Before I dive in, I'd just like to express a moment's amusement at the number of conservative political commentators who were decrying the electoral college when they thought that Bush would win the popular vote, and are supporting it now that Gore has. I'm not accusing Sam of this, naturally, since I don't recall him ever talking about it before.

> The electoral college also accents state rights. The power we give to states
> is, if I'm not mistaken, unique in the world, and it allows a large country
> to function well by allowing the govnerning of the people to be more
> tailored to the needs of those in each region.

Debatable. Particularly considering the non-uniform size of the states. Are the people in Rhode Island -really- so different from other people in the country? Do they need a whole government all to themselves to keep their tiny population happy? The difference in the quality of life in Rhode Island if it were absorbed into a neighboring state would be virtually nil (the only downside I current detect is that people would be unhappy that they suddenly lacked statehood, and then they'd get over it and we could all get on with our lives).

> The power of the states has declined considerably since the
> Civil War, when the North winning had the effect of taking away a state's
> legal right to succede from the union. Since then, we've had weaker
> states and a stronger federal government, but our states are still
> comparatively strong compared to the regional governments of other
> large countries.

This has not exactly helped the U.S. out in the past. Allowing the states so many rights in terms of producing their own laws allowed legalized racism to flourish for several additional decades, for instance, and has led so such absurdities as gay people being able to get married only in specific states.

> (The provinces of Canada are mostly too large to function well as local
> governing; in fact our own state of California is to large to meet the
> internally diverse needs of its people.)

Canada's government is not substantially less effective than ours. As for California, I'm not certain what evidence you're basing that on.

> Dissolving the electoral college would be a fundamental break-down
> of states' power. I would support converting electoral votes over
> such that they represent a proportional equivalent of the
> popular vote within the state, and I would definitely support
> requiring the electors to be legally bound to vote according to the
> popular vote, but that's as far as I would go.

Doing those two things is approximately equivalent to converting the election to a straight popular vote, give or take a few percentage points (since the number of electors is based on population). And it's a lot more work than a popular vote, too.

> If you're going to dissolve the electoral college (which is set
> up to give smaller states a voice in the election),

Actually, the electoral college was originally set up to prevent the unwashed masses from electing a popular but foolish president. States' rights are a secondary consideration.

> you might as well dissolve the Senate, too. Then it's just too
> bad if you happen to live in Rhode Island.

In other words, too bad if you happen to have 10% of the population behind you and want to blast a bill that would benefit the other 90%, but you can't because you don't have enough senatorial votes to block a 2/3 majority? Hell yes, get rid of the senate.

I mean, what is it about the idea that some fellow in Rhode Island or Vermont has more power than some fellow in Massachusetts that people find so attractive? (Their vote is proportionately more influential in terms of electing their state's senator, and their senator has the same power as any other state's.) States aren't the important thing about this country. People are.