The Election Is Finally Over.

Posted 2008 November 05 Wednesday 16:01 Jabberings (3)

I watched CNBC all day yesterday, seeing stock up all over the place because investors were anticipating the end of the smear ads and compaigning.  The talking heads all seemed like they were holding their breath, eager for today.

After the day’s stock market watch, we switched over to BBC America and watched the results come in.  I couldn’t even think during the whole evening.  I just sat watching as the states results were called.  It astounded me how FOX News started calling results for Obama earlier than ABC, NBC, or CBS.  The british talking head kept saying “We can’t accept that!  The votes haven’t been fully counted yet!  We aren’t even at a majority!  They’re giving that one up early, aren’t they?”

I found it amusing, the anglo perspective on our political process.  Some day I’ll have to find out how their process works to be able to compare it.  Meh, someday.

At the end of the night, Obama won and McCain lost.  I think McCain showed remarkable honor and a forward-looking perspective in his speech, Obama also handed over honors to McCain.  But the lingering effects of the smear campaign should be ironed out.  How, I’m not entirely sure.  But it does need attention.

Now we have a black president-elect, and we have to make sure Bush doesn’t do anything really, really stupid before January 20th.  Oh, and I give the Secret Service my deepest sympathy.  You’ve got your hands full now, I suspect sleep will be a luxury.  ( I do not believe racism is dead in this country, and I do believe there are wack-jobs that will try to kill Obama.  I wish the Secret Service every bit of good luck and great skill in their new job.)

But I do want to say something about one topic: the electoral college.  So many people do not understand it.  I don’t fully understand it myself, so maybe some comments can help fill in my gaps. As I grok it, the electoral college was formed to provide a gathering point for each state’s votes, so that they could be clearly cast towards the presidency.  I’ve heard cynics say “It’s a way for the Federal government to ignore the people,” and “It doesn’t allow us to vote for our president” and yadda-yadda-yadda.  Let’s look at the effects is makes.

The electoral college allows each state to handle their polls, their process, and then each state casts its electoral votes for the president. In the early days of the Union, the Federal government was very different from the present day.  It wasn’t such a pervasive entity, it presided over international affairs, and affairs between states.  Well, until World War I & II, it didn’t do anything about international affairs unless provoked, but that’s a snide aside.  The federal government wasn’t originally designed to govern individuals, because that was the states’ responsibility, and they were more effective at it.

So, in effect, the electoral college became a way for STATES to vote in a president.  Much like each state voted to be in the union, and that was carried out by having the state’s citizens vote and the majority that resulted made the decision for the state, the state as an entirety votes for president. And each state has a different number of electoral college votes because each state has different population levels.  How a state handles distributing its electoral votes is muddy to me, but I should think it would be similar to how representatives are distributed — according to population levels.

Since the founding of our country, the (un-)Civil War happened and the federal government ramped up it’s powers to keep the union from dissolving again.  Maybe it was good, maybe it was bad.  But it happened.  There are probably many other events that contributed to the larger federal government presence, I’m not enough of a student of history to know.  The important part is the Federal government is now much more in our face than it was for early Americans.

In today’s electronic world, the electoral college seems unnecessary.  And maybe it is.  But it’s part of the system, and I always hear bitching that it should be abolished.  Well, then: write your senator or representative and ask for an amendment to the constitution.  Start up a petition.  Get out there and campaign for it.  Just quit your bitching, hoping someone else will do the leg work so you don’t have to get off your butt.

This country was made by hard workers working hard; be they whig, democratic-republican, democrat, republican, conservative, liberal, green-party member, constitutionalist, libertarian, or any of the hundreds of others of parties.  It wasn’t made great by people sitting on their couches, begging others to work for them.

Oof, got off on a little rant there.  Oh well, I’ll survive.

So, yeah.  America has a different path being drawn out by thousands of pundits out there, every minute of every day.  How will it turn out?  I dunno.  I’m just glad it signals the end of the Bush era.

And now I can watch TV again, without the sickening attack ads.

Have fun, readers.  I’m tryin’.

Skåll!!!