Electoral College

Obama's captain says he doesn't need Ohio (tip to Weapons of Mass Discussion) to put together an electoral victory. Is this just hot air or is it for real?

The presumed Democratic nominee's electoral math counts on holding onto the states Kerry won, among them Michigan (17 electoral votes), where Obama campaigns on Monday and Tuesday. Plouffe said most of the Kerry states should be reliable for Obama, but three currently look relatively competitive with Republican rival John McCain - Pennsylvania, Michigan and particularly New Hampshire.

Asked about his remarks, Plouffe said Ohio and Florida start out very competitive - but he stressed that they are not tougher than other swing states and said Obama will play "extremely hard" for both. But he said the strategy is not reliant on one or two states.

It's possible, but not smart strategy to ignore Ohio. The issue is that Ohio is just such a middle of the road tipping point state, that it's hard to imagine McCain losing Virginia, but winning Ohio. It just usually doesn't work that way.

Now that is unless Barack can shift the way things are usually done, and apparently they believe that there were a lot of unregistered minority voters who skipped out on 2000 and 2004 and are available to be picked up for Obama. I sincerely doubt this, having lived through 2004, I know in Ohio that in many minority communities voter participation was the highest it ever was.

Here is some relevant data from a study:

[Table 2] Changes in the black share of the vote between
2000 and 2004 varied considerably in individual
states. Nine states witnessed large increases. In the Carolinas--
the home territory of Democratic vice-presidential
nominee John Edwards-it rose from 19 to 26 percent (in
North Carolina) and from 22 to 30 percent (in South Carolina).
The black share also rose substantially in the three
top battleground states: Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan.
Higher black turnout contributed to John Kerry's narrow
victories in Pennsylvania, where the black share of the
statewide vote rose from 7 percent (in 2000) to 13 percent
(in 2004), and in Michigan, where the black share rose
from 11 to 13 percent. In Ohio, which Kerry lost in a close
contest, the black share increased more modestly, from 9
percent to 10 percent. Black turnout was also up solidly in
Arkansas, Virginia, New York, and Maryland.

So Kerry and his team had already done a lot to get the minority vote to the polls. Is there that much more that could be squeezed for Obama? I sincerely doubt it. No I think Ohio will still come back to be one of the major battlegrounds, it's not only smack in the middle geographically and demographically, it also borders two other states, MI and PA, that are likely to be battleground states as well. So I expect I will still have a front row seat.

This week the governor of Illinois made official a law that some activists hope will become a national trend. Illinois has become the third state prepared to bypass the Electoral College on election day. Along with Maryland and New Jersey, Illinois will award its presidential electoral votes to the winner of the nationwide popular vote.

Here's the catch: they'll only do so if other states follow suit and their electoral votes total 270. Why? Well 270 happens to be the number of electoral votes it takes to elect a president.

The new law is part of a national push by the California-based advocacy group National Popular Vote Inc. It's aimed at preventing a repeat of the 2000 election, when Al Gore got the most votes nationwide but George W. Bush put together enough victories in key states to win a majority in the Electoral College and capture the White House.

It's a way to make sure that the candidate who gets the most votes gets into the White House. The group seems to have a strong ally in Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich. As a congressman, Blagojevich pushed for a consitutional amendment to get rid of the Electoral College completely.

Illinois, Maryland and New Jersey only hold a combined 46 electoral votes, so they've got a long way to go for meaningful change in the system. Still, as it stands now it's a pretty impressive statement for reform.