I am curious about what the members of this board thought of a potential strategy to change the dynamics of Washington politics: running regional presidential candidates.
Before I write any further, I do want to state that I campaigned and raised money for President Obama in 2008 and I fully expect to do the same in 2012.
However, I also see quite a disconnect between the Washington leadership of both parties and voters in my area. And I am curious if anyone thinks that a fundamental shift in campaign strategy over the long term might have positive results.
Here's the strategy: Use the electoral college system to enact important regional policy at a national level.
Essentially, a presidential election is a collection of 50 individual races at a state level. In most states, the candidate with the most votes in each state earns his or her slate of presidential electors.
In modern times, we have had mostly national candidates who run at least modestly competitive races in each of the fifty states. But it hasn't always been that way. During the election of 1860, we had four candidates with competitive regional followings: Lincoln, Douglas, Breckinridge and Bell:
Election of 1860
In 1968, George Wallace carried five southern states and won 46 electoral college votes.
George Wallace: 1968
In 1948, Strom Thurmond carried four southern states and won 39 electoral college votes.
Strom Thurmond: 1948
These regional candidates, of course, rely on alienation among voters of a particular region. And, well, I can see some of that alienation present in today's political climate. If one looks at climate change legislation, there is a great distance between Democrats on the East and West Coasts and Democrats in the Midwest and Appalachia. Issues like card check and the "Cadillac" tax on union-negotiated health plans also expose regional differences between Democrats from, say, the Industrial Midwest and Democrats elsewhere.
Could these differences emerge as the basis for a future regional candidate who would seek to gain electoral votes in the Midwest and other industrial/manufacturing areas? I don't know.
And the goal of such a candidate wouldn't necessarily be to destroy the chances of, say, a national Democratic Party candidate. Let's say that a Midwestern presidential candidate ran on a platform that included reform of trade laws, opposition to cap-and-trade, banking reform, Great Lakes cleanups, card check and elimination of health care "Cadillac" taxes. That candidate, if he or she earned the determinative number of electoral college votes, could demand that these policies be enacted before freeing his or her electors to vote for a more national candidate.
And, in fact, this kind of candidate - or multiple candidates in various states - could publicly acknowledge ultimate support for a more national candidate during the campaign. The idea would simply be to force policy changes.
Is this a crazy scheme? Sure. Does it have much of a change of actually working? Probably not. But I do think that some of the elements for such a strategy are more possible in today's climate than they have been at any time in my lifetime.
What do you think?