The Overrated Electoral College
I see that the periodic flap about the possibility of a president winning with a small percentage of the vote got a little play yesterday. Sorry, but I think this is a lot of fuss over nothing. I mean, first of all, there’s no point designing a system to prevent absolutely implausible outcomes; I mean,… Read more »
Political Endorsements and Baseball
Nate Silver at Five Thirty Eight finally got around to part three of his interesting series on at early-season polling in presidential nomination contests, but unfortunately I’m on the road and can’t give it all the attention right now that it deserves. I’m highly suspicious, however, that his conclusion won’t hold up. Silver says: [I]t’s… Read more »
The First (Half-Field) Presidential Debate
Presidential nominations serve multiple purposes. The party selects a candidate, to be sure. But it also chooses a platform. I’m not talking about the formal document that will be debated by earnest activists, ratified by the convention when only C-SPAN is watching, and then filed in a drawer and mostly ignored for the rest of… Read more »
What’s Really Going on in Politics? A Dozen Questions
The phone rang just after dinner the other night, and it turned out to be my very own local Member of Congress on the phone — it was a Conference Call Town Hall meeting. I stuck around and listened; what interested me wasn’t so much what he had to say (boilerplate, obviously), but what my… Read more »
Should the House of Representatives Get Bigger?
Nick Beaudrot at Donkeylicious still wants a much larger House of Representatives; I’m still strongly against it. Last time around, I wrote this longish post explaining why, despite being an understandably intriguing idea, a Big House would actually create more problems than it would solve. Short version: it wouldn’t actually be good for representation, and… Read more »
