I’m glad to see McCain and Obama campaigning in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida, states with big cities and lots of people. But why haven’t they spent any time at all (except to raise money) in several of the other large states: California, Texas, and New York, to name the three largest, along with Michigan, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Illinois? Why, for that matter, haven’t we seen them in my neck of the woods — in Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Louisiana, Arkansas, or Tennessee? Or in New England states such as Connecticut, Vermont, Maine, and Rhode Island?
The answer is the electoral college and, to my mind, it represents the chief defect of that system of electing the president. Except in Maine and Nebraska, a presidential candidate receives all of a state’s electoral votes merely by carrying it — it doesn’t matter if he wins the state by 1 popular vote or by 2 million. As a result, there is no reason at all for Obama or McCain to visit any state that is dark blue (sorry, California and New York) or deep red (too bad, Texas). In fact, the candidates are better off spending considerable time and money, as both of them have this year, in much smaller states that are politically less certain. That’s why they’ve both been sighted with remarkable frequency in places like New Hampshire, Montana, North Dakota, Iowa, and New Mexico.
I hope I live to see the day when presidential campaigns include the entire country, not just the handful of states that are colored gray, pink, or pale blue.
