The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC). The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral vote — that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).

The major shortcoming of the current system of electing the President is that presidential candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or worry about the voter concerns in states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind. The reason for this is the winner-take-all rule which awards all of a state's electoral votes to the candidate who gets the most votes in each separate state. Because of this rule, candidates concentrate their attention on a handful of closely divided “battleground” states. Two-thirds of the visits and money are focused in just six states; 88% on 9 states, and 99% of the money goes to just 16 states. Two-thirds of the states and people are merely spectators to the presidential election.

Another shortcoming of the current system is that a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide.

The National Popular Vote bill has been approved by 18 legislative chambers (one house in Colorado, Arkansas, Maine, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Washington, and two houses in Maryland, Illinois, Hawaii, California, and Vermont). It has been enacted into law in Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland. These states have 50 (19%) of the 270 electoral votes needed to bring this legislation into effect.

See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com

susan

The idea that Senator McCain has any chance of winning is laughable. He is beginning to make Senator Bob Dole look like a good candidate.

Thanks.
I think Eisenhower is the most reassuring. also, the highest in rank.
i wonder what that means- no, you needn't answer.

You're on a roll today. An off-the-top-of-my-head response to your question is “not necessarily” when you consider that the following presidents had military backgrounds.

Were these men inordinately predisposed to apply military solutions:

Teddy Roosevelt: Absolutely.

Truman: No.

Eisenhower: No.

Kennedy: Mixed verdict.

Carter: No.

George H.W. Bush: Mixed verdict.

George W. Bush: Absolutely.

I think what you find from this quick-and-dirty synopsis is that more than the mere fact of military service goes into using military force.

The emphasis is on the word INORDINANTLY, and the concern is about an unbalanced perspective.

As background I refer to patients with difficult to diagnose symptoms. A specialist in disease X is likely to guess that this could be X. A specialist in disease Y is more likely to suspect Y. Meanwhile, the accurate diagnosis Z is being ignored, and the patient goes untreated.

An appropriate question with an easy answer: Being a veteran who served with distinction does not qualify someone for being president, but it is a good indicator of whether that someone would have the leadership qualities to be president.

In McCain's case, this somewhat of a double-edged sword and one that I note with great care.

McCain's supporters expressed outrage when it was suggested in a New York Times Magazine article that he did not experience the disillusionment of soldiers like John Kerry, Chuck Hagel and Jim Webb because he was locked away in the Hanoi Hilton for most of the war. The catharsis that these senators experienced on the battlefield and afterwards over the fundamental wrongness of the Vietnam War rather logically led them to oppose a war in Iraq that McCain so slavishly embraces.

What exactly does a military record, even one as poignant as McCain's, have to say about presidential capabilities?
For that matter, what does success in business say?

Prowess in one field can be as limiting as it is helpful in leading an entire nation, which is so much more than its militray capablities or economic success. Expertise in one area can lead to seeing the whole world in only the terms of that expetise, and that' would not be a good thing.

I respect McCain's record immensely, as I do the success of such people as Romney and Bloomberg. But I have conflicting feelings about that being a qualifier for presidency.

Where am I wrong to doubt?

“There is no reason for Obama to defend fist bumping or the fact that he hung with a guy who did some bad stuff 40 years ago … but he also cannot abide below-the-belt pushbacks against McCain by wannabe surrogates.”

Lately we have seen two of the most prominent bloggers on the Left – Kos and Aravosis – mock McCain for (respectively) 1) his bad teeth and 2) his receiving a disability for being unable to life his arms (both in consequence of his POW years). Kos was almost universally denounced by his own Kossacks for this low blow.

Considering this is only June, the fact that this has come out already suggests a nasty campaign . . . and these types of attacks could be badly damaging to Obama.

I am reminded of how, in a Canadian election in the early 1990s, the reigning Conservative Party made a TV ad ridiculing the appearance of the challenging Liberal leader Chretien – “Would you want this man to represent Canada?” – for half of his face being effectively frozen by a childhood disease. This appalling attack contributed to the Conservative's defeat…and Chretien's Liberals went on to win the following two or three elections as well!

Obama is known for his discipline…but the potential nastiness of his surrogates represents a great potential problem in this election.