By Rick Glaze
Super Tuesday is over and the field of candidates has been culled down and ready to move on to the next phase.
Most of you know that each citizen votes, but in the end the Electoral College picks the president. Why do we have this system that may seem distant and archaic to the average big-city editorial writer? What’s wrong with electing the person who gets the most popular votes?
Supporters of Al Gore, former vice president and 2000 Democratic Party presidential nominee, called President George W. Bush a phony president, because Bush did not win the popular vote. In his second election in 2004, Bush received more popular votes than any candidate in history. President Bill Clinton didn’t win a majority of votes when he ran in 1992 or 1996, yet he served as president for eight years.
Our country is not a nation of people – it is a union of states. The states were established as independent entities with constitutions, laws and governments. They are, in effect, sovereign entities that agreed to join other states to form a union which they gave limited powers.
By Rick Glaze
Super Tuesday is over and the field of candidates has been culled down and ready to move on to the next phase.
Most of you know that each citizen votes, but in the end the Electoral College picks the president. Why do we have this system that may seem distant and archaic to the average big-city editorial writer? What’s wrong with electing the person who gets the most popular votes?
Supporters of Al Gore, former vice president and 2000 Democratic Party presidential nominee, called President George W. Bush a phony president, because Bush did not win the popular vote. In his second election in 2004, Bush received more popular votes than any candidate in history. President Bill Clinton didn’t win a majority of votes when he ran in 1992 or 1996, yet he served as president for eight years.
Our country is not a nation of people – it is a union of states. The states were established as independent entities with constitutions, laws and governments. They are, in effect, sovereign entities that agreed to join other states to form a union which they gave limited powers.
The founding fathers saw value in a combination that could act for the good of all to raise an army to protect them against a hostile world and unify currency and banking. But states maintained their autonomy, and each was represented equally by two senators in Congress. On the other hand, representatives were elected to the House based on the population of the state. Using the same representation, the states make their selections for national officers and subsequently cast their votes in the Electoral College.
The people of the states vote, but states select the president and vice president. In a system in which the popular vote would elect a president, some communities would not be represented and could feel like the Bostonians dumping English tea in the water to protest taxation without representation.
The population centers in big cities could control the government, rendering small-town America ready to dump some tea in the creek. Any movement to eliminate our representative election process is clearly reckless.
Rick Glaze is president of Glaze Capital Management Inc. of Los Altos. For more information, e-mail Rick at Rick@Glazecapital.com.
