Insanity has been defined as doing the same thing and expecting a different result: well with that in mind, the republican party is insane.
After the 2008 election Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett came up with an idea to make his state harder to win for democrats in 2012: dont make the state winner take all electorally, instead do it by congressional districts, with the two extra electoral votes awarded to the winner of the state.
Had that system been in place in 2008, despite winning the popular vote by 10 points in Pennsylvania, Obama would have gotten 11 votes to McCains 10.
Now as you may have noticed, this didnt happen in 2012, like every other state but Nebraska in practice (and Maine in theory, although they have never split) Pennsylvania was awarded as a winner take all state, and the reason for this was entirely due to state and national legislative republicans.
See the problem was, had PA switched how it was divided up in the electoral college, it also would have changed the way campaigning was carried out in the state. Under the current system both sides just dump money into the major media markets, which as a rule tend to be democratic and leave the rest of the state alone. Had the new system gone through, campaigns would then drop money into as many districts as they believed they could win.
Now the problem is, despite everything you hear about Gerrymandering, the majority of US house districts and even more so state districts can swing either way, especially the suburban ones, which tend in many states to be traditionally republican, as is the case in PA. Therefore a ton of money dropped into a "safe" republican district that would have been ignored might be enough to swing the district blue no matter who won the state. So no matter the out come of the presidential race, it would likely have increased the Democratic Representation in the house. And the belief was, was that to happen, it might follow as well the Democratic's would still actually carry the majority of the votes in the state, due to the additional districts they might be able to win, turning the entire process into a way to pick off one or two electoral votes
Now with losing their jobs, and possible their hold of the US house, for little gain, PA republicans backed up by the national congressional delegation squashed the plan.
And what happened or would have in PA is somewhat of a universal truth, with the exception of the presidential race, its usually a bad plan, at least in high population states to split the vote.
And now, with all that in mind we get to the insanity part.
In the 2012 race, President Obama won the state of Ohio, just barely but he won it. So the Secretary of State has a master plan: Dont make the state winner take all electorally, instead do it by congressional districts, with the two extra electoral votes awarded to the winner of the state.
And to be honest, at first this appears to be an even better idea for the GOP then the PA plan, see if this plan had been in place in this election, Mitt Romney would have won 12 electoral votes and Obama would have gotten 6.
Yea you read that right, Romney would have lost the popular vote and still won the majority (in fact 2/3rds) of the state votes. So I can totally understand why Sec of State Husted, salivated at the idea of doing this.
But again, we actually just had this debate in PA in the run up to this election, and all of the risks in PA are equally true in Ohio. If money got dropped in each and every district it is likely a few of the republican districts would flip (and since all the money is already dropped in the democratic ones, and they are still democrat not as likely they would flip). Currently OH has 12 republicans in congress and 4 dem's, but just like in PA that would likely switch and quickly on district to district marketing. And again like PA might only wind up costing the Dem's a few EC votes but cost the GOP a bunch of seats.
And there is an additional problem in Ohio, if it splits up its votes it would no longer the THE key swing state, which means it would likely get a whole lot less attention paid to it and its issues, in future presidential races, in favor of say Florida, Michigan, Virginia and ironically Pennsylvania.
And none of this is new information, this ALL came up during the discussions in PA last year.....yet John Husted actually thinks that this time, thing would be different if his idea went through.....
Like I said I'm pretty sure that's the definition of insanity.
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