Obama Was Selected, Not Elected

[Rich]

OBAMA WAS SELECTED, NOT ELECTED
by [url]http://www.anncoulter.com/[/url
]June 4, 2008

Words mean nothing to liberals. They say whatever will help advance their cause at the moment, switch talking points in a heartbeat, and then act indignant if anyone uses the exact same argument they were using five minutes ago.

When Gore won the popular vote in the 2000 election by half a percentage point, but lost the Electoral College -- or, for short, "the constitutionally prescribed method for choosing presidents" -- anyone who denied the sacred importance of the popular vote was either an idiot or a dangerous partisan.

But now Hillary has won the popular vote in a Democratic primary, while Obambi has won under the rules. In a spectacular turnabout, media commentators are heaping sarcasm on our plucky Hillary for imagining the "popular vote" has any relevance whatsoever.

It's the exact same situation as in 2000, with Hillary in the position of Gore and Obama in the position of Bush. The only difference is: Hillary has a much stronger argument than Gore ever did (and Hillary's more of a man than Gore ever was).

Unbeknownst to liberals, who seem to imagine the Constitution is a treatise on gay marriage, our Constitution sets forth rules for the election of a president. Under the Constitution that has led to the greatest individual liberty, prosperity and security ever known to mankind, Americans have no constitutional right to vote for president, at all. (Don't fret Democrats: According to five liberals on the Supreme Court, you do have a right to sodomy and abortion!)

Americans certainly have no right to demand that their vote prevail over the electors' vote.

The Constitution states that electors from each state are to choose the president, and it is up to state legislatures to determine how those electors are selected. It is only by happenstance that most states use a popular vote to choose their electors.

When you vote for president this fall, you will not be voting for Barack Obama or John McCain; you will be voting for an elector who pledges to cast his vote for Obama or McCain. (For those new Obama voters who may be reading, it's like voting for Paula, Randy or Simon to represent you, instead of texting your vote directly.)

Any state could abolish general elections for president tomorrow and have the legislature pick the electors. States could also abolish their winner-take-all method of choosing presidential electors -- as Nebraska and Maine have already done, allowing their electors to be allocated in proportion to the popular vote. And of course there's always the option of voting electors off the island one by one.

If presidential elections were popular vote contests, Bush might have spent more than five minutes campaigning in big liberal states like California and New York. But under a winner-take-all regime, close doesn't count. If a Republican doesn't have a chance to actually win a state, he may as well lose in a landslide. Using the same logic, Gore didn't spend a lot of time campaigning in Texas (and Walter Mondale campaigned exclusively in Minnesota).

Consequently, under both the law and common sense, the famed "popular vote" is utterly irrelevant to presidential elections. It would be like the winner of "Miss Congeniality" claiming that title also made her "Miss America." Obviously, Bush might well have won the popular vote, but he would have used a completely different campaign strategy.

By contrast, there are no constitutional rules to follow with party primaries. Primaries are specifically designed by the parties to choose their strongest candidate for the general election.

Hillary's argument that she won the popular vote is manifestly relevant to that determination. Our brave Hillary has every right to take her delegates to the Democratic National Convention and put her case to a vote. She is much closer to B. Hussein Obama than the sainted Teddy Kennedy was to Carter in 1980 when Teddy staged an obviously hopeless rules challenge at the convention. (I mean rules about choosing the candidate, not rules about crushed ice at after-parties.)

And yet every time Hillary breathes a word about her victory in the popular vote, TV hosts respond with sneering contempt at her gaucherie for even mentioning it. (Of course, if popularity mattered, networks like MSNBC wouldn't exist. That's a station that depends entirely on "superviewers.")

After nearly eight years of having to listen to liberals crow that Bush was "selected, not elected," this is a shocking about-face. Apparently unaware of the new party line that the popular vote amounts to nothing more than warm spit, just last week HBO ran its movie "Recount," about the 2000 Florida election, the premise of which is that sneaky Republicans stole the presidency from popular vote champion Al Gore. (Despite massive publicity, the movie bombed, with only about 1 million viewers, so now HBO is demanding a "recount.")

So where is Kevin Spacey from HBO's "Recount," to defend Hillary, shouting: "WHO WON THIS PRIMARY?"

In the Democrats' "1984" world, the popular vote is an unconcept, doubleplusungood verging crimethink. We have always been at war with Eastasia.

COPYRIGHT 2008 ANN COULTER
DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE
4520 Main Street, Kansas City, MO 64111

[Xavier_Onassis]

Ann Coulter has no credibility on anything, and least of all on the Democratic Party.

[Plane]

Ann Coulter has no credibility on anything, and least of all on the Democratic Party.

That is why there is no need to challenge her logic.

[Plane]

I am beginning to see what is ment by the often referenced "code".

[Rich]

It's much easier for some people to simply discount the truth rather than deal with it.

That's why there's a democrat party.

[fatman]

It's much easier for some people to simply discount the truth rather than deal with it.

That's why there's a democrat party.

What is Truth?
By Johnny Cash

The old man turned off the radio
Said, "Where did all of the old songs go
Kids sure play funny music these days
They play it in the strangest ways"
Said, "it looks to me like they've all gone wild
It was peaceful back when I was a child"
Well, man, could it be that the girls and boys
Are trying to be heard above your noise?
And the lonely voice of youth cries "What is truth?"

A little boy of three sittin' on the floor
Looks up and says, "Daddy, what is war?"
"son, that's when people fight and die"
The little boy of three says "Daddy, why?"
A young man of seventeen in Sunday school
Being taught the golden rule
And by the time another year has gone around
It may be his turn to lay his life down
Can you blame the voice of youth for asking
"What is truth?"

A young man sittin' on the witness stand
The man with the book says "Raise your hand"
"Repeat after me, I solemnly swear"
The man looked down at his long hair
And although the young man solemnly swore
Nobody seems to hear anymore
And it didn't really matter if the truth was there
It was the cut of his clothes and the length of his hair
And the lonely voice of youth cries
"What is truth?"

The young girl dancing to the latest beat
Has found new ways to move her feet
The young man speaking in the city square
Is trying to tell somebody that he cares
Yeah, the ones that you're calling wild
Are going to be the leaders in a little while
This old world's wakin' to a new born day
And I solemnly swear that it'll be their way
You better help the voice of youth find
"What is truth/"


Lyrics Depot

[Xavier_Onassis]

It's much easier for some people to simply discount the truth rather than deal with it.

That's why there's a democrat party.

================================
There isn't any such thing as the democrat party, you schlub.

There's the Democratic Party.

As for discounting the truth, what truths have been discounted by Juniorbush and Cheney?
I am a uniter, not a divider.
I do not believe in nation building.
I will do away with runaway spending of the people's money.
Saddam has al manner of WMD's ready to lob on the US.
Better a smoking gun than a mushroom cloud.
Mission Accomplished.
The Iraqi resistance is in its final stages.

[Plane]

"I am a uniter, not a divider."

What makes this one untrue?

[sirs]

For that matter, what makes the latter claims accurate or non-distorted??  Outside of the wreckless Democrat-like spending, the others are largely gross distortions & misrepresentations of the truth

[Brassmask]

"I am a uniter, not a divider."

What makes this one untrue?

Are you kidding me?

[Plane]

"I am a uniter, not a divider."

What makes this one untrue?

Are you kidding me?

Stuck eh?

[Brassmask]

"I am a uniter, not a divider."

What makes this one untrue?

Are you kidding me?

Stuck eh?

Would you consider sirs, yourself, ami, bt, Michael tee, XO and myself all "united" about anything that George Bush has done, said, invaded, murdered, lied about, etc?

[BT]

We are united in our disagreement with each other.

And we all come to the same place to express it.

[Brassmask]

We are united in our disagreement with each other.

And we all come to the same place to express it.

Yes, and we are united in our desire to breathe air and sleep with eyes closed too.  I see your point.

You know and I know that the point was that this country is even more deeply divided than it was during the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal and ensuing impeachment.

Thinking on it now, though, I imagine that I have had an illusion of unity because I imagine the division was equally venomous (or more) during the Watergate scandal or after Ford pardoned Nixon or when Carter said the country was suffering from malaise or when Reagan tried to get away with Iran/Contra.   (Bush 41, in hindsight, was pretty damned good [even though he had a hand in killing JFK]).

Speaking of which, in an effort to try and bridge the divide, did anyone see the American Experience episodes about George H. W. Bush?  As you know, I'm no fan whatsoever of the Bush family but that documentary really softened my views of Bush 41.  It was fascinating they way they framed him as a man who was taught not to engage in braggadocio but who really wanted to be president.

Particularly humanizing was the fact that he and Barbara had a daughter early on who died (of leukemia, I think) and he had her picture on his desk during his whole presidency. Later they had another daughter, Doro later.



From the show:

Narrator: In the late 1950s, after the birth of Jeb in 1953, Neil in 1955 and Marvin in 1956, Bush wrote a letter to his mother: "There is about our house a need. We need some starched crisp frocks to go with all our torn-kneed blue jeans and helmets. We need some soft blond hair to offset those crew cuts. We need a dollhouse to stand firm against our forts and rackets and thousand baseball cards. We need someone to cry when I get mad -- not argue. We need a little one who can kiss without leaving egg or jam or gum. We need a girl."

Jeb Bush, son: I read that letter in my mom's book, and actually listened to it on tape. I was driving home on I-95, the traffic was going crazy, and I started crying uncontrollably. I had to stop in the middle of this interstate. I called my mother up to tell her how much I loved her and how much I loved my dad, and she of course -- her immediate response was, "You didn't read the book. You had to wait for the tape to come out." She gave me grief for that. But it was pretty typical of my dad to write those kinds of letters.

Doro Bush Koch: I just learned this story a few years ago, on my birthday, when my mom wished me a happy birthday and she told me that she remembered the day I was born, that Dad came to the nursery and pressed his face against the glass and sobbed.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/presidents/video/bush_03.html#v255

[sirs]

You know and I know that the point was that this country is even more deeply divided than it was during the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal and ensuing impeachment.

Yes....thank you very much Democrats