The Patriot Post® · Why the Electoral College Matters

It seems that every four years, we hear a call for an end to the Electoral College. On the face of it, it does appear undemocratic to allow a bunch of anonymous electors to have the final word when it comes to determining the victor in a presidential election.

Why on earth, you might well wonder, didn’t the Founding Fathers allow the popular vote to determine the outcome? It’s because they, who had suffered under the rule of King George III, were constantly on the alert against despots, even when they happened to be in the majority.

In other words, they didn’t want a few large population centers to decide who would govern an entire nation. So, let us say for example that in New York, California, Illinois, Massachusetts and New Jersey, the Democratic candidate won the five states by a collective margin of 10 million votes. It would make it extremely difficult for a Republican to overcome that huge a plurality, but the Founders didn’t want five or six or even 10 states to have a lock on the presidency.

So they came up with the Electoral College, which meant that if a Republican could carry the majority of states, even if it was only, on average, by 25,000 or 50,000 votes, the ultimate winner would represent a far larger segment of the country. Very wisely, as it turns out, they didn’t want those in predominantly urban states to have absolute supremacy over those that were rural.

The Founders didn’t have a rooting interest in a single Party, but in a single nation. They were always trying to work out a fair balance. So they created a House of Representatives that acknowledged that more populated states should have a larger influence than the less populated ones, but they balanced it by giving every state the same number of senators, whether it’s California with its 38,802,000 population, representing 12% of the country, or Wyoming with its 584,000, representing a tiny fraction of 1%.

So for all the high-sounding flapdoodle of one man/one vote or — in the case of Chicago — one corpse/one vote, the Founders knew better.

Certain criminals, for one reason or another, capture the public’s fancy and become folk heroes. A few that come to mind have been Jesse James, Billy the Kid, John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, Willie Sutton, Bill and Hillary, but one who actually deserves to be is John Beale.

In case his name doesn’t ring a bell, he was regarded as a topnotch climate change expert. As such, he was hired by the EPA and received an annual salary of $206,000. But what made Mr. Beale exceptional is that he was a con man. Okay, I grant that’s not so extraordinary for a Washington bureaucrat. In fact, it’s almost a prerequisite. But he really was.

For 13 years, he rarely showed up for work. His cover story is that he was not only a climatologist, but a covert operative for the CIA, so he would explain his lengthy absences by saying he was either on a mission in Afghanistan or reporting back to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. He was actually home reading, bicycling or working in his garden.

On occasion, he would get wanderlust and hop on a plane, 33 times in all, always flying first class, and getting reimbursed by the EPA, which never seemed to question why he wasn’t getting a travel allowance from the CIA. But, then, it was only tax dollars, otherwise known as Monopoly money in Washington.

Even after throwing himself a “retirement” party, Beale continued collecting over $200,000 from the agency.

He was finally caught, tried and convicted, of defrauding the government. Justice, you might think, was served.

On the other hand, his boss at the EPA, Gina McCarthy, who has overseen the contamination of the Animas River and the Flint, Michigan, water system continues to keep her job.

Overall, I think you’d have to agree that Beale acted far more responsibly than Ms. McCarthy. He merely took money that wasn’t his; he didn’t kill anyone.

Speaking of wasting tax dollars, Barack Obama is calling for an 18% increase in the allocation of funds spent on ex-presidents.

As it is, the taxpayers are already picking up the tab to provide Carter, Clinton the two Bushes and soon, though not nearly soon enough, Obama with Secret Service protection for 10 years, a travel allowance, office and staff expenses, free postage and printing and a pension of $199,700-a-year.

Prior to 1958, former presidents didn’t even receive a pension, but because Harry Truman was experiencing financial difficulties, Congress took pity and passed the Former Presidents Act.

But we are now long past the days when Ulysses Grant could find himself living in abject poverty. Every modern ex-president receives a $10 million book deal, including a ghost writer, upon leaving the White House. After that, as the Clintons have shown, the sky’s the limit.

I suspect that if Trump is elected, he, like Herbert Hoover, will forswear a presidential salary, but I don’t really begrudge them the $400,000 annual stipend and the $50,000 non-taxable expense account. I do draw the line at flying the entire family to-and-fro for far-flung vacations and fund-raisers, especially when we keep electing multi-millionaires.

Another flagrant injustice I just heard about involves the women of World War II who were members of the WASPs (Women Airforce Service Pilots). There were 1,074 of them, and their mission was to free up male pilots for combat.

They were used to ferry planes from the factories to military bases and to tow drones and aerial targets for artillery training.

It was no picnic; 39 WASPs died while serving their country.

In return, a not-so grateful nation denied them post-war military benefits. And, now, it’s come to light that they’ve been denied burial at Arlington, although any soldier who had even just a single day of so-called active combat service is granted the honor.

In 2014, eight surviving WASPs got to ride a float in the New Year’s Day Rose Parade, but somehow it doesn’t seem quite enough.

As I’ve watched the primary campaigns unfold, it occurs to me that politicians all have more in common with each other than they have with normal human beings. They will spend months accusing one another of the vilest acts, questioning not only their religious faith, but the legitimacy of their births, and the day after their opponents drop out, praise them to the heavens in a blatant play for their endorsement and their supporters.

It also occurs to me that if you know someone is a Democrat, you probably know everything you need to know about his character. But if you know someone is a Republican, you only know he isn’t a Democrat.

Speaking of which, reader Pat Miano sent me a defining portrait of Bernie Sanders or any other socialist, for that matter.

Sanders is addressing a group of blue collar workers. He explains his manifesto: “Under democratic socialism, if I have two houses, I give you one. If I have two cars, I give you one. If I have two boats, I give you one.”

One of the workers asks “Does that mean if you have two shirts, you give me one.”

“No!”

“Why not?”

“Because I have two shirts,” Sanders explains.

Of course it’s a joke, but, then, so are Sen. Sanders and Mrs. Clinton.

One of my readers wrote to say she wished more people were like her late father. During hard times, her mother wanted to accept help from their neighbors, but her father, a proud man, refused.

I wrote back to say I could see both sides in the family conflict. “Your father was right in wishing to be self-sufficient, but so was your mother, who was justifiably concerned with feeding the kids. So long as it was their intention to pay back the temporary assistance, there should have been no shame in accepting help. If friends or neighbors had been the ones experiencing financial hardship, would your father’s response have been ‘Screw them! Let them fend for themselves’? There is a point, it seems to me, at which self-reliance morphs into false pride.

It reminds me of an old joke about a guy sitting on his roof in the midst of a flood. A fellow in a rowboat comes by and offers to rescue him, but the guy says, "No thanks. God will provide.”

Then a guy on a raft comes by and makes the same offer, and he, too is rebuffed: “Thanks, but God will provide.”

Later that day, the storm kicks up and washes the guy off the roof, and he drowns.

When he reaches Heaven, the fellow asks God why He let him drown.

God replies: “What are you talking about? I sent you a rowboat and a raft.”