I wonder what Birch Bayh, who has been trying to eliminate the Electoral College for decades, will think of his son's sudden affection for the institution?
Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, who backs Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton for president, proposed another gauge Sunday by which superdelegates might judge whether to support Mrs. Clinton or Senator Barack Obama.
He suggested that they consider the electoral votes of the states that each of them has won.
“So who carried the states with the most Electoral College votes is an important factor to consider because ultimately, that's how we choose the president of the United States,” Mr. Bayh said on CNN's “Late Edition.”
In a primary, of course, electoral votes are not relevant, but the Clinton campaign is trying to use them as an unofficial measure of strength.
Of course, Clinton has been strongly against the Electoral College, too, so this is naked opportunism at its most cynical -- not that there's anything necessarily wrong with a little ruthlessness in our presidents. At times, it has been downright helpful. And at least the Clinton camp has finally come to the right conclusion, if for the wrong reason. And, of course, the Electoral College is what we use, whatever one thinks of it. I've written a lot of pieces about how wrong the was to start the lottery as a way to sneakily increase government spending. That doesn't mean I feel hypocrtical if I buy a lottery ticket once in a while. The lottery is there, whatever I think of it.
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Shorter Evan Bayh: "See, if you turn your head at *just* the right angle and squint a little bit, Hillary is really winning."
The biggest advantage of the Electoral College is that even if it sometimes elects the wrong candidate in a close race, it's not likely that we'll end up with no candidate at all. Without the Electoral College, instead of recounting Florida's votes, we'd have to recount the entire country....
Here in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, people are trying to figure out what Hillary is up to. Ever since it's been determined that Obama won Texas, most people figured she has no chance. Since Michigan and Florida decided against valid primaries, even her top honchos figure that she is less than a 10-to-1 shot.
So is she jockeying around, trying to become John McCain's running mate? Or does she figure that by bashing Obama, she won't be running against an incumbent in 2012?
I took an informal poll of my neighbors. Among the men, 3 think she wants to be McCain's running mate, 3 think she wants a clear shot at 2012, and 2 think she's just being nasty because that's her nature. Of the women, 5 think she believes the party has more sense than to run a nonwhite for president, and 3 think she's just being nasty because that's her nature. That leaves 1 woman who thinks Hillary can win, and her husband who's afraid to disagree with her opinion.
I'm disappointed in Evan Bayh. When he was running for governor the first time, his opponent (Mutz?) was on the radio a week before the election. It was a foregone conclusion that Bayh would win, and the GOP candidate said that Evan Bayh is just the sort of fellow we need to encourage to get into politics, bright, honest, personable, tolerant - but he could use a little more seasoning before moving into the governor's chair.
I'm a conservative independent, and usually vote Republican, but I was going to vote for Bayh. That interview was so disarmingly honest, though, that I ended up voting for his opponent. I figured anyone who was willing to say that about his opponent must be a decent man.