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Virgil Goode, when he was a Congressman in Virginia
The most important political news of the day has nothing to do with the Democratic national convention. It is that Constitution Party nominee for President Virgil Goode Jr. has made the ballot in Virginia. Last month Goode turned in over 20,000 signatures to make the ballot, and today a sufficient number were certified as valid.
While it is unlikely Goode will get more than one percent of the national popular vote, he has a very specific regional appeal in the critical swing state of Virginia. For over a decade Goode represented Virginia’s 5th congressional district before leaving the Republican party. Given his long history and name recognition in the state it is likely he could significantly over perform in Virginia compared to elsewhere.
It is possible in Virginia that Goode could take a few percent away from Romney among right leaning voters who are disappointed with Obama but also dislike Romney as a person. Given how incredibly close the race is in Virginia right now that small amount could easily be the difference between Obama winning or losing the State’s 13 electoral votes. Those 13 electoral votes in turn could be what barely puts Obama over 270 to get re-election. Based on the map it is very difficult for Romney to get to 270 electoral votes without Virginia.
If we used a sane election system to choose our president this would be only a very minor piece of news. If we had a national popular vote instead of the idiotic electoral college, it wouldn’t matter that a minor candidate had a special appeal in only one small part of the country. Further, if instead of a first-past-the-post voting model we used a run off or an instant run off system for when no candidate gets over 50%, there wouldn’t be the potential issue of a spoiler.
Yet the multiple terrible design flaws in how we choose our President combined with the unique circumstance surrounding Goode this election could result in him playing a radically more significant role than his overall level of support among all American voters would justify. While it is an unlikely scenario, it is very possible on November 7th we will look back at this event as the thing that allowed Obama to narrowly win a majority in the electoral college thanks to Virginia.
The fact that such a thing is even possible under our current election set up, would, I hope, encourage more people to embrace the need for some reforms.
11 Comments
Not just this guy; the Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson, will be on most state ballots and will draw more from Romney than from Obama. Jill Stein is not the star that Ralph Nader was, so the Greens are going to be less of a factor.
Goode should stay away from small airplanes, and make sure his campaign bus stops for a long time at intersections.
If you can’t trust electronic voting, how can you trust instant runoff voting?
The constitution how quaint but seriously that blueprint wasn’t drawn up on some acid trip but history put down on paper what to watch out for.
One non-buyable representative for no more than 30,000 people for starters.
That was the Jeffersonian antidote to corporate power, we should listen.
Is it easier to buy off half +1 of 435 as compared to 10,000, duh no brainer ?
Does the “Constitution Party” want to hold a new convention and revise, or scrap and re-write that 220 year old anachronism from an age that was over before the civil war began? Or are they “strict constructionists”, who claim we must read the constitution (a document written decades before the advent of steam engines) the way Orthodox Jews read the Torah? Not that there arent good ideas there, the separation of powers, the bicameral legislature, the bill of rights, etc..but as a working legal document, its pretty run down, and needs massive renovation,or it needs to be re-written.
Good for Goode. More choices the better!
But what’s with this national popular vote thing? It seems the one idea more asinine for selecting a president than our current Electoral College approach would be switching to scheme like that.
The current system already gives outsized influence to the most corrupted political machines in America which control our high-density urban centers. I get that the Al Gore thing bugs folks … but how does giving these wholly corrupt constituencies *even more* power to force their will down the throats of other state’s citizens make the system any better or more fair?
We’re a republic made up of ostensibly equal states. If anything we should be switching to a system that gives each state equal weight in choosing the president. A system of “one state – one vote” seems far more fair for a Union than a system of “my state’s bigger, so I win – fuck off”.
Just saying … it seems like a really terrible idea. Promoting it just feels like another way to ensure rural constituencies continue to see the liberal/progressive agenda as directly hostile to their interests and dedicated to ensuring rural Americans are not equally empowered through the structures of national democracy.
IMO, Jill Stein will draw more Dems that Obama was counting on than Johnson will draw GOPers. Rockey Anderson could hurt him a bit too. Don’t think it’ll necessarily be definitive – but the 3rd party dynamic cuts against Obama this cycle way more than it does Romney. The Romney team wrote the Ron Paul faction off as a given when crafting his strategy … Obama totally expects that the leftern disgruntled are largely going to turn out and vote for him.
Obama picked up a crazy NoVa swing in ’08 – lots of crossover and non-partisan support. It seems like the non-partisan/crossover voters aren’t particularly happy with Obama and are looking for somewhere else to go. Considering his popular Rhetoric of 2008 is a distant memory … those voters seem *very* gettable by any third party.
Jill Stein will be on the ballot in Virginia as well.
Great to hear that another option is out there. His views are deplorable, but this is progress, none the less.
The electorial law should have been rewritten long time ago.220 years old document has to have lots of changes, I think. This whole election system is a total joke. Especially when you think about the amount of money spent on all the candidates
Australia has used paper ballot Instant run off voting for a century.