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Why the Electoral College DecidesCall it the Gore Curse. In 2000 Albert Gore had a slim margin of popular votes nationwide until the Supreme Court shut down what had already become an endless process of re-counting the Florida votes. When, as Vice President, Gore presided over the counting of the Electoral College votes in the Senate, it was George W. Bush who was the winner. That was precisely the way the Founding Fathers intended the election of a President should be. It is also pretty much a mystery to most voters who assume that whoever gets the most popular votes is the winner. As Sen. Mitch M. McConnell says in an interesting book on the subject, “Securing Democracy: Why We Have an Electoral College”, this unique instrument of the Constitution, was “the only thing that kept us from an even worse national nightmare.” What many Americans do not realize when they go to the polls is that presidential elections are “state-by-state battles to accumulate a majority in the Electoral College.” As McConnell explains it, “When our citizens go to vote, they are technically not voting directly for president. Rather, they are voting for a slate of electors who are pledged to vote for a particular presidential candidate.” The Constitution is such a devilishly clever—nay, brilliant—instrument of Thus, several weeks after an election, those electors meet in their state capitals where they cast two ballots—one for president and one for vice president. Those ballots are then sealed and sent to Congress to be opened and counted in January. In theory they are free to vote for whomever they want. In practice, they are party activists and loyal supporters of the presidential candidate in their state. All the votes are then counted in a joint session of Congress. That’s how the President and Vice President are chosen! One candidate must receive a majority of the electoral votes cast to become President. These days, that number is 270, out of 538 total electoral votes. Failure to achieve that would throw the election into the House of Representatives where they would vote as a state delegation, not as individuals. It is ingenious and it reflects the fact that America is a republic composed of separate republics, the States, each of which has a constitution of its own. The Constitution delineates the specific powers and limitations on the federal government while specifically stating in the Tenth Amendment, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” The whole purpose of the Constitution is to defuse power so that neither the President, nor the Supreme Court, nor Congress could become a tyranny over the people. It deliberately made the process of passing legislation laborious in order to slow it down for adequate deliberation and for the people’s voices to be heard. As Gary L. Gregg II, the editor of “Securing Democracy” points out, “Properly understood, the Electoral College and its origins point to the ideas and values that undergird the entire America constitutional system as these were embedded in the foundations of the Electoral College itself.” Everything about the Constitution is about the republican form of government that is dependent on “the consent of the governed.” That implies, as it should, that citizens have a responsibility to be involved as voters and be responsive in terms of letting their elected representatives know what they wish their government to do. As the Democrat Party met on Saturday, May 31, to figure out what to do with their horrid primary system that left Michigan and Florida hanging like so many chads, the argument that Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan put forth was that two nearly all-white States, New Hampshire and Iowa, should not and do not have the right to go first on the primary calendar and thus force candidates to spend an inordinate amount of time and money in order to influence the other state primaries. This is why the nomination process came down to the power of the Democrat Party’s super delegates. It is the Gore curse. Hillary Clinton may have the popular vote, but Barack Obama has the delegate votes. She could argue she is more “electable”, but he had worked within the system devised to secure the party’s nomination. In January 2009, the Electoral College will have the final vote as to who becomes the next President of the United States of America. This is precisely the outcome the Founding Fathers and the Constitution intended. Visitors to my blog will be pleased to know that Blogger.com has “unlocked” it so that I can once again post to it after a week’s enforced absence. In Shakespeare’s play, As You Like It, a character talks about the Seven Acts of Man, stage of life, and one of them is “the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lined, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; And so he plays his part.” I have reached that point and, having been imperially slim most all of my life, have been abashed that I too now have a “fair round belly.” Day after day, as I watch television, I am assailed with commercials about programs and products that will return me to my youthful prime, but it always seemed to me that, at various points in one’s life, putting on a bit of weight was quite natural. As each decade passed, I noticed a few pounds that would not go away. The issue of “fat” or weight has become an obsession for Americans and no doubt generates millions, if not billions of dollars, for those who offer programs and nostrums to “cure” something that, for most people is quite normal, even predictable.
“For fifty years the public has been told by officials of the American Heart Association and the National Heart Institute that this epidemic disease is caused by dietary saturated fatty acids and cholesterol. That advice is quite wrong. It is the greatest biomedical error of the twentieth century,” says Dr. George V. Mann, MD, in his foreword to the book. After that, it just gets juicier and juicier. “Our bodies,” writes Leas, “make cholesterol for a reason; saturated fat is a natural substance that has a rightful place in our diets,” adding that, “Saturated fat, by the way, is saturated with hydrogen atoms—not glop as we might imagine.” “The fat you carry around has useful functions,” writes Leas. “It stores energy for future use, produces important chemicals, builds cell membranes and neural structures, provides padding, insulates against cold, supplies fuel, and supports your immune system. Fat can be your friend!” When was the last time you ever heard anyone tell you that? And when was the last time you were told that, “Energy storage is only one way your body uses fat. Your fat tissue functions as a tremendously dynamic endocrine organ—the biggest endocrine organ in your body” and, as a result, “The hormones released by fat cells affect metabolism, weight, and overall health.” This is a very different way of looking at and thinking about fat. So, too, is the fundamental truth that, “While experts purport to know how much fat is healthy and unhealthy, the truth is nobody really knows. People are different.” I am not suggesting, nor is Connie Leas, that too much fat is not unhealthy as in the case of obesity or a disease such as diabetes. You and everyone else are, however, genetically programmed to be a certain weight. Your weight is greatly determined by how much weight was carried around by your ancestors who actually passed onto you genes that either keep you slim or contribute to you’re being rounder. “Despite our efforts at losing weight, we tend to weigh roughly the same year after year. The fact that our weight reminds relatively constant is the most obvious evidence that body fat is biologically regulated.” People who constantly diet are constantly hungry. The reason is, barring a hormonal imbalance, the body knows how much it should weigh, no matter what friends, family or society says about it. Take care not to be unduly influenced by the constant messages, the fearful alarms, the importuning of those who want to sell you products and programs promising to reduce weight when, in fact, you may just be the right weight. Do eat wisely, but don’t pass up dessert. Get some exercise. I walk as much as possible. If you have enough energy and feel healthy, you probably are. Sufficient sleep is a good thing, too. Simply stated, but less elegantly than Shakespeare, the most natural thing in the world, as we age, is to gain weight. Women accumulate their fat in the buttocks and thighs. Men experience it as abdominal fat. I shall therefore accept my “fair round belly” with more aplomb as befits my age and wisdom. Did you learn something useful this week? How much is it worth to you? The Center and this website depends on your donation, so we’re hoping you will help. Do you have a personal event to celebrate? Do it with a donation. Thanks!
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government that I can’t blame the average citizen for a lack of understanding of it, but its essential principles are not difficult to understand. First, all power resides in the nation’s citizens. They in turn elect Electoral College and congressional representatives on the basis of population per state (updated by regularly scheduled census) to conduct the nation’s affairs. 
We owe Connie Leas a debt of thanks for having written “Fat: It’s Not What You Think”, a softcover book published by Prometheus Books. A freelance writer by trade, Leas rather neatly destroys one myth after another about fat or being fat.