A colleague brought to my attention this electoral college map, supposedly based on “current projections,” over at The Wall Street Journal.
In which universe, I wonder, is South Carolina a “swing state”?
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Swing state? In which universe do we find THAT South Carolina?
Karl Rove’s?
palmettopublicrecord.org/2012/05/01/karl-rove-thinks-obama-could-win-south-carolina/
Well, of course Obama COULD win SC. Anything could happen. But “swing state?” That’s coming it a bit high.
Rove keeps going on about Jimmy Carter leading the polls in 1980. He was doing it again in this morning’s WSJ. He keeps sounding like a guy whistling past a graveyard — of course, that was written before last night’s debate.
But I’d love to see his analysis that leads him to see SC as one of only 6 “toss-up” states in the nation…
They said that about NC before 2008.
SC has a fairly strong Blue bloc compared to places out west.
Well… in 2008 I could have seen it. There was SUCH energy in favor of Obama in the state, with all sorts of new voters eager to vote for him. And although McCain had a lot of solid support in this military-friendly state, the True Believers in his party did not love him. Comparatively, there was far more excitement among SC Democrats that year than among SC Republicans. The GOP in 2008 was confused, demoralized. (I was picking The State’s syndicated columnists that year, and I ran far more “conservatives” because they were more interesting that year. The liberals were bubbly and happy and had nothing interesting to say. The conservatives were questioning themselves, plumbing the shallows of their beliefs, and arguing with each other. Of course, those were NATIONAL pundits, not SC ones.)
Of course, GOP primary voters rejected Romney (again) this time, after giving McCain an important win last time. But GOP voters are SO worked up against Obama, and I feel that SC Democrats don’t have nearly the energy they did last time.
But there are just so many variables. Millions of them, in fact.
I’m not surprised, actually. A week or so ago, Nate Silver at Five Thirty Eight posted a chart showing how support for the R or D candidate had changed among the states that voted for McCain in 2008. Out of all of those states, South Carolina showed the highest percentage gain in support for Obama.
Ha! Found the link: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/sept-24-deep-red-polling-mystery/?smid=tw-share
I couldn’t tell you why it is so, only that it is so.
“SC has a fairly strong Blue bloc”
And the lines look awful familiar to those of the Clyburn congressional district.
Has Obama put out any campaign signs yet in SC? I see a few Romney/Ryan signs, a handful of Obama bumper stickers but not much else. I think Jake Knotts has more yard signs out than Obama does.
Only in SC, and most won’t believe the scheming until one or both transpires:
There are two theories for SC as a swing state. Politically, they are no doubt inspired and regurgitated by the same source (think Hartpootlian) for two different shams:
1) To help “non-candidate Sheheen’s next run for Gov. gainst Nikki:
“There have been signs of trouble for the GOP in recent months. Last December, a Winthrop University poll taken showed that Obama’s approval rating was ten points higher than S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley’s approval rating – a statistic which probably didn’t do Romney any favors in South Carolina.” – FitzNews
2. To distract conservative South Carolinians from guessing that the coming court challenges over SC Electoral Vote apportionment have not been planned for at least 2 years.
Remember our primary debacles? Coming home to roost (yep, Harpootlian and Jake).
Someday Harpootlian will outsmart himself.
Obama has no help to offer Sheheen. Rather the other way around, which is why Nikki Haley never talked about Sheheen or South Carolina, she just cried “Obama! Obama! Obama!”
Remember, Nikki only got 51 percent of the vote, in an election when basically unknown, generic Republicans (such as Secretary of State Mark Hammond, and to a lesser extent Comptroller Rich Eckstrom) were getting 58 and 60 percent.
Vincent Sheheen got more votes than any SC gubernatorial candidate in history, except Nikki Haley, who edged him out in THE year for Tea Party candidates.
And now SC has had a couple of years to get to know Nikki Haley.
Sheheen needs no help from Obama.
There are only 7 real swing states remaining: FL, NC, VA, OH, NV, CO and IA. Some “democracy” when only about 1/6 of the voters are even considered worthy of courting by the two campaigns.
Our Founders weren’t trying to establish a “democracy.” They were aiming for a republic, bless them.
Let’s talk about this so-called republic concept. The Founding Fathers categorically did NOT have the current system in mind when they created the electoral college. Repeat, they absolutely, positively did NOT have this system in mind. So if you want to respect the wisdom of the founding fathers, apparently Brad does by “blessing” them, then lets get back to what they DID have in mind.
But before we go there let’s look at the mess we have now. Simply put what we have now is a muddled form of approximating the popular vote winner by using a convulated system of weighting each state’s vote by it’s population. But that’s not exactly what we do since each state gets a bit different weighting that favors small states by including 2 senators.
But this messy approximation gets further muddled by the fact that over the course of a decade the population of the states change. In election years ending in 00s the relative populations of the states is dramatically different from what it was during the census (in itself an imperfect system). Therefore a state with a low (or negative) growth rate will actually be weighted more than it’s actual population.
But it gets even worse. The population of a state may or may not represent who actually votes. If California has a very low turnout it still gets the same number of electoral votes as it would if it had a high turnout. In theory if only 1 person in a state votes that one person determines a state’s entire electoral contribution.
Now let’s bring in the founding fathers. As noted, this whole electoral college idea is always defended on the notion that we need some type of buffer between what the voting majority wants and what is best determined through an indirect method that relies on states rights or wise men making the final decision. But that’s not, NOT what we have. Instead what we have is nothing more than a clumsy system to apply approximate majority rule through the existing electoral college framework. We absolutely do not have the system the founding fathers envisioned. If you want to defend the founding fathers vision then the very LAST thing you want is what we have now.
It is absolutely impossible for me to understand the reasoning of people who defend the CURRENT system which is nothing but a clumsy attempt at majority rule democracy as a work around based on what has evolves as a defacto rejected constitutional anomaly. Either get rid of it and rely on real (as opposed to psuedo) democracy or return to the founding fathers vision.
You write, “this so-called republic concept.”
Hear that? It’s James Madison rolling over in his grave. (He was a little guy, so it’s not a very loud sound.)
But seriously, thanks for your thoughtful reply, Bud.
The system is not and never has been perfect, starting with the concessions the Framers made to slavery. But that’s the thing, you see — they created a workable system for self-government that has lasted for more than two centuries in spite of the horrific real-world political realities they faced. They did it with everyone at the table, representing wildly different value systems.
As for going back to the original plan — I’ll vote for repealing the 17th Amendment. Anyone with me? No? Well, I guess that’s just one political reality I’ll have to find a way to live with…
Brad, if you want to go about repealing amendments, let’s start with #16.
I probably wasn’t clear enough in what I meant by the current system not being the same as that intended by the founding fathers. What they were aiming for was a system that empowered a group of wise, experienced men to convene and hash out the pros and cons of the available candidates. The voters would choose these men without regard to the actual presidential candidates. In effect the voters would be selecting the electors themselves and NOT the president. In a perfect world the name of the president would not even exist on the ballot. Now that would be a pretty good way of doing things. But it’s not what we do. Who can even name an elector? Folks believe they are choosing a POTUS and not an elector. Makes no sense at all to me.
I agree with bud… and yes, I believe Hell is a little cooler today. The Electoral College needs to go. In this day and age when we can calculate actual voting numbers rather than have states use the “Winner Take All” approach, it’s time to retire the Electoral College.
I rarely agree with Bud,but today
I applaud him. Good job Bud and well thought out.
South Carolina does have a history of electing “do harm” governors: Mark Sanford, Nikki Haley, Jim Hodges, David Beastley.
SC Governot Nikki Haley was so embarrassing to South Carolina at the GOP convention when she said that Boeing builds “Mac Daddy” planes.
I’m pretty sure that Governot Haley has flown on more Gulfstreams, flying corporate boardrooms, than people cargo planes that Boeing builds.