Hillary Goes to (Electoral) College, Flunks Out
Reports have influential, campaign-funding establishment Democrats so concerned about the mediocrity, radicalism and/or implausibility of the candidates seeking their presidential nomination that they’re considering a well-known, otherwise-uninspiring, ethically-challenged, two-time loser: Hillary Clinton.
Rather than accept her 2016 defeat, Hillary has blamed “deplorables,” “Russia,” “sexism,” “Bernie Sanders,” “James Comey,” “self-hating women,” “the media,” “uninformed voters,” her “campaign staff,” “the Democratic National Committee,” “voter suppression,” “campaign finance laws,” “Jill Stein,” “Anthony Weiner,” and the “Electoral College.”
Hillary has only three legitimate complaints: the Electoral College, “deplorables” who voted, and one left unmentioned: Hillary Clinton. A summer, 2016, NBC News poll revealed that only 11 percent of likely voters found her “honest and trustworthy.” Hillary’s excuse-making won’t peg either needle.
Because she “won” the 2016 popular vote, Hillary says she can “beat” President Donald Trump “again.” More likely, if she enters and is nominated, Hillary will flunk out of Electoral College – again.
The Electoral College ensures that a presidential winner’s electoral majority must come from a wider range of interests than those of numerical majorities centered in large urban areas. The Electoral College forces presidential candidates to appeal to broad geographic constituencies – states large and small, populous and rural – rather than simply prevailing in heavily-populated jurisdictions.
Large/small state, urban/rural disparities existed at America’s founding, too, so, as a condition for establishing a union of what were thirteen colonies, the Founders designed the Electoral College to strike a fine balance between majority rule and minority rights and interests. Without it, several small states, including Delaware and Rhode Island, would not have ratified the American Constitution.
In America’s representative republic, the Senate and Electoral College prevent interests heavily-concentrated in a few coastal metropolitan areas from imposing their will on all Americans.
Ballotpedia reports that America’s 50 states contain 3113 counties and parishes. Nationwide, Donald Trump won 2,626 of them, while Hillary Clinton won 487. But Hillary’s popular vote total exceeded Trump’s by nearly 2.9 million, a number for which her coastal California counties’ margins alone more than accounted.
New York State contains 62 counties. Hillary won only sixteen of them, but her state-wide voting margin exceeded 1.7 million. Without Hillary’s California and New York counties included in the national vote totals, Donald Trump easily won the popular vote.
Statistics may be entertaining, and, for depressed Hillary supporters, at least, consoling, but the only statistics that mattered were electoral votes: Donald Trump, 304; Hillary Clinton, 227.
Eliminating the Electoral College would require a constitutional amendment. The odds against ratification are prohibitive.
Establishment Democrats are rightfully worried about their current crop of 2020 candidates who appear uniformly determined to lose independents, while ensuring that 2016 Trump voters pull the lever for Trump again – with both hands.
One suspects that Hillary’s ego and sense of entitlement are so massive and her ambition so boundless, that, as long as she has a pulse, she’ll run.
One also suspects that President Trump would relish an opportunity to prove that 2016 wasn’t a one-off.
So, it’s agreed, then…Run, Hillary, run!
