During the Republican presidential debate Saturday night, Rep. Ron Paul cited CREW’s research as he focused the spotlight on former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, whose ethical lapses landed him in our 2006 Most Corrupt Members of Congress report. We also filed an ethics complaint against the senator.

Instead of addressing the charges, Mr. Santorum responded with the tried and un-true GOP talking point that CREW only targets Republicans. Fortunately, many fact-checking reporters caught onto Mr. Santorum’s trick.

• The New York Times pointed out that our 2011 Most Corrupt list is bipartisan, with four liberal House Democrats on the list of 14 lawmakers. Three more Democrats merited dishonorable mentions.
• The Washington Post noted we’ve named plenty of Democrats as corrupt.
• ABC News explained that CREW “focuses its criticism on both parties.”

Mr. Santorum should take a lesson from CREW and just stick with the facts. To us it doesn’t matter if politicians are Republicans or Democrats, only that they’ve broken the rules.

Now that he’s back in the game, maybe Mr. Santorum finally will be forced to explain his unethical conduct.

Read CREW’s 2006 Most Corrupt Members of Congress Report

Other than the ethics stuff, I only have 1 other problem with Santorum and that is the gay stuff. He’s an okay candidate running on blue collar middle class principals and blah blah blah that is just fine – except for his handling of the social conservative nonsense. To some extent, abortion, but more so the gay thing. If he were the nominee, the headlines and media coverage would be about nothing but buttsecks and his opinion about it. What happened was that Santorum was explaining why he doesn’t think the constitution protects any and all sexual activity and that was why he opposed a Supreme Court ruling that struck down sodomy laws. Santorum claimed that the ruling opens a legal loophole that says you can do whatever you want to whatever you want with your genitals since it would be protected under the equal protection clause. The argument is a constitutional and legal one and has merit and should be debated – however, Santorum allowed himself to be a target for the issue after gay activists took his words to mean that there was some equivocation going on between being gay and raping squirrels. Santorum could have shined in response, but he didn’t. He is essentially correct on the questions raised in the argument, but handled the attacks in response to it so poorly that he should be disqualified as a candidate for that reason alone. In one of the debates he was asked what he would do if his son told him he was gay and Santorum responded that he would love him just as much as he did the second before he told him and would try to be the best father to him that he could. -A good answer, but he should have been saying that for the past 6 years when talking about the subject to crush the “you disagree with me, therefore you hate me” arguments leveled against him. Since he didn’t, he built up too much negativity that he cant fight against by just starting to now.

Santorum called the classification of his words a “jihad” by gay activists but… thats lame. and it’s a defensive argument coming way too late.

Gay activists also Google-bombed his name by linking to a website that proclaims that the word Santorum is henceforth slang for “The frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the by-product of anal sex.” Santorum himself participated in the innuendo making by making the following unintentional acronym on his website:

As far as the primary contests go:

Rick Santorum isn’t going anywhere. Despite a third place finish, he’s on his way to the Sunshine State. Newt is still speaking very kindly of Rick in public, knowing that he needs Santorum’s supporters if he does manage to turn it into a two person race with Romney, but he’s got to be annoyed.

For his part, Santorum is correct to note that he has now won exactly as many primary contests as Mitt and Newt. And as per number 4 above, he has no reason to leave. Newt may have all the momentum at the moment, but if he does trip and fall, number 2 above should tell us that there is an excellent chance that Newt’s backers will actually stampede to Rick, rather than “falling in line” behind Romney. If he can just put in another strong pair of performances at the Florida debates, he will remain well positioned to lurk in the background and wait for his opportunity.

Newt Gingrich won the South Carolina primary last night, despite competitor Mitt Romney having been ahead in the polls for the past few weeks up until Texas Governor Rick Perry dropped out of the race and Gingrich’s numbers in the state soared. Romney won the same percentage of the vote (27%) that polls showed him having two weeks ago when he led 27/24 over Rick Santorum.

The Republican party could have wrapped up their nomination process and voted for their best candidate in the field, Mitt Romney, but decided to be stupid about it and give Gingrich a reason to keep campaigning hard and dragging this thing out longer than it needs to be.

Hugh Hewitt on the results:

“We’re ready to take out some of the balloons we’ve been storing,” is how Democratic strategist Donna Brazile greeted the idea that Newt would win by a significant margin in South Carolina, an hour before the polls closed and Newt was indeed declared the winner. She was echoing James Carville, who said much the same thing. So what is it that makes these two lefties happy about Newt’s win?

They think they know that tonight’s result means one of two things — Newt as the GOP nominee, which they pray for, or a battered and bloodied Mitt Romney as the president’s opponent, which they will settle for.

Newt is good at delivering speeches and one liners, but is otherwise has a hit and miss record and is a bit of an embarrassment. Don’t we already have a president with that exact resume?

I dont even wanna think about having to choose between Newt Gingrich and Barack Obama until i absolutely must. On the issues, he is supportable but just has sOooOo much BAGGAGE, is sooOOOo douchey in so many ways and theres no reason for it.

Theres an alternative named Romney and he’s squeaky freaky clean, just as good a public speaker and debater, has just as good small government/tax/lower regulation plans and ideas and NONE of the Newt-Negatives. Newt would be a great cabinet appointment in the Romney administration but the dudes not electable and his wife – whom im sure is very nice and i wish them lots of happiness (big-ups to my boy for marrying a blonde thats the same age as his daughter) – is just too awkward and coo-coo-bananas looking to be our first lady, especially compared with the picturesque perfection that is Obama’s family.

People dont vote on ideas, they vote on style, appearance, deliverability, reliability and then ask themselves “does this person scare the shit out of me or not?” and if the answer is “less than the other guy” then they vote for them.

Romney is the only one who can win that fight against Obama.

“Apparently, South Carolinians would rather have the emotional satisfaction of a snotty remark toward the president than to beat Obama in the fall,” Coulter, the author of “Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America,” said. “We saw it in the debates when Gingrich would say things that didn’t really make sense. That is what you usually associate with Democrats, which I described in my last book, ‘Demonic,’ how mobs behave.”

Some of what Gingrich has said might appear to make sense, she said, but should be analyzed more closely.

“Something that sounds like it makes sense like, ‘Mitt Romney doesn’t have influence over his super PAC — that makes you wonder if he’ll have influence as president,’” she continued. “How many times does Mitt Romney have to say it is illegal for a candidate to have influence on the super PAC. It is not, interestingly, though, for a president to have influence. So it makes no sense if you think about it for all of three seconds, but it sounds like it makes sense. It is just like what you get from liberals most of the time and the cheers and yahoos, and that is what we kept getting from this audience.”

As dozens of sites participate in a blackout today (this one is my favorite), the rest of the internet is finally learning about what myself and others have been trying to notify people over for several months. While the 2 proposed laws to filter the internet (which both my Senators in California think is an awesome idea, unfortunately) have been shelved for now, we’re left wondering whether it’s just a pause before these laws come back twice as hard or if today was a big defeat for the movie industry.

Movies, music, and publications are among America’s most valuable exports—more than $30 billion in 2007—and the industry has a lot of pull in Congress. Nearly half the Senate, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) signed on to the Senate version. In the House, 32 representatives from both parties—including Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), the fourth-ranking House Democrat, and Lamar Smith (R-Texas), the chairman of the powerful Judiciary committee—backed the entertainment industry’s proposal. (You can see supporters and opponents of the bills over at ProPublica’s website.) Maplight.org found that since the beginning of the 2010 election cycle, SOPA’s 32 sponsors took in nearly four times as much in campaign contributions from the entertainment industry than from the software and Internet industries (nearly $2 million versus a little over $500,000). For SOPA opponents, the ratio was reversed—foes of the legislation took about twice as much money from software and Internet firms as they did from the entertainment industry.

The White House, which has close ties to the entertainment industry (earlier this year, for example, President Obama appointed famed anti-filesharing lawyer Don Verrilli as Solicitor General) seemed to be on board. As the Washington Post‘s Brad Plumer wrote, “these bills seemed all but inevitable.” The House Judiciary Committee held only one hearing on SOPA on November 16. Of the six witnesses invited, only one, an attorney with Google, testified against the bill. PIPA, meanwhile, passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee with nary a hearing.

So what was the big deal about this “SOPA” (Stop Online Piracy Act) law? So the government would be able to take down websites just for hosting even linking to copyrighted content. How hard can it be to just NOT do that?

Idk. Ask the author of the law… SOPAthetic…

PS: It would not have saved a single net job.

Don’t forget the penalty…

Live blogging the event….

Ron Paul notes that Santorum is a “big government conservative”. He is. (click for a long list of evidence).

Santorum is doing well. He is making me doubt the things i’ve bashed him for:

Lobbyist? He says he approached a local coal company to lobby for them specifically to defeat Cap & Trade.

Voted Most Corrupt? He says that’s a charge sent by a liberal organization every election cycle just to smear conservatives.

hmm… there could be truth to both of those. Got me wondering…

Yahoo! has this question:

UPDATE: they fixed it…

Moderator asks okay question that rests on stupid premise: “only 2 of you have served [in the military] – do you think that makes you better suited to be President?”. This is so stupid. Didn’t work for George Bush Sr – didn’t work for Bob Dole – didn’t work for John Kerry – didn’t work for John McCain and although G. Dubya won twice, it wasnt at all thanks to his Air Force Texas and Alabama Air National Guard service. this issue is a dud.

Ron Paul refines his “chickenhawk” argument against Gingrich so it sounds more sane: says that if you got multiple deferments when you had the chance to serve then you shouldn’t order anyone into war. that makes total sense but is a big difference from the chickenhawk argument which smears everyone who did not elect to join the military as having actively hid from it. That is stupid. Paul is doing really well tonight. I wish he ran this good a campaign in 2008 and/or performed this well in the 08 debates.

Newt says it is “inaccurate and false” that he asked for deferments. I don’t care cuz I’m more annoyed that he said “inaccurate AND false”. They mean the same thing, dude…

[commercial break]

Do states have the right to ban contraception? what in the what? — oh shit – Romney is voicing my exact reaction and chiding Stephonopolous for asking it. The question was based on a court case but still asked oddly. — NOW Stepho cuts to the chase and asks whether the Constitution has a “right to privacy”.

Ron Paul on the right of privacy in the Constitution: it pertains to your personal belongings and the state meddling with them with warrentless searches and whatnot.

Question from Yahoo asker: Since you’re against same sex marriage, what do you want gay people to do with their partners?

Gingrich: Favors hospital visitation rights, will and similar sensible laws. just quibbles over the word “marriage”

Huntsman: “Civil Unions are fair and I support them”. Doing well until he uses the old trope by saying he doesnt believe his marriage is affected by gay couples or same sex marriage or civil unions or idk what he;s referring to there but either way its stupid because no one has ever said gay relations of any kind affect their marriage. dumb thing to say.

Santorum: Let the states decide – but then stops himself and says there should be a singular Federal law so people arent married in one state and not married in another. derp? Then says “this is a state issue not a federal issue” – double-derp? Moderator asks what happens to same sex marriages if Santorum passes a law saying marriage is one man one woman – Santorum doesnt answer. just repeats that if the law passes it passes.

Romney: says its a “wonderful thing” for people to commit to each other long term but they don’t need to call it “marriage” and receive approval from the state that way and I bite my nails because I like Mitt and that is almost the right answer but only if he follows it up with “BUT, lets give le gayz more legal rights” like what Newt said. Thankfully he did go on and is talking about those rights right now as I type this: basically favors civil unions, legal partnerships, etc and just wants to preserve the word marriage. I don’t care about the word marriage but I dont have a problem with this traditionalist-but-non-hater position. whew! glad he got it right and remained the only candidate to avoid saying things that I would be embarrassed by if I were to publicly support.

Gingrich comes back and asks (openly, not to any individual) whether the Catholic church (he is a convert to Catholicism) should be forced out of the adoption business because they dont adopt out to same sex couples. gets applause.

Romney agree’s and notes that that is exactly what happened in Massachusetts by a court order he disagrees with.

Stepho beats the dead horse of Ron Paul running as a 3rd party candidate even though he says he doesnt want to and has never expressed interest in doing so. Paul gives the same answer as always: he’s not doing it and has no plans to do it but won’t promise not to do it.

Ron Paul says he’s doing well in the polls and says with a warm smile that he’s getting “closer to Mitt every day”. People laugh. its a nice/friendly moment.

Perry is asked if everyone on the stage should rule out a 3rd party bid. Perry doesnt answer and instead says anyone on the stage is better than Obama and then goes back to same sex marriage and says he wants a Constitutional amendment to define marriage.

Romney and Huntsman on when to leave Afghanistan: Huntsman says leave right away and dont invest another penny in that boondoggle. Romney says get em out soon but no hard date cuz you’ve got to asses the details as President first.

Perry says to send troops back into Iraq… when pressed: Perry says we need to because Iran will move in “literally at the speed of light”. Holy shit, those are fast Iranians…

[commercial]

Romney says that there are things Government can do to help the job market – like fix bridges n shit, but fundamentally government does not create jobs, it can only encourage the private sector.

I miss these two:

Romney: bring down taxes to be competitive with other nations and give relief to people who need it most and mostly hurt by the Obama economy, the middle class. Reduce rates. Reduce the amount of exemptions. Simplify the tax code and broaden the base — God damn you Republicans who don’t love this guy are stupid. He’s SO your best candidate in decades…

blah blah boring stuff – im checking twitter for a few minutes…

Huntsman vs Romney on China: Huntsman pulls the “i know Chinese” card and says a sentence to Romney in Mandarin and doesn’t explain what it means. SO. fucking. Douchey….

Huntsman says Romney wants a trade war with China. Romney says “nigga, the fuck you talkin bout?” (paraphrase) and does a thing with his hands saying he doesnt want a trade war but “we sell China *this much* [higher raised hand] – they sell us *this* much [much lower hand gesture] – who do you think doesnt want the trade war?” – bam.

[commercial break]

oh. that’s the end.

Well that was one of the best ones they’ve had. Everyone did very well.

Post debate commentary by ABC panel: Donna Brazil, former Gore campaign manager said that it was a good night for Democrats because no one attacked Mitt Romney. When everyone on the panel gave a hearty “wtf?” to that comment she explained that the weakest candidate is the one that no one attacks and that was Mitt Romney so Democrats are happy. Everyone reacted in unison with a “nooo. you don’t mean that” in the tone of when you say “aawww, c’mon” when an elderly great aunt says something controversial but you want to brush it off and ignore it instead of deal with it.

UPDATE: here’s an out-of-context recap, but the clips are not at all in chronological order.

TECHNOLOGY:

Congress does not pass SOPA but there is little victory over it because similar legislation lurks elsewhere, including the horizon. Representatives also fail to feel a noticeable sting in their re-elections due to SOPA support and major corporations only learn to be more stealthy about support of such laws and power expansion policies in the future.

Apple continues to disappoint us with software and lackluster hardware releases and suffers from bad press about whether the company can keep its magic without Steve Jobs. As much as I want an AppleTV television right now, I predict it doesnt come out in 2012 (unless it makes a last minute appearance in October) and we continue being teased until 2013.

Facebook, despite not wanting to, finally goes public and i’m forced to learn what IPO actually means/is.

Netflix recovers from its series of terrible mishandlings in 2011 and no one even remembers the fiasco anymore.

CELEBRITY:

Reverend Billy Grahm passes away. Fidel Castro (finally) and Hugo Chavez die.

Bill Clinton has a health scare but lives. Betty White lives. Lindsay Lohan lives but theres a close call.

Charlie Sheen stars in a new show. It doesn’t last long but doesn’t ruin his career. He mellows out.

Megyn Kelly gets a new show on Fox and Jake Tapper hosts the sunday show on ABC (finally), like he deserves.

POLITICS:

Ron Paul does not win the Iowa caucus in the Republican primary.

Donald Trump will not run for president and will endorse the Republican nominee (see below).

Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee, will choose a hispanic vice president (either Rubio or Fortuno) and will ultimately defeat Barack Obama in the November election.

As is often talked about, Hillary Clinton will NOT switch places with Joe Biden in their respective roles as Vice President and Secretary of State. Clinton will in fact plot a comeback. Barack Obama, constitutionally allowed to serve 1 additional term as president, plots his own comeback in another run for president but waits out the following cycle to avoid a rematch with Romney. See 2013′s predictions for how and when Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey will run for political office.

Liberals who have been vocal about how disappointed they are in Obama all year change their mind and come out with vocal support for Obama again, making the election much closer than previously thought by popular wisdom.

Republicans will keep the House and just barely capture the senate – possibly causing a 50/50 split.

The Tea Party will fuck up chances for bigger Republican victories and something will be done about that shit.

The Occupy Wall Street bullshit fizzles even faster than the nuts int he Tea Party get netted under control and more former supporters start to be more open about their embarrassment about what a masturbatory joke that whole thing was. Romney as the GOP nominee causes more anti-Wall Street activism press but not due to Occupy.

 PERSONAL:

I start a new website to moderate/respectable success.

My hairline either starts receding or thinning.

I release pilots or first seasons of at least 9 new animated series. Several flop. Several do so-so. 1 or 2 is a big success.

The title however…lol. Eh.. well.. Considering Newt has been divorced twice and is on his third marriage, a better headline perhaps could have been posted…

Perry once again falsely accused Romney of writing in his book “No Apology” that he wanted to impose his state’s health care plan at the federal level.

Perry: I read your first book, and it said in there that your mandate in Massachusetts, which should be the model for the country — and I know it came out of the reprint of the book, but, you know, I’m just saying, you were for individual mandates, my friend.

Romney: You know what, you’ve raised that before, Rick. And you’re simply wrong.

Perry refused an offer from Romney to bet $10,000 as to who was right. In fact, Perry is wrong and Romney is correct. As we have written a couple of times before, the book was revised and this line was removed: “We can accomplish the same thing for everyone in the country.” But the phrase “the same thing” refers to the goals of the state law: “portable, affordable health insurance,” not the controversial individual mandate or the entire law. Romney saw the Massachusetts plan as a potential model for other states, if they so choose, but not as a federal mandate.

So Romney “bet” Perry $10 thousand dollars over the issue and Perry declined. “Bet” is in quotations because there are two types of betting: 1) a gamble on what is only a possible outcome and 2) a challenge to a claim of fact. To Romney, it is the latter and to Perry it is the former. In other words: Perry would be gambling if he took the wager because he knows he might be wrong since he didnt read the book and is only going on what his handlers keep giving him despite multiple news sources reporting that the shit just aint true. To Romney, there is no gamble because he wrote the book and knows Perry is saying something false.

So the reaction after this is that Perry is being a douche by not correcting the record AND not accepting $10,000 to his failing campaign just to prove what he keeps saying at these debates, right? Nope: the media attack line is that Romney made a blunder by offering the bet.

Kathie Obradovich says that “Romney bet was one of his worst debate moments”

But Perry really made his mark when he successfully goaded Mitt Romney into one of the worst moments he’s had in a debate so far. Perry challenged Romney on a passage in his first book, claiming an early edition said the Massachusetts health-care program should be a model for the national plan.

Romney disputed the claim and when Perry persisted, he jokingly offered a $10,000 bet. Perry didn’t take the bet, but he won the point. Romney was casually offering the equivalent of about one-fifth of the average median income for an Iowa family. Romney’s privileged background was driven home later when the candidates were asked whether they’d ever had to cut costs in their own family budget.

“I didn’t grow up poor,” Romney said, and noted that if voters are looking for someone who did, they’ll have to vote for somebody else.

That line sounds rhetorical, but evidently there are a shit-ton of morons looking for someone who “grew up poor” to be their nominee.

Ed Morrissey on Hot Air continues the stupidity

Romney, however, made the gaffe of the evening when he attacked Rick Perry, of all people. Until now, Romney has been very careful not to punch below his class, but Perry got under his skin and Romney ended up going after Perry on Gardasil all over again. He didn’t do it well, either, and when Perry attacked Romney over statements in his book regarding health care, Romney tried to intimidate Perry by challenging him to bet $10,000 over the issue. If Romney wanted to make himself look rich, arrogant, and clueless, he could hardly have done a better job. When was the last time someone challenged you to a ridiculous bet in order to intimidate you out of an argument? For me, I think it was junior-high school.

What the hell? At least one guy gets it:

You may not have heard: Romney laid down a bet with fellow candidate Rick Perry for a cool $10,000 (or what Newt probably spends on lunch every week) during a recent debate. Doesn’t Mitt know that candidates, no matter how successful they may be, must always act as if they mow their lawns and eat curly fries at diners on Friday nights. If not, the electorate will be deeply insulted.

This kind of rhetoric is nothing new for Republicans. During the 2008 primaries, Mike Huckabee noted that “Mitt Romney looks like the guy that fires you.” This assessment was backed up by then-candidate John McCain, who, we soon found out, understood as much about the economy as Meghan McCain.

If you get rich working in finance, there’s a good chance you did something wrong, right? And Mitt, well, Mitt is heartless. Mitt worked for Bain Capital. Mitt was part of the private equity firm that salvaged poorly run, bloated businesses — sometimes through “painful” cuts and firings. There are honorable ways of getting rich (peddling political influence and/or writing books), and then there’s the Wall Street way. Newt, no less of a flip-flopping careerist than Romney, sold his political connections for wealth rather than create any.

You Republicans who support Newt Gingrich over Mitt Romney are high on mushrooms made of meth that were dusted with cocaine and had weed sprouting out of them. Not cuz Newt is crazy evil or anything like that, and not even because he looks so…. ug… like that. but because you’re tripping balls on this “not conservative enough” bullshit.

If that’s your litmus test then Santorum’s your guy. Oh, you don’t want him? Then you have no one.

I understand you people giving him a shot and a fair look. but it’s too late for that now. It’s obvious you’re only going for him as a Mitt alternative and that’s stupid. He doesn’t differ with Mitt on anything that matters, has all of his weaknesses x2, none of his strengths except for debate performance and isn’t nearly as electible.

There’s no in between on Newt support: his supporters are either super politically educated policy wonks who are blinded by how fascinating his Presidency could be and ignoring how impossible his candidacy would be – and then there are the people at the other end of the spectrum who just think he’s a safer bet to not instate mandates, and protect fetal babies or something. Idk. But the point is: y’all are freakin nuts.

Ya’ll better get your shit together fo reel. This is what makes independents like me think you’re nutty and dangerous.

From NewtCantWin.com:

This combined with the fact that Newt is now on his third wife will give the media and the comedians more than enough fodder to turn Newt into a complete joke. The fact that his third wife has a bad case of “crazy eyes,” talks like a Stepford wife, and controls him to the point where he had a huge line of credit to Tiffany’s (a story which also has a damaging lobbying element to it) already has the same lefty comedians who destroyed Palin practicing for Newt. (Note the reference in that comedy bit to his fake Twitter follower “scandal,” which will also help cement the “this guy is a joke” narrative.)

Callista may be a great person for all I know, and if Newt was a Democrat none of these things would fair game for the media, but, sadly, this is not the case and the reality is that she would be a significant liability.

At Citizens United productions (run by Gingrich sycophant Dave Bossie, who was fired by Republicans on the Whitewater investigation for manipulating tapes to make the Clintons look bad) it was well known when I worked for them that Callista Gingrich was a complete nut who controlled Newt to the point where she forced him to put her in his movies despite the fact that she was horrible on camera. (Interestingly, Newt’s tendency to switch positions based on who is paying him is illustrated through his evolving stance on the issues related to the much misunderstood and largely bogus Citizens United Supreme Court case.)

Then, of course, there is the issue of his first two wives. Yes, the story of him serving his second wife divorce papers on her death bed is a myth but as we have learned from the assassination of Palin, media created myths still have lots of power to destroy a candidacy.

But the media won’t even need to dredge up that old storyline because, unfortunately for Newt, his second wife is still very much alive and has been VERY outspoken about exactly why there is “no way” Newt will ever be president.

When you have ex-wives, they better at least still endorse you, especially when you are a Republican running against a media darling like Obama. Should Newt be nominated, the media will make sure that every American will know what his second wife thinks of him.

Which leads to one of the biggest problems Newt would have in a general election: the gender gap would be massive.

Newt would have more than three strikes against him with women. First, a majority of women already vote for Democrats on a good day and they still tend to like Obama personally. Second, at least one of his multiple ex-wives doesn’t think he should be president. Third, his appearance and demeanor obviously don’t exactly appeal to the majority of women.

]]> http://richwatch.net/newt-gop-nomination/feed/ 0 http://richwatch.net/electoral-college-republicans/ http://richwatch.net/electoral-college-republicans/#comments Mon, 19 Sep 2011 08:23:47 +0000 richard http://richwatch.net/?p=2655

Pennsylvania Republicans are working on a plan that’s as mischievous as it is completely legitimate: apportioning its electoral votes by congressional district instead of the current winner-take-all system. Under the new system, a presidential candidate would receive an electoral vote for each congressional district he or she (but let’s be honest — this year, it’s going to once again be a he) wins, plus two more if he wins the statewide vote count. For example, since John McCain won ten out of Pennsylvania’s 19 districts in 2008, he would receive 10 electoral votes, instead of the zero he took home under the state’s current system. Obama would have received 11 electoral votes — 9 for the congressional district he won, plus two for winning the state — instead of the 21 he was awarded.

Pennsylvania, like every other state, is free to dole out its electoral votes however it wants. Republicans control both chambers of the state legislature as well as the governorship, so if the GOP wants to switch over to a congressional-district apportionment system, all the Democrats can really do is whine.

Interesting push that I didn’t totally understand at first, and still don’t unless this is a conspiracy, which I will get to in a moment. The part that doesn’t make sense is that even though PA has been won by the Democrats in the past 5 elections, the Republicans have campaigned there every time with legitimate hopes to capture it. In theory it is a “swing state” because the margin of victory is thin enough to change over, it just never happens that way. So if the Republicans think they could actually swing the state to their direction, why would they want to change the winner-take-all rule RIGHT when it could benefit them? Further: the extra few electoral votes under this system wouldn’t have changed the outcome of any of the recent elections, so whats to be gained by Republicans by doing this?

That’s when the conspiracy comes in: What if other states that have gone Democrat in presidential elections for the past few rounds but are now controlled by Republican Governors and Republican state congresses did the same thing? Such states are Michigan and Wisconsin, which dont have many Republican voting districts but if the trend continues – who knows?

Below is the electoral map based on Congressional-district apportionment (Red = Republican. Blue = Democrat).

As for Democrats retaliating by doing the same in traditionally Republican voting states? Not so much…

The only states that John McCain won where Dems control both houses of the state legislature are Arkansas, Mississippi, and West Virginia. West Virginia is too small for splitting the electoral votes to have much effect, and Mississippi has a Republican governor. That leaves Arkansas, another small state — and one where McCain won every district handily in 2008.

No matter how you slice it, splitting up according to districts helps Republicans since Democrat districts are more solid-democrat than Republican districts are solid-republican. I know this from living and traveling across the country: there are far more areas where you can bet large amounts of money on picking a person at random at knowing for certain they will lean Democrat and hardly anywhere in the country where the same is true for Republicans. Even the most conservative areas of a fiery red state still has plenty of democrat influence. As Michael Barone of the conservative American Enterprise Institute wrote last year:

[I]n 2004 John Kerry won 80% or more of the vote in 19 congressional districts, while the number of congressional districts in which George W. Bush won 80% or more was zero. Similarly and even more starkly, in 2008 Barack Obama won 80% or more of the vote in 28 congressional districts, while the number of congressional districts in which John McCain won 80% or more was zero.

Normally I am not one for conspiracies but this one just might be hatching… Stay tuned…