Of course the Democrats don't, since California seems unlikely to go Republican in the near future. It would have to be a nationwide movement. Anyone know how the winner-take-all format came to be in 96% of the states? Was it always that way? (This beats talking about stupid fake birth certificates)
No, it wasn't always that way, but it didn't take long for states to figure out it was in their best interest to give all their votes to the same guy. If your state has, say, 11 votes, giving 11 votes to the statewide winner makes your state have 11 times the influence on the result compared to what it would have if it allotted the votes 6-5. It should be noted that since Maine and Nebraska adopted their system, neither state has had a congressional district differ from the statewide vote, so there hasn't been an actual split of votes.
Don't mind the EC or winner-take-all so much as I just wish it was more proportionally weighted. Wyoming gets 1 electoral vote per every 175,000 people versus California getting 1 EV per every 665,000 people. That's my biggest beef.
That's those extra Senator votes. If we started splitting votes in every state, that would shift the power from rural areas to urban areas. I don't think the Republicans would favor that. Of course, either party would be happy with splitting the votes in states they usually lose, and having winner take all in the states they usually win. Still, I can't see the Republicans pushing for this in California. The short term gain would quickly backfire if other states followed.
If California would stop having the winner-take-all system for the Electoral College, then California would start being important in Presidential elections. That is why I am against it. I've had two months with almost no Presidential election ads, which is great. BTW: The weird part is the "almost". What is Obama doing advertising in California? He's going to win for sure anyway. This guy is supposed to be in charge of our money, and he spending money frivolously. This makes me feel better about not voting for Obama and voting for someone else. Hail Grimes!
1. Cali has important propositions this election, so "rising tide lifts all boats" 2. DMC canNOT get complacent about Cali. LA County and the Bay Area are liberal and a huge swath of votes, but outside those areas it's a fairly conservative state. Which is why we get all these propositions sponsored by out-of-state theo-cons. And they pass! 3. I think Cali is going to provide the model for a post-theo-con GOP, so nurturing the DMC there makes it more difficult for the Cali GOP to get their shit together. In 2004 Bush did not win one city w/ a population over 500K. This election is going to be even worse for the GOP in that regard. The Rovian emphasis on exurban and rural America is not sustainable b/c it isolates the Urban Republican, who is much more moderate and/or less likely to be a hard-liner on 100% of the GOP core issues. Urban Reeps are more likely to take a holistic view of the political landscape and make a decision on tangible issues, NOT theoretical issues that they frankly don't understand (God, Guns and [no] Gays). Anywho... just look at the Cali GOP and their insistence on nominating a red state 'Merika uber right-wing candidate for governor who gets clobbered by a democrat. The only way they were able to get Arnold in there was through the bogus re-call. So bottom-line: Cali is a bellweather state for the future of the GOP.
The proposition system has got to be the single-most ********ed up thing about California. Over and above Lindsay Lohan.
Yeh, there's certainly a lot of "Donated" money being tossed around "but" if it means that Obama wins for sure then I for one can live with that. Look how much money it's cost us in the last 8 years . Economy, lost jobs, stock market. $10 billion a month going to contactors in Iraq. with an estimated $3 trillion spent there so far . Now just imagine how much more money it would cost the country if Obama didn't get in.
The best part about the whole "McCain whining about the money" meme is that for a gazillion years the money advantage was with the Republicans, with them being a party dedicated to the ruling elites of corporate bazillionairre America. And Obama, for the first time ever, is a democrat that can outspend a Republican, and now they're bitching about how he's outspending them. http://www.buyingofthepresident.org/i
The stupidity has not gone away. A soldier is refusing to be deployed to Afghanistan and has filed suit because he claims Obama is not the president and cannot command him to go there.
Can someone explain the point here? Even if he wasn't born in Hawaii, but in Kenya or whatever, his mother was still an American citizen, so Obama is too. PS...if a woman uses artificial painkillers during childbirth, does that disqualify her child?
The Father and Grandmother too. they obviously knew too much. Hitlers parents are dead as well. You Decide.
Dictator of Germany, actually born in Austria. Napoleon--born in Corsica. The pattern is clear. Wake up, America, before it's too late.
And Stalin was a Georgian.... I was reading the comments a bit at the article, because it was recommended. Anyway, from the comments, people are trying to say two things (assuming Obama was born in Mombassa and not Hawaii). One is that since Senior was a British suibject at the time, Obama was born a Brit. Because citizenship goes through the father. The other is that Obamamama was not legally an adult at the time, so Obama therefore was not born an American. Both of these are asserted without proof. As you would expect for batshit insane theories. The other inanity is that when Obama went to Indonesia, he was enrolled in school, so he had Indonesian citizenship. And since Indonesia doesn't allow dual citizenship, he must have renounced his US citizenship. Keep in mind, he was a minor at the time.
You're ignoring the bigger issue--he's a closet Muslim, and everyone knows this is a Judeo-Christian nation; thus, non-Christians cannot be President. If this wasn't true, the Founding Fathers wouldn't have put "one nation UNDER GOD" in the Declaration of Independence, which is the document our government is founded on. It's amazing that you sheeple can't see the truth right in front of you.
Apparently, Fox News is all over this... http://www.newshounds.us/2009/07/14/fox_news_legitimizes_birthers.php During Special Report’s Political Grapevine segment tonight (7/14/09), Bret Baier announced (at about 40 seconds into the first video below), “A U.S. soldier who has been ordered to Afghanistan is refusing to go… (saying) President Obama was not born in the United States and therefore is ineligible to be Commander-in-Chief. A Columbus, Georgia newspaper reports (the soldier) has filed a request in federal court seeking a temporary restraining order on his deployment. (His) attorney is involved in a second case that challenges the legitimacy of the Obama presidency. The Los Angeles Times reports a California judge has agreed to hear the merits of that case.” As a banner on the screen read, “PERSISTENT PROBLEM” next to a photo of Obama and the U.S. Supreme Court, Baier added, “It is just one of dozens of legal challenges to the president’s nationality.” But rather than inform his viewers that those “challenges” have been thoroughly debunked, Baier presented the issue as a he said/she said, adding, “At least two of them have already been dismissed by the Supreme Court. The White House press secretary again Monday brushed aside the matter, saying, quote, ‘The noble truth is that the president was born in Hawaii, a state of the United States of America.’” Baier never pointed out that Obama's American birth certificate has been produced and authenticated. Sean Hannity presented the same story during his Hannity’s America segment. He likewise failed to note in any way the illegitimacy of the claim, or the availability of Obama's birth certificate. Instead, Hannity characterized the case as “controversial." He said, (at a little more than two minutes into the second video below), “At least one soldier is now refusing to go (to Afghanistan, as part of President Obama’s surge).
There was a flaw in the law at the time. A child born abroad to one US citizen before 1986 was automatically a citizen if the parent had lived in the US for at least 10 years of her life, and 5 of those 10 years had to be after the age of 14. Since Obama's mother was 18 at the time of the birth, she could not have lived in the US 5 years after the age of 14. A strict interpretation of this law would have prevented any parent under the age of 19 from passing their citizenship to their born-abroad child. I don't know if any leeway was given in the interpretation of this law for young parents. I'm not trying to support the whackjobs. Obama was born in Honolulu.
The reason Baeir and Hannity don't refute the charges is because they can't! How can you argue with all of this science that clearly shows Obama's birth certificate was forged? Don't you see? They have science and everything on the internets to prove he was not born in 'merica! Oh, and this soldier business? Time for a court-martial and hard time at Leavenworth.