They'll remember 1992-1994, when Clinton had a Democratic congress. They focused on a cumbersome health care plan, they created a debacle in Somalia, and they tickled a very sensitive cultural war with the gays in the military issue, and ended up getting crushed in the 1994 congressional elections.

I think this time around they know that they need to focus on issues that most Americans are in agreement about, rather than take advantage of their majority to push through a more partisan agenda.

The other point to consider is that with a divided government it's very easy to accomplish nothing and just point fingers at the other side. NOW we will get to see if Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are effective congressional leaders -- because they now have no excuses.

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"How you get so big eating food of this kind?" -Yoda

Can i still put a bet on?...well heres one that will say thankyou America...

Holiday, in the United States, the President and Vice President are not elected directly. When you vote, you are actually voting for a slate of Electors (who are not absolutely required to vote as directed) from each state. The number of Electors is determined by the number of Senators (2) and Congressmen representing their State.

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Moderator Edit: The TalkJesus.com post about the user being banned was moved into the general discussion forum in it's own thread. The link to that is: Banned from TalkJesus.com

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"By a divine paradox, wherever there is one slave there are two. So in the wonderful reciprocities of being, we can never reach the higher levels until all our fellows ascend with us." - Edwin Markham

Anyone care to start a poll on how they will vote?

What you are describing is actually some type of mitigated district system, because as I understand it the number of electors has a relation with the population in each state.
Still, mathematically it would be possible that the person with the most votes can turn out not to be the winner of an election. I even seem to recall vaguely that this has already happened in an earlier election.

Bush vs. Gore

It is correct to say that the current political system does not truly cover the actual vote of the people.

The system worked for us this time. Now we have to wait to see if Obama works for us. I'm optimistic.

Hmm, I'm not so sure about that. I mean I'm proud, excited, and optimistic too, and I think the better leader and the better unifier won.

But let's not kid ourselves about the system. The financial playing field was tipped WAY in Obama's favor, and he probably would not have won this election if either he had accepted public financing or if McCain had rejected it. In other words, as is always the case in American national politics, it's money and not ideas that win in the end.

I don't pay attention to McCain's argument that Obama broke a promise by first pledging to accept public financing, then deciding in the end to be self-funded. Whatever, he changed his mind, and it was a purely opportunistic decision.

But we've now got a conundrum in that the Republicans will NEVER again accept public campaign financing, it would be suicide to do so. So McCain's pride and joy, campaign finance reform, is basically 100% dead now.

In other words, all of us who like and who voted for Obama are perfectly happy with the means being justified by the end, but it'll be a different story next time. Either special interest money is going to flood into the next campaign on both sides (making it probably exceed $1 billion) or both sides will be forced to accept public financing -- putting a huge bill on the American taxpayers to fund attack ads and smears and laughably dumb debates.

So let's not wholeheartedly celebrate the system. The part I would celebrate is the ability of a great leader to rise above prejudices, to resonate with a whole new generation across geographic and ethnic and demographic boundaries, and to win without playing the same divisive political games that are perennially part of politics. But the financial aspect of campaigning is perhaps WORSE now than it ever was, with the only one relief that evil 527s like the "swift boat" people being impoverished by the financial meltdown so they mainly stayed out of it.

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"How you get so big eating food of this kind?" -Yoda

Oh, the system is far from perfect - you know how happily I criticize the establishment. Unfortunately, you are right that money helped win that election, but a great deal of that money came from people like you and I. I don't mind citizen contributions.

Either way, we the people managed to win in a horribly corrupt system. Somehow, we made it work for us. Perhaps Obama will set about making some reforms to the system so these instances are not so rare.

Can comeone tell me why the person that had to have the electoral college explained to them got the closest?! If the vote in N.C. stays the way they have it now it will be 364 to 174.

Damn you!

And I really wanted to win that shiny new (internet image of a) DVD rewinder! (and sadly I have to admit that I didn't even immediately get the joke behind a DVD rewinder. lol)