The Electoral College Flap

The New York Times on Sunday called for the abolition of the Electoral College. The timing couldn't have been more perfect--if such a display of constitutional tomfoolery could ever really be perfectly timed! The fact is my new little book, The Importance of the Electoral College, has just been released. Not surprisingly, I take the opposite view of the Times.

As a result of the happy and providential convergence of these contrarian developments, I have been flooded with media requests from all over the country. And more are flooding in as the fall presidential race really begins to heat up. You can get copies of the book directly from Vision Forum at their website or by calling toll free at 800-440-0022. Moms, dads, and educators might want to consider using the text for a little election primer or for a unit study on the character and nature of the constitution. But be prepared: the subject seems to be raising quite a furor.

It is likely that there is a great deal about the current political and cultural climate that would altogether dumbfound, agitate, and flummox the Founding Fathers. But this business of the Electoral College brouhaha would be particularly baffling to them. As I asserted in a blog entry this past week, the innovative federal approach to electing the president was one of the least controversial provisions of the new constitution. Even during the divisive debate for ratification, it was one of the very few aspects of the new compact that gained universal support. Indeed, according to Alexander Hamilton writing in the Federalist Papers, “The mode of appointment of the Chief Magistrate of the United States is almost the only part of the system, of any consequence, which has escaped without severe censure, or which has received the slightest mark of approbation from its opponents. The most plausible of these, who has appeared in print, has even deigned to admit that the election of the President is pretty well guarded. I venture somewhat further, and hesitate not to affirm, that if the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent. It unites in an eminent degree all the advantages, the union of which was to be wished for.”

Just goes to show how far afield we have drifted from the thinking of those who entrusted us with the great legacy of freedom and liberty.