The Electoral College system was originally designed in part to cater to slavery and to the disenfrancisement of women. But what if there were no Electoral College in modern times? There would be no red and blue states. There would be no battleground states that could go either way. Al Gore would have won the election, and there would not have been an American invasion of Iraq. In the 2000 election, there were 50,999,897 votes for Gore, as opposed to 50,456,002 votes for George Bush. In Florida, Bush supposedly won by just 537 votes.
I sent the following letter to Hillary Clinton:
“I write a column for the weekly New York Press, and I have a question for you. When you were elected to the Senate, in the wake of the debacle in Florida that led to Bush being in the White House, you promised to do your best to get rid of the Electoral College system. Were you able to get anything going along those lines? If so, what transpired? And if not, what were the obstacles? I would very much appreciate hearing from you.”
I’ve never received a reply.
Hillary Clinton was able to fly into the senate on the wings of Rudy Guliani’s prostate cancer. If they were both to win in the upcoming primaries, then it would be karmic irony in the 2008 presidential race if Clinton wins the popular vote but the Electoral College goes for Guliani.
PAUL KRASSNER is the editor of The Realist. His books include: Pot Stories for the Soul, One Hand Jerking and Murder at the Conspiracy Convention. He can be reached through his website: http://paulkrassner.com/
