Ross: Bernie Sanders may not go this far, but I know who would
Jun 7, 2016, 8:44 AM | Updated: 10:26 pm
What else could Bernie do?
It really frustrates Hillary Clinton that Bernie Sanders hasn’t given up. He is lobbying superdelegates to change their votes.
“I find it perplexing,” Clinton said. “What he basically seems to be saying is that the will of the people should be overturned.”
Related: No matter what happens in November, nation will be in “good hands”
But if that is what he thinks he’s actually in pretty good company. Because the writers of the Constitution thought so too. They didn’t trust the mob to elect a president. They trusted elites like themselves. So they installed a circuit breaker called the Electoral College.
“What most people don’t know, is when they vote for the President of the United States, they’re actually voting for these electors,” Dr. Robert Alexander of Northern Ohio University explained. “And that’s what happens in November. But between November and December, presidential electors have time to think about who they’re actually going to vote for.”
Dr. Alexander found that since the 2000 election, there has been vigorous lobbying of members of the electoral college to defy the popular vote, and it came to a climax in 2008.
“Barack Obama had won in an apparent landslide, yet 80 percent of electors were contacted to change their vote,” Dr. Alexander said.
Of course, Sanders probably isn’t willing to go that far.
But interesting footnote: guess who was behind the attempt to upset the 2008 election?
“Of that 80 percent, most of that came from the Birther movement.”
Birthers. So while Sanders might not go so far as to lobby the Electoral College, I know who would.
“His grandmother in Kenya said he was born in Kenya and she was there and witnessed the birth, OK?” Donald Trump said.
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