Monday, September 17, 2007
Durrrrr
Scott Lucas engages in the same idiocy as this dude on the Republican power grab in California.
Well, it's come to pass that the state Republican Party has come up with a way to cheat. The details of this "cheating":
Get signatures to put a favorable question on the ballot, and then...
Try to win that referendum vote.
An odd definition of "cheating," if you ask me. Just out of curiosity, does Lucas consider efforts to change to a national popular vote system cheating, as well, since it will help Democrats?
That doesn't sound so bad until you take two factors into account. First, politicians have carved up the state's congressional districts so artfully that in none of them is the outcome of a race up for serious contention. These districts represent an effort to protect incumbents, not set up competitive races. Under this plan, we would know the outcome of the presidential race long before any votes were cast. Holy shit. He does the exact same thing that Diaz did. Here, I'll spell it out for you:
We already know the outcome of the presidential race in California long before any votes are cast
This is the very reason it's a power grab. How someone can not recognize this, despite their complaints about Republicans, is a mystery to me.
Second, because California would be the only large state to adopt this scheme, we would be tying our hands behind our back. If you're the biggest guy in a bar fight, you don't blindfold yourself just to make things fair. The net result would be the GOP gaining twenty-some votes in the Electoral College. Tying our hands behind our back? Why is this? Is Lucas suggesting that the State of California should consider itself to have some kind of obligation to serve the Democratic Party, and any benefit to Republicans is considered a self-imposed crippling injury? I think Lucas has a more disturbing outlook on government than I initially thought.
Now to be fair, the Electoral College stands as perhaps the worst design for apportioning votes ever created, narrowly beating out reading cow entrails to fill the highest office. Remember that guy who won the popular vote yet did not become the actual president? Al something or other. Invented the Internet. Remember those other guys who did the same thing? Or is Lucas again basing his concept of how to structure government solely on what would benefit his party in the short term?
Lucas then proceeds to give no particular reason why popular vote is better than the Electoral College.
But the way to do it is not by unilateral disarmament. It's a national problem that calls out for solution at the national level. There's probably a Game Theory solution here, but I haven't taken that class yet. That's because you're an idiot. You don't need a class on Game Theory to know anything about Game Theory. The Game Theory solution here is a single-party effort to overturn elections entirely and ensure that their party always wins. It won't work, though, because people don't think according to the assumptions of Game Theory.
Furthermore, the state Democratic Party is sending out volunteers to talk people into not signing the initiative. So if you find two mangy signature gatherers arguing with each other about whether or not you should sign up, take the Scott Lucas approach to conflict management and duck out. Don't we all have papers to write anyhow? Is that Lucas's stance? "Don't learn about or get involved in what's going on in government, because if you do, you might hurt my party"? It's not like "ducking out" is a neutral solution here. It's exactly what one side wants.
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