votes to the candidate who wins the statewide popular vote, Nebraska and Maine awards an electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district. The winner of the statewide vote gets two additional electoral votes. This method is called the Congressional District Method; Maine has used it since 1972 and Nebraska has used it since 1996.

Doesn't the U.S. Constitution Prohibit Such Distribution Methods?

Not at all. In fact, it's just the opposite.

While the U.S. Constitution requires states to appoint electors, the document is silent on how they actually award votes in presidential elections. There have been numerous proposals to circumvent the winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes.

The Constitution leaves the matter of electoral-vote distribution up to the states, stating only that:

"Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress." The key phrase pertaining to the distribution of electoral votes is obvious: " ... in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct."

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the states' role in awarding electoral votes is "supreme."

Are Electors the Same As Delegates?

No. Electors are not the same as delegates. Electors are part of the mechanism that chooses a president. Delegates, on the other hand, distributed by the parties during the primaries and serve to nominate candidates to run in the general election. "

Electoral Votes: What is Fair?

So this discussion started here. And it requires an image for a better answer.

"Moose, Now don't be silly... They still only have 3 votes... Now each individual citizen has more power, but it is still just a pittance compared to the urban States.  So yes the system is working great. And I am thankful because Wyoming is beautiful.  I am always amazed when urban Liberals want to rule the whole country with an iron fist... So much for that tolerance of different beliefs and peoples." G2A

"Voting Power You were saying...?" Moose

"Excellent source... And I believe I was saying... "Now each individual citizen has more power, but it is still just a pittance compared to the urban States.

This is a trade off we make to keep America whole and stable. And to ensure the dominant majority of City/Coastal Americans do not run rough shod over everyone else. 

Imagine how much better off and stable Iraq would be if the Shiites could not run rough shod over the Sunnis and Kurds as they can with their form of government." G2A

"Not according to my previous source." Moose

My point was that even with the weighted electoral college system, Wyoming only gets 3 votes out 538...  That is a pittance when it comes to national control.  And strangely Liberals who usually want the minority voices to be heard would happily quiet them further.  As is often the case, I find this ironic.

Low Approval Equals Lost Seats

Jerry and I were discussing what Trump's real approval and disapproval ratings are today over here.  My beliefs are depicted in the graphic below. The things I think he is doing that will continue to keep his approval below 50% include:

• His obsession with blocking legal refugees and other travelers from 7 countries even though there is no proven threat.
• His saying he is only deporting violent illegals, while in reality occasionally taking Mothers away from their families.  Separating families and crying children make excellent advertisements for the Democrats against him.
• His continually saying that our Free Press is an enemy of the citizens. (Lugenpresse)
• His continual lying over the stupidest things. (biggest electoral win since Reagan)  I mean hasn't he heard of google search?
• The tendency for him and his staff to make mistakes. (Sweden),  (Bowling Green)

Since he continues to focus on rallying his true believers, fighting against everyone else and focusing on minutia, I really don't see a path to him becoming a President with a high approval rating.  With that in mind, the following article becomes pretty important.  538 Will Trumps Low Approval Ratings Harm GOP  It will be interesting to see what happens in the next 22 months.  Now please remember that I want Trump to succeed, I just don't know how he is going to do it if he:

• does not improve his methods (ie he is NOT a CEO anymore, people do not need to do what he says...  I wonder how long it will take for him to figure that out?)
• continues catering exclusively to his base (ie they are a minority of Americans, he won because the system is thankfully rigged by the electoral college. but that only goes so far.)
• continues speaking/ tweeting before thinking (ie how can any rational person take him serious with all the errors/lies he makes)
• continues picking fights over the dumbest things (ie adults have the self control to know when to fight and when to ignore) (ie number of people at inauguration?  Really?)
• continually gets distracted with the minutia instead of getting focused on the economy and healthcare. 
• continues to try and take credit for everything good and blame others for everything bad. (ie adults know how to share praise and blame)

Electoral Maps

Things definitely are looking bleak for Donald.  It will be humorous though if he loses worse than McCain did in 2008 and Romney did in 2012. Especially after all the insults he has hurled their way. I mean he is running against a very poor Democratic candidate and still gets whooped...  I wonder if he will be able to be introspective and take personal responsibility for the loss. (if only to himself)

CNN Interactive Electoral Map

How to Improve the Electoral College System

Here are some thoughts from Joel:

 

Well here are my thoughts on changes (improvements?) that could be made to the EC:

• Could we have national electors that would vote for the person who wins that national popular vote? These would be in addition to the existing 538 electors. How many would there be? One possible argument against is that it would effectively give a portion of the population more power than "one person, one vote".
• Each State still gets the two "Senator" votes, meaning that two votes go to the winner of the statewide popular vote
• Each congressional district still gets a single vote based on the popular vote within the district, with the following caveats:

With regard to Congressional Districts:

• Gerrymandering is outlawed (how?)
• District boundaries are not affected by State boundaries, meaning that all congressional districts would have to have, as closely as possible, the same population without respect to State borders. My questions regarding this are: Is there a good reason for congressional districts to be contained within States? What reason is there for it to continue? States already get electoral votes.

Thank Heavens for the Electoral College

Now this comment is worth further discussion.

"Election wise I always trust the inherent wisdom of the voters. It's up to them to get it right, and I trust their judgment, even when I disagree with it. This time, they chose Hillary. If only the founders had the same trust in America and it's people as I do." --Hiram

I personally am a huge fan of the Senate and Electoral college. I think these 2 systems are single handedly responsible for keeping us a group of "United" States. Could you even imagine the structural strain this country would experience if the coasts could ignore the will of the people in the "fly over states"? 


Somehow the relatively homogenous "progressive" city dwellers think they know better than those non-college educated rural folks who run the businesses that provide us food, energy and so many other things we rely on.  You should have seen Chuck Todd and David Brooks turn red on Sunday when the Progressive Farmer Opinion Writer called out all the folks like themselves who spent the election coverage "belittling" the non-college rural vote.  I think they finally figured out that a lot of these "uneducated rural" voters are highly educated, engaged and running large complex farms and businesses.  It made me smile.


I have never understood why the "herd" in cities should have more power than the folks in other States. Personally I think every city dweller should have to spend sometime in the country doing real work, it may improve our country. If not, maybe they can just watch /read The Ultimate Gift

CNN Results
MP MN Results
Progressive Farmer Rural America Roars
RF Donkeys Rare in Rural America

Let's Get Ready to Rumble

Obama poised to help turbocharge Biden's fundraising FOX News

Warren backs Biden Reuters

How Biden won over Bernie and DEMs VOX

Demands from Young Progressives NBC

Leftward Ho? Politico

Of course the big questions are how do the DEMs and Biden:

1. get the Far Left out to campaign and vote
2. not turn off moderate voters who are unhappy with Trump (ie like me)
3. win enough purple states to win the election?

Here are a variety of maps the depict the 2016 results. 

I pray that who ever wins, wins both the popular and electoral votes. To me that would indicate that the DEMs have learned to not ignore the fly over states...  Or Trump may have reached out beyond his base...  I know...  I am a dreamer!!!! :-)

Electoral Map Update

 Shows Biden Lead Growing?

Electoral Count Bill

 Features and Limits.  

Since GOP politicians seem unwilling to support HR4 John Lewis Voting Bill to fix the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by revising the criteria for determining which States and political subdivisions are subject to section 4 of the Act, and for other purposes, hopefully they can get this passed so there will be NO MORE January 6ths...

Just a reminder about how the Justices weakened the Voters Rights Act of 1965.

And here is a reminder of why it is still needed...

Silly Clinton

CNN Clinton Blames Comey  She runs on a platform that is further Left than any modern candidate except Bernie...  She is a secretive uptight introvert who never was open, approachable and honest with the public.  She fails to energize the Democratic base, especially the young folks.

Now she is surprised that she lost and looking for a "scape goat".  What a silly Clinton...

MP Romney vs Trump in MN  I mean Trump only got ~3,000 more votes than Romney.  So MN must have only been close because the Democrats did not come out for her.  This probably is why we have a GOP MN Senate and House now.

" On Tuesday, he was the 11th consecutive Republican nominee to lose the state’s electoral votes. But he finished just 1.5 percentage points behind Democrat Hillary Clinton, which is a very slim margin compared to President Barack Obama’s nearly 8 point margin in 2012 and more than 10 point margin in 2008. 

Trump and Mitt Romney, the Republican who failed to defeat Obama here, and ultimately, in 2012, got about the same share of Minnesotans’ votes for president — just shy of 45 percent. In terms of total votes, the counts were similar, too: Romney’s final vote count was within 3,000 of Trump’s 1,322,892 in Minnesota on Tuesday, according to the most recently available election results from the Minnesota Secretary of State."

Liz Cheney Rocks !!!

 A speech worth listening to.  Here is a snippet.  The sad thing is that most of the other GOP Reps refused to stay and listen, or provide any viable counter argument. They chose to stay silent and embolden the liars. :-( 

I am a conservative Republican and the most conservative of conservative principles is reverence for the rule of law. The Electoral College has voted. More than 60 state and federal courts, including multiple judges the former president appointed, have rejected his claims. The Trump Department of Justice investigated the former president's claims of widespread fraud and found no evidence to support them. The election is over. That is the rule of law. That is our constitutional process.

Those who refuse to accept the rulings of our courts are at war with the Constitution. Our duty is clear. Every one of us who has sworn the oath must act to prevent the unraveling of our democracy. This is not about policy. This is not about partisanship. This is about our duty as Americans. Remaining silent and ignoring the lie emboldens the liar. I will not participate in that. I will not sit back and watch in silence while others lead our party down a path that abandons the rule of law and joins the former president's crusade to undermine our democracy.

Voter Photo Identification

Oh no, I apparently share a common opinion with Gov Walker of Wisconsin.  Maybe I am slipping off my fence toward the Conservative side.

"Walker’s spokesman Cullen Werwie said, “Requiring photo identification to vote is common sense – we require it to get a library card, cold medicine, and public assistance. Gov. Walker will continue to implement common sense reforms that protect the electoral process and increases citizens’ confidence in the results of our elections.”"

Now I understand that the Liberals fear that some small portion of the population that is so far removed from the norm will not have a photo ID.  And due to this they will not be able to vote if these laws pass.

How can someone not have a photo ID and function in this society?  Do we really think these off the grid folks would stand in line to vote?  Do we really want someone that off the grid voting?  What is your rationale for thinking that flashing a photo ID is so wrong? (and no...  "It is a Republican conspiracy" is not a rational argument)
I linked to the MN Publius sight where I particpated in the comment section.

MSNBC Courts will be Busy
MNPublius Woman does not have Right

No Progressive Majority in America

"Frum says There Is No Progressive Majority in America. I think he is wrong and there is a progressive majority. The question is the distribution of these votes and will they amount to a win in the electoral college in 2020." Laurie

I agree with Frum as we have discussed before, especially if one considers Progressives to be Far Left.

G2A Hidden Tribes
G2A Where is G2A (ie John)?
G2A What would make Americans Happy?
G2A Nolan Diagram

Ironically, last night I watched Atlas Shrugged Part 1...  There is a good reminder to avoid Progressive policies. :-)

Electoral Calculators and Maps

I was wondering what Blue and Red meant on the CNN Map until I saw MN was Blue and the states West of us were Red.  At least Fox has us as a light Blue.

Thoughts on these and which other sources should we watch?

CNN Map

Fox News Map

The Will of the People?

Now I am a big supporter of what I call region weighted voting as you know. (ie electoral system)  Where a citizen's vote for President in low population states have more relative power than similar citizens in a high population state.  And yet the high population states still have more overall power because of their large populations.  I think it helps to keep America stable and cohesive.  And it ensures that the parties / presidential candidates need to pay attention to low population states as well as large population states.

 However Hiram reminded me of some stupid hypocritical rhetoric that the GOP have been using during the Impeachment Proceedings.

Stephanie Grisham, the White House press secretary, called the articles a "baseless and partisan attempt to undermine a sitting president" when the articles were unveiled.
“House Democrats have long wanted to overturn the votes of 63 million Americans," Grisham said. "They have determined that they must impeach President Trump because they cannot legitimately defeat him at the ballot box."

They seem to have forgotten that far more American citizens voted AGAINST Trump than voted FOR Trump. Where is there concern for the voices of the 66 million citizens for Clinton?

Now as I noted to Hiram, Trump is our legal President because he won by our chosen weighted system, but to deny that more citizens really disapprove of him than approve is silly.

I keep wondering if Trump and the GOP are working to make sure they lose a couple of more states.  Though Trump likes to say he had some over whelming win, the reality is that he barely got over the finish line. And he sure has not been doing anything to gain supporters among Moderates. The only chance Trump has in 2020 is if the DEMs go too Far Left with their nominee.

2016 Vote Results

RCP Impeach Poll Summary

Should DEMs ignore Rural MN?

Greta at MinnPost posed and interesting question. "In a statewide election, do candidates really need to bother with Greater Minnesota?" We have been discussing it in G2A Tribes have Misconceptions, but I thought it deserved a post of it's own. Here are a couple of comments from the MP site.

"The problem is that if in statewide races we ignore out state races, we can win the governorship but at the very substantial risk of losing the legislature, which is in fact the situation we are in now. For me, the point of the whole thing isn't to win elections, it's to create a status quo in which my guys can govern effectively. That's why my assessment of the last four years has been that we have failed even though we hold every statewide office." Hiram

"This is why the electoral system and districts are so important for the good of our country. Without them the urban areas could "rule the country" which could lead to some serious and maybe violent conflicts. I prefer a stable peaceful democracy (ie region / state weighted) over a perfect democracy. (ie all votes carry equal weight)" G2A 

"Why is that? Why would the conflicts turn violent? Would there be "serious and maybe violent" conflicts if rural areas "ruled the country?" Why or why not?" RB 

"Rationale: I assume it could go either way. Look at the various riots and protests turned disruptive over the past ~60 years when a sizable minority feels disenfranchised and powerless. That has caused a significant number of deaths and destruction.
Now imagine if the fairly homogeneous high density population centers could force their will across the outer suburbs and rural heartland with no checks / balances. I just could not see it ending well. 

The founding Fathers were smart to ensure everyone had to collaborate and that the high population areas could not just ignore the low population regions. 

Please remember that Germany is one of the larger European countries and it is only about the physical size of MN and WI and has ~8 times the population. A "pure democracy" may work in that small of a space, but across a nation as large and diverse as America. I don't think so." G2A

The question I have been asking is why the DEMs are so focused on things that alienate rural voters. I mean the DEMs seem obsessed with:

• Increasing welfare and medicare, and fighting against work requirements.
• Fighting against border security and deporting illegal workers
• Enabling the death of 2 parent families and marriage
• Forcing religious business owners to associate closely with LGBT citizens
• Enabling abortions at any time during the pregnancy

I mean DEMs could get a lot more votes if they would drop some of these extreme positions...  But they are unwilling to do so and may keep losing in rural areas because of it.  And instead of coming back towards the center it seems they may be head further Left.

Our Country, Like it or Leave It. Really?

A woman was upset on FB that the Dr Seuss Company chose to stop publishing some of Dr Seuss' more questionable works.  Which is fine, this is America...  That is until she commented with this stupidity.

How long are they gonna allow all this nonsense?  

This is our Country , it’s time you like it as is or leave !!

So me being me, I had to reply.

Now I am curious... Who is "our" in this comment?

Unfortunately she never did respond, so I will just have to make some guesses.

• White woman rural in upper 50's? I cheated by looking at FB.
• Maybe "ours" is rural white people people over 50?
• Or maybe she means Christians at immigrated here from Europe?
• Or maybe she means people that like books where Asians are drawn with slanty eyes, and/or being ordered around by a white boy hunter? 
• I just do not know????

I am particularly angry about this after what just happened in Minneapolis. And they may be unrelated because I do not know what the FB lady meant.  But they seem similar enough to put them in the same post.  An Asian looking grandfather was sitting with his grandchild at the school bus stop and some woman rolled down her car window and said the following.  'We hate Asian people. Go back to where you came from. Get out from America. If you don't do it, then we're going to kill you".

I have to ask, who in the hell are these people that think they have a right to be in the USA, and other legal residents or citizens do not?  I mean only the Native Americans have been here for a LONG time, most all of our families are relative new comers to this land.

Along these same lines, yet another Conservative woman was concerned about those Hispanics coming from the South.  I had to ask her what she had against Catholics of Spanish heritage? :-)  I mean they are Christian and friggin Europeans.

Well let's close with some data:

• Caucasians will be <50% of the US population by 2045.
• GOP President has won the popular vote only ONCE since 1990  DEM won 5. GOP won by EC twice. GOP won 1. The simple reality is that the majority of citizens do not like the GOP or it's candidate.  If the Electoral College system ends, there may never be another GOP President unless the GOP gets it's act together.
• Christianity is still the dominant religion but it is shrinking factor in the lives of most Americans.
• Only 14% of American citizens live in rural America, and it is SHRINKING. The suburbs have 55% of the population and a lot of the wealth.  The urban is steady at 31%

This all said...  Who is the "OUR" in "OUR COUNTRY"? :-)

Trump's Misleading Map

CNN Trump's Misleading Map

I'll never understand Trump's inability to understand that it does matter how popular you are in your head.  If you violate your oath and rules of office, you can get impeached.

He is like the Homecoming King saying that he can not get expelled for bringing a gun to school because he is popular...  Is Trump this disconnected from reality?
Kind of like when he was bragging about his record electoral vote win...  When it was number 46!!!  I mean the only modern President with a lower ratio was Bush in 2000!!!

Besides the first map is how he likely sees the country, where as the other two represent reality.  Since only Citizens / State Votes matter in our system.  That is unless you want some desert running the USA.  Thoughts?



23 Additional Maps


I had to add this comic... :-)

Noem Blames Teachers?

For the Civil Unrest.  Really? Blame the Teachers for people who are obsessed with their own reality?  People who obsess about their "news" sources, their "social media feed", their "real" news, etc? Really?

A friend shared this on FB and I felt an intense urge to reply.

I'll bite, how would this have helped prevent the mess at the capitol?

I am pretty sure most people understand clearly that we have:

- a Presidential election every 4 years in November

- the winner is the individual that gets 270 electoral votes

- the states are in charge of their system and counting the votes

- courts determine if any foul play occurred

- states submit their final tallies in mid Dec (ie winner named)

- Congress officially certifies the results in early January (ie ceremonial step)

On the other hand I guess there is one man who does not seem to know this... 🙂

Maybe he had a poor education?

A candidate won by 4 states and ~7 Million votes, and still many people question this reality. I don't think a civics class is going to help with this. Especially since many of the folks denying this reality went to school 30+ years ago.

Thoughts?