Popular Vote

Your editorial was spot on regarding the current presidential campaign ("It's not over yet," Oct. 1). If one were to believe the current polls, President Barack Obama has already won the election and there's no need for anyone to vote. That obviously is far from the truth, because a poll is simply a snapshot in time and subject to daily change. I recall the historic presidential election of 1948, when the polls overwhelmingly favored a landslide victory for Gov. Thomas E. Dewey over incumbent president Harry S. Truman.

Among Republicans, it is an article of faith that high unemployment and voter disapproval of President Barack Obama's handling of the economy should put Mitt Romney in the White House. Unfortunately, Republicans fail to grasp that challengers must offer a compelling alternative to unseat an incumbent. And other issues matter more to voters than party leaders care to recognize. Mr. Romney's platform lays out detailed proposals to improve U.S. competitiveness, develop more domestic energy, streamline regulations and lower health care costs, but those are too complex to capture voter attention.

Three Republican presidential candidates — Rick Santorum, Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich — are preparing to plant a flag in Maryland ahead of the state's April 3 primary, offering GOP voters here a rare chance to take part in a national political battle. Local campaign officials said they expect candidates will swing through the state early next week, following Saturday's primary in Louisiana. Maryland, which has 37 delegates to offer, votes the same day as Washington, D.C., and Wisconsin.

The world according to polls, or some part of it anyway, is telling us that former Godfather's Pizza CEO Herman Cain is now the frontrunner for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. The latest NBC News/Wall Street public opinion survey has him the choice of 27 percent of GOP primary voters asked, to 23 for Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and only 16 for Rick Perry of Texas. Is there anybody in the general audience willing to bet his first-born, or even second or third, that Mr. Cain will be his party's nominee next year, let alone be sitting in the Oval Office come January 2013?

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.

As the second-smallest county geographically in Maryland, Howard generally doesn't have the political heft of the state's biggest jurisdictions. But when the real presidential election is held in Annapolis on Dec. 15, two of the 10 Maryland electors casting ballots for Barack Obama are to be Howard Dels. Guy Guzzone and Elizabeth Bobo, both Democrats. Neither knows why they were selected by the state party, they said. Despite the popular vote nationally, the Electoral College, under the law, elects the president, a fact that upset those same Democrats in 2000, when George W. Bush lost the national popular vote but won the electoral tally.

Given the bitterness of so many Hillary Clinton supporters that the woman they thought would be America's first female president will not be, the more they hear the suggestion that Sen. Barack Obama's win is illegitimate, the more likely they are to bolt. If Senator Clinton's voters embrace the story that "a man took it away from a woman," denying her a victory she deserved, they're at risk of staying home come November, or holding back from the volunteering and get-out-the-vote efforts necessary for the Democrats to prevail.

In response to an article published in Sunday's Ideas section about counting popular votes in the Democratic presidential contest, Sen. Barack Obama's campaign said the results of the Puerto Rico primary should be included in the popular vote total. "We view each vote cast in the Puerto Rico primary as being as important as the votes in any other primary or caucus," the Obama campaign said in a statement.

Gov. Martin O'Malley isn't wavering from his support for Sen. Hillary Clinton, but he's not toeing the party line on how superdelegates should vote or on the idea of her fighting all the way to the Democratic National Convention. In an interview yesterday with The Sun's editorial board, O'Malley - one of the first governors to endorse Clinton's bid for president - said he agrees with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that it would be dangerous for superdelegates to overturn the popular vote of Democratic primary voters.