Fixing the Electoral College

Every four years the American public rediscovers the electoral college, and there are many calls for reform that never happen. Most of those laws require getting the legislatures of the many states to each act in cooperation with each other, or a constitutional amendment. But there is a much easier way to repair the problem of the electoral college, and it does not require a constitutional amendment.

It also has many other benefits above and beyond the electoral college.

The number of electors is determined by adding the number of Representatives to the number of Senators. Currently there are 435 voting members of the U. S. House of Representatives, and it has been that way for decades. There is no reason, in the constitution, for it to be that way. The only limiting factor mentioned in the constitution is in Article One, Section Two, Clause Three, which states "The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative".

Currently each Representative represents, on average, 700,000 people. If the number of Representatives were doubled, the apportionment would not come near the constitutional limit. If the Representatives were increased by a factor of 10 that would bring the representation more in line with what was intended with the constitution and still not risk violating the constitutional limit.

Given the current apportionment, California has 55 electors representing 677,000 people per elector while Wyoming has 3 electors representing 188,000 people, rounded to the nearest thousand.

Reapportioning so that there is one Representative per 70,000 people results in 4,465 Representatives. This leads to 4,567 electors, including the District of Columbia. This leads to California having approximately 70,000 people per elector while Wyoming has 56,000 people per elector, a far smaller disparity than currently exists.

An Uninspired Campaign

The strongest argument that the Republican Party can make in favor of candidate Mitt Romney is that he isn't Barack Obama. He most certainly was not the candidate favored by the Tea Party or many other more conservative Republicans, in spite of efforts to paint him as such. The nomination of Mitt Romney was a fairly decisive defeat of the Tea Party's influence within the Republican Party and a victory for the central leadership over the base.

The strongest argument that the Democratic Party can make in favor of candidate Barack Obama is that he isn't Mitt Romney. He fails to inspire the base, even with his alleged achievements. The strongest argument in favor of Barack Obama is potential judicial appointments, as Mitt Romney would appoint people like John Roberts who voted to uphold Obamacare. "Hope and change" makes a good mantra when a candidate is fresh, but not after failing to deliver either for four years.

Small wonder that partisans react so angrily to having it pointed out how little difference there is in this campaign. The standard comparison of "not a dimes worth of difference" is even stronger given just how similar the two candidates really are. Mitt Romney wrote the rough draft of Obamacare, and Barack Obama has shown greater militarism than even George W. Bush.

The cries of "this is the most important election ever" are even louder than before, and yet those cries fail to inspire the base of either party. These cries are meant to convince the reluctant base to come out and vote in spite of, not because of, the candidates that the party is running. They are also a vain attempt to convince third party voters to cross party lines, which sometimes does happen if a candidate is appealing enough. In the 2012 electoral race, it would be hard to describe either candidate as "appealing enough."

It will be interesting to see how a campaign between two unappealing candidates develops. Negative campaigning, trying to appeal to fear in order to bring out the base, will be the only option for both candidates, but ultimately that will reinforce the basic problem that neither candidate is good. It will also be interesting to see how the two parties arrange to negate the opportunity being given to third parties this time around.

Bain Capital

People within the Obama campaign are making comments about Mitt Romney’s involvement with Bain Capital. It is possible that Mitt Romney is much more heavily involved in his company than previously claimed, and that there may be legal grounds to prosecute Mitt Romney for such. Some even comment that the charges may rise to the level of felony.

The question is, if the Obama campaign is confident enough to make these allegations, why is the Obama administration not confident enough to press charges? If there exists sufficient grounds to suspect illegal activity, then there should be sufficient grounds to open an actual investigation into those potential activities.

Of course one could claim that opening up an investigation at this time would be clearly politically motivated. A stronger claim could be made that doing so after the convention, once Mitt Romney is officially the nominee, is politically motivated because to do so then would hamstring the Republican campaign. If an investigation is opened before the primary the Republican Party would have time to recover and potentially select a new candidate.

Another possible interpretation is that those making the claims against Mitt Romney know that sufficient grounds for an investigation do not actually exist, but that the public might become sufficiently convinced that the eventual vote in November can be swayed against him to a degree sufficient that Barack Obama is reelected.

Finally there is a lesser but real chance that there is substance to the accusations, but an actual investigation would not be launched unless it appears that Mitt Romney actually poses a threat to the Obama reelection campaign. Barack Obama won his first office primarily by having his opponents removed from the ballot on technicalities, so this would be in character.

A best case scenario would be if an investigation is launched before the Republican convention, tainting Mitt Romney sufficiently that a new candidate has to be found at the last minute. A sufficiently large number of delegates are either open or stealth supporters of Ron Paul, which would mean he has a very realistic shot at the nomination in that event. Since the Obama campaign is gearing up for a fight with Mitt Romney, this scenario would result in chaos all around. Still, it would be a chaos with a chance of producing a desirable outcome.

Recasting Romney

For several decades Senator John McCain was regarded as the Democrat's favorite Republican. He was widely praised for cooperating with the Democrats on bi-partisan legislation while in the Senate. He was not considered radical or extreme at all, except by libertarians who viewed him as extreme for having the flaws of both Democrats and Republicans in one person.

Then Senator McCain became the Republican presidential nominee. In the course of one month he was regularly regarded and depicted as a radical hard-core right-wing extremist. All of the people who had previous praised him as a model of what a Republican can be and should be forgot everything nice they had ever said about him.

Once the election was over, Senator McCain was "rehabilitated" and is again regarded as a positive example of a Republican. Once President Barack Obama started experiencing problems during his administration it became important to portray Obama has having defeated a much more moderate Republican in order to show he had wider support when he had run.

There is no question about Governor Mitt Romney's conservative credentials. He is approximately as conservative as Senator McCain. It is Governor Romney who introduced Romneycare as the most glaring example among many of how his own beliefs are so far out of line with what Republicans allegedly believe (but quite in line with what they actually believe).

During the Republican presidential primary, it was widely regarded that the Tea Party constituency had no love for Governor Romney, preferring candidates such as Governor Rick Perry or Herman Cain. Now that the primary is essentially over, Governor Romney is being recast.

Looking at the preliminary Democratic campaign material in support of the reelection of President Obama, there is an attempt to associate Governor Romney with the Tea Party, portray him as an opponent of government-run health care, and strangely enough as radically different from President Obama.

The problem is, this rhetoric trying to portray Governor Romney as different from President Obama may work. With many of the United States electorate educated by government schools, and getting their news only from CNN or Fox, the facts matter less and less each year. And with the rhetoric from each side presenting the opponent as different in spite of the facts, this will become yet another in a long line of "most importation election ever" campaigns that will be used to argue that it is now too critical to vote third party.

An Economic Bump

A tiny bump of economic good news has supporters of President Obama crowing about how this will guarantee his reelection. The conventional wisdom is that the best chance the Republican Party has of capturing the presidency is by running on the economy.

Although reports conflict on what is actually happening, the official numbers on unemployment have dipped slightly. If the CPI is to be believed, the number has actually dipped under 9% for the first time since 2008.

Running on this meager improvement in the economy would not be a good idea if the goal is to win in November. In spite of statistical improvements and a climbing stock market, these improvements are not reflected in the experience of those outside the government-financial complex. It presents the Obama administration as detached and aloof, disconnected from the concerns of the average American. Ironically that is probably the campaign attack Obama wishes to use against Romney should Romney become the Republican nominee.

The thing to watch is inflation. The inflation that Austrians have been predicting (and Keynesians have laughed because it didn’t instantly appear) is arriving. It is expressing itself most heavily in energy prices at this time, above the rises that would be expected simply from the saber rattling going on. It is also expressing itself in the stock markets, but people consider that to be good when stocks are up.

President Obama will probably win in spite of the economy, not because of the economy. Hyping up his achievements with regards to the economy seems like an odd strategy as a result.

Ron Paul and the Conservative Dilemma

If conservatives mean what they say, then Ron Paul would be the ideal candidate for them. He is the only candidate in the Republican presidential race that actually means it when he talks about reducing the reach and scope of government.

According to the Nolan Chart, it is expected that conservatives and libertarians will be divided on social issues, but in this campaign social issues are not at the forefront. The most pressing issues of the day are the ongoing wars and the Greater Depression

The war is big in the Republican Party, of course, and that will make Representative Paul stand out. But when asked about that issue at a recent debate he could have answered "I don't think I’m outside the mainstream. Sixty to seventy percent of this country is tired of these wars. The Republican Party lost control of the congress and the presidency because of support of these wars, and only regained the House because of how bad Obamacare is." It would have used his stand on the wars to good effect.

The economic issue is actually the critical issue to examine. As is demonstrated but not commonly known, conservatives are not interested in laissez faire, in spite of their reputation otherwise. From the first predecessor party, the Federalist Party of Alexander Hamilton, to today under the Republican Party, the one constant has been an economic ideology of government intervention on behalf of large businesses.

President Bush and Senator McCain both supported the bailouts, while Representative Paul opposed them. The bailouts weren't welfare programs for the poor, as is generally favored by the Democrats, they were welfare programs for the rich as has always been favored by Republicans.

This is the real reason why Republicans dislike his position on other issues, such as the foreign wars and the drug wars. Foreign wars mean lush, lucrative government contracts for munitions manufacture. The drug war means even more lush, lucrative government contracts for police enforcement activities. It isn't about winning either war, it is about the same mercantilism that started under Hamilton but carried to a degree even he would have been appalled at.

If Representative Paul were to become president, the practice of the politically connected becoming wealthy at the expense of the taxpayer would be severely curtailed.

In spite of all the “small government” rhetoric, conservatives never meant a single word of it. Representative Paul does mean it. That presents a dilemma to conservatives, similar to the one presented to progressives - he makes them confront what they really believe, and they do not like finding out what it is they really believe. They blame him for being forced to find out. If a ray of light shines on a pigsty, is it the fault of the ray of light that what we see is so bad? The guilty conscience of a conservative causes them to give the say answer of "yes" that the progressives give as well.

Occupy Campaign Finance Reform

For tactical reasons, the Occupy Wall Street movement is disorganized. That has made it difficult for them to come up with goals that can be agreed to by a majority of those involved in the movement. One issue, though, is gaining wide acceptance across the Occupy movement. Opposition to "Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission" and an advocacy of Campaign Finance Reform in general is increasingly advocated by the Occupy movement.

The ire is understandable given the focus of the Occupy movement. In the corporatist collusion between big business and big government, they focus on the business half of the partnership. The goal, as it is forming, is to prohibit all third party campaign activities. The target is Super PACs as well as corporations, and when pressed on the issue there is grudging agreement that unions are covered as well. The only form of donation that would be considered acceptable would be directly to the campaign.

Although the intent is good this will achieve the exact opposite of the desired goal, making it quite the same as every preceding campaign finance reform law. Those pushing this particular change are not well versed in economics, especially the law of unintended consequences, in spite of how the history of campaign finance law is a glaring example of it in action. Ever preceding law was put in place to reduce the importance of money in politics, and money is now more important than ever in politics. The Super PACs are the end result of a long line of those laws.

The basic campaign finance reform law is a limit on how much an individual can donate. This would prohibit the wealthy from bankrolling a candidate at the expense of the masses. What actually happens is that it shuts out competing views. Suppose there are two parties, one fifty times larger than the other. While both would benefit from a few big contributions, only one would benefit from many small contributions because it has the donor base to do so.

One might think that this would therefore encourage those who want actual change to work within the party to tap into that fundraising machine, but the party leadership controls who the party helps. The leadership will then share mailing lists and donor lists with candidates the leadership likes. This has the effect of binding candidates tightly to the party.

A way around the tight control of party leadership was developed, the PAC and then the Super PAC. And the solution to the problem of money in politics is to eliminate the only way left that actual advocates of change might use to get elected? The end result of this is something else that is also suggested often, full public financing of campaigns. When pressed on how someone would qualify for that financing, the suggestion was made of petitions, which would be recruited by the party binding the candidates even more closely to the party.

The way to eliminate the Super PACs and to reduce the influence of money in politics is to eliminate the cause. That means removing all the campaign finance laws that led up to the point where the only way outside of the tightly controlled system is by people pooling their money in PACs. People forget that a campaign donation is indeed a form of political speech, and it was political speech in particular that was supposed to be protected by the freedom of speech clause of the first amendment (the freedom of religion clause covered religious speech).

That does not mean that only the rich would have a voice, contrary to the claims of those who cannot imagine another way of doing things. Just as attempts to limit money have increased its importance, removing the limits would decrease its importance giving more people a greater voice in the political system.