Here's my first diary. I hope you enjoy it.
However dubious, I attribute a large portion the President's popular vote majority, around 3-1/2 million, as an aberration of an electoral battle focused on less than a third of the states.
In particular, we're severely disenfranchised in my home state of California. We're happy to deliver our 55 electoral votes to Kerry, but we only had turnout of 46%, one of the lowest in the nation.
Does conventional wisdom still favor the dems in the popular vs. electoral selection of the President? If so, this election provides us with an unusual opportunity to make a change. I'll explain below the fold...
Fear mongering seems to be the modus operandi of the Republicans and turnabout is fair play. Thus, I think the threat of a Kerry victory hung in the balance of 100,000 some odd votes in Ohio versus a national victory of 3-1/2 million should be enough to scare all red-states into opting for a popular vote.
Big headlines: WE MUST DO AWAY WITH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE NOW!
Any politicians opposing this change would be accused of acting selfishly, not considering the big picture and "opposing the will of the people." Make up some other crap. It's what the reps do well. Those of us in the reality-based community like to work with facts.
I think they just might fall for it.