The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Just as CanadaÕs latest election was a strange one, so too was that of the United States on November 4. But the election was much different than ours, in which the party leader with most seats in the Commons gets to be Prime Minister (but can be defeated at any time if there are more opposition votes.) In America, the Founding Fathers set up a much different system, with a short-term elected Congress, a longer-term elected Senate, and a President elected by all the voters of all of the states. ÒThe FathersÓ did not really trust the voters, so they set up the Electoral College with each state worth a certain number of electoral votes based on population. The populous states of California, Texas, New York and Florida have the most, and states like Wyoming, North Dakota and Montana have the fewest. Win the popular vote in a state and win its electoral votes. The College meets shortly after the election to choose the President. DonÕt think that electors can change their mind and vote for the loser in their state, as each party puts up their list of electors with the winning list attending the college. This is an interesting system found only in the USA. The question of how to elect the President was a major problem at the Constitutional Conference in 1787, which rejected the idea of Congress electing the leader and also a direct vote of the people. If no presidential candidate gets the electoral votes needed to win, the vote goes to Congress, with each state having one vote, as happened in 1824, and the Senate choosing the vice-president. So the 26 least-populated states can elect the President, which could lead to chaos. This was the fear in 1968, when Richard Nixon ran for the Republicans, Hubert Humphrey for the Democrats and Alabama Governor George Wallace for his American Independence Party. It could have been a deadlock, but wasnÕt as Nixon won 17 more electoral votes than needed to win. Talk about lame-duck leaders. The presidential election is held every four years and he/she can be elected only to two terms. The newly elected President does not take over until January, so the old President reigns until then, usually appointing loyalists to the courts and other positions. Some consider the President a lame duck once the last year of his position begins. Presidential campaigns seem to last forever, costing millions as candidates first try to secure the party nomination and then the presidency. Believe it or not, Democratic President-elect Barack Obama spent $9 million on his half-hour infomercial on the Wednesday before the election. It was quite a slick show as Obama played up himself and his proposals and did not mention his opponent, John McCain, once. The Republican had trouble responding, as his campaign had only a fraction of the dollars that the Democrats had. Why? McCain took public dollars and Obama did not, which meant that McCain was held by law to spending limits. The Illinois senator, on the other hand, could spend whatever he could raise, and there seemed to be no limit. Strange indeed. Neither candidate was supposed to be nominated by their party. For a long time in the nomination races, McCain had trouble raising money and was considered done for until the results in the New Hampshire primary breathed new life into his campaign. The other candidates either dropped out, endorsed him or ran out of money. Hillary Clinton was supposed to win for the Democrats and be the first woman presidential candidate. She energized huge numbers of women but eventually ran into the ÒClinton FactorÓ Ð do the American people want another four (or eight) years of Bill Clinton and his wife? Besides, Obama would not give up and began winning more and more states until Hillary was finished. In the final days of the race for White House, both candidates spent all their time in the battleground states and none in their sure-win states. Following the lead of his running mate, Sarah Palin, McCain, a huge underdog to Obama, appeared on Saturday Night Live the weekend before the election. When Palin was on, the program was viewed by 75 million Americans. Did their appearances make a difference? More next week. RogerÕs Right Corner runs Wednesdays.
