National Popular Vote

There's a saying in baseball (according to Toby Ziegler, anyway). Every team's going to win 54 games, every team's going to lose 54, it's what you do with the other 54 games that counts.

Some approximation of that saying applies to presidential elections as well. Each candidate will win 180 electoral votes and lose 180, it's the remaining 180 votes that count. And they come from the same small group of battleground states every four years. Ohio and Florida are always critical. New Hampshire, Missouri, Iowa, Arkansas, North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana, Nevada, Colorado. Perhaps a couple others.

Any state not on that list gets largely ignored, the winner-take-all system providing no incentive to poll, advertise, or campaign where the outcome is already determined (and often pre-determined). In 2004, candidates concentrated over two-thirds of their money and campaign visits in just five states; over 80 percent in nine states; and over 99 percent of their money in just 16 states.

The creatively named National Popular Vote Inc (whose president was recently a guest speaker in one of my classes) is making a serious effort to change this dynamic, by ensuring that the presidency is awarded to the winner of the national popular vote. And contrary to popular belief, this doesn't require a Constitutional Amendment to throw out the electoral system.

Instead, NPV is trying to get each state to pass a bill under which that state agrees to award all of its electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, regardless of the outcome in the state itself. The bill is only activated when enough states (states accounting for at least 270 electoral votes) pass it, at which point the winner of the popular vote is guaranteed an electoral college majority. Genius!

Now, there may be some misgivings about changing a system established by our Founding Fathers in what seems like an end run around the Constitution to screw the small states and destroy federalism. I'll let NPV's myth-busting page address those concerns.

At this point, four states accounting for 50 electoral votes have enacted the National Popular Vote Bill: Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, and New Jersey. Only 220 more electoral votes to go. And interestingly, NPV's polling shows strong support for this bill not only nationally, but even in the battleground states. Maybe the voters there are just sick of being bombarded by election commercials. Whatever the reason, don't be surprised if this is in place by 2012...

3D!

It didn't exactly take off the first time around, with the ridiculous red and blue glasses (an extra dimension, and all we had to sacrifice was 254 colors!), but 3D is back in a big way, and the experience is absolutely worth the extra few bucks.

So far Gina and I have only experienced the new Real D technology in animation (though it's occasionally used in live action films as well).

First was Bolt, a good movie in its own right, but definitely enhanced by the 3D. There were gratuitous objects in the foreground of most shots, and the occasional debris flying toward the screen, but I was actually wishing for more of that stuff. I didn't think it exploited the technology enough, especially for an action story.

Coraline was next, and while the movie was Tim Burton on acid (yeah, I know, but more acid), the visuals were stunning in 3D, which made up for some of the movie's shortcomings.

And this week we watched Monsters vs. Aliens, which made the best use of 3D yet. We also saw 3D sneak peaks of Up and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and they looked visually amazing.

I'm guessing most of you will see Up this summer, and I highly recommend giving 3D a shot. It'll be like watching a football game in HD. It's the same game, but it just looks so much better.