If Gore somehow pulls out Florida, then it's bye bye Bush for sure. ------------------ When you make an assumption, you make an ass out of yourself and umption. visit www.swirve.com
The 1888 election was the last time the electoral college winner lost of the popular vote, and I think it would be hilarious if it happened again. Try explaining that to the American people. Here is a web site that shows the math argument for the why the EC is bogus. It's kind of hard to understand at first, so here is my attempt at an explanation: The argument is that sparsely populated states carry a much larger electoral weight. http://www.wikman.com/eric/elecmath.html The first column (State) is the state (duh). "Electors" is the number of electors granted to that state. "Ttl Elec." is a sum of each state's electors up to that row. "Pop." is the state's population (as of 1990 in thousands). "Pop./Elec." is the amount of population represented by each elector. "Elec. Clg" is the number of votes required to achieve 51%, or get all the EC votes. "Dir Vote" is a sum of the population column, so it assumes all people in the state vote for the same candidate just to show the direct relation of how the electoral vote stacks up against the direct vote. In this scenario, if a candidate gets the EC vote of all these small states, he would only have 25% of the popular vote, but would win the election. On the direct vote method, he gets 49% of the popular vote. There will be a test later. ------------------ Brought to you by the letter M.
Al does have a slight lead in the latest poles here in Florida, but it's still well within the margin of error. As for Jeb not liking Georgy, I'm not so sure about that. Jeb has ripped off a lot of Texas policies and tried to implement them here in Florida (e.g. school vouchers, top 20% (10% in Texas) state college acceptance, etc.). Come to think of it, he has received a lot of criticism for these policies . . . hmmmm . . . maybe, he's not jealous gr8-1; maybe he's just bitter ------------------
You know, it was actually Cousin Merle who said that rather than Cletus. My favorite is still when Cletus is on top of the telephone poll: "Hey I could call my ma from up here." And then he yells: "Hey ma, get off the dang roof!" ------------------ Houston Sports Board
Jeff, that's my favorite scene from my favorite Simpsons' episode ever!! ------------------ When you make an assumption, you make an ass out of yourself and umption. visit www.swirve.com
my favorite simpsons episodes: 1. Marge vs. The Monorail (1993) 2. Homer's Phobia (1997) 3. The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson (1997) 4. Lisa's Wedding (1995) 5. 22 Short Films About Springfield (1996) 6. Bart vs. Australia (1995) 7. Homer's Barbershop Quartet (1993) 8. Deep Space Homer (1994) 9. Das Bus (1998) 10. Sideshow Bob Roberts (1994) http://www.epguides.com/Simpsons/
Did you know that Marge vs. the Monorail was written by Conan O'Brien? Oh yeah, I don't like the Electoral College! ------------------ When you make an assumption, you make an ass out of yourself and umption. visit www.swirve.com
I did not know that. I knew he was a writer for the show though. Didn't Homer call it "The Electrical College" when he was helping Apu get his greencard?
Yes, blue eyes are a recessive gene, however, that would make the reverse scenario impossible (if both Ma and Pa Bush had brown eyes, there's no way Jeb could have blue.) Brown eyes are a dominant gene, therefore their traits override those of recessive genes. As long as someone somewhere in the Bush gene pool has brown eyes, Jeb has the possibility of getting them.
Wait, if both Barbara and George Sr. have blue eyes, Jeb can't have brown eyes because each of his parents has two recessive genes ... If Barbara and George both had brown eyes, each having one recessive blue gene, couldn't Jeb then have blue eyes? But don't ask me, I haven't had a biology class since 1988. ------------------ Brought to you by the letter M.
The electoral college is from the constitution, and was put in when communication was done by courier on horsback or stagecoach. It was impossible to hold an actual election, and convey all of the votes in a timely manner, and keep them secure. Instead, states and communities elected representatives to the electoral college. You would elect a representative with your values, and send them, on horseback or by stagecoach, to Washington to do the actual election of the President. The electoral college is outdated -- very much so, and no one disputes this. It's just that people only really think about it around election time, and after the election it's not really worth the effort to go through the process of making a constitutional ammendment to change it. ------------------ Stay Cool...
I stand corrected. Apparently, I was the one who had it backwards -- two brown-eyed people can have a blue-eyed child. But two blue-eyed people can't have a brown-eyed child. (This is why I didn't major in science!) So that being the case, where do Jeb's brown eyes come from? Now that I think of it, he is a little chubbier than the other Bush men. Is he adopted? Stolen? Any explnations out there?
Perhaps Senator Prescott Bush had brown eyes. Neil is the one that doesn't look like he belongs in the family, if you ask me. I can see the family resemblance between Jeb and GWB and GHWB. ------------------ Houston Sports Board * DFW Sports Board LA Sports Board * Minnesota Sports Board
My bio teacher can't explain the eye thing either. She said maybe Jeb has contacts to appeal to the heavy Hispanic population in Florida. I don't buy it though. ------------------ "I know how hard it is to put food on your family." George W. Bush
This topic has gotten silly. Eye color? High school biology? My uneducated guess is that you guys are thinking too binary. Blue eyes or brown? What about green, hazel, and really all the shades in between these 4? I would guess that its a group of genes that dictate eye color - that would explain things. ------------------
If your high school biology teacher can't explain simple dominant/recessive genes to you, she needs to turn in her teaching credentials. The very example of blue eyes/brown eyes was used in my 10th grade biology class, and I had a coach teaching the class. ------------------ Houston Sports Board * DFW Sports Board LA Sports Board * Minnesota Sports Board
MARK RUSSELL: An Electoral College primer Tribune Media Services What's the difference between the Electoral College and any other college? In the Electoral College, George W. Bush could get higher than a C. What exactly is the Electoral College? It is a weird and complicated plan drawn up by our founding fathers just before the bartender cut them off. They decided that the president would not be elected by the popular vote but by the Electoral College, which had no athletic program and, needless to say, was not coed. Under the college rules the candidate could possibly get more votes than his opponent and still lose. If that happens to George W., you wouldn't want to be standing anywhere near his mother. Why is it called the Electoral College? Because electoral high school sounds even more sophomoric. ------------------ 'Deeds, not words, shall speak me.'
I think ya'll are missing the point. Whether it is done through the electoral college process or through popular vote via state by state bases (e.g., if 51% or 80% of Texans voted for Bush still gets all the votes from that state) the function is to give additional power in the excutive branch to the big states. This was done to compensate for the overrepresentation of senators from small states--part of the check and balances (or stagnation of our federal government as our founders intended). So the key debate is whether you think it should be a popular national election, or the sum of winner take all individual states popular election as the framers basically intended. I don't think the electoral college issue is much more than a meaningless tradition to carry out the latter design. My personal gripe about our system is the whole winner take approach that binds us to a 2 party system. I would much rather see a legislature for instance that forced say 45% Demo, 40% Rep and 15% Greens actually to try to get something done. That would cut out a lot of the BS posing and partisian gamesmanship we have now. Such a change would for sure have to come out a constitutional amendment deriving from a grass-roots effort because the big two parties would have no interest in it. Fighting this would be something Rep and Demo would agree on in about 1/2 a millsecond--unless invidual politicians saw they were about to be thrown out unless they changed their tune.
