It sucks living in a swing state

TomDunne

I'm sure most of you are tired of hearing about the upcoming elections and all, but let me tell you... if I could move to Wyoming and hide under a rock for the month of October, I'd take my chances. According to CNN, the state of Ohio has had the second largest amount of money spent on presidential campaign ads of any state in the union, just behind Florida. Bush and Kerry are here several times a week now and their events dominate the news (I couldn't flip through three channels last night without seeing the Schwarzenneger-Bush rally). If that's not already trying my patience, we have all the Ohio local stuff - a senator and a congressman - plus the local stuff - Cincinnati's various public offices. But, since Kentucky is just across the river, we get all of their state politics dumped on us as well. I hear more about their high profile candidates (Nick Clooney for the House, George's dad, and Jim Bunning for Senate, the Hall of Fame baseball player) than I do the guys I can actually vote for. An article in today's paper says that more than $20 million has been spent locally in political TV ads this year. It sucks, I hate it, and November 2nd can't come fast enough.

Just needed to whine a bit - I feel better, thanks for listening.

oXYnary

what? No democratic or republican door to doors yet?

Actually the democrats at least bothered with me. The republicans didn't. I feel unloved.

TomDunne

I live in a complex with a locked external compound door, so it keeps most of the riff-raff out. Somehow I did get some political literature crammed in my actual apartment door today, not sure how they got in. Like fucking roaches...

Apostle

I'm from cincinnati as well and i agree that this is just overkill. every comercial on is political. I think they did manage to sneak a hot pocket comercial in there yesterday. Tons of political junk mail. at least 2 phone calls a day. and we did had 1 person going door to door.

Sidwell

Living in a swing state beats the hell out of living in a state where the election is a foregone conclusion. Especially when it's for the guy you don't want winning.

Thank you, electoral college, for making this a completely futile gesture.

Frankie V

So do you all think that the electoral college should be dumped in favor of the popular vote?

Cannon

If they could conceivably come up with a way to organize it effectively, which sounds very, very hard...then I somewhat for it.

HellMark

I lived in Cinti for a long time. Best thing I ever did was move away from it. It may be a swing state but it's definitely saturated with conservatives controlling most of the stuff anyhow.

sledgy

The electoral process was developed when a good chunk of the population couldn't even read, much less make informed decisions about who should run the country. There are still people who can't read, and plenty of people that blindly eat whatever is put in front of them but I think it's about time to get rid of a process that is no longer relevant.

gauss

yeah. there was a very short window of time between learning about the workings of the government (electoral college) and actually being able to vote that snuffed out a lot of my enthusiasm for the whole voting thing. it's like "Every vote counts!... sometimes!"

TomDunne

Yeah, Cincinnati is still desperately holding onto the 1940s. I won't miss the place too much once I'm gone.

About the electoral college, it is still necessary - it just needs to be constructed on a more regional scale. If it was pure popular vote, there would be lawsuits in ever federal election from now until the end of time, since each vote in each state would be equally important. A better solution, in my opinion, would be to distribute the electoral votes amongst state districts (similar to what Maine and Nebraska already do). As it currently stands, if 55% of Ohio's votes are Republican and 45% Democrat, the Republican candidate receives all 20 electoral votes and the Democrat none. With a district electoral system, regions that vote Democratic can be recognized via their electoral votes - instead of all-or-none, it might split the votes 11-9 Republican to Democrat, plus or minus a few depending on how the districts are divided. Not only does that much better reflect popular will, but it also would help confine voting disputes to only reasonably contested regions rather than force statewind recounts.

*edit*

Mark, do you have a relative named Steve who works with P&G?

KDR_11k

Other countries don't need any intermediate voting, either, why does the US?

TomDunne

Our democracy is a bit older than everyone else's, while the country itself was very new - it was a good idea for the nation at the time. It's not that necessary anymore, but the Constitution is deliberately hard to change.

HellMark

Don't know of anyone related named Steve working at P&G. But being from an Italian family the extended family is so huge he might be a relative and I just don't know it.

TomDunne

Okay, just checking. Small world and all

On the topic, there's an article explaining the history and function of the electoral college at Time magazine's website:

http://www.time.com/time/election2004/article/0,18471,749496,00.html?cnn=yes

frosty

Well Vermilion coming from a state like Colorado, we have obtained many recorded adds from Reb. not Dems. and a daily barrage in the papers and a bit of spam mail, but I don't mind a bit, because I am glad to live in a free society that allows complete idiots to run for office, even if I don't agree at all with their views or convictions.

Do agree with Sledgy, popular should replace our archaic old system we have.

TomDunne

Frosty, on your ballot tomorrow you actually have a chance to change that. While not a true popular vote, Colorado is looking to split its electoral voters relative to the popular vote within the state. If the measure passes and, for example, Bush wins, he might split Colorado's votes 5-4 with Kerry rather than sweep all 9. That's even better than the district system I mentioned above, and you get a chance to hopefully see that implemented

joolz8000

woo-hoo!
http://www.snopes.com/sports/football/election.asp

Dukester

Old, Joolz!:)
heh heh, relish this small victory while you may.
Kerry winning is a small price to pay as far as I'm concerned. I tried, but cannot root for Washington!

Nerd Groupie

All I know is I picked the way wrong time to move to a super Repub state. I can't wait til Wednesday, when my normal annoying commercials are back.

Frankie V

Interesting reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing_state

Interesting paragraph:


Some observers have labeled Ohio as the most important battleground state. The Gore campaign in 2000 gave up on Ohio with weeks to go before the election, but some statistics seem to indicate that Gore was gaining ground there and might have won the state had he persevered. With Ohio, Gore would not have needed Florida to win. The state remains in play this year with polls seeming to show Bush and Kerry running neck-and-neck. Ohio has not gone to the losing candidate since 1960, when Richard Nixon won Ohio but lost the election to John F. Kennedy

TomDunne

Yeah, Ohio somehow manages to be a fairly accurate reflection of America in general. While the state generally leans conservative, it's a pretty good barometer of how the nation as a whole will go. I think the trend is that no Republican has ever won the White House without winning Ohio. That's interesting statistically, but it makes living here every fourth fall real goddamn annoying.