Mitch, the WRAL story really got to the heart of the matter, both in the purely partisan interest in the matter as well as the purely partisan reason for bowing to the Founders’ wisdom once again:
Had the compact been in place in 2000, Al Gore would have won the White House instead of President Bush. …
Last year, the Legislature was also on the cusp of sending to Gov. Mike Easley a bill that would have replaced the winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes with a more proportional method.
The bill passed the Senate and was approved once on the House floor. But it was pulled before a final vote, after Democratic leaders in Washington raised concerns. With Republican fortunes falling in 2007, they foresaw an opening – months before Obama’s resounding primary victory – that Democrats could compete for all the state’s electoral votes for the first time 1976.
“The way a bill passes around here … it was just going on because nobody said, ‘Hey, wait a minute,'” said House Speaker Joe Hackney, D-Orange. “And somebody did say, ‘Hey, wait a minute.'”
