As Alexis de Tocqueville said, People get the government they deserve. If you're "smart" enough to think Iowa has it right, then by all means, please enjoy the pig farts and corn husks of your new overlords.

The electoral college has as one of its purposes the ability to keep small states from being disenfranchised in national elections. Any state can tip the balance, so all are important. With a popular vote, the tyranny of the populous states will mean that smaller states are irrelevant and can safely be ignored. In short, this idea is stupid and Iowa should be spanked for trotting it out again. If it ever came to pass, they deserve what they get.

A campaign stop in LA is going to generate orders of magnitude more exposure for a candidate than a stop in Des Moines. You are deluded if you think your vote in Iowa is going to draw as much attention from a candidate (or an elected official) as a voter in California.

Nope, what it means now is that California, New York, Florida, and Texas will pick our president. I am sorry, but if my state votes overwhelmingly for the losing candidate and its electoral votes get cast for the other candidate because they won the popular vote, explain to me how democracy was served?

People who think the Electoral College is bad have to be ignorant of the consequences of doing away with it. What it means is that candidates for national office will only campaign in a handful of states that will guarantee a popular majority. No one will ever again campaign in New England, the Midwest, or much of the South. So by doing away with electoral votes and tying them to the popular vote, you are potentially disenfranchising a huge number of states and their citizens from any meaningful participation in national elections.

Is that what you want?

No, we are wasting much of our production capacity on stupid, tree-hugging, already-shown-to-be-a-wrong-solution "technology" like ethanol production from corn. And a lot of people starve, not because there isn't enough food for them. But because there are corrupt, nasty people between them and a stable food supply.

Interestingly, there are roughly 2 acres of arable land per person on the planet right now. And guess what? Global warming would actually increase that acreage by almost 25% if average global temperatures rose 3F. It's entirely possible that a warming planet (despite the realities of sunspot cycles and impending cooling cycle) is actually required to support humanity, rather than being a harbinger of its demise.

Truth is, we are too stupid to know and too enamored with our culture of "fear" to admit it.

It's not only +1 Informative, +1 Insightful, but also +1 Interesting.

Also, compared to a lawyer, it is +1 Useful and +1 Cheap, not to mention +1 Fits In A Backpack.

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