This Year's Election in Flohiovaynia

One of the funnier things Dmitry Orlov wrote in "Reinventing Collapse" was his take on the new American electoral innovation; the two Center-Right Parties nominate candidates who finish in a virtual dead heat and the winner is selected out of "statistical noise."  It does seem, after you factor in all the usual Republican election cheating, that about the same number of people vote for the Republican as for the Democrat.  And if the vote is especially close in one of three "battleground" states, then selection of a President can wind up the result of a rounding error.

Those three states, of course, are Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania.  Florida decided 2000 (maybe), Ohio decided 2004 (maybe).  While both campaigns this year are excitedly talking about all the new states "in play," I doubt this is really the case.  This year will be another Flohiovaynia election.  Pennhiofla?  Hiopennorida?  Call this three-headed monster what you want, Flohiovaynia holds the key to our next President.  Barack isn't going to win Virginia or South Dakota; where does he think he is, Germany?  He isn't going to win West Virginia or Kentucky or South Carolina.  I do note with a mordant amusement that in the worldwide polls, among all other industrialized countries, Obama is the overwhelming favorite to win, by a factor of 4 to 1.  Just one of those things (racism) which makes this country so "exceptional," I guess.

If I don't vote in November, it will make no difference.  My state will be carried by Barack by 10+ points.  The job of us here progressives in this state is to give money to Barry and to do "campaign work."  Our votes are superfluous beyond a certain bare majority.  And our votes are quite dilute compared to, say, Wyoming or Alaska.  My vote counts about 33% as much as one of Governor Sarah Palin's subjects, all because we "decided" to freeze the number of elected Representatives from all states at 435, and those barren stretches of real estate in Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota and Alaska are entitled to a statutory minimum of 3 electoral votes each.  Simple math.  Alaska, 600,000 citizens, 3 votes = 200,000 people per vote.  California, 33 million people, 55 votes, = 600,000 people per vote.  Are people in Alaska really three times smarter than I am and ought to be given a weighted vote?  So it would seem.  Maybe what would make more sense is simply to disenfranchise enough Californians so that we are represented at the 200,000 to 1 level.  So let's get those Republican caging lists to work here and get 22,000,000 Californians off the voting rolls.  You know they want to, anyway.  Or, to be more "democratic," let's select a representative 11,000,000 Californians to do our voting each time around who conform to the state's voting profile.  That way I'd only have to vote for President once every twelve years.  And maybe I could "pair" my vote with some Republican somewhere, cancelling each other out (every other time, say), and I could vote once every 24 years.  If we think this system through, we could set it up so each American citizen of a populous state with a dilute vote could vote once in a lifetime.

Those Founding Fathers - geniuses.  Nah, it's not their fault.  They had 13 states, remember?  They were trying to balance the few powerful states against the relatively weaker majority.  They could not have foreseen that in 200 years, Flohiovaynia would be choosing the President every four years.  Only Pennsylvania was even a state at the beginning.  And guess what?  It would take a Constitutional amendment to change the Electoral College system.  Requiring three-fourths approval of all 50 states.  What do you suppose the odds are that all those over-represented states are going to willingly give up their advantages in the ratification process? What do you suppose the odds are such a bill would ever get out of committee?

No, we're stuck with the Flohiovaynia system.  There are options, however, if you want your vote to mean something.  You could move to one of those three states.  The other possibility for reform is if that political party that Todd Palin belonged to (and to which his heart no doubt still is pledged), the Alaskan Independence Party, succeeds in freeing itself from the Union.  I noted that the AIP (which has even elected a governor, and that governor served as Sarah Palin's campaign manager - think about that - a secessionist Vice President) has affiliations with other secessionist parties in other states.  I had no idea, until John McCain selected a secessionist as his running mate, that secessionist parties were even legal in the United States.  Goes to show - some people are always ahead of the curve.  But you know  -- is that something that we 22 million Californians who get to take this year off could work on ourselves?