Democratic Oak Tree

Suddenly the 2008 elections don’t seem as far away as they did during this summer’s beach weather and the final weeks of gardening and baseball.

In Massachusetts, the Presidential Primary is scheduled for March 4, 2008, less than six months from now. By then it may even be possible to predict who will have enough votes at the parties’ national conventions to be on the Presidential ballot. The Democratic convention is scheduled for late August in Denver; the Republican convention, a few days later in St. Paul.

Next November voters will choose a President and all members of the House of Representatives. Thirty-four  Senators will be elected.

Let’s get ready for the 2008 election year with a political quiz.

1. Is the candidate with the most votes the person who gets elected President?
2. How many electoral votes does Massachusetts have?
3. What are some similarities in how Alaska, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Wyoming affect national politics?
4. What do Colorado, Idaho, Nebraska, New Mexico and Virginia have in common?
5. How many votes are needed in the Senate to override a presidential veto?
6. How many seats are in the House of Representatives?
7. How many votes does it take to override a Presidential veto in the House?
8. How many states have an all-Democratic delegation in the House? (a) six, (b) ten, (c) fifteen.
9. How many seats will Democrats have in the House after the 2008 election?
10. Extra credit: List ten reasons why the next President should  be a Democrat and why Democrats should gain seats in the House and Senate.

Answers:
1. Not necessarily. The president is chosen through electoral college votes.  Remember that in 2000 Democrat Al Gore won the popular vote. Whether he should have been declared the winner of the electoral vote depends on how Florida voted and whether the Supreme Court made a fair decision about Florida’s ballots.
2. Twelve. The number of electoral votes allocated to each state is determined by adding the number of Representative and Senate seats. Massachusetts has ten Representatives and, like all other states, two Senators.
3. Alaska, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Wyoming are relatively small states by population. They voted Republican in the 2004 Presidential election. They will have a Senate election next year and will almost certainly fill the Senate seat with a Republican. Because of the way the electoral college is configured, they influence the election of President more than their population counts would suggest.  To take a glaring example, Wyoming, with a half a million people, receives three electoral votes. Massachusetts, with twelve times the population (roughly six million), has only four times the number of electoral votes.
4. Colorado, Idaho, Nebraska, and Virginia each have a Republican Senator who is not running again. Therefore none of their 2008 Senate candidates will have the advantage of incumbency. Democrats are considered to have some chance of winning a Senate seat in Colorado, New Mexico, or Virginia.
5. A two-thirds vote of those voting can override a presidential veto. If all hundred Senators vote, 67 votes are needed for an override. Currently there are 49 Democrats in the Senate, plus two who ran as independents but are grouped with Democrats. There are 49 Republicans.
6. The House has 435 seats.
7. It takes a two-thirds vote of those voting to override a veto. If all 435 House members cast votes, 290 are needed for an override. Currently there are 233 Democrats. Even though 43 Republicans joined almost all the Democrats to pass legislation to extend health insurance to uninsured children, the votes were not sufficient to override President Bush’s recent veto.
8. (a) Six states currently have an all-Democratic delegation to the House, but except for Massachusetts (with 10 seats) because of their states’ tiny populations they have tiny delegations: Maine (2), New Hampshire (2), North Dakota (1), South Dakota (1), and Vermont (1). Most states have a mixture of Republican and Democratic Representatives.
9. Even experts find It hard to predict which party will gain House seats. One analysis lists six currently Republican seats as a complete toss-up and estimates that 29 others have a slight Democratic or Republican edge (about evenly split).
10. Take a few minutes to list why you believe the country would (or wouldn’t) benefit from electing a Democrat as President and gaining additional Democratic Senate and House seats in 2008. (Keep in mind that the Democratic Party works for the Common Good.)