Republicans are trying to bring back from the dead a ballot initiative to carve up California's electoral votes in an attempt to steal the next presidential election:
Veteran GOP consultants said Monday that they were relaunching a drive to change the way California allocates its electoral college votes, aimed at helping the 2008 Republican presidential nominee capture the White House.
Political strategist David Gilliard said he was taking over the ballot initiative campaign, along with strategist Ed Rollins and fundraiser Anne Dunsmore. Consultant Mike Arno will oversee the signature-gathering effort.
The effort stalled last month when its original organizers failed to raise the $2 million needed to place the initiative on the June ballot. Fortunately, they still have an uphill climb:
California Secretary of State Debra Bowen has set Nov. 13 as the deadline for submitting signatures to place the measure on the June ballot. Backers must gather 434,000 valid signatures of registered voters. Because many signatures are typically deemed invalid, circulators will probably seek at least 650,000. The initial campaign had gathered about 100,000 signatures.
Even if it does get on the ballot, polls that have already been conducted show a majority of California voters understand this is a stealth attempt by the GOP to rig the system so that a Democrat can't possibly win the presidency. After all, that's why Dunsmore, who has done fundraising for Giuliani's presidential campaign, is one person behind the initiative drive and a major Giuliani benefactor, Wall Street mogul Paul E. Singer, has donated $175,000 to fund the effort. Do they really think people don't see through this stuff?
4 comments:
Yeah, but come on, people don't deserve to be disenfranchised by the "all or nothing" system we have in place now. On the one hand, this is a political ploy by Republicans, but I'm in favor of doing this nation-wide.
I don't feel, however, that states should decide this individually. For one, a state that opts to follow this course of action by itself reduces its own political power if none of the other states do it. For two, it's way too partisan right now. Without a national initiative, we won't have people talking about whether this is good for America or not, but whether this is good for the Democratic or Republican parties. If this situation was taking place in Texas and we were talking about giving away 10 or 15 of the states' electoral votes to Democrats, would you not be in favor of it? I just don't think this issue should be politicized like that.
Well, if you've read what I wrote before on the issue, you'd know I agree with you 100% as far as changing the electoral college. But obviously, to try to change it in one state, it's just a political ploy to steal an election. That's not politicization, that's the truth.
Look, it's impossible for it not to be political on both sides. Democrats are opposing this because it hurts Democratic chances, which is not a convincing argument. To the average voter I think you could make a better case that this simply disenfranchises them further as long as the entire nation doesn't switch over.
To me, opposing this because of its effects on Democratic prospects is not a strong argument because we then wouldn't be opposing it in states like Texas or Florida. I just say that this is a national issue rather than a state issue and I would certainly vote against it if it came up in Texas alone.
But I don't really think we're saying different things. Californian voters should vote against it because it will reduce their ability to choose who they want to be president (usually a Democrat). And we both agree that it shouldn't be done on a state-by-state level, but a national level.
Post a Comment