Tag Archives: Electoral College

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Trump may invoke his M.O. and actually ‘concede,’ sort of

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Let’s flash back for a moment.

Donald Trump spent about five years fomenting the lie that Barack Obama was born overseas and was not a U.S. citizen, meaning he couldn’t run for president of the United States. It was a blatantly racist attack on someone who was born in Hawaii to an American woman; thus, he was a citizen by birth.

Then came a one-sentence admission in 2016 that Obama “is a U.S. citizen.” That was it. End of discussion, more or less. Trump demonstrated his shameless modus operandi.

Now he is continuing to challenge the results of an election he clearly lost to President-elect Joe Biden. He is ranting. He is riffing. He is bitching about all the grievances over alleged “corruption” in the electoral process which he continues to label as “rigged.”

Hmm. How might this play out? Here’s a thought.

The Electoral College is meeting in about nine days to certify Joe Biden’s victory. He has accrued 306 electoral votes; he needs just 270 of them.

When the Electoral College certifies Biden’s victory, I believe it is entirely possible that Trump could issue a terse statement that declares Biden is the duly elected president of the United States. He won’t concede in the traditional sense.

There likely won’t be a phone call to the winner, congratulating him and pledging his support for the remainder of the time he is president. He won’t say a word about the rigorous campaign that Biden waged.

He’ll just say that Biden won. Then he’ll be done.

Trump might not show up for President Biden’s inaugural. Indeed, I do not expect him to be there. Trump will get on Air Force One and jet off to Mar-a-Lago to play some golf and schmooze with his cronies.

Is that out of the question? I don’t think so. Nothing this guy Trump does should surprise anyone on Earth.

Just be gone … Donald.

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Biden lead piles up

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Not that anyone is keeping score — other than me — but here’s a bit of election trivia for you to ponder.

President-elect Biden’s actual vote margin over Donald Trump has surpassed 7 million ballots, making this the most decisive election victory since 2008, when Barack Obama defeated the late John McCain by nearly 10 million votes.

I understand a couple of realities about this vote margin. One is that it doesn’t matter about who gets elected, since the Electoral College makes that call. Oh, wait! President-elect Biden has 306 electoral votes; he only needed 270 to win the presidency.

Four years ago, Trump rolled up the same number of electoral votes that Biden did and he called his win over Hillary Clinton in 2016 a “landslide.” This time he alleges Biden’s win is the result of a “rigged election.” What utter horsesh**!

Sigh! Trump went to Georgia tonight to keep making his contemptuous complaint about fraud and other other idiocy about how he “won” the Georgia vote.

Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections (uselectionatlas.org)

The other reality is that of the 7 million vote majority that Trump rang up, more than 5 million ballots came from California. Still, let’s remember that this was a national election. Still, let’s be prepared to hear the claptrap from the Trumpster toadies that will seek to denigrate the scope of Joe Biden’s victory.

Trump lost the election … bigly.

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Trump goes out as he came in: amid chaos

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald J. Trump is going out in a blizzard of incoherence, which to my memory reminds me of how he entered the presidency.

He was willfully ignorant of what it took to take the reins of government. He never learned a thing. Now he’s exiting the White House on Jan. 20 while offering a mysterious string of incoherent rants.

For instance, he said he will leave D.C. “if” the Electoral College certifies that President-elect Biden won the election on Nov 3. Whaddya mean “if,” dude? The Electoral College is going to certify Joe Biden as the winner, and a clear winner at that! His margin of actual vote victory is widening daily, surpassing 6 million ballots. The Electoral College count stands at 306-232, with Biden over Trump. Period. End of story.

Oh, but wait. Now comes Trump saying that he would leave the White House if Biden can prove that the 80 million-plus votes he has racked up came about legitimately. That they were all legally cast votes.

Huh? Hey, Donald, I have news for you. The states that have certified the results have declared they all are legal, free and fair votes. They say without hesitation that there is no “widespread” voter fraud. There isn’t even any minuscule voter fraud, they say. These are election professionals who know what they are doing, unlike the lame-duck make-believe president who has been in over his head from the moment he took the oath in January 2017.

Donald Trump is leaving the White House no later than Jan. 20. I am rolling around in my head the idea that he might depart before then, forgoing the niceties associated with attending his successor’s inaugural. I mean, if he’s going to refuse to acknowledge that President-elect Biden, what’s the point of him and Melania even bothering to show up?

I only can imaging what might happen as he and the first lady step aboard Marine One for the flight away from the Capitol. It might get real ugly.

Chaos reigns supreme at the end of the Trump Era, just as reigned at its beginning. Who knew?

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Trump plans to leave White House? Wow!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Jeepers, that is awfully big of Donald Trump to acknowledge the obvious.

Which is that when the Electoral College certifies what the whole world knows already, that President-elect Biden defeated Trump in the election earlier this month, that he’ll leave the White House.

Earth to Donald: You ain’t got a choice, dude!

I would actually hate seeing the Secret Service escorting the president out of the people’s house were he to dig in his heels.

Really! I would hate that!

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Once a ‘landslide,’ now it’s … something else?

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President-elect Biden is closing in on an 80-million vote election victory. They’re still counting ballots, but the new president is about to cross an amazing threshold.

He’s already won an Electoral College victory, which all by itself puts him in the victor’s circle. Biden has 306 electoral votes; Donald Trump has 232 electoral votes.

Sound familiar? It should. Trump won in 2016 over Hillary Clinton by the same Electoral College margin. Four years ago, Trump called it a “landslide.” It wasn’t. Neither is the Biden victory over Trump this time. It is a substantial victory nonetheless, which I am certain just rankles Donald Trump to no end.

Too … bad, Donald.

But the actual vote is impressive. Biden has set a record for the number of ballots. Trump, too, has set a record for the most votes collected by the losing candidate. They’re both impressive totals.

One of them, though, is the winner. That would be Joe Biden.

It gives me reason to smile as they keep counting the ballots.

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Optimism taking a hit

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I am by nature an optimist. Really, it’s true!

Thus, I have sought to maintain an optimistic outlook as President-elect Biden seeks to form a government even while Donald Trump has refused to accept what we all know what occurred on Nov. 3.

Biden defeated Trump. His vote margin is approaching 6 million ballots. Biden’s electoral vote margin sits at 306-232. My hope has been all along that Biden could form a government and begin the task of “restoring our national soul” while unifying a badly divided nation.

Events of the past 10 days or so are testing my optimistic instincts.

Trump is fomenting the Big Lie that the election was rigged. It was nothing of the sort. Yet polling suggests that roughly 30 percent of American voters believe the lame-duck president’s ridiculous and dangerous assertion about “widespread” voter fraud.

This puts Biden’s mission of reunification in potentially dire peril. He pledges to be the president of “all Americans.” He said that “even if you voted for President Trump,” Biden will be your president, too. How can that be a bad thing? Did we hear such a proclamation from Donald Trump when he took office? He did pledge to unify the nation, but then embarked on a strategy that aimed to please only the base of supporters who have hung with him throughout his term.

I still am cautiously optimistic that the president-elect will be able to formally “transition” into the nation’s highest office. However, “cautiously” is becoming more important as I express my hope for that outcome.

Donald Trump’s petulance has grown into a dangerous gambit that threatens us at many levels. It is endangering a new president’s noble pledge to restore our national soul and bridge the partisan chasm that divides the nation he was elected to govern.

My optimistic nature is being strained. I hope the stress and strain doesn’t break it.

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Don’t ditch Electoral College

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Call me a fuddy-duddy if you wish, or old-fashioned, or even a “strict constitutional constructionist.”

I am not going to climb aboard the  vessel that seeks to throw out the Electoral College.

You see, I happen to like the way we elect presidents. It’s the method concocted by the nation’s founders. Their intent was to create a more equitable distribution among the states. They intended to give more sparsely populated states a greater voice in selecting the president.

Has it worked perfectly? Well, no. It hasn’t. However, name any government policy that works perfectly and I’ll be willing to consider buying that bridge you’re offering to sell me.

I traveled to Greece in November 2000. You’ll recall how that election was hung up in the courts for weeks after Election Day. The Supreme Court ended up settling it with a 5-4 vote. Al Gore had more actual votes than George W. Bush, but Bush became president.

I had the challenge in 2000 of trying to explain to my Greek friends — most of whom are highly sophisticated government-watchers — how someone can collect more votes than the other guy but lose the election. I sought to explain as best I could the founders’ vision of what the Electoral College was intended to do. I think I made my point then.

Still, the debate rages on, even after Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in both the actual vote and the Electoral College.

OK, the system ain’t perfect. In 2016, Hillary Clinton collected nearly 3 million more votes than Trump, but she lost. We have the Bush-Gore election of 2000. Grover Cleveland outpolled Benjamin Harrison, but lost the 1888 election. Samuel Tilden lost the presidency in 1876 to Rutherford B. Hayes in the same fashion.

By and large, though, the system works as the founders intended.

Consider that Nevada became a battleground this time around; it was just as critical to Biden winning as, say, Pennsylvania.

I am just not ready to toss the Electoral College system on its ear because of an occasional hiccup.

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Don’t do it, Mr. POTUS

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I had hoped a good night’s sleep would refresh me this morning, giving me a chance to look back on what we witnessed last night with a fresh set of eyes and a fresh outlook.

I didn’t get that sleep-filled respite. I awoke this morning around 3; my wife had been up about an hour already.

We watched the presidential election  returns roll in Tuesday night, then went to bed thinking the worst was about to happen … that Donald J. Trump would squeak/slither his way to a second term.

I heard he declared “victory” about 2 a.m. I am glad I was dosing when he did that.

Then, lo and behold, after sitting up for a time during the wee hours with my wife and after going back to the rack for a couple of hours, I found out this morning that Joe Biden took the lead in Wisconsin, that his lead in Nevada was holding, that he then took the lead in Michigan.

If he wins those three states, he gets to 270 electoral votes. He is elected president. He can begin transitioning from private citizen to commander in chief and head of state.

Oh, but wait! Trump likely won’t allow that to happen. He’s going to take this matter to the highest court in the land, with its three justices whom Trump nominated and the Senate confirmed. What in the world is he going to challenge? That the vote counting was done illegally? That someone “rigged” the election to produce a Biden victory? That Martians landed on Earth overnight and voted illegally for the former vice president?

He hasn’t produced a shred of evidence of anything being done illegally.

That brings me to this point, which is that if the Supreme Court’s justices have any sense of honor they will toss whatever complaint Trump brings to them into the crapper and say the allegations are without merit and do not deserve to be heard.

I have this strange belief that the court would do the right thing.

With that I feel a good bit better than I did when I went to bed last night. I now must come to grips with how Donald Trump managed to make this election as close as it has turned out to be.

More on that later.

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It ain’t over

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Well now. This is what serious political drama looks like.

Pundits are comparing this suspense to 2016, when Donald Trump shocked the civilized world by defeating Hillary Clinton to be elected president of the United States.

I liken what we’re going through to 2000, when George W. Bush was elected president through a 5 to 4 U.S. Supreme Court decision to stop the recount of votes in Florida; Bush held a 537-vote lead and then won the state’s electoral votes to become president.

Here’s what might play out as we await the last returns from the 2020 race: Joe Biden has 238 electoral votes in the bank; he needs 270 to win election. If he holds onto his slim leads in Nevada and Wisconsin and then manages to catch Donald Trump in Michigan (which is a distinct possibility), he gets to — drum roll — precisely 270 electoral votes.

Is that the end of it? Hah! Hardly! Trump will challenge the results. There might be a recount in, say, Michigan and Wisconsin. Does Trump ask the SCOTUS to stop the recount if Biden is still ahead?

Well, I harken back to what the great Winston Churchill once said about democracy, and I am paraphrasing it here. He called it the most inefficient, cumbersome system of government ever invented … but the best we could ever have. The democratic process is playing out in real time, folks.

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Is it over … yet?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Good morning, world.

I had hoped to awake to the news of a completed presidential election and the dawning of a new age in Washington, D.C., or perhaps the return to a formerly civil, collegial era in national politics.

Silly me. It didn’t happen, at least not this morning.

Joe Biden and Donald Trump remained locked in a political death match to see who between them gets to 270 electoral votes. Yes, Biden leads the actual vote and has a plurality of Electoral College votes. However, an electoral vote plurality doesn’t put him over the top.

I won’t try to assess how the returns have developed into what we Bidhave at this moment, which is a state of utter confusion and chaos.

Instead, I am going to lament a result that isn’t what I had hoped for or, frankly, expected.

I am not going to despair just yet. Joe Biden can still pick off Wisconsin’s electoral votes; Michigan might still be within reach, along with Nevada.

Still, I want to remind everyone who might have read my words in a few previous blog posts that I wasn’t going to declare a Joe Biden election to be a certainty, given Donald Trump’s hocus pocus victory in 2016.

Yes, it was my hope to awaken this morning to welcome a President-elect Biden.

Maybe tomorrow, or the next day or the day after that. Maybe …