When All Else Fails, Play the Race Card

Diane Carman takes her shots at the Electoral College in this morning's DP:

Now, I don't want to spoil all the fun in sixth-grade American history class, but the Electoral College was not designed to preserve some high-minded concept of a republic. So spare me the letter-writing campaigns.

Read the actual statements of the founding fathers. The truth is the Electoral College was a blatant bribe to get the recalcitrant Southern colonies to agree to join the United States.

Given that large portions of the populations of the Southern states were slaves - who weren't allowed to vote and were only counted as three-fifths of a white person for purposes of congressional representation - the South wanted assurances that bleeding-heart Yankees weren't going to ruin their lavish way of life by voting to outlaw slavery.

Diane, we will absolutely spare you the letter-writing campaign. Instead will take our shots from the blogosphere.

Carman says read the actual statements from the founding fathers. Which ones? Here's a link the Federalist Paper 68. No mention on slavery or Southern states there. I'm not saying that this argument was never made, but in all the coverage of the Electoral College that Amendment 36 has brought, this is the first time I've seen this argument.

Other arguments regarding the Electoral College and the power of small versus large states can be found here in the comments section and here.

In fact, just start reading 86 36 or No on 36.

More educational than 6th grade history, with citations and references to back up the arguments.