I’m optimistic about the Republican Party. Does that surprise you? Well, let me qualify that. When I say I’m optimistic about the Republican Party, I am referring of course to the old joke in which the pessimist says, “Geez, things sure can’t get any worse,” and the optimist replies, “Oh, yes they can!”
When the subject is today’s GOP and the conservative movement, things can always get worse. Having attempted virtually every dishonest and cynical trick in the book under existing rules, they have decided now that the problem is not their dishonesty or cynicism, but the existing rules, so the new task is to change them.
You’re familiar by now with the broad contours of how the GOP wants to change the Electoral College. OK, in case you’re not: They seek in six states to apportion the electoral vote according to congressional districts won instead of to the presidential candidate who won the state overall. For example, Pennsylvania has 18 congressional districts. Mitt Romney won 12 of them, and Barack Obama six.
So even though Obama won the state overall by around five points, Romney would “carry” Pennsylvania, 12 electoral votes (EVs) to six (actually, 12 to eight—every state has two more EVs representing its two Senate seats, and Obama, as the overall winner, would get those; so nice of them!).
The Trump administration said on Tuesday that Columbia University was “refusing to help” the Department of...
