Posted by
Ken Moyes on Thursday, March 27, 2008 7:39:21 PM
What if Hillary Clinton, feeling that the Democratic Party has been
taken over by the far left, decides to form a new political party in
her run for President?I took a look at that scenario and was surprised to see my findings.The
approach used to come up with the findings is far from scientific and
could not get anymore low budget, but there is some reasonable
rationale to the approach.
I started out with the simple premise that three
major candidates and one minor candidate will be on the ballot in
November – Obama, Clinton, McCain, Nader.With Obama and
Nader sharing the far left, Clinton and McCain sharing the moderates,
and the conservatives voting for McCain, since they have no horse in
the race, the vote would be heavily split and winning a state’s
electoral vote will not require a majority.
The next premise was that strong red states will continue to go with the Republicans and John McCain.The blue states were a different matter.In those states I looked at either the primary results or the polls where primaries have not as yet been held.When looking at the blue states, only a few battle ground states appeared and they will be discussed later.
538 electoral votes are at play and the Electoral College is not based on proportional votes and there are no super electors.270 votes are needed to win the Presidency.The analysis of the primary results, polls, and voting history provided the following:
McCain wins Alabama, Alaska, Arizona,
Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi,
Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma,
Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming for a total of 191
electoral votes.
Obama wins Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware,
D.C., Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New
Hampshire, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont,
Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin for a total of 131 electoral
votes.
Clinton wins Arkansas, California, Iowa,
Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania
for 172 electoral votes.
Two states are very hard to figure do to the split votes and they are Florida and Michigan.After
the Democratic Party primary debacle it is anyone’s guess as to how
these states will go especially with four candidates on the ballot.Even so they represent 44 electoral votes, less than what any of the candidates will need to clinch.Despite some disagreement with how a state might fall, there seems to be no mix to give anyone candidate 270 electoral votes.Now what?It goes to the House of Representatives.The difference here is that the House votes by state and each state has but one vote – more infighting.
The following is an excerpt from the National Archives and records Administration web site: If
no candidate receives a majority of electoral votes, the House of
Representatives elects the President from the 3 Presidential candidates
who received the most electoral votes. Each State delegation has one
vote. The Senate would elect the Vice President from the 2 Vice
Presidential candidates with the most electoral votes. Each Senator
would cast one vote for Vice President. If the House of Representatives
fails to elect a President by Inauguration Day, the Vice-President
Elect serves as acting President until the deadlock is resolved in the
House.http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/faq.html#270
If the respective state delegations follow the way
their state fell, with no candidate getting a majority, then McCain
might garner 22 votes including Florida; Clinton 9 votes; and Obama 19
votes including Michigan.I believe that the decisions, within each state delegation, are not readily apparent and anything could happen.Even though Senator Clinton would have the fewest states, she could win as a long shot.
As ludicrous as this all seems, the Clintons may
realize that forming a third party and continuing on, if Senator
Clinton does not receive the Democratic Party’s nomination, as a
candidate for President may just work.