Electoral Votes

WASHINGTON -- With two months left until the November 5 election, it would be foolish to believe that nothing can change the dynamics of the presidential campaign. But at the outset, President Clinton holds such a staggering lead that few professionals in either party would be surprised if he wins a landslide.Although polls are out of date in some states, the available evidence suggests that Mr. Clinton is leading in 30 states and the District of Columbia with a total of 366 electoral votes, 96 more than needed.

SOME WHOSE job it is to speculate about politics once thought Gov. Pete Wilson was a dream candidate for president, then decided he was going nowhere and now are moving back toward the first view.That's because after many stumbles he is doing better in the polls in his home state of California. Not a lot better, but enough to make people take notice.Before he made his formal announcement of candidacy late last month, Wilson was running behind Sen. Bob Dole for the Republican nomination by 20 percentage points (17-37)

"DON'T KNOW much about geopolitics," I wrote about the Balkans, "but I have lots of dictionaries at my disposal, and what is going on in Bosnia is not genocide."Morton Winston of Columbia replied, "The dictionary only gives lexical definitions."The correct place to look for a definition of the term 'genocide' is in the text of the Convention and Punishment for the Crime of Genocide, which was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly on Dec. 9, 1948, entered into force as international law on Jan. 12, 1961, and was ratified by the U.S. Senate on Feb. 19, 1986.

THE RUST BELT tour of Bill Clinton and Albert Gore Jr. is a reminder that there's more to the Electoral College, despite what wise guys like me keep saying, than the South and the West.If the Democrats are going to win the presidency in November they have to carry most of the states along the route of this week's bus-capade: New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri.Those eight states have 117 electoral votes. The South has more (147), but the Rust Belt (that 117 plus Michigan's 18)

GARY CRAFT of Baltimore writes to point out that Jan. 20, God willing, there will be more ex-presidents of the United States alive at the same time than there have been in 130 years.On Jan. 18, 1862, at 12:14 a.m., these ex-es were looking over President Abraham Lincoln's shoulder: Martin Van Buren, John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan. Tyler went to the Great White House in the Sky at 12:15. Then there were four.On the next Inauguration Day there will be five again: Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George Bush.

Washington -- A dozen Novembers ago, at the dawn of a conservative presidential era, Walter Mondale, in his graceful concession speech as vice president, spoke of the majesty of the people wielding ''their staggering power.'' Only four times in American history has one party held the presidency for more than 12 consecutive years (the Republicans have not since 1896-1912) and this year the people's power ended a 12-year reign. But the people's decision was a kind of continent-wide shrug: Might as well try someone else.

DENVER -- Four years ago, Eileen Padberg managed George Bush's presidential campaign in the state of California. Now, she's not sure she'll even vote for him.The alienation of moderate Republicans such as Ms. Padberg is the final nail in the coffin for Mr. Bush's political chances in the nation's most populous state. It is also an important part of the remarkable political change that has swept the West this election year, giving Bill Clinton an excellent chance to break the GOP's hold on the region.

WASHINGTON -- With the Democratic National Convention only two weeks away, Gov. Bill Clinton's best chance to draw public and media attention from the Bush-Perot donnybrook over Perot's alleged super-snooping is to make an impressive selection of a running mate.At the same time, however, the fact that the November election now shapes up as a three-candidate affair could affect that choice in a way that would not be as high-minded as Clinton has vowed his selection will be. In the end, the possibility of a finish in which a handful of electoral votes make the difference could pressure him to make a more traditional, big-state choice after all.The Arkansas governor has pledged to pick someone who will be widely seen as qualified for the presidency without regard to the customary considerations of geography or other factors deemed to enhance the ticket's chances for victory.

WASHINGTON -- Hopscotching across key battleground states, President Bush and Gov. Bill Clinton wound up the 1992 campaign with polls indicating Mr. Clinton still holds a comfortable lead among voters, who are expected to turn out in larger-than-usual numbers today.The president told a suburban Philadelphia crowd yesterday that "we are going to pull off one of the biggest surprises in political history," but a raspy-voiced Mr. Clinton was so confident that he introduced his wife, Hillary, to crowds as "the next first lady."

Bush has no domestic game planAnna Quindlen hit the nail on the head in her column "No there there" (May 7). I only question whether what George Bush stands for is an essay question or a fill-in question. The answer in any case is: Nothing.What Mr. Bush wants has been apparent all along: be president. He brought no further thought to the position than that. He had no personal passions or ruling principles except to get to the top.He has always acted as though it were his due for his long service in the bowels of government, including eight years in that nonentity of all positions, vice president.

The editorial "Flunking Electoral College" (Dec. 16) suggests that the Electoral College should be abolished because "the system disenfranchises many voters and sometimes results in the candidate who wins the popular vote losing the presidency." The editorial then cites the law Gov. Martin O'Malley signed that "would award Maryland's electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote regardless of who wins in this state." My question is: Who is disenfranchised if this law takes effect?

Yesterday in Annapolis, 10 electors representing Maryland in the Electoral College cast their ballots for Barack Obama. The Electoral College is an institution enshrined in the Constitution. It also is an archaic threat to our democracy because the system disenfranchises many voters and sometimes results in the candidate who wins the most votes losing the presidency. Just ask Al Gore; he won the popular vote but lost the White House because his electoral vote tally fell short. In many states, the Electoral College discourages potential voters who know the candidate they favor is likely to lose in a winner-take-all state election.

WASHINGTON - John McCain's fresh momentum is changing the contours of the presidential contest and making a close finish more likely than ever. With the race a virtual dead heat in national polling, the presidency could, once again, be riding on the voters of a single state. In 2000, Florida was pivotal. Last time, it was Ohio. This fall, the place to watch may be out west. Colorado could be the ultimate swing state of 2008. Statewide polling puts it squarely in the tossup category. Frequent visits by both presidential tickets attest to the importance of winning there.

Electoral College protects small states Is there anybody else in Maryland who is as incensed as I am over the latest outrage by the House of Delegates? In its zeal to spite President Bush and redress a perceived flaw in our voting process, the House voted for a bill that violates the Constitution of the United States by taking all the electoral votes from Maryland and throwing them to the winner of the national popular vote ("Delegates approve popular-vote bill," April 3). Notice that I did not say the popular vote of Maryland but the national popular vote.

The General Assembly has passed legislation that would bypass the Electoral College and elect the president by national (raw) popular vote. It is unconstitutional and bad for every voter in Maryland and in the United States. Gov. Martin O'Malley should not sign it. The bill is unconstitutional because the Constitution says "that no state ... shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate without its consent." This plan commits Maryland to a national compact that would go into effect after states with electoral votes representing a national majority - conceivably as few as 13 of the largest states - sign on to it. This would eliminate senatorial electoral votes and therefore harm every small and medium-size state, without its consent.

The House of Delegates approved a proposal yesterday that could make Maryland the first state in the nation to award its electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote in presidential elections. The bill commits Maryland to a national compact that would go into effect only after states with electoral votes representing a national majority - the 270 required to win the presidency - also sign on. As such, it would likely not affect how the state's votes are counted in the 2008 contest - and could never be implemented if other states fail to approve similar measures.

Lawmakers hoping to propel Maryland into a more prominent role in presidential campaigns have introduced bills that would award the state's electoral votes to the candidate who wins the most votes nationwide. The aim is to prevent a repeat of the 2000 presidential election, in which Democratic nominee Al Gore won the popular vote but lost to Republican George W. Bush in the contest for electoral votes. The Electoral College, which dates to the nation's founding and whose members are elected on a winner-take-all basis in most states, chooses the president weeks after the election.

By 2030, nearly two-thirds of all Americans will live in the South and West - the Sun Belt - according to recent Census Bureau projections. In fact, the bureau forecasts that 30 percent of all Americans will be living in just three states - California, Texas and Florida - each of which it calculates will grow by 12 million people, the total population in 2000 of Pennsylvania or Illinois. The shift will profoundly affect American life, most obviously in culture and politics. The Sun Belt's changing racial and ethnic landscape may be the best news for Democrats, otherwise fated to watch much of blue America's numbers fall.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush and Sen. John Kerry sprinted toward the finish of the first post-Sept. 11 presidential campaign yesterday with the terrorism issue squarely in their sights and the contest a virtual tie. Osama bin Laden's videotaped warning to Americans added an element of uncertainty to already shaky pre-election calculations on both sides. Voters ina handful of battleground states, the scene of fierce campaign competition since the spring, are likely to decide the election.

Don't look now, but the political stars might be aligning to put the candidate who loses the popular vote into the White House once again. This time around, though, it might be the Democrat taking advantage of the odd institution known as the Electoral College. Tom Schaller, a political scientist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, has been touting this scenario since spring: John Kerry takes the populous states that went for Al Gore in 2000 - that's where Gore piled up his 500,000-vote margin over George W. Bush - but in much tighter races.