President-elect

[pne]

I keep hearing Obama referred to as "president-elect".

Strictly speaking, though, he won't be until the Electoral College up and elects him, though, won't he? Right now, people have only voted for electors; they just (many of them) thought they're voting for the next president.

Though I imagine having an elector vote for someone other than they pledged to do (or not voting at all) is probably rather rare.

Comments

[bluewingedcat.livejournal.com]

The problem with going with a straight popular vote, however, is that the smaller population rural states will get disenfranchised. Possibly the best way to tweak the electoral college at the moment would be to adopt the system that Nebraska and Maine have, where their electoral votes are split up by counties.

This would also force the candidates to campaign in more states that they pretty much ignore. For instance, the western half of Washington state is pretty solidly democratic. The eastern half, however, is very very republican. Both candidates for the most part ignored Washington state though because it was a foregone conclusion for the democrats.

[leora.livejournal.com]

They still usually ignore small states unless they have some reason to think they matter. :/

That's one of the things I like about the 50 state strategy that Obama used more than most - whether or not it works politically, it does mean actually going and making your case aimed at more voters. And also, whether it works or not, it means that more voters hear your message and your message is crafted toward more voters, so I think it has a long term effect of slowly moving our country toward a bit more unity.

I was thrilled that Obama campaigned in some states he didn't have a chance in, because I don't like how states get written off. Of course, he could only afford to do that because he had a hell of a lot of money, but still... And campaigning in more states probably helped to make more people okay with this win.

There are a lot of unhappy McCain/Palin supporters right now, but four years ago the split was so close it was about 49% of the voters who were upset. Now it's a little bit of a bigger margin. A few more people are happy and a few less are sad.

Now, you can't just make differences go away by campaigning somewhere because some of our differences are very real differences of opinion. But I do think making the case to the people helps. I do think a better dialogue is a good first step, at least toward understanding and a smidge of empathy.

I'm not sure how to get politicians to really talk to all of the people, but I'd quite like to see them work more toward that.