I hesitate to weigh in on the

week long fiasco of our 2000 Presidential election, but I'm going to anyway.

I am just as shocked, dismayed, and befuddled about what all of this means

as anyone else. I, too, have probably read and viewed more spin and political

poppycock in the last week than I did in the last eight years, and I honestly

didn't think that was possible.

Before, we lamented that this

country was tripping down "that slippery slope." Now is there

any doubt that we are barreling at luge speed in to a future that is anyone's

guess? We have heard it all now, from Democrats accusing Republicans of

using deadlines and partisan election officials to throw a rush on the

recount process, to Republicans accusing Democrats of rampant voter fraud

and wanting to count and recount until the resulting count favors an Al

Gore win.

Regardless of who you voted

for, or how you feel about the current disheveled electoral process, there

are a few things that will ring true no matter what.

For one thing, if Bush wins

the electoral vote and not the popular vote, and probably no matter the

outcome, there will be a hue and cry to amend the Constitution to abolish

the Electoral College. First Lady turned senator, Hillary Clinton, has

already promised to cosponsor a resurrected version of a 1997 bipartisan

bill to do away with the Electoral College in favor of a direct, popular

vote. I haven't even fully ingested what this means for our country, but

my instincts are to not trust anything with Hillary's approval stamp on

it.

What can we expect if we eliminate

the Electoral College?

More of the last week's circus

for starters. A direct popular vote will mean putting all of our eggs

in one basket. Gone will be the checks and balances of distributed power.

There will a ruthless onslaught of counts and recounts forever because

the whole ball of wax will be decided by a singular process.

Why did we have the Electoral

College in the first place? Many assume that it was born of fear that

an uninformed, largely agrarian, isolated populace would elect a president

when they had no knowledge of government, the issues, or the candidates

in question. In that case, it is easy to fall for the argument that in

our modern age of rapid communication and public education, that today's

citizens are capable and rightfully entitled to select their president

Beach County, Florida might suggest otherwise.

But consider that the Electoral

College was really established as a check and balance on the federal government

to protect states' rights. Since prior to Roosevelt and the Depression

era, the primary role of the president was to guide international policy

and interstate commerce as a representative of all of the states. The

presidency was essentially an umbrella to keep the states huddled together

as a united front against the threat of external assault.

All states were given electoral

votes equal to their two Senate seats plus one for each House of Representative

seat. In this way, smaller states had a fighting chance in contributing

to policy and would not be overruled by big states. The threatened elimination

of this check and balance on power will create essentially a mob rule

democracy and further centralize power at the federal level.

Given the incremental growth

since the 1930s of the belief system that government's role is to provide

for the people, as opposed to the previous notion that the federal government's

role was to get out of the states' and the peoples' way to the greatest

extent possible and allow them to provide for themselves, we have experienced

a dramatic role reversal between the federal and state governments.

The federal government is no

longer an umbrella. Now it is more like a choke chain. As long as states

don't pull and resist too much, the chain hangs loosely. But get out of

line, and make a few demands about states' rights, and feel the chain

squeeze the state in to federal submission.

The chain of money, entitlements,

services, and other such "gifts" from the treasury is all about

buying power. Witness the EPA holding hostage our tax dollars for road

construction until we choke back in line with, as yet, untested in the

courts, murky air quality guidelines.

Under mob rule, big states

like California, New York, Texas, and Florida will be on the receiving

end of much pandering and placating by presidential hopefuls. The expressed

will of the people will be defined along a liberal, urban mindset. Rural,

small-town America, which tends to be more conservative minded, will be

totally disenfranchised from the process. States will cede over even more

authority to the federal government which has taken grave liberties with

states' rights already.

And what else will we glean

from this 2000 election? A new faithlessness, new doubt, new fear and

mistrust? The sense that even something as hallowed as our process of

electing a president is looking a lot like hype night on World Wide Wrestling?

Oh, to be back tripping down that slippery slope.

[Your comments are welcome:

[email protected].]