The Messing Link

The Role Of The Electoral College As Envisioned By The Founding Fathers

Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist Paper No. 68 that the purpose of the Electoral College was to prevent the elevation of those who only have "talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity" and to ensure  "that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications" .

Hamilton also wrote that the Electoral College should serve as an obstacle to

cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one querter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union? (emphasis added)
 

In other words, the Founding Fathers established the Electoral College for the express purpose of ensuring, among other things, that the President wouldn't be a puppet of a foreign government (like say, Russia). Clearly, the Founding Fathers wanted the Electors to be free to follow their consciences and vote against those who posed a threat to our national survival. Unfortunately, thirty states have, in effect, said "screw you" to the Founding Fathers by enacting laws that attempt to force electors to vote for the candidate that won the states' election.

It is not over yet.  There are now two prongs of attack currently underway to prevent the coronation of Donald Trump as President.   Before discussing these efforts I'd like to remind you of one important fact: Donald Trump does NOT have a mandate.  Despite winning the most electors in the Electoral College, Hillary Clinton leads Trump by 1.7 million votes as of this writing.  And any mandate Trump might claim despite his loss of the popular vote has been further tainted by the fact that it was at least partially achieved by a wildly successful effort at voter suppression in the key states of Florida, Wisconsin, and North Carolina. Trump's supporters are trying to counter these points by claiming three million votes were cast for Hillary Clinton by illegal aliens.  Snopes investigated this claim and could find no evidence to support it.

Other than Donald Trump, who Congressman Tom Reed has endorsed, the greatest threat to our democracy may be the corrupting influence of practically unlimited money that wealthy individuals and corporations can donate to Super Pacs. One of the biggest poster boys for demonstrating the necessity of cleaning up our political system is multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson.

There is no doubt that the WikiLeaks  release of stolen emails have damaged Hillary Clinton's campaign.  She may be leading Trump in the polls despite the leaks, but she would have a much greater lead had the DNC not been hacked.

But just how much should we rely on the WikiLeaks emails in evaluating whether Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump should become president? There are three points to consider when evaluating the email dumps.

Republican Congressman Tom Reed of New York's 23rd District continuously spouts nonsense couched in vague generalities. For example, look at this October 19 post from his unofficial politician's Facebook page.

I wrote a column last August for the Ithaca Journal calling on Congressman Tom Reed to rescind his endorsement of Donald Trump.  I pointed out that Reed had repeatedly criticized his opponent, John Plumb, and President Obama for being soft on Russia and that he could not logically maintain his endorsement of Trump while insisting we resist Russia's aggression in Ukraine.  Reed has yet to rescind his endorsement despite this inconsistency with respect to Russia and despite Trump's bragging about grabbing women by the pussy.

Donald Trump is an existential threat to our democratic system.  A vote for Donald Trump is a vote for the death of America.  I don't make this claim lightly. Let me explain.

That Donald Trump has a long history of misogyny is beyond dispute.  However, recent events have revealed that that Trump's misogyny may well have crossed the border from mundane chauvinistic piggery into the realm of sexual assault.

Hillary Clinton was mostly right in her characterization of Donald Trump's supporters as deplorable or disillusioned:

Donald Trump seems to be almost as good at dodging taxes as he was at dodging the draft.  We already knew that Trump paid no federal income taxes in 1978, 1979, and 1984. We also knew that Trump paid $0 or close to $0 in federal income tax in 1991 and 1993.  We should have sympathy for Trump in the early 1990's--he was was having tough times during those years as his casinos were going bankrupt and his creditors forced him to live on only $450,000 a month income.  (That’s right. That’s not a typo.)