opa-opines.net

I do not understand the media – especially the all news networks. During the very long primary season the networks seemed to suggest it was important that one on the candidates get a majority of the popular vote.

This claim seemed especially vital to CNN and MSNBC. So I watched Hillary Clinton win in states like California and Ohio, most of the large states. Barak Obama, on the other hand won many more states but the mostly the ones with smaller populations, like Wyoming and Montana.

It appeared quite important to folks like Wolf Blitzer and Keith Obermann that in the larger states the delegates were divided by the percentage of the vote. So that the winner of a state like Ohio would receive more delegates but not all of them. These commentators made the system seem fair.

Now, however, we are hearing about the importance of the electoral college. They put up a map and explain that the coming election battle is about the red and blue states. A candidate will get all the electoral votes from a state if they win the state. Considering their previous opinion, does that seem strange to anyone else?

How is it fair to divide the delegates to a nominating convention by the percentage of the popular vote when we live with the electoral college system? I don’t remember a constitutional amendment mandating the direct election of the President.

Like I say, I find this strange. Who would invent a system where the logic of the nominating process is contradictory to the election process?

I know that the media did not invent the current system, but one would think that they could report more accurately. Instead CNN and MSNBC appeared to demand that the nominating process could only be fair if it were based upon winning the popular vote. That is not reporting it is advocacy.