Former Vice President Al Gore is New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s worst nightmare in the nation”s first primary, a new poll shows.
If Mr. Gore got into the 2008 presidential nomination contest, he would edge out Mrs. Clinton in New Hampshire 32 percent to 26 percent and defeat the rest of the Democratic contenders, says a 7NEWS-Suffolk University poll of likely voters.
Absent a Gore entry, Mrs. Clinton is the clear front-runner among declared Democratic candidates, with 37 percent, up from 28 percent in the same poll taken in March.
Illinois Sen. Barack Obama is second at 19 percent, followed by both John Edwards and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson at 9 percent.
Curiouser and curiouser.
#30, since the method of choosing electors is up to the state legislatures, there is no reason why that cannot happen today.
#29 – TheGerbilShawarma,
I really do have to say that your recent posts are making me lose a lot of respect for you. Comparisons between Al Gore and Adolf are beyond silly. They are insulting to those of us whose family members were murdered.
Your failure to recognize that the electoral college has already made mockeries out of two presidential elections as well as your failure to recognize that if there were a national election it would no longer be states voting against each other but just people voting, sound ludicrous in this day and age.
And, on a prior thread, your failure even on direct hypothetical questioning to even hypothesize that maybe, just maybe, the vast overwhelming majority of peer reviewed scientific papers may be at least 5% likely to be correct, make you seem dogmatic and even pig-headed.
I had thought you were well read and well spoken because you had a significant amount of knowledge in support of certain positions of yours which which I disagree. However, I am finding through more conversations with you that you are instead very closed minded and well read only by reading your side and only your side of every issue.
Out of curiosity, you criticize Al Gore primarily for the content of An Inconvenient Truth, have you even seen it?
#32 – Mike,
Actually, for it to happen today, either all states would have to agree or some states would risk giving away the election and thus giving up power. I think the latter is unlikely. The former would be no easier to accomplish than simply getting rid of the EC and letting people vote.
Remember, we’re not talking about states being overrun by other states. We’re talking about getting rid of the concept of states in the presidential election. All people from all states become equal. States would no longer enter into it. Politicians would have an interest in campaigning to the nation instead of a few states.
#34, I understand completely what you are wanting, and I do not agree with it. This country was designed from the beginning to be a federal system. And personally, members of Congress could stand to be a little more concerned about the people they represent instead of worrying about what some dopey national opinion poll says.
30–Why do you want to keep it?
Same reason we have the Senate, two from each state, regardless of population. I LIKE the idea of the Government having things to ‘slow’ their activities… personally, the fewer laws they pass, the fewer chances to arrest everyone for SOMEthing.
J/P=?
36—I don’t think your concern matches your solution. No difference in the speed of laws being enacted. You are choosing to have the laws that are passed, passed by a minority of voters rather than a majority of voters.
time to rethink your position.
#35 – Mike,
I think you’re carrying this farther than I intended now. I am advocating removal of the electoral college. I feel that the president should be elected to a national office in a national election. I think at that level, we should not be concerned about red states and blue states. We should all just be people.
As for senate and congress, yes, I would leave those in place. They do accomplish their purpose. But, we do not have 2 presidents from each state nor do we have a representative number of presidents from each state. We only have one president. That office should be elected in a national election.
All of our other elected officials actually are state offices. This one is different. It is truly a national office. The election of the president should be one person one vote.
#11 – The College was not instituted to prevent mob rule. And it does not protect state sovereignty (which is an adorable yet archaic idea whose time is over)… It’s there because the framers didn’t trust the people to choose their own leaders.
It may have been a good idea in an era when communication was no faster than a horse’s gallop, but in the 21st Century it makes no sense. It also disenfranchises the states with few electoral votes (like North Dakota).
And the most important thing we can do as a nation is elect a progressive candidate and give him (or her (though I hope it isn’t Hillary (though she’s not the anti-Christ you right wing people think she is (but she isn’t as good a choice as Gore or Richardson (but she is strong and capable (and it will be nice having Bill back))))) a clear congressional majority so that we can get this nation back on track.
Hopefully, this new progressive era will last until 100 years after I die.
#39 – OFTLO – You missed a close paren. Don’t write your code in LISP.
Abolishing the Electoral College is a great idea. Every vote for President should count equally.
#39, I still don’t trust half of Americans to wisely choose our leaders. It has nothing to do with policy disagreement either; there’s nothing more dangerous than an uninformed idiot in the voting booth, and half of this country belongs in that category.
#39 – Actually North Dakotan votes count 3 times as much as Californians : http://tinyurl.com/b6hbt (look at the votes per electoral vote column). I would say they are more enfranchised – as they should be.
I would call what Hitlery or any of the others want regressive. (Whatever you’ve got, we’re going to take it away and redistribute it…)
#42 – Mike,
Much more than half, but who decides which ones? And, look at the results we got in 2000. Popular vote didn’t do that.
#43 – TheGerbilShawarma,
I think you just made my point beautifully. I’ve never seen such a morally reprehensible document as the one in your link. Explain to me why one resident of Wyoming is worth 3.86 residents California.
Should insurance companies be forced to award 3.86 times the damages for an auto accident victim in Wyoming? Should murderers in Wyoming serve 3.86 times the sentence as murderers in California? Should pay for a MacDonalds employee in Wyoming be 3.86 times as high as in California?
What could possibly justify this discrepancy?
Are you some sort of sicko to think that lives in some states are worth more than lives in another? This isn’t empowerment, this is a f___ing political steamroller.
The very purpose of the EC is to prevent a “f___ing political steamroller”. On a straight vote, metro areas will completely overwhelm surburban and rural areas. We all vote for our wants and needs and metro needs and wants are completely different from surburban and rural needs and wants as many debates here have illustrated. The founders foresaw this and tried to lessen impact.
Since city dwellers are unfortunately mashed together, their needs are more easily met since the services can be shared. They don’t need as much per capita influence to get theirs.
Do you really think you’d get more conservation out of city folk who don’t even know what the outdoors is more or less care about it?
Make every state count the same, and candidates couldn’t ignore anyone. Hitlery’s head would explode trying to triangulate 50 way – (which would be yet another benefit.)
Yeah Mike probably voted for King George because he would rather have a president that he could “have a beer with.”
I will not insult morons by calling Mike one, but the argument that the contest for the leader of one’s country should be judged akin to someone on “Idle American,” is simply an obscenity.
IMNSHO, one of the reasons that the Founders went for an Electoral College, was because of people like Mike, who want to make a mockery of the process.
Sorry, but give me an intelligent person for President any day. A ‘C’ student simply would not cut it in my book. And I, personally would not like to have a beer with someone whose IQ is the same as my shoe size, who tells fart jokes, and doesn’t have a good command of the English language.
Yep, I voted for who >I
OK – I had to look up Schawarma. I don’t care to eat Gerbils in any form. (I am going to download some recipies though – thanks. 😉 )
#47, Roc Rizzo, you probably don’t know what the hell you are talking about. Dollar to doughnuts you couldn’t guess who I voted for the past to election cycles.
#46 – TheGlobalWarmer,
If you think for a moment that you’re getting better environmental policies from and in states that have more wild areas, just check Alaska. They have some of the worst environmental policies in the union.
Gee, we want to be able to hunt more moose. Wolves kill moose. Let’s shoot wolves from airplanes.; Let’s also not forget that AK gave us the bridge to nowhere.
When you’re done in AK, check mining in Montana, mountaintop removal in W. Virginia, etc.
So, no I don’t think we’d necessarily get better environmental legislation from cities. But, I doubt you can support the claim that you’d get better environmental legislation from the boonies either.
Actually, I may be convincing myself that we would. Maybe people living in a concrete megalopolis appreciate how precious the wild areas are.
#48, Are your food choices really so limited that you’d never even heard of Shawarma? How about its cousin gyro? I’m sure either could be made from deer or moose.
#42 – #39, I still don’t trust half of Americans to wisely choose our leaders. It has nothing to do with policy disagreement either; there’s nothing more dangerous than an uninformed idiot in the voting booth, and half of this country belongs in that category.
I agree… But because of the EC, with a little help from Daddy’s friends in SCOTUS, the idiot vote prevailed in 2000… So removing the EC should help solve that problem.
#43 – I know the dubious logic you are using and it doesn’t wash if the minority vote receiver wins.
#46 – On a straight vote, metro areas will completely overwhelm surburban and rural areas.
That’s good. Thats where the better educated congregate. 🙂
(Now I put that fucking 🙂 in that statement so you guys know I’m funnin’ with Global and that I’m not really trying to say that city folk are, in reality, smarter than country folk… So don’t push reply unless you have a witty reply or a valid point)
We all vote for our wants and needs and metro needs and wants are completely different from surburban and rural needs and wants as many debates here have illustrated. The founders foresaw this and tried to lessen impact.
Since city dwellers are unfortunately mashed together, their needs are more easily met since the services can be shared. They don’t need as much per capita influence to get theirs.
What? First, you are nutty… But its the rural vote that keeps the largely metropolitan gay community from getting the state to recognize their natural right to marry. In fact, the urban areas are subject to the tyranny of rural areas by your reasoning.
You haven’t balanced the field, you just choose a different tyrant.
Do you really think you’d get more conservation out of city folk who don’t even know what the outdoors is more or less care about it?
In that statement you don’t know what you are talking about. I’ll out camp you any day of the week.
Make every state count the same, and candidates couldn’t ignore anyone. Hitlery’s head would explode trying to triangulate 50 way – (which would be yet another benefit.)
That’s funny when you say Hitlery… and I know its an emotional response for the logic impaired voter.
Hitler murdered 6 million people for being Jewish, not counting those were killed in combat during WWII.
Hillary tries to pass programs that ensure children get fed and that people get health care.
You may not like how she wants to achieve her goals but there is no way you can equate these two people.
#51 – OFTLO,
Excellent point on the Hitlery thing. I’d also point out that the fact that most people really shouldn’t be compared to Hitler because few have really done anything THAT bad is the reason for Godwin’s Law.
Resorting to such silly comparisons adds nothing to the discussion and should immediately cause one to lose whatever argument they were having.
That said, I have also been guilty of using similar silly comparisons like Rethuglikkkan. Perhaps I’ve just convinced myself to stop that. We’ll see.
#52 – Excellent point
Well… Of course… 🙂 After all, I made it.
Scott, one thing, the electoral college is more democratic than popular vote at large for presidential elections. It is tedious math, but basically, you have a better chance of swinging the election under the current system.
So when are the Democrats going to move to amend the Constitution to abolish the Electoral College and have direct popular election of the PResident and Vice President?
#55 – Never
This isn’t a Right vs. Left issue. It just doesn’t fit into those convenient little labels. I’m certain that there are plenty of Republicans who would like to see it go and plenty of Democrats who would move to protect it… and that none of the Reps or Dems who care about the issue actually hold an office.
This just isn’t on the radar.
#54 – MikeN,
Perhaps the math is tedious. Perhaps a lot of things. I can prove one equals two. So what? I think if you want to make a statement that one person 3.86 votes is more democratic than one person one vote, you’ll need more than alluding to some tedious math. How about a link? How about “Sorry, that’s just too ludicrous a statement to be believed.”
Let x = y
then x^2 = xy
and x^2 – y^2 = xy – y^2
factoring (x + y)(x – y) = y(x – y)
cancel the “x – y” and you get (x+y) = y
substituting y for x since they’re equal in the premise: y + y = y
or 2y = y
or 2 = 1 Q.E.D.
See? Math can be tedious and still worthy of posting on a blog.
BTW, since this is as obviously untrue as your statement, I’ll leave finding the error as an exercise for the reader.
57
Have you been watching NUMB3RS reruns?
sheesh!
J/P=?
Scott your math is just flat out wrong.
I wish I could find a link, but the logic is something like this:
For your vote to count in an election, the final tally would have to be a tie or a win by one. So you take the odds of a tie in a popular election of 100 million votes, and compare that to the odds of a tie in your state, times the chance that your state’s votes end up swinging the election.
I’m not sure what assumptions the author’s used, but they calculated that the electoral college odds were better.
I thought NH was proposing to secede from the Union. You suppose if they DO secede that they will elect Gore their first President and thereby get him out of the United States? Hmmm.
Never was a fan of Gore, but given a choice of wacko McCain, power cunt Hillary, or clueless Obama, I would vote for Gore anyday.