Both Bush & Kerry put the majority of their efforts into winning CA, NY, NJ, etc.
As I said in my earlier post, not in California, Vicki. Maybe both Bush and Kerry did some campaigning here in the early days, but there hasn't been anything literally for weeks, if not months. We would read stories in the newspaper of people being deluged by ads on TV - we never saw a single ad from either candidate. Apart from a few ads about local propositions, etc., we would almost not have known that there was an election occurring at all. California was accepted as a Democratic win long ago.
On the other hand, if we had a true democracy, with one man-one vote, then Joe Black's vote in Rhode Island would count as much as Jane Brown's vote in California.
Well, although personally I do think that the US should get rid of the Electoral College, I can see the fear of the smaller states, and why it will never happen. As I said, Bush and Kerry campaigned very little in California as far as I can tell, yet Kerry picked up 5.5 million votes and Bush 1 million less. And they were hardly here.
If the EC were eliminated, I could see candidates spending the bulk of their time in population-heavy states and ignoring the little ones like RI. After all, this election is a prime example to show how they ignore states where the outcome is a given - like CA. So why wouldn't candidates ignore the little tadpoles in the big ocean?
I personally like the way that Maine does it. That way, probably no state is a foregone conclusion - certainly not California - and then the candidates can "spread the wealth".
Kathy
