oklahoma 2004

[Gabu]

Do you think our 7 Electoral Votes are very vital and crucial, or are they insignificant?

No offense, but in the hundred years since Oklahoma has been a state, I don't think there's ever been a single election in which Oklahoma's electoral votes were crucial to victory and were not simply taken for granted or ignored.

[Gabu]

Do you think our 7 Electoral Votes are very vital and crucial, or are they insignificant?

No offense, but in the hundred years since Oklahoma has been a state, I don't think there's ever been a single election in which Oklahoma's electoral votes were crucial to victory and were not simply taken for granted or ignored.

So, are our needs just as important as New Yorkers needs or Californian needs or are our people just little insignificant stupid peons.

You asked: are Oklahoma's electoral votes vital and crucial?

I responded: there has never been an election where they were.

This is, as far as I know, just a fact.  I was simply answering your question truthfully.

[Gabu]

I know, Gabu, but I'm just tired of people not giving Oklahoma any respect politically.  I was just speaking out of frustration.

Well, blame the voters or the electoral college, basically.  While I'd like to believe the idea that Oklahoma will be a swing state in 2008... well, just look at its electoral history since 1960 compared to the national popular vote:

2004: +28.68% R
2000: +22.39% R
1996: +16.32% R
1992: +14.19% R
1988: +8.93% R
1984: +19.73% R
1980: +15.79% R
1976: +3.27% R
1972: +26.55% R
1968: +14.99% R
1964: +11.08% R
1960: +18.21% R

There have only been two elections since 1960 in which Oklahoma was not over 10% more Republican than the national average.  As things stand right now, the Democrat would need to win the popular vote by 15-20% to have a chance in Oklahoma.  Unless Oklahomans decide to change that sometime soon, Oklahoma will unfortunately always be politically irrelevant (no offense) in national elections that use the electoral college.

[Gabu]

Oklahoma had the biggest swing to dukakis in 1988

Yeah, 1988, where Bush won by "only" 17%.  Of course it had a big swing to the Democrat - there's nowhere to go but up after Mondale lost the state by 38%.

There were only two Democrats since 1960 who had a chance in Oklahoma: Johnson and Carter.  Johnson was a Southern Democrat who won in a ridiculous landslide, and Carter was a "moral values" Christian Democrat from the Deep South.  Neither is terribly likely to occur in 2008 - thus, I see no reason to expect Oklahoma to be close.  That's really just how it is.

[Gabu]

Sweden uses a national vote system and it's evident how virtually all of the campaigning takes place in Stockholm. No one bothers with the rural areas.

In part wouldn't that be because everyone knows that (most of) the rural areas will vote for the Social Democrats regardless? Over here areas with lots of safe seats "tend" to get ignored as well.

You miss the point - since we don't have FPTP there is no inherent advantage in going for "marginal" seats as opposed to "safe" seats (unless one supposes that the number of swing voters are fewer in safe areas). But because Stockholm is more cost-effective to campaign in, being an urban area, it gets all the action. It's very obvious how Sweden tends to have two swings in each election - the campaign-correlated Stockholm swing and the non-campaign related national swing.

While it would be correct to note that most rural areas are safely SAP, Stockholm is the most or second most conservative area in the country. I'm sure New York would see a lot more campaigning than Iowa or Wisconsin if America used a more national system.

I think that the conclusion here is basically that no matter what electoral system you use, someone is going to get ignored.  Which electoral system you prefer depends on who you would prefer to get ignored.

[Gabu]

It's one of the things I like about the EC, it allows for smaller states to have possible importance.

The one thing I don't like about it, though, is that even if a large group of people decide to vote for the other party, it won't make one bit of difference if the state is strongly one way or the other.  This results in politicians being effectively able to ignore or even blatantly give the finger to regions that their base doesn't like (Massachusetts comes to mind), and the people in that region have no way whatsoever to express their heightened disapproval because that state was already going to vote in a predetermined fashion.  Stuff like this heavily reinforces people's views that many presidents are only really president of half of the United States, and I'm not sure if that's exactly a good thing.  This wouldn't be the case in a situation where every vote counts, rather than every state.

As I said before, it's largely an issue of what your priorities are in terms of who should be included in the electoral process in a meaningful manner.