|
|
|
Become a
Paid Mullings Subscriber!
(To join the FREE mailing list or to unsubscribe Click Here)
Memo to the Left: Move On
Rich Galen Wednesday December 15, 2004
The members of the electoral college met Monday for the first time in four years and they (or their successors) will not meet again for another four years.
Each state gets the number of electors which totals the number of members of the US House of Representatives plus two US Senators. As there are 435 Members of the House and 100 Members of the Senate you might think that the total number of electors is 535. But wait! It's 538.
That's because the 23rd Amendment to the US Constitution grants the District of Columbia three electors (more precisely the number of electors it would be entitled to if it were a state "but in no event more than the least populous state").
The Constitution also provides that the Congress shall determine the date that the electors must cast their ballots ("which day shall be the same throughout the United States").
The current date for this activity is the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December which happened to have been this past Monday, December 13.
Here's the shocker: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were elected President and Vice President respectively. Except for one dope in Minnesota who reversed his votes - voting for John Edwards for President and giving his vote for Veep to John Kerry - everything apparently went as planned.
The electoral college members are chosen by the political parties. Each political party with a candidate who qualified for the ballot, sends a list of electors to the Secretary of State and (except in Maine and Nebraska) whichever candidate wins the most popular votes gets all of the electoral votes.
In Ohio (which Bush won by 119,000 votes) on Monday that model of good behavior, Jesse Jackson, and some lawyer from Massachusetts went to court trying to stop the people who had been selected to cast their votes for Bush/Cheney from doing so.
A Democratic Congressman from Michigan, John Conyers, held a "hearing" in Columbus to take testimony about vote fraud. (1) Republicans control the US House so Democrats don't get to hold hearings in Washington or anywhere else. (2) Assignment for an enterprising young reporter: Who paid for Conyers' foolishness?
There were also reports that representatives of the Libertarian and Green parties (whose candidates received about 27,000 votes combined out of about 5.6 million cast in Ohio) might physically attempt to prevent the Bush/Cheney electors from getting into the statehouse in Columbus.
As we like to say in big time politics, "Do you think we're new at this?"
All during the morning, Buckeyes walked into the statehouse to transact business. Twenty of those individuals, however, were in possession of paperwork which gave each of them the right to cast a vote for Bush and for Cheney in the event that the elector who was supposed to cast the votes didn't, for whatever reason, show up.
The Democratic Party is in disarray and going in the wrong direction. The Democrats can pretend they have nothing to do with the legal flailing about in Ohio, but by allowing its surrogates - Jesse Jackson and the Green Party - to engage in these tactics only drives the Party farther from the mainstream of American political thought.
Current Democratic members of the US House and Senate will never again be in the majority in their professional lifetimes. That realization will lead to a larger-than-normal Democratic retirements meaning just maintaining their current levels in the House and Senate may be impossible.
The 2004 election is now officially over. Only the formal opening of the ballots on January 6, 2005 remains prior to the inauguration of President Bush and Vice President Cheney on January 20.
It is time for the Democrats to quit wringing their hands and get to work to repair the damage they have done to themselves.
It is time to move on.
On the Secret Decoder Ring today: A primer on the Electoral College, a Mullfoto which demands legal action, an Iraq Flashback, "The Reporters and the Donkey"; and a Catchy Caption of the Day.
--END --
Copyright © 2004 Richard A. Galen
Current Issue |
Secret Decoder
Ring | Past
Issues | Email
Rich | Rich
Who?
Copyright �2002 Richard
A. Galen | Site design by Campaign
Solutions. | |
|
� 
