George's Blog - Archived Entry

Having read my local paper’s editorial endorsement of President George W. Bush’s re-election, I suppose I could have written a passionate rebuttal to the editorial’s reasons for their endorsement. I could have mentioned that Bush didn’t inherit a recession; the official start date for our most recent recession was March 2001, three months into W’s presidency. I could have mentioned the fact that he is the first president to actually preside over a net job loss since Hoover. Or this administration’s disastrous foreign policy that has left our world a much more dangerous place and resulted in the needless loss of over 1000 U.S. troops. I won’t mention the tens of thousands of innocent lives lost as “collateral damage” all in a reckless and foolish approach to battling terrorism that has only made things worse.

Nope, I won’t mention any of this because it just simply doesn’t matter here in California. Despite the best intentions of my local paper’s editorial endorsement and the projected votes of more that 4 million Californian voters for President Bush, all of that will not contribute to a single electoral vote for President Bush. So of the 538 total electoral votes in our country, of which California has 55, with the Presidential winner needing 270 electoral votes to win, not 1 California electoral vote will go to President Bush. Whereas my misguided brother’s Republican vote for Bush in Alaska will be one of 140,000 thousand Alaskan votes that will result in 3 electoral votes for Bush. Hmm… 4 million votes in California will result in 0 electoral votes, 140,000 votes in Alaska equals 3 electoral votes. So much for that fantasy that all U.S. votes are equal. And heaven forbid that in such a closely contested election, there is a 269-269 electoral vote tie. In the case of a tie, the election goes to the House of Representatives, where each state delegation gets 1 single vote – one vote for Wyoming’s 500,000 residents and one for California’s 35.5 million. That’s fair??

In a country that claims to be the world’s greatest democracy, that light shining on a hill, shouldn’t we have an electoral system that treats every citizen’s vote equally? So for my California Republican friends, quit wasting your time and energy for President Bush. In fact, why not all of us strive to make our electoral system fairer for all of us, including Republicans. A great place to learn more is the Center for Voting and Democracy at www.fairvote.org. In the meantime, I’ll be in Nevada canvassing for John Kerry.