Earlier this week, President Barack Obama released his long-form birth certificate to the public. Various media outlets had widely differing views on why it was released after millions of dollars were spent to keep it hidden, in the same way that they differed before its release on whether it should be released, or if it even existed. Aside from a few fringe outlets questioning this line or that line, the general consensus is even among “Birthers” that President Obama has finally proven his Constitutional eligibility to be President over two years after taking office.
One person who gives himself the most credit for getting the birth certificate released is Presidential hopeful Donald Trump, who has been touting himself as a potential Republican challenger to Obama in 2012. Mind you, this is less than a year after he donated to the Mayoral campaign of Rahm Emanuel, a former Obama cabinet member, and Senator Chuck Shumer, et al…but people can change their minds, right? And it’s not good to upset your potential donors…although there are much bigger donors to Democratic campaigns, such as George Soros, who could easily make up any shortfall from Trump stopping any of his donations.
Obama has given himself credit for finally releasing the birth certificate, claiming he wanted to take the focus off that issue and onto the important things. But vacation after vacation while we suffer with deficits exceeding $1 trillion, runaway bureaucratic abuse, wide open borders, ballooning energy and food prices courtesy of ethanol, cap and trade and drilling bans, and a tax code that makes War and Peace look like a pamphlet, it is hard to find any real focus on the major issues the Federal government ought to be handling.
Some point to poll numbers, showing an increasing number of people either not believing or at least not sure that Obama was born in the U.S. But poll numbers against ObamaCare, the stimulus and TARP did not sway Obama or his precessor, George W. Bush, from their positions, so it is hard to take that seriously as a factor.
While not an official Tenth Amendment Center issue, as many as ten States took up the issue of President Obama’s birth certificate within their own State Legislatures. Arizona and Montana were among the first, but they have both voted Republican consistently in the last several Presidential elections, so being off the ballot in those States would have done nothing to Obama’s re-election odds. However, when Pennsylvania, an Electoral Vote heavy Blue State since the 1992 elections, began debating the issue, something like that would have been hard to ignore. There is no doubt Obama will need 270 electoral votes to be re-elected, but theoretically, a Republican would not have to with Pennsylvania out of play.
Pennsylvania will be worth 20 electoral votes in 2012. If a Republican challenger won back enough swing States just to push Obama below 270 without Pennsylvania, but did not get 270 him/herself (a spoiler candidate could possibly take PA that year), the President would then be decided by the House, and the Vice President by the Senate, which would likely leave us with a Republican President and Democratic Vice President.
No major media outlet is reporting this, but with unemployment still near 9%, the deficit far exceeding the highest of the Bush years, and America involved in another war in addition to Iraq and Afghanistan, President Obama will need every solid Blue State he can get for re-election. The Electoral College, hated as it is by the “51 percenters” who advocate for popular vote only, has not been abolished yet, so Obama will have to work within that system to win. There are at least five double digit Electoral Vote swing States (Indiana, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia) that could go back to the Republicans next year. What would be more of a threat to one’s re-election hopes? An eccentric corporate bigwig who has declared bankruptcy multiple times talking about fiscal responsibility, or not being on the ballot?
While it is unlikely that the next President, whether taking office in 2013 or 2017, will be on the side of States’ Rights and proper separation of State and Federal power, it is possible that the birth certificate battle was a victory, not for Obama or for Trump, but a quiet victory for the States.
cross-posted from the New Jersey Tenth Amendment Center
By 2012, The National Popular Vote bill could guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
The bill preserves the Electoral College, while assuring that every vote is politically relevant and equal and that every voter will matter in every state in every presidential election. Candidates would need to care about voters across the nation, not just undecided voters in a handful of swing states.
In the 2012 election, pundits and campaign operatives already agree that, at most, only 14 states and their voters will matter under the current winner-take-all laws (i.e., awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in each state) used by 48 of the 50 states. Candidates will not care about at least 72% of the voters- voters-in 19 of the 22 lowest population and medium-small states, and big states like CA, GA, NY, and TX. 2012 campaigning would be even more obscenely exclusive than 2008 and 2004. Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or care about the voter concerns in the dozens of states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind. Policies important to the citizens of ‘flyover’ states are not as highly prioritized as policies important to ‘battleground’ states when it comes to governing.
Since World War II, a shift of a handful of votes in one or two states would have elected the second-place candidate in 4 of the 13 presidential elections. Near misses are now frequently common. There have been 6 consecutive non-landslide presidential elections. 537 popular votes won Florida and the White House for Bush in 2000 despite Gore's lead of 537,179 popular votes nationwide. A shift of 60,000 votes in Ohio in 2004 would have defeated President Bush despite his nationwide lead of over 3 Million votes.
The bill would take effect only when enacted by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes–enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC). The bill would thus guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
The Electoral College that we have today was not designed, anticipated, or favored by the Founding Fathers but, instead, is the product of decades of evolutionary change precipitated by the emergence of political parties and enactment by 48 states of winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution.
The bill uses the power given to each state by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for president. Historically, virtually all of the major changes in the method of electing the President, including ending the requirement that only men who owned substantial property could vote and 48 current state-by-state winner-take-all laws, have come about by state legislative action.
In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). Support is strong among Republican voters, Democratic voters, and independent voters, as well as every demographic group surveyed in virtually every state, partisan, and demographic group surveyed in recent polls in closely divided battleground states: CO – 68%, FL – 78%, IA 75%,, MI – 73%, MO – 70%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM– 76%, NC – 74%, OH – 70%, PA – 78%, VA – 74%, and WI – 71%; in smaller states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK – 70%, DC – 76%, DE – 75%, ID – 77%, ME – 77%, MT – 72%, NE 74%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM – 76%, OK – 81%, RI – 74%, SD – 71%, UT – 70%, VT – 75%, WV – 81%, and WY – 69%; in Southern and border states: AR – 80%,, KY- 80%, MS – 77%, MO – 70%, NC – 74%, OK – 81%, SC – 71%, VA – 74%, and WV – 81%; and in other states polled: CA – 70%, CT – 74%, MA – 73%, MN – 75%, NY – 79%, OR – 76%, and WA – 77%.
The bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers, in 21 small, medium-small, medium, and large states, including one house in AR, CT, DE, DC, ME, MI, NV, NM, NY, NC, and OR, and both houses in CA, CO, HI, IL, NJ, MD, MA, RI, VT, and WA. The bill has been enacted by DC, HI, IL, NJ, MD, MA,VT, and WA. These 8 jurisdictions possess 77 electoral votes — 29% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
"…after millions of dollars were spent to keep it hidden…?" You need to provide some kind of documentation on such a claim. Until you do, your web site's credibility stands in question.