Down To The Wire 2012 >>POLITICS<<

Even admitting your premise, it's not the case that the choice of President is immaterial. Because how he decides to fix these things raised at state level depends on who s/he is or what he thinks.Gay marriage was first raised at state level? Sure. Now think about how. Some states have made it legal, some states haven't, and some states have changed their constitutions to say that it should never be legal. And then some politicians on the national stage have come out in favor of it, and some against it. Obama is in favor of it, Romney is against it, and some of the Republicans in the primaries would have supported a constitutional amendment taking that power away from the states.It's not unimportant what the President thinks. He has the power of veto. If someone want to (literally) make a federal case out of some issue, then the President can stop them from doing it, if they don't have the votes to over-ride.

The original idea was that the electoral college should get together, debate, use their judgement and take a vote, with the general population electing the actual electorate (so to speak).This might have been interesting, but it never happened. For one thing, the public didn't ever want someone who promised to use his best judgement after the election, but rather someone who would commit to a party and a candidate before the election; hence the members of the electoral college were always treated as markers for keeping score.Hence the electoral college is rather unusual, not because it is a historical relic, which is common, but because it's a relic of something that never actually happened; a vestigial organ, as it were, without an original function.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Looking at the polls, it seems quite probable that Obama will win the electoral college vote by a landslide and also lose the popular vote.What would be your opinions under those circumstances?

Probably he did, but I think I like his way better.

The noises from the right will go something like this: "For the second time in a row, the public has freely chosen a candidate who we keep describing as a "socialist", a "Marxist" and "the most liberal President in American history". To lure them back, obviously what we need is a candidate to the right of Genghis Khan, as that's clearly the sort of thing that appeals to them. Bachmann/Clone-Of-Hitler 2016!"

Hitler and Clone-Of-Hitler are two different people. Clone-Of-Hitler has a much better mustache. That's the effect of nurture, y'see.