Justin Gardner at Donklephant asks if we should Get Rid of the Electoral College.
On Aug. 25, Democratic California senator Dianne Feinstein called for the abolition of the Electoral College, saying, “The current system enables a handful of states to become battleground states, and disenfranchises tens of millions of American voters in the most important election in the nation.
Yeah, but…
Wouldn’t eliminating the electoral college basically cause candidates to pander to campaign in areas that are densely populated and forget about people in less populated areas?
I think the real problem is that we’ve become a culture that, dangerously and wrongly, looks to The President as the person who is responsible for all of the woes and triumphs of our daily lives. The Presidency was meant to be of the States, not of the people, hence the electoral college. The President’s job was to be the executive officer of the group of States, while the States themselves were to be responsible for governing the people. That way people in California would be free to institue whatever wacky policies and programs they choose to implement locally while not affecting the people of New Hampshire, who would be free to choose a more conservative set of policies to govern their state.
The powers of the President and federal government are pretty clearly laid out in the Constitution and should be correctly limited. If they were, this wouldn’t be an issue.
Amen!