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SD Democrat to Electors: Vote Kasich!

Business consultant Peter Klebanoff seconds the motion for our Electors to reject Trump and elect someone qualified for the Presidency. Democrat and Clinton-backer Klebanoff is even willing to accede to Electors’ choosing another Republican:

…What is unrealistic is to expect a Republican elector, who is generally tightly connected with their party, to vote for a Democrat and surrender the 3-body control this election has yielded.

So, vote for John Kasich (or Mitt Romney, perhaps). Republican. Qualified. Rational. Experienced. I’m a Democrat, I’d love to see Hillary be awarded the win, but I’m also a realist and I fully understand your challenge in flipping your vote to a Democrat, particularly one your party has spent so much energy working against. You would be sacrificing your political future … I get it.

As much as it would be nice to see Hillary be president, it is far more important – crucial in fact – that Trump not be president [Peter Klebanoff, “An Open Letter to the 2016 Electoral College,” that Sioux Falls paper, 2016.11.28].

Some folks contend the Electors mustn’t buck the will of the people. Klebanoff contends anti-Trump Electoral vote could still deliver what a majority of Trump voters want:

You can argue that he won the electoral college, but I would argue that he won a comparatively small portion of the electorate and that “Republican” and “not Hillary” actually represented a majority of his votes, which means you wouldn’t be voting against the wishes of most of the voters who cast ballots for Trump. They would still get what their intention was [Klebanoff, 2016.11.28].

I won’t go quite as far as Klebanoff. There are plenty of rabid sexist, racist fascists shouting Sieg Heil! for this specific flame-haired Führer. But I will agree with Klebanoff that there are also plenty of Trump voters among a majority of Americans who would prefer that the Republican Electors take their duty seriously, protect the White House and the country from incompetence and greed, and elect someone other than the fascist who topped their ticket.

I will also agree that John Kasich would make a decent President—better than Mike Pence or George W. Bush, perhaps as good as George H.W. Bush.

Tangentially Related: The SDGOP spin machine has remained uneasily silent about its victorious Presidential candidate since November 9.

17 Comments

  1. Craig 2016-11-29 11:30

    “Some folks contend the Electors mustn’t buck the will of the people.”

    I would agree with this. Whether the winning candidate is the person you supported or not, it would be a greater disservice to Democracy if the Electors went rouge and nominated someone who wasn’t even on the ballot than it they toss their support towards a demagogue.

  2. Don Coyote 2016-11-29 11:37

    So it appears that Klebanoff would prefer having the President elected by the House of Representatives. Under his “plan”, you would have to have at least 37 Trump faithless electors to deny him an Electoral College win. Flip 270 of them to a new candidate? Fugetaboutit, it isn’t going to happen.

    Even if all of those 37 electors voted for Kasich or some other Republican, the race would have no clear winner with 270 and would have to be determined in the House of Representatives where Republican control 32 delegations with Democrats having only 17 delegations (Maine is tied). With only 26 States needed for a majority, Trump wins.

    Give up all your machinations Klebanoff, Cory, et al, Trump will be President.

  3. Joe Nelson 2016-11-29 11:40

    Craig,
    If you have read this blog, you will know that Cory and the combox are big opponents of officials going against the will of the people (such as the Novstups trying to reverse minimum wage for youth, elected officials calling for a repeal of IM 22). The people have spoken!

    At least they are, until the aren’t ;)

    But I suppose any political group is all for democracy and the will of the people, as long as the will of the people supports their agenda.

  4. Porter Lansing 2016-11-29 13:08

    Excellent advice to electors. Vote for a different Republican. (As an aside, I’d rather Trump be President than the unstable, bigot Ted Cruz, any day.)

  5. Peter F Klebanoff 2016-11-29 16:28

    Thanks for your comments folks. For those that are citing “the will of the people” may I remind you that Sec. Clinton got 2 million more votes so apparently is the will of more of the people. But alas, we have an electoral college and they have an obligation to make an informed and reasoned choice which often ‘the people’ are incapable of – that’s why Hamilton created the college in the first place. (And yes, you will notice Ted Cruz was not my suggested replacement). Peter K

  6. caheidelberger Post author | 2016-11-29 18:26

    But Joe, whose will? The Constitution doesn’t make clear whose will those Electors are to carry out. More Americans asked their electors to vote for Clinton. There is a clear case to be made that voting for Clinton respects the will of all voters involved in this democratic decision. Al Novstrup can make no similar case to justify his efforts to undo the will expressed by all voters involved in the decisions on the minimum wage and IM 22.

    Craig, let me test the principle from an extreme hypothetical: Suppose we had a time machine. Suppose I took Dennis, Matt, and Marty on a trip to December 2017 and showed them Trump’s America in chaos: hundreds of thousands of troops bogged down in a war of convenience launched to distract Americans from a collapsing economy and Executive Branch scandals, journalists and dissidents harassed and jailed for for free speech activities, and the President himself neglecting his duties, snorting cocaine and banging interns in the Oval Office.

    Given that (future, impossible) knowledge, information that voters didn’t have on November 8, could Dennis, Matt, and Marty justify voting contrary to the South Dakota voters who elected them?

  7. Tim 2016-11-29 19:03

    Cory, I’ve had several people tell me I’m nuts, and I may be but…I don’t think Trump will make six months. It’s common knowledge the Republican establishment has never been interested in Trump, however he was their best hope for the White House so they hitched a ride on his coattails. I expect them to have him impeached within six months, a year at the most, then they will have their man Pence to move in. There is a reason Prebus, or whatever his name is, insisted on Pence for VP. Then as icing on the cake Trump was stupid enough to make Prebus Chief of Staff, just wait.

  8. grudznick 2016-11-29 20:12

    President Pence will be kinder and gentler than many.

  9. John Kennedy Claussen, Sr. 2016-11-29 20:33

    But if they went rogue, it might be an opportunity to enlarge the base of those of us who oppose the electoral college and want to get rid of it, however, which would be a good thing, wouldn’t it?….

    During the Republican presidential debates, I often thought of how Kasich was the only Republican contender, who if elected president would not bother my ability to sleep a full restful night. But with Trump as president, I would not only be a wake worrying about him as our president, but also a wake worrying about what he might be tweeting as I laid restless in bed…. Plus, Karen Kasich would make a great first lady.:

    http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/life_and_entertainment/2010/09/27/focused-on-her-family.html

    Wouldn’t she?

    And we all got to love this picture:

    http://www.npr.org/2015/12/29/461307424/the-student-who-once-nudged-his-way-to-the-oval-office-now-hopes-to-move-in

    Maybe its time he nudged his way into the electoral college count, too….

  10. O 2016-11-29 21:13

    Help me out with official ballot wording, but don’t we officially elect the electors (associated with a given candidate)? Weren’t the elector’s names on the ballot?

    It also seems to me that the founding fathers’ whole vision of the electoral college was to check the bad decisions of the popular vote.

    No advocacy, just political/historical musings on the topic.

  11. Don Coyote 2016-11-30 00:25

    @ O: “It also seems to me that the founding fathers’ whole vision of the electoral college was to check the bad decisions of the popular vote.”

    That’s a popular misconception taught in history books. While there was some distrust by some of the Framers in democratic rule, the primary reason for the electoral college was that the less populous Southern states would have never agreed to a popular election of the President knowing that they could never win a popular election because of the uneven distribution of the voting population between North and South. The Electoral College was devised because it retained the elements of the Connecticut Compromise concerning the proportional representation of the House and the equal weighting of the Senate.

    Many methods of determining the President were discussed at the Convention including popular election, election by the governors of the states and election by Congress, in particular the Senate. One of the issues with a popular vote was that the voters would not have enough knowledge of the various candidates due to the distance and minimal communications among the States. As George Mason is quoted as saying, “it would be as unnatural to refer the choice of a proper character for chief Magistrate to the people, as it would, to refer a trial of colours to a blind man” That is what Hamilton in Federalist #68 is speaking to and not that the Electoral College was designed to provide for some mulligan “to prevent a demagogue from becoming president” as is stated in the Argus Leader “Voices” piece.

    As originally envisioned by the Framers, the Electoral College would be doing the nominating of the candidates since they would possess the knowledge of any regional candidates that might arise due to the rule allowing the Electors only one vote of their two for a favorite son candidate. If no nominee achieved a majority of votes then the election moved to the House with the States being given only one vote preserving once again the Connecticut Compromise. In fact, George Mason envisioned this second round of voting and predicted the election of the President “nineteen times in twenty” in the House of Representatives.

    What Mason and the other Framers failed to predict or see was the rise of the political party, which through the use of popular election and caucuses quickly took over the nominating process, assuming the Constitutional power of Elector selection ensconced with the States.

  12. Tim 2016-11-30 06:01

    “President Pence will be kinder and gentler than many.”

    Grudz, if you are a white man this would probably be true, if you are a woman or a person of color, any color, not so much. I am from Indiana and still have a lot of family there and they can tell horror stories about what Pence and their Republican legislature has done to that state.

  13. mike from iowa 2016-11-30 07:10

    Tim-OT mayhaps you might want to check out Sheila Kennedy. Extremely well informed, extremely smart lady who blogs from Indiana. If you aren’t aware of her. just type in sheilakennedy and check her out. I go there pretty much every day. She is not a fan of Pence and cohorts.

  14. mike from iowa 2016-11-30 07:19

    It is possible Dems won’t go along with impeaching Drumpf, just to force stoopid wingnuts to have to live with their lying, cheating election dirty tricks.

    Maybe this time right wing voters will finally understand their votes cause this nation nearly irreperable harm. One day Dems aren’t going to be able to patch things up and get America moving forward.

  15. Craig 2016-11-30 08:25

    Cory: “Given that (future, impossible) knowledge, information that voters didn’t have on November 8, could Dennis, Matt, and Marty justify voting contrary to the South Dakota voters who elected them?”

    They “could” justify it, but I sincerely doubt they “would”. If this election has taught us anything, it is that the character of a candidate is less important than the party they represent. Trump said it himself that he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and they would still love him.

    I have no doubt that Dennis, Matt, and Marty would vote for Trump either way, because they A)would go out of their way to make excuses for Trump’s behavior, B) still proclaim he is better than the alternatives, and C) know that supporting the chosen Republican helps preserve their own political futures.

  16. o 2016-11-30 09:05

    Don, your explanation shows why there is a weighted vote or not-quite-direct-popular-vote system, it does not explain why the electoral college electors have to cast votes again. Having SD have an automatic three votes toward the candidate who wins the state is very different from SD sending three representatives to cast the REAL votes for president.

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