Comments on: Time for an end run around the Electoral College?

By: Josh Richman

Josh Richman — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 05:00:43 +0000

Um… wow. First of all, Sheila, I think you posted your comment to the wrong item, as your complaint doesn’t seem to have much to do with the Electoral College.

Secondly, I never said I equated the gay-marriage struggle to the civil rights movement; many No on 8 activists feel that way, but I think they were wrong (and I think they realize that now) to assume African-Americans would automatically agree. If there’s a case to be made for it, it wasn’t made very well in this election.

Third and finally, I think those who do believe the struggles are similar would say it’s not a matter of sex, or of color, or of sexual orientation; the similarity lies in seeing a group of people ostracized and denied fundamental rights simply because of who they are. And that’s the one place in which I must respectfully disagree with you: Sexual orientation isn’t a choice, it’s simply who someone is.

By: Sheila Robinson-Phillips

Sheila Robinson-Phillips — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 03:22:33 +0000

Please do not compare the struggles of black men and women,of America, who have died for over a hundred years because of the color of their skin. Now these same people whom have hated blacks and killed blacks want to compare Prop. 8 to their struggle. These are the same people whom fought against blacks for years not for our sexuality but for the color of their skin. People have a choice to decide whom they want to sleep with but black men and women didn’t have a choice and it’s a big difference. So Josh Richman, people in the media and the Bay Area New Group have no right to compare the two. The people voted Yes on Prop 8 and thats the way it should stand. Stop trying to make people except what they didn’t vote for. Prop 8 LOST! Stop trying to compare the black struggle to the gay struggle because we’re talking about sex, not color. Stop comparing the struggles of a black men to the struggles of two gay doctors who love each other, that make over $500,000 a year or more to our struggles of color. Get a Clue! Sheila

By: susan

susan — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 17:46:27 +0000

Keep in mind that the main media at the moment, namely TV, costs much more per impression in big cities than in smaller towns and rural area. So, if you just looked at TV, candidates get more bang for the buck in smaller towns and rural areas.

For example, in California, candidates for governor or U.S. Senate don’t campaign just in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and those places don’t control the outcome (otherwise we wouldn’t have recently had governors Reagan, Dukemejian, Wilson, and Schwarzenegger). A vote in Alpine county is just an important as a vote in Los Angeles.

If the National Popular Vote bill were to become law, it would not change the need for candidates to build a winning coalition across demographics. Any candidate who yielded, for example, the 21% of Americans who live in rural areas in favor of a “big city” approach would not likely win the national popular vote. Candidates would still have to appeal to a broad range of demographics, and perhaps even more so, because the election wouldn’t be capable of coming down to just one demographic, such as voters in Ohio.