Oh, certainly, I'm over-generalizing but I was already getting long-winded - Edit 1
Before modification by Isaac at 03/03/2012 07:08:29 AM
Even though I am inclined to just nuke some popcorn, sit back and watch the show.... 
During the primaries the candidates spend a lot of time in the non-swing states. Iowa isn't one.
In passing, I must note that is a very good point: Because the primaries mirror the Electoral College to a great degree, many states that are "safe" in the general election (and therefore receive little attention) are hotly contested during the primaries, often by both parties. That forces all candidates to visit most states and become somewhat familiar with (or at least aware of) the issues most relevant to residents. Without the Electoral College the primaries would probably be decided by popular vote also and the whole affair become a purely urban concern.
Yes, I really feel running for president as we currently making them do it is one of the best instructions on being a decent president, a year and change of racing everywhere and meeting everyone and eternal jet lag is good leadership experience.
We can talk about red state blue state but there's really no such thing, a state with few exceptions is essentially red or blue based on its urban vs rural breakdown, cities are not really capable of rebellion, one could do it but not all of them at once. Cleveland isn't going to break off with NYC to form a new country.
Here I must quibble; while I realize you qualified your statement, it is not as simple as red vs. blue equaling rural vs. urban (and to the extent it is, the suburbs swing.) Correct me if I am wrong (it is your home state, after all) but Columbus and Cleveland would make OH pretty blue despite its large rural population—except Cincinatti is pretty red. It was one of things I found hinky about the 2004 election; despite all the reports of folks in Cleveland and Columbus giving up on voting after 10 hours in the cold November rain due to insufficient electronic voting machines, no such problems were reported in Cincinatti. Given that Bush won re-election by (essentially) 160,000 votes in OH, that bothered me a lot. 
Cincinatti is essentially the old bastion of the GOP, and it wasn't a big margin, the Mayor, Mark Mallory, is a Dem. But you're seeing Hamilton County not the City, on those maps, and the Metropolitan area includes roughly a dozen counties in KY and IN too. Red v blue county breakdowns are illuminating but one has to remember that unless they have purple shadings it's a touch questionable and a county can flip just by having two medium-small cities in it. Ditto a city, in terms of effective metro area, can easily sprawl over two counties that both break red. It's less surprising though, regarding the voting, complaints of that sort really originate - not saying they aren't real or legit, just who blows the horn - with hardline partisans usually working at the BoE or holding office.
Insofar as elections and polls are controlled almost entirely by the County in Ohio, from a pragmatic POV, we usually consider it ironic when someone in, say, Cleveland, which is hard blue in terms of governance, blows a horn essentially saying that the local Democratic leadership has successfully disenfranchised it's own voters, which is not entirely fair but still pretty on the mark. In Ohio the local county parties get together (unofficially) to decide where the hell to draw the precinct lines and where to put the voting locations, generally an entirely non-partisan effort that in my area at least most revolves around trying to un-fuck whatever new weird ass division of school districts has made voting school board and school levies a nightmare. But there's 2 dem and 2 GOP precinct judges for each precinct and we tend to keep our precincts on the small side in Ohio, what happens is an area that nobody's really bothered to adjust in a while from general business and indifference can swell in size and voter level, and if a couple of precincts are in the same place it can cause a glut, especially when some whacked out person comes in trying to vote with a bottle of prescription medicine as proof of ID... no seriously... general policy in Ohio is just to hand anyone a provisional ballot even if they're trying to vote in the wrong county if they make enough of a fuss just to keep the line moving and to prevent them from, say, going on a shooting spree when you deny Batman the opportunity to vote. Not to be un-PC but that sort of stuff just happens more in the cities... in the country we have our loons vote absentee from their bunker or cult compound. Anyway that clogs things up.
Cannoli recently suggested all the liberals in Houston and Dallas should not be allowed to turn TX blue, but the fact is there ain't that many liberals in Houston or Dallas, else they would do exactly that whether he liked it or not. In fact, as I pointed out to him, the most liberal, or at least Democratic, areas in TX consist of a single city (Austin) and rural areas in the Rio Grande Valley and the Piney Woods. Those are the areas that benefited most from farm subsidies and other largely Democratic federal programs designed for subsistence farmers, though Democrats embracing and Republicans largely abandoning racial equality helped in the Valley (but hurt in the more traditionally Southern east.)
Well... define liberal, have the time I can't remember if I am one, a GOP moderate, or an Arch-conservative. As Jon Stewart said re: Scott Brown "A Massachusetts Republican is still considered like a gay Democrat in other parts of the country", I'm pretty sure from my time spent Exiled to Montana in the middle of the damned winter that 'democrat' there may translate as someone who doesn't believe you have constitutional right to own artillery pieces, except maybe the small 105 mm sort. I personally analyze my own county by precinct and you get some weird bubbles, blue area that aren't cities are usually mostly upper-mid to rich, whereas red parts of cities tend to be very old and/or wealthy. It's just general statistical effect, but when I talk about urban vs rural I'm not really talking red vs blue but more of the historical sense, there tends to be a marked contrast between cities and country where often two cities separated by large distances have more in common in many respects than either do with the villages five miles away.
We didn't abandon racial equality either, barring some assholes, which the Dems have too, we stuck to the old party line, ignore skin color, or do your hardest too. The perception of that being the case is certainly true but I've never felt that charge was valid.
Without the Electoral College, presidential elections would become an almost purely urban campaign, but it does not follow from that Democrats would own the White House (though even if it did that would be a partisan and poor reason for changing election laws.) Rural areas tend to be red and urban areas tend to be blue, but it is only a very loose tendency, close enough in most places that it is not automatic unless the state as a whole is very partisan and/or one of the nominees is absolutely awful. I suspect those arguing for a direct popular vote from purely partisan motives would quickly find that out the hard way if it were adopted. Democrats lost the rural regions when they turned their backs on farmers, and turning their backs on (the rest of) labor is hurting them in cities now, too, else OH would not even be close and PA, MI and WI would never be in play.
Pretty much agree
And you base that off what? Any particular clause of the Constitution or federal law? Also, do keep in mind I'm discussing general voting concepts to someone who is not an American. Concepts like paying voters, mandatory reg or voting, electoral holidays, etc all deserve commentary in the general theme of why the birthplace of modern Democracy does things differently then many who have taken up the practice and find our ways incomprehensible.
I do not think that entirely fair, for two reasons.
First and foremost, while the terms can be parsed both ways, America is more a constitutional representative republic than a democracy. Hence our first impulse when the validity of something is challenged is not to consider the majoritys preference, but whether it complies with the Constitution and other federal laws. That is no accident, and ultimately a good thing; it prevents atrocities resulting from a mad and/or inflamed majority deciding all Muslims are terrorists or all pro lifers are fascists, and perpetrating some appalling national tragedy.
Precisely... and by the way I do appreciate your efforts regarding DA in that other thread but 'lost cause' comes to mind. We're not a majority rules places, we're land of law where voting acts as one of many checks.
I still contend the Ninth and Tenth Amendments effectively prohibit slavery on a similar basis, because that is the idea the Constitution repeatedly reflects: Because we are ultimately governed by LAWS our elected representatives enact, rather than simple referenda by those represenatatives or the general public, minority rights are protected from majority abuse. Thus amending our highest national law requires two-thirds of the states or Congress to propose and three-fourths to ratify it, rather than a simple popular majority. As a result, the US Constitution has only been amended about once per decade in its 220 year existence, and nearly half of those amendments were introduced with it but ratified separately.
Well I think we have to accept that it was in the constitution, it's no secret many objected to it from the get go but that's also why that whole 1808 thing is in there.
The other thing is, it is REALLY unfair to compare America as "the birthplace of modern Democracy" to the UK as a country that "took up the practice." We owe most of our federal character to the successes and failures of British parliamentary democracy, traced all the way back to Runnymede and the first limits on absolute federal power through local representatives of the people. Granted, the petty nobility of the time had little accountability to the people, and the king still retained great power, but by 1776 both of those things had changed drastically.
I'm an American Republican, Joel, I'm being pretty nice not to refer to the UK as Royalist Dogs.
No, I was pointing to UK to remind that person was not from the US but a different democracy, and it was us that pushed this system of government forward more than any else, the UK's shed a lot of blood and gold for the cause too, more than anyone else I can think of besides us, maybe more blood depending on how you tally it. I'm not knocking them, but I don't count pre-revolution efforts because we were them until then. In this respect mentioning the UK just means 'not US'The problem with Britain then was not that it was undemocratic, per se, but that it did not extend the franchise to colonies. Manchester and Liverpool residents had taxation WITH representation, but the colonies had only royally appointed governors (one of the few powers the monarch retained.) Prime Minister William Pitt echoed protests against taxing unrepresented colonies, but without that representation the parliamentary majority was against him. America considered that tyranny, particularly as both federal taxes and other authority increased without their consent or even consultation, but residents of Guam or the US Virgin Islands might be perplexed at the suggestion todays US is more democratic.
Had Britain not then been "the vanguard of democracy," George III would have simply levied another huge army to send against American colonies that only prevailed at Yorktown because the French navy prevented the arrival of British reinforcements. He certainly WANTED to—but Parliament required he accept a peace and, being little more than a figurehead of a democratically chosen government, he was legally bound to comply.
Not that I disagree with your arguments in the main, I am just being (perhaps unduly) particular on a few of them.
Well they're mostly fair points, it was a rushed, overly brief, and choppy post.