I digress, but I have to agree that it will be really nice to not have to hear anymore campaigning, mud-slinging, or fundraising in two days.
I feel rather disgusted with politics, which is a pity because I have really loved learning about the government. While the man is corrupt, it is generally a great system; however, this election is different to many others in astounding ways, especially when referring to the electoral college.
There is a surprisingly large possibility this year that there could be no winner. This has only happened twice in our country's history and neither of them occurred under our two-party system. One was merely a flaw that put the supposed-to-be vice president in the running for president and the other occurred when there were four candidates and only one party.
Even if this does not happen, there is a strong likelihood that Romney could win the popular vote, but the electoral vote would go to Obama. Obviously, this has happened before. However, in 2000, this particular situation did not create the kind of disturbance that political scientists believe it might in this election. In 2000, the hanging-chad dilemma in Florida was in the public eye. Without another topic to focus on, all eyes will turn to the electoral college.
There are already many in favor of abolishing the electoral college for this very reason: the more popularly voted candidate may not take office. Before, I might have agreed with you. I would have been among the many who wanted equality. After all, that is the basis of our nation, right?
For many people, there is a belief that the Founding Fathers did not know what they were doing. OF COURSE they didn't! We WERE the first and ARE the only government with this particular setup. Luckily for us, this nation was inspired. While many people may say that the electoral college is a failure, they are forgetting the consequences of not having such a failure. Without the electoral college, our political system would greatly resemble the French. This isn't all bad...crepes and popularity right? However they are forgetting what this means for our two-party system. Few, if any, other countries rely solely on two-parties. Without the electoral college, third parties would thrive. There could be a third party for EVERYTHING! Not seeing where this is bad yet? Let me tell you. More opinions equals better representation, right? Wrong. In fact, the rise of third parties would merely lead to greater corruption in government. There would be few times that a party could actually gain the majority vote under these circumstances. Consequently, the smaller parties would pay off larger parties for their and their constituents' support. These coalitions would only increase the corruption in the government.
I think that it's safe to assume that the general consensus is that we do not need anymore corruption than there already is in politics.
On that note, if the electoral college does seem to fail, just remember that it's not the bad guy here. It's merely keeping our nation from greater evils.
