Electoral College

[zachman]

I agree with StatesRights there, I have still not made up my mind on the poll. I think the system should have been designed without the electoral college and the 3/5th compromise, so that every vote was equal. I think the system has its purpose, as does the foreign born president provision, and should not be changed.

When the EC does flaw it is a problem, and that should never happen. What does amaze me was Bush's press campaign in November 2000, to fool people into thinking that Gore lost the popular vote, fortunately that took care of Gore though.

I'm also surprised that with the solid south at the turn of the last century that the democrats never won enormously in the popular vote but lost in the EC. Was turnout ever high in the south, during those times?

[zachman]

I was talking about the solid southern elections from about 1888-1948 turnout was often 1/20 of a state's population.

[zachman]

The Hayes and Tilden election was an extreme case a 3% margin for Tilden and yet a loss. Why wasn't the South solidly democratic for the end of the 19th century?

[zachman]

Actually one of the lowest turnout groups are poor, white, rural southerners.
Turnout is always higher amoung rich, white, suburban southerners and blacks.

I blame gerrymandering...

They are a dangerous group to vote! They are politically like NASCAR dads, which in my book means stupid, rebellious, and intolerant. I was angered how Dean's statement on them was deamed too controversial.

[zachman]

The average lower class White Southerner does strike me as not valuing education at all. I'm sorry if my stereotype bothered you.

The North is not diverse at all. At my suburban middle school (my high school is far more diverse, but still very white) we had 3 or 4 asians, 1 half black kid, and maybe 1 hispanic out of a class of 300.

[zachman]

I don't like all groups of people. I don't like pure partisans- people who will agree with the parties no matter how they change. I don't like white southerners who often do not value education or religious tolerance.

[zachman]

I'd like to see a public school in the south and see how different it is. I'm guessing it would be like the school in October Sky.  

At summer school, everyone was from the Northeast and California except for a huge minority of black kids from the Jackson Mississippi public schools.

I do wrongly apply economic and educational barriers on whites from the south, partly because what Dean said, and partly because they are not the first generation of opportunity like their black counterparts. My prejudices against the south are too unfair and questionable, but I do have prejudices. Maybe it is the religion.

[zachman]

Texas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma are part of the same region. I'll start referring to it as the Western South. Texas, like Florida, is an exception to every regional rule because it has some major yankee influences.

[zachman]

Texas has these high-tech suburbs around Dallas and Houston, in which most of the population was not from the south.

[zachman]

Particularly Texas. There are migration patterns from those suburbs to here, and they don't bear a southern accent.

The other strange migration pattern I've found is that I've met two or three Alaskans who have moved to Texas, and then to NH.

[zachman]

I probably couldn't determine whether a person was Latino or not, because they just don't live in New England.

[zachman]

Should I group it with Missouri then?

[zachman]

I'd prefer soveirgnty over the country so I could choose what decisions were made. Unfortunately we can't do this (yet), but we can create a system that seems to make the individual have maxium power.