Electoral Votes

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.

A recent Baltimore Sun article, "Election remake hits hurdles," (Jan. 29) brings to light new thoughts on how to change the rules of the Electoral College. At the present time, all states use the winner-take-all system except two, Maine and Nebraska. These states allow a proportional electoral vote based on their congressional districts. The article relates how, recently, various governors, senators and congressmen have suggested various schemes for revising the rules, most of them based on the award of electoral votes by the popular vote winners in their congressional districts.

AFTER DISCUSSION with family and colleagues, I have reluctantly decided that I will not be a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992.Unlike Senator Rockefeller, House Majority Leader Gephardt, Senator Nunn and others who have also formally bowed out, I plan to endorse another's candidacy.I urge Democrats to get behind the Man Who knows the path to the White House, the Man Who has a long and distinguished record as a vote getter, the Man Who stands for the core liberal values of the Democratic Party, the Man Who brings to the party the strengths of his ethnic heritage, the Man Who is Massachusetts' favorite son -- . . .[Sounds off-stage: No!

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.

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. -- As Maine goes, so goes only Nebraska -- so far. But Florida, with almost three times the combined weight of those two in presidential elections, is being enticed to join them in abandoning the policy of awarding all the state's electoral votes to the winner of the statewide popular vote.If Florida joins them in awarding one electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district (and awarding its other twoelectoral votes to the statewide popular vote winner), it could do more lasting damage to the two-party system than Ross Perot is apt to do.Republicans probably have the votes to prevent the change from coming to a vote in Florida's legislature this year, but they said they would support it if it would not take effect until 1996.

CHICAGO - In a mad scramble for electoral votes, Vice President Al Gore hopscotched across the country yesterday, from eastern Pennsylvania to Chicago to Las Cruces, N.M., and then to Kansas City, pursuing a state-by-state victory strategy that he hopes will defy national polls that narrowly favor George W. Bush. Gore trumpeted a populist theme - that he could best maintain the nation's prosperity, while pursuing environmental, energy and health care policies that would put the people's interests over the special interests.

CHICAGO - In a mad scramble for electoral votes, Vice President Al Gore hopscotched across the country yesterday, from eastern Pennsylvania to Chicago to Las Cruces, N.M., and then to Kansas City, pursuing a state-by-state victory strategy that he hopes will defy national polls that narrowly favor George W. Bush. Gore trumpeted a populist theme - that he could best maintain the nation's prosperity, while pursuing environmental, energy and health care policies that would put the people's interests over the special interests.

Washington. -- Refuting the arithmetic of fatalism is the challenge to any Democrat who would be president. It is a daunting task, but it can be done.The arithmetic turns on two numbers, 270 and $500 billion. The former is the number of electoral votes needed to win. The latter is the size the annual deficit, honestly calculated, is approaching. The deficit seems to make winning a barren exercise.By January 1993, two Republican presidents in a dozen years will have presided over the quadrupling of the national debt that existed when Ronald Reagan was inaugurated.

WASHINGTON -- At the Betty Ford Clinic for Recovering McCainaholics, despondent journalists are in a 12-step program for coping with the boredom that is, they believe, their fate, now that their hero has been sidelined. Any journalists capable of being bored when this continental superpower is choosing a chief executive need career counseling more than therapy. However, perhaps they can be stimulated by speculation about "state" or "category" strategies for selecting vice presidential nominees.