Blogs Cliopatria Goodbye to all that.

Nov 3, 2004

Goodbye to all that.

by Cliopatria

It’s over. Kerry has conceded, President Bush has won re-election, and boy, do I have egg on my face! Except that I was not that far off. I was wrong on Florida, and after a long, long time, I proved to be wrong on Ohio. Had one of those two states gone the other way, we’d be preparing for a Kerry inauguration. As it is, we are in for four more years of President Bush.

I have always said that two-term presidents automatically make the leap into the upper half of historically important United States presidents, and this case will be no different. I have always thought that presidential rankings ought to be about importance, and not something as ephemeral as greatness, which inevitably involves a bit too much room for personal politics among those doing the ranking. I do not think Ronald Reagan was a great, or even a good President. But in terms of history, he surely is one of the ten most important men to sit in the Oval office. Similarly, I do not take anyone seriously who would not put FDR in the top three of any list, whatever one thinks of the actual things that he did in office.

So, with that as background, welcome to the pantheon, President Bush. I think your first four years were a colossal disaster. I think the American people made a mistake, choosing the worst candidate on the issues. But your campaign demogogued its way through, allowed the attacks on Kerry to become unhinged, and making it clear that if the truth was an impediment to the larger goal of re-election, so be it. But you won, and so now, for better or for worse, I hope you succeed where so far you have failed. We have no choice but to succeed in Iraq no matter how bungled the whole endeavor has been from the beginning. I hope we are on the right course when it comes to terror, though I have yet to have anyone explain to me how on earth the recent Usama bin Laden tape, which to me merely revealed your abject failure in the most important front in the war against terrorism, redounded to your benefit, though it clearly may have. I hope you take this victory as a chance to govern all Americans. Again, I doubt this will happen, but I guess we shall see.

The election itself was pretty much what we expected. It was close. It was very close. The GOP spin machine will try to pretend otherwise, but an election the outcome of which we do not know until the next day in this era of information technology is a close election. The popular vote gives Bush a majority, to be sure, but 3.5 million votes and a 3% gap is hardly an overwhelming victory, though a victory it clearly is.

The Electoral College is clearly a failure. It could have cost President Bush this election. Unless we have another election in which slave states are afraid that they are going to be overwhelmed, it is time to overhaul this undemocratic anachronism that was based on protecting the rights of slaveholders and hating the popular will. The best approach would be to have some sort of proportional Electoral College that reflects the electorate in each state. This way we still would avoid the nightmare of a national recount in an election decided by a scant majority. But this system is not working for anybody.

I am glad Kerry conceded the way he did. But had he not, he would have been completely justified. The provisional ballots were votes not yet counted. The GOP would have gone into hyper-drive to make the Democrats out to be poor losers, which is nonsense, but facts rarely stop the spinmeisters on either left or right. It will be very interesting to see what the recriminations are on the Democratic side and what role Senator Kerry plays when he is back in that body.

One of the reasons my predictions were off on Florida was because of the Exit Polling data. To their credit, the networks did not rely on this. But while some of these polls held, most of them were not particularly worthwhile. There were major sample errors and one wishes that this aspect of polling could either be perfected or jettisoned. At the end of the day all it does is make people like me look like fools, of course, but with something as precious and significant as a Presidential election, we should have the best data possible.

I spent the night switching between the four major networks, MSNBC, Fox News, and CNN. On the whole, the coverage was not bad. Indeed sometimes it was good. One thing that started to drive me nuts, however, was how self-congratulatory they were about their caution. “Praise us, we are not giving states to either candidate until we are convinced that we have all of the facts.” This would seem to be a rudimentary expectation from the media, and yet they treated it as if they had cured cancer. Or solved the exit poll conundrum. Of course just to show that you cannot please all of the people, I also grew frustrated with what I perceived as excess caution in some cases. But the biggest concern I had was to realize that the moment when a media source calls a state or calls an election effectively makes it so. This is why I was a bit befuddled as to why Fox and NBC and its various cable arms called Ohio as early as it did, bringing Bush up to 269. It may lack drama, but maybe we really do need 100% of returns before we start putting states in win and loss columns.

There was one point at about 2 in the morning (yes, I stayed up almost all night, as I did in 2000. I am a giant nerd.) when I wanted to punch jeff Greenfield. He said something to the effect of, “To show how much we should trust academics, I have often been told by professors that a margin of more than one million popular votes means that a virtual tie in the Electoral College is an impossibility.” Really, Jeff? What professor told you this? In any case, most of the time I switched from one station to another when they brought in someone whose partiality was so clear that we were not going to get anything new.

So, what does this mean? Does Bush have a mandate? I suppose this depends on what one means by “mandate.” The President entered office in 2001 and acted as if he had a mandate then. To be sure, he will act even more boldly now. And with lame duck status looming in 2006, one assumes he’ll act quickly. But like the last election, this one was close. It was much closer than the Republicans will paint it. But they did gain valuable seats in both the House and the Senate. They will be able to push through an agenda. It remains to be seen what that agenda will be.

Oh – and get ready for Clarence Thomas as Chief Justice of the United States. He was not qualified to sit on the court to begin with, and no reasonable observer of the court can say that he is more qualified than Scalia or Souter, to my mind the two most talented jurists on the court, perhaps in more than a generation, but it will be a brilliant example of the cynicism inherent in this administration. That will, of course, leave a vacancy. That will be where the rubber of “compassionate conservatism” will meet the road.

In any case, I think I share with most Americans a sense of relief that this is over. It was the most interminable election cycle of my life. I hope it is too early to start looking at the 2006 midterm elections.

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More Comments:

Derek Charles Catsam - 11/13/2004

E --
I hope we do hold to it. Of course there are those who have always disputed what it meant -- especially in the South during the era of Jim Crow. It seems fairly clear. But this is an administration thatn has not much seemed to value pretty rudimentary citizenship rights. Even with Ashcroft's departure, I'm not certain that is a trend that will be changing soon.
dc

E. Simon - 11/13/2004

Derek,

You will get no argument from me on the importance of the 14th amendment, or the sacrosanct manner in which we should all hold to it.

Derek Charles Catsam - 11/9/2004

Ephraim --
Tone works both ways and that your asserting that my argument is a red herring is indicative of that.
I bring up the Electoral College now but not exclusively now -- in other words that I have been making this argument for four-plus years but that it ought to have more salience now, as it could well have cost Bush the election even though he got a clear majority. So I bring it up now because I have been bringing it up for a while, and in any case, the argument either is or is not a good one no matter when I raise it. I also bring it up now because it's my blog and I felt like bringing it up, and I brought it up as one of several points about the election -- I think the volume of my writing should lead any honest reader to believe that this is something I believe in but it is hardly an obsession. Nor is it a red herring. Period.
You are right that the Civil War did not end federalism, nor did it intend to. When did I argue against federalism? It seems rather unfair to criticize me for my tone and yet (AGAIN) to attribute to me things that I have not said. If you have a citation where I have indicted federalism across the board as a vacant philosophy, please show it. My opposition to the Electoral College is not based one way or the other on federalism. It is based on the fact that it is antidemocratic and anti-republican. And in any case I do not think that federalism is not necessarily a bad thing. Local control is certainly not a bad thing. Even the state's rights arguments are not of necessity always wrong. the question I always ask is: The State's right to do what? States do not have the right to oppress black people. They do not have the right to circumvent the Conjstitution or federal law. They may well have the right to do a whole range of things that are not the ambit of the federal government, however.
I am happy you enjoy the blog. We welcome the participation. However it has been a central tenet of Rebunk that it is not for the thin skinned. We say what we mean, we mean what we say, and it is not personal. It also is not pollyannaish. Keep reading. And in any case, the Electoral College, like the college football BCS system, is not going anywhere soon no matter what I think of it.
dc

E. Simon - 11/9/2004

A disclaimer - I am not comfortable with the tone of your response. I don't have any problem with your passion, and am engaging your response because I think you've misunderstood me - yet I assume that intelligent dialogue remains your aim. But make no mistake about it, I will not be misrepresented. I've given you the respect of not misrepresenting your argument and expect that in return.

Firstly, I notice you omitted the word "now," as in "Why bring it up 'now' then?" Please allow me the courtesy to continue assuming the best in you, and believe that was nothing more than an honest mistake on your part. If it's the 2004 election results you don't like, then it certainly is a red herring. 2000 is a different matter. And I don't have any problem with the issue being debated, possibly even being reformed along proportional lines, but I still think that in a federal republic that spans the area of the U.S., geographic distribution is an important consideration in legitimizing federal rule. And if you read carefully, I also never argued that other reforms within the federal government should preclude the EC ideas. I just think reforming the legislature and the role of the duopoly would be a more productive goal to pursue.

Note: this does not mean that the origins of the EC can't be berated. But one thing is clear to me: The Civil War did not end federalism. It delegitimized secession. It allowed for the issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation and the abolition of slavery. But blanket nullification of the rights of states and their role within the federal government it did not do. Federalism does not=pro-slavery, and pro-Union does not=anti-Federalism (at least in a post-Hamiltonion debate). Also note: Federalism and democracy refer to different things. And I believe that both are as important to maintaining a large republic as are individual freedoms (including the right to not be held as a slave).

I also note, Derek, as does Andrew Sullivan, the following: Federalism is the only thing right now standing between the social momentum within certain state courts and legislatures to promote the legal concept of equality between gay and heterosexual couples when it comes to marriage/civil unions, and a disastrous attempt on the part of extremists in the GOP to push a ridiculous anti-gay constitutional amendment. Remember that states can also be the laboratories of social progress as well as bastions of outdated thinking. Given the current make-up and aims of the federal government, I would urge you to consider that thought at this time, and which side of the argument (i.e. federalism vs. democracy) you would best be hedging your bets against.

I think that subversion is a very strong word to use. If the Supreme Court holds that the 4th amendment includes the right to abortion and a majority of the republic believe otherwise, does this constitute subversion of popular will? Perhaps. But more importantly it is merely performing its proper role, as a co-equal branch of government, to interpret the law, even if it must act as a counter-balance against the legislature (popular will) in order to do so. Is the popular will subverted by not firing both houses of legislature and moving to direct referenda as the primary means for constructing federal legislation? Likewise, perhaps. Once again, you have to allow for the mechanisms that maintain the system of government to be seen as being at least as important as the democratic inputs into it.

And lastly, I think it should be obvious that "popular will" is a stretch when it comes to decisions that are decided 51-49, or somewhere around that margin. If that margin is maintained consistently across many units of government, however, then I would put more stock in what it could represent insofar as replicating a consistent edge. And as for linking EC reform with reform of the legislature, I think that we would be much less likely to get polarized and evenly divided electorates once we were to advance with the latter. Vigorous campaigns are in a democracy's best interest. But elections that swing on a razor's edge, are not - no matter what system decides who's favored by the photo finish, and the endless instant replays. The only way to break that mold is through reforming the legislature in such a way that makes politicians responsible for forming coalitions, and not the electorate.

Thanks. I enjoy the opportunity to participate and appreciate your blog.

Derek Charles Catsam - 11/7/2004

Ephraim --
You are not makiing sense when you ask "why bring it up then." The EC is not a red herring. It si your argument that mt use of the EC is a red herring that makes no sense. So yes, why bring up the red herring argument indeed.
Meanwhile, I am not certain that subverting the will of the majority is worth it as long as candidates might make their perfunctory appearances in Wyoming once in an election cycle. No one has yet to explain to me how we can justify every single one of California's 55 Electoral College votes going to a party that might onbly get 50% of that vote. No one has explained to me why it is ok that Texas Democrats effectively get no say in the presidebntial election. It is all well and good to talk about the occasional problems with the EC not being a big deal. That it does not often happen makes it ok? I guess, thwen, that preemptive war is a doctrine you all embrace because it happens so rarely as to not have to worry about. Very peculiar. Either it is ok to subvert democracy or it is not. If you are arguing that it is ok, that's fine, wrong, but fine, but don't couch it in terms that pretend that because something unjust happens only rarely it is ok.
And I still have yet to see why proportional representation of the EC vote would be a bad thing.
Meanwhile, the difference between administrative issues (remind me of where I turned this into a zero sum game in which I advocated not addressing those structural issues -- oh yeah, I did not. Nice try. Talk about your red herrings . . .) is that the EC is a problem embedded in the Constitution. The other problems simply are not, and in any case, my reform of the EC does not preclude reform of the nitty gritty procedural stuff. If you can cite anyplace where I have said otherwise, I challenge you to bring it forth, otherwise, I think we can see from whence the red herrings are swimming.
dc

Charles V. Mutschler - 11/7/2004

I agree. The occasional difference between Electoral College vote and the popular vote is not really worth worrying about. And, most of the time, the Electoral College serves the sort of function that should please progressives, by forcing the campaigns to give some attention to the less populated states in the mid-continent.

The fiasco that was the 2000 Florida election was due to a lot more critical issues - poorly designed ballots, large numbers of registrants who were not schooled in the simple mechanics of the punch card voting equipment, badly managed polling places, badly handled absentee ballots, courts intervening when they would have better served the electoral process by remanding the problem back to the appropriate county election officials - all probably had much more to do with the mess than the Electoral College.

Look, the recounts have been done ad nauseum, and it still seems to have come out the same way. The Electoral College is not really an issue here. The way the election of 2000 was managed in Florida (badly) is much more of a problem, in my opinion.

Thanks for reading.
CVM

E. Simon - 11/6/2004

Why bring it up now then? The problems - assuming an inability to save Al Gore's disastrous campaign from the dead is a problem - with the 2000 election had to do with voter error, faulty ballots and, whether intentional or not, insuring fair and impartial registration and enfranchisement of actual voters. It is far from a minor opinion that holds that Al might have won the state, and therefore the nation, had those issues been properly addressed beforehand. And to that extent, since they might have changed the outcome of the vote in FL, they are entirely worth addressing. However, if you want to argue that those problems led, this time, to an erroneous 3.5 million vote lead on the part of the incumbent, you've got a long road ahead, and plenty of potentially interested legal operatives to convince.

I still hold that the EC, despite the fact that it *rarely* tips the scales against the barely more popular winner, is far from the biggest problem in this democracy. Open up the House of Representatives, make it more democratic, pluralistic and inherently progressive (unless one holds gridlock as a sign of progress), and you improve the American system of government much more dramatically than any tinkering with the EC will provide. Obviously this wouldn't turn us into a parliamentary system, nor am I advocating that, but it would likely affect the dynamic of the two-party system in a way that should make elections as close as the the ones we're used to witnessing - hopefully even at the level of presidential campaigns-, a bit more anachronistic.

The close races are the function of a competitive two-party system. Open it up a bit and the mechanisms that affect the very structure and functions of every aspect of government, including elections and the campaigns that decide them, will change.

Derek Charles Catsam - 11/6/2004

Red herring? Um, you're familiar with what happened in 2000, yes? How is it a red herring to say that the will of the majority was thwarted due to an anachronistioc institution? That argument makes no sense.
dc

E. Simon - 11/6/2004

This is such an incredible red herring. The vote in a two-party system will generally be somewhat close and it's not as if the EC results are all that unreflective of the result of the popular vote, if not a bit augmented. It also helps the losing side (hint) figure out where they went wrong.

If you want to make the system more democratic and open it up to more progressive perspectives the easiest way would be by getting the House of Representatives out of the districting business. The constitution leaves it up to states to figure out how to elect representatives and nothing bars them from going to party lists. No more gerrymandering in a statewide proportional list race for the house and it provides a mechanism for 3rd parties such as Greens, Libertarians, Socialists, what have you to get into what should be the most democratic body of the federal government, helping to break the deadlock of the two-party monkeywrench.

Of course, I'm sure committed democrat and republican partisans will completely ignore such ideas and stick to their preferred strategies - regardless of whether they win or lose or even bother to attract broad numbers of independents and undecideds to their mindless and uncreative political shenanigans.

Lloyd Kilford - 11/5/2004

I calculated the numbers for the divide-the-votes electoral college this afternoon. I made it 281 votes for Bush, 251 for Kerry, and (possibly) 3 votes for Other (one each in California, New York and Texas).

This isn't a million miles away from the current result (CNN says it's 286 to Bush, 252 to Kerry), but hopefully it seems fairer (and it's less susceptible to changes of a few thousand votes).

Charles V. Mutschler - 11/5/2004

How would the removal of the Electoral College changed the outcome of Tuesday's election? It would not. I think the country has more pressing issues before it than abolishing the Electoral College. As for a constitutional convention, I think I would be very reluctant to open that door. That could be the cause of changes which might make matters much worse.

Charles V. Mutschler

Lloyd Kilford - 11/5/2004

Of course the new proportional EC would still theoretically have the same sort of issues - I am fairly certain that there would be situations where both sides get ~~55 million votes but they are distributed in odd ways so that the one with a smaller popular vote still wins, but my intuition says that it shouldn't be any worse.

And not being worse is good enough, as lots of people (Texas Dems, California Reps) who are and who feel disenfranchised now will see their votes translating into Electors. Even if it doesn't change a result, it will give every (well, nearly every) voter a voice in the result, which is a good thing for representative democracies (IMHO).

Lloyd Kilford - 11/5/2004

Keeping the same number of votes per state will help to sell it to the smaller states and preserves the slightly unproportional benefit-the-small-states idea that was one of the original ideas behind the college.

*Was* the EC put in specifically for the slave states? I thought that the 3/5 rule was their main "contribution" (but you probably know the details better than I do).

Michael Meo - 11/5/2004

The provisions of the Patriot Act, together with the refusal even to so much as apologize when the weapons of mass destruction failed to materialize, make me wonder whether the destruction undertaken so far of the legal limits on tyranny (okay, arbitrary exercise of executive power--like, for example, going to war without a declaration from Congress or any threat to the country) won't continue in the future.

The United States during the Cold War restructured itself into a National Security State. With a whole lot less justification, we have entered into a sort of similar authoritarian and militarist phase, the end of which may be a lot less pleasant.

We are told that the incumbent President believes that God wants him to be where he is. Now, incontestably, the citizenry of the country has confirmed that suspect judgement. I am concerned that by 2008 the entire country may have the sort of partisan political structure that Texas is now enjoying, and the election may well be for much smaller stakes than this last one.

Derek Charles Catsam - 11/5/2004

Lloyd --
I'll bang on about slaveowners until the historical origins of the EC change. That Wyoming does not and did not have slaves does not change the reason we have the EC. That Wyoming's Democrats get zero of those four EC votes even if they get 25% or 33% ought to be unacceptable to anytone who cares about democracy, republicanism, or republican democracy. Plus, why would Wyoming lose their votes in a proportional system -- my changes call for the same number of votes, just divided to represent the electorate's will. I'm not certain how effectively excluding the votes of well more than 40% of New Yorkers, Texans, Californians or even Wyomans is good for democracy. That the very foundations of the EC stem from a profoundly undemocratic institution surely ought not to be seen as irrelevant.
dc

Lloyd Kilford - 11/4/2004

The Electoral College is starting to look somewhat broken, but changing it might be quite hard (first one has to agree on a new system, then convince Congress and the States to vote the new amendment through).

I think the smaller states like the disproportionate nature of it; maybe each state could keep the number of electoral votes it has now, and divide them according to the votes in each State (so the kerfuffle in Ohio would only affect the 21st electoral vote, as the others would have split evenly). This would of course have new flaws, but we don't know about those, and we've just seen the old version's flaws.

I'm not sure that banging on about slave states rising again is going to help your argument. Wyoming and the Dakotas presumably quite like having 3 or 4 votes rather than the tiny number they'd get under a proportional system, and they were never slaveowners. Building the necessary coalition for change is hard enough without mudslinging.

Derek Charles Catsam - 11/4/2004

Richard --
This is why I have advocated reforming the EC so that it utilizes some form of proportional representation along the lines of what Maine does. We do need some mechanism to protect us from the scenario you say. But there is no justification for the winner takes all, states' rights, let's protect the slave interests situation as it exists now.
dc

Richard Henry Morgan - 11/4/2004

PS

James Carville at CNN was conceding Ohio before CNN ever did, and he based it on private communications with Democrat number crunchers.

Richard Henry Morgan - 11/4/2004

Imagine a national popular election where the margin, like in Florida 2000, came down to something like 500 votes. A recount would have to be national, rather than partitioned to a single state as in Florida 2000. Not the best reason, of course, but still a reason.

Derek Charles Catsam - 11/4/2004

Robert --
These are all fine facts, but they have little to do with my arguments. I especially have no idea about why you bring up the Electoral College citation -- I think it is a nightmare, no one has given me a single reason to support the EC (I suppose those slave states might rise again) and i opposed it last night when Kerry looked like he might win the EC and lose the popular vote. in other words, that citation is pretty much 100% wrong where irt is not simply irrelevant.

Meanwhile the vote numbers you site are pretty superfluous. yes, Bush got a huge number of votes. But that wasnot considered relevant in 2000 whenh Gore got the second most votes in the history of US Elections. So "as for my arguments," I'm awaiting you to address a single one of them.

dc

Robert Wisler - 11/4/2004

It is good to see that Kerry was gracious enough to concede this election today, instead of drag it on until God knows when. I was fully ready to have to deal with this until Christmas; especially being in N.W. Ohio (the most saturated with ads). The ads were getting so out of hand, that I was happy when a feminine hygene commercial came on just for the fact that it wasn't a political ad.
However, as for some of your arguments or complaints...
concerning the electoral college, http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200~24781~2506546,00.html
"Suppose that George Bush W. wins the popular vote today, but John Kerry wins the presidency in the Electoral College. If the polls are correct, this is a distinct possibility. Would the people who complained bitterly about the Electoral College system after the 2000 election mount a similar campaign against the system in 2004? I don't think so.
Herein lies the problem with critics of the Electoral College: They really just want a system which will produce a win for their side."

And as far as the number of voters and W's supporters,
http://www.nysun.com/article/4180

"With 93% of precincts reporting, Mr. Bush has won 55.6 million votes. That is more than the 50.5 million votes he won in 2000, far more than the roughly 47.4 million that President Clinton won in 1996 or the 44.9 million that Mr. Clinton won in 1992. More Americans voted for Mr. Bush for president than have voted for any other presidential candidate in American history, more even than the 54.5 million who voted for Ronald Reagan in his 1984 landslide."

It is disheartening when your candidate loses, however, the facts are the facts. W had more people vote for him nation wide, and more states vote for him. Yes, there is a larger population, but the fact the W and the Repubs where able to take the Democratic themed Get Out The Vote and win says something for what kind of job people actually think he is doing, or at least the lack of job Kerry would have done.

Richard Henry Morgan - 11/3/2004

I too think Scalia and Souter are the two brightest. Thomas may be the least qualified of the bunch, but a standard that leaves him unqualified must leave a bunch of other mediocrities behind, like Justice Clark (febrile Ramsey's Dad), etc. I can live with that.

I hope he puts Alex Kozinski on the court, but the guy is just too bright, and thus has enemies.

BTW, the stations that called it early in Ohio may have had a better idea of the size of the outstanding provisional ballots than the Ohio Secretary of State, who was scrupulous in only reporting numbers officially reported to him. I think the first guy to call it was Michael Barone, on Fox, who does have a fine-grained grasp of politics and voting patterns down to the precinct level.