Just when we thought it was safe to say the election spectacle that has consumed television and newspapers for two years was finally over….

My First Mistake

MY mistake was in turning on the news this morning. You never know-California might finally have faced the BIG ONE and fallen into the Pacific, or Alaska have been invaded by a horde of endangered polar bears. You have to find out, right? Instead, I find every newscaster in the US and no doubt several other countries are busy filming Roland Burris try to take his lawful seat in the Senate. He was turned away.

I’ve had to develop a sense of humor to deal with this continued assault on our Constitution and it’s attendant rights: the whole mess resembles a form of political theater personified by the vision of Obama posed in from of those God-awful Greek columns for his party nomination acceptance speech. But nothing has ever been quite as entertaining as watching the dominoes fall in front of Blagojevich. Obama’s thrown so many people under the bus that it can no longer get any traction (no wonder he had to take the train to DC). And Harry Reid refuses to seat Burris because he wasn’t one of the candidates he bargained for with Blagojevich. . but of course, they all say they didn’t bargain with Blago. Nope, they didn’t engage in Chicago-style politics as usual. Mean while, they WANT to seat Al Franken?? Shades of Saturday Night Live! It would be a hoot if it wasn’t the operation of our govt they were playing fast and loose with.

But, while we’re all watching this . .

Closer to home, I caught up with something a couple of weeks ago that I guess we weren’t supposed to see. I long ago signed up for an update newsletter from my Michigan legislature outlining bills and action on bills that had occurred in Lansing. Usually, they’re busy moving the highway funds to the general budget then trying to slide through more taxes to pay for their “now-seriously-unfunded” road repairs. One was published about 5 minutes before they all went home for Christmas that caught my eye. . .something about the National Popular Vote. So, I dug deeper into it, thinking this was another effort at ditching the Electoral College. I was wrong-it’s really worse than that!

All but 2 states already throw all of their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote in their state. This keeps third-party candidates from ever having a chance to impact national politics. Although written very obtusely in an effort to disguise exactly what it does, it’s an effort to COMBINE the electoral votes of several states within their ‘agreement’ into an overall unanimous electoral vote for the ‘winning candidate’. It takes a bit of digging to figure out what this does. But, if your state goes entirely Purple SwampRat Party, and other states go Green Snake party and have higher numbers, your votes now become Green Snake votes. . .NO electoral votes by state to the Purple SwampRat Party!

The National Popular Vote bill has been enacted by Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland. It has also passed one house in Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, North Carolina, Michigan and Washington, and both houses in California, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Obviously, it’s on its way into existence. And what it will do is assure no third-party will ever get a foothold anywhere. It will also make sure that the very voters the Electoral College was designed to protect might as well not even go to the polls. The whole idea is to gather the 270 required elector votes to elect the presidential slate and call it the popular vote. This will of course vastly over-ride small population states like Oklahoma, Nevada, Montana. . and many, many more.

If you look at a map of the states that have already passed this and are near passing it, you’ll notice these are overwhelmingly Democratic states. Within 4 to 8 years, we’d be a one-party country. . and no other party would ever get a toe-hold because of the way the law is structured. So much for the Grand Experiment of this great Republic! Maybe we should just rename the United States to Pelosi-land.

I don’t know what we can do about this other than hound our legislators unmercifully and demand that they return to the full Electoral College System: if Ralph what’s-his-name takes three votes out of 10, so be it. And even losing candidates can use the support shown behind their votes to make some demands on the ruling party. With this system, there won’t be much point in having an opinion on anything if the party in now-perpetual power disagrees.

Rolland Burris wont be the only one who doesn’t have a seat at the table!