re: #360 Anymouse
I agree: My vote in Nebraska should count no more or less than one in Massachusetts or California.
But the rules as constructed in the Constitution are electoral votes. Unless the Democrats want to run in our states, they are going to lose.
I donāt care if California goes to Hillary Clinton by twenty million votes over Donald Trump, it makes no difference under the Constitution. The Democratic Party has to run campaigns as the Constitution is constructed, not as liberals wish it is constructed.
Every state the party chooses to cede without a fight is more electoral votes for the Republicans. ID, MT, UT, ND, SD, NE, OK, KS, TX, LA, AR, KY, TN, LA, AL, MS.
I probably missed a few. Thatās an awful lot of Electoral Votes that the Democrats say āfuck it.ā
California is ofttimes mentioned as the ādeath starā of electoral politics. Guess what? That list of states that the party doesnāt try to compete in, because reasons (too hard, costs money, too many bigots, too many rednecks, pick an excuse) is way more electoral votes than CA.
The Democratic Party likes to claim it is the party of all the people. That is, except the people in the middle of the country. Too hard to represent those people.
Iāve made these arguments before and been pilloried for them here. Too bad. Liberals are just as bad as math as conservatives are when the math doesnāt serve liberal interests.
The math is clear. The Democrats are ceding a number of electoral votes bigger than Californian, then wonder why they lost. Popular votes donāt matter if Hillary Clinton wins by fifty million votes.
Fight for these states or try to win without them. The red wall of over a hundred electoral votes is twice the worth of California, and that is simple math. Everything I have heard here (too hard, too much money, &c ad nauseum) is an excuse.
The Democratic Party doesnāt care to fight here. That is the reality. The Democratic Party is in fact a regional party no matter how you care to deny it.
While that ridiculous map meme posted above about population is far from correct, it is more than correct about electoral votes.
If the Democrats think Nebraska is too hard to fight for, they ceded five electoral votes. Wyoming? Three more. North Dakota, three more. You start stacking up that pile for āstrategic targetingā of swing areas, the Democrats will lose us. Constituents listen to who comes here, who advertises here. Democrats? Crickets.
One member of my village board got the GOP to pay for radio adverts. I canāt imagine the Democrats doing that for me, and I expect my time as the only elected Democrat in eleven counties is numbered. Precisely because the party writes off the state. Well, five electoral votes to the R party. Thatās five the Dems have to make up somewhere else, and they canāt squeeze them out of Massachusetts or California.
The Democrats need to get out of their safe spaces.
When we win those states, weāre going to do it through building up a presence there over time. The National Democratic Party being involved there isnāt going to change that. Thatās why I think the next party chair needs to emphasize what OāNeill so simply said about all politics being local.