Partisan Gerrymandering threatens democracy

This post originally was published in the Wilson Times July 6, 2019.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last week that the court has no jurisdiction over partisan gerrymandering constitutes a baffling abandonment of basic democratic principles. The court sent the matter back to the state legislatures, which have been busily making it more difficult for candidates in one party to get elected while the other party, the one drawing the electoral district lines, gets to yawn through elections confident that they have the votes. After all, the latter party got to choose who would vote in the election.

Gerrymandering, having been done by both parties in various states, is a rejection of the Supreme Court’s 1964 “one person, one vote” ruling, which held that one group of voters could not have greater impact than other groups. Congressional districts had to be of roughly equal population so that each voter’s ballot would have the same impact in the House of Representatives. The ruling also applied to state legislative districts. A state could not give each county one seat in the State Senate (as some in North Carolina wanted) because the counties’ populations are not equal.

Like those forbidden voting populations, partisan gerrymandering denies voters equal impact in an election. Although running for office in same-population districts, candidates of the party drawing the lines have far better chances of winning the election. Thus, voters supporting the other political party cast votes that have little chance of winning. In North Carolina, a state with a nearly even partisan division among voters, shrewd gerrymandering has given Republicans a 10-3 advantage in congressional seats.

The court’s decision to let partisan politicians have their way takes America a step toward one-party rule and leaves voters with the possibility that future election ballots may not have any choices. Elections become superfluous, and fair representation is denied. The party in power will stay in power because it gets to choose who votes.

In North Carolina, the Democratic Party and Common Cause have filed suit over the GOP’s highly partisan redistricting plans. If the high court continues to stand behind this new precedent, Democrats will have few options:

1.    They could all abandon the Democratic Party and re-register as Republicans, then carry out a subversive effort to replace that party’s leadership with people more committed to democracy and less dedicated to raw political power.

       2.    They can propose a federal law that clearly defines partisan gerrymanders and makes them illegal. Because many states’ congressional districts are already gerrymandered and Republicans hold a solid majority in the U.S. Senate, it may be impossible to find the votes to get such legislation through Congress.

          3. The plaintiffs can go back to the federal courts and try to persuade the increasingly partisan Supreme Court to reconsider its decision. Chief Justice Roberts says the courts have no jurisdiction over the drawing of electoral districts. Surely the chief justice is familiar with the concept of “checks and balances.” If the courts are not going to be allowed to limit the worst instincts of state legislatures, there are no checks and balances, and there is no representative democracy. The court has been less reluctant to take on matters that, like partisan gerrymandering, are not mentioned in the Constitution, such as same-sex marriage, abortion, and public education.

This ruling will go down in history as an abandonment of liberty. When there are no fairly elected representatives, there is no democracy.

Nonpartisan means no party labels

By custom and by law, most municipal elections in North Carolina are non-partisan. There are no party primaries and no party labels on the ballots in these municipal elections. (Most school board elections are the same way.)

But some people just can't abide not having party labels and party officials deciding how things should be run. Republicans in the General Assembly have proposed making all municipal elections partisan so that Republicans can have their own candidates, and Democrats can have their own candidates. The GOP has been riding a powerful wave and thinks it can expand its authority and power by taking control of local government in the same way it has taken over state government.

Democrats are headed down that same path, but without the legislative authority of the GOP. Democrats who want partisan purity have to resort to protests and shaming. The News & Observer is reporting today that some Democrats are upset that former Gov. Jim Hunt endorsed an independent (the incumbent) in the Raleigh mayor's race instead of her challenger, who is registered as a Democrat. These Democrats want to remove Hunt's name from a party fundraiser to punish him for his disloyalty.

If you believe party politics are all that matter in this old world, punishing Hunt makes sense. But a reality check would remind these Democrats that the Raleigh mayor's race was a nonpartisan election. By law there were no party labels. Party registration, whether Democratic, Republican or independent, should not matter. Ideally, party affiliation does not exist in the mayor's race. All that should matter is ability and accomplishments. On that basis, Hunt endorsed the candidate who had proven ability and an impressive list of accomplishments in her three terms as mayor. She has advocated what most people would consider "Democratic" policies, such as low-income housing improvements and buying the Dix property for a landmark city park. Nancy McFarlane won 58% of the vote against her challenger.

The election is nonpartisan. Support for candidates should be as well. The news media have contributed to this insurgent partisanship. The News & Observer frequently mentioned the challenger's registration as a Democrat, even though that is irrelevant in a nonpartisan election. In a nonpartisan election, a candidate's party registration need never be mentioned.

The Democrats who want to "punish" Jim Hunt have short memories. Hunt is the only North Carolinian to serve four terms as governor. His terms were among the most progressive in North Carolina history. If he had not been stopped by Jesse Helms in 1984, he might have been elected president.

And what good will punishing Hunt do? These Democrats would alienate the 58% of Raleigh voters who went for McFarlane, and they will come across as ignorant and vindictive toward a man who should, by all normal standards, be a hero in Democratic politics in North Carolina.

They want an excuse for their preferred candidate's electoral loss. Jim Hunt is not it.

An election like no other

My greatest fear before the election was that some angry Trump supporters would follow through on their promise to go armed to the White House and take over the government if Trump lost. A Trump victory resolved that fear but didn't eliminate all protests and violence. Small protests with some rioting broke out after Hillary Clinton conceded.

A smooth transition of power has been the greatest attribute of American democracy over the past 240 years. Even when the change was abrupt, as it was after the elections of 1800, 1876, 1912, 1976, 1980, 1992, 2000 and 2008, there was no rioting and few, if any, public protests.

The 2016 election has shaken not only the leadership in Washington but also the entire political, polling and commentary industries. The polls had it wrong. Nearly every poll showed a Clinton victory -- usually a close win but a win nevertheless. But Trump was able to win nearly every battleground state, some by wide margins. The polls had it wrong, not because they were pulling for the Democratic nominee but because their data were wrong; data were insufficient or distorted by the difficulty of polling in the 21st century. At a time when a majority of people use cell phones instead of land lines, it's increasingly difficult to find a representative sample of the electorate. Pollsters will be examining their techniques and strategies to try to make polling great again.

The armies of political consultants also took a beating. Clinton had hundreds of data analysts, organizers, managers, publicists, graphic designers and other consultants guiding her campaign. She had the greatest "ground game" in history, we were told. Look where it got her! The political consultants, like the pollsters, missed the working class anger that fueled the Trump bulldozer.

They should have known better. Working class anger has been around for a while. Twenty-five years ago, as NAFTA was signed, workers worried but didn't have the power to stop the free trade stampede. The loss of industry, retailers and just basic prosperity in small towns have left millions feeling crushed by the global economy and the politicians who set the table for it. Trump tapped into that anger without offering a viable solution. The anger and frustration were so great that supporters were willing to overlook his insults, misogyny, narcissism and lack of knowledge. All that mattered was getting back at the political establishment that had done them wrong.

Political pundits, including highly regarded conservative writers, backed away from Trump. They couldn't abide the bombastic posturing and the ignorance of policy details that Trump's supporters willingly overlooked. As a result, many, including George Will, David Brooks and Charles Krauthammer, exposed Trump's lack of qualifications and urged his defeat. These writers had relied on what the polls said and failed to get out of Washington into the "flyover states" to see how fiercely upset the working class voters were.

At the state level, N.C. Republicans rode the Trump wave, with the exception of Gov. Pat McCrory, who was apparently undone by the "bathroom bill" he had championed. Unofficial results show Democrat Roy Cooper with a slim victory over McCrory, who lost Charlotte, Raleigh and other urban centers. Voters took revenge on McCrory for the unnecessary law that has cost the state an estimated $600 million in investments.

Unfortunately for those voters who wanted revenge, they could knock off McCrory but not the supermajority of Republicans in the General Assembly. Running from gerrymandered districts, legislators didn't have to contend with an electorate diverse in race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, party affiliation and political philosophy that McCrory and other statewide candidates did. GOP dominance in the legislative branch is unabated. So long as the General Assembly remains overwhelmingly in GOP hands, nothing will change.

Counting the damage from HB2

It was bad enough when Pay Pal and other big companies revoked plans to invest in and bring high-paying jobs to North Carolina because of House Bill 2, which limited protections for gay, lesbian and transgender people and forbade cities from passing anti-discrimination laws of their own. HB2 also established a requirement that everyone use bathrooms and locker rooms conforming to the gender on their birth certificates, a law aimed at transgender people.

The national reaction against the law was overwhelming. Bruce Springsteen refused to play a concert in a state where HB2 rules. Other individuals, organizations and corporations followed suit. Gov. Pat McCrory and his Republican colleagues in the legislature complained that North Carolina was being singled out while other states with similar laws were not boycotted. McCrory's complaint had some validity, but North Carolina's HB2 went further than other states' rules, and GOP leaders in the state dug in their heels rather than seeking a compromise.

Now the NCAA and the Atlantic Coast Conference have weighed in on the HB2 debate by pulling all NCAA and ACC championship events from the state. This is more than legal maneuvering or political correctness. This is basketball and football. This is a slap in the face of the state that birthed and reared the Atlantic Coast Conference. The conference's headquarters is in Greensboro, which is also the traditional site of many of its premier events. The cost to the state will be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The NCAA contracts with venues for "March Madness" games years in advance. The loss of this year's games will affect tournament sites for years to come. More millions of dollars will go to other states.

McCrory's strong streak of self-righteousness has kept him from admitting that the hastily passed law he supported and signed might be wrong. He and other Republican leaders have "doubled down" on their insistence that HB2 is a privacy protection law.

As an aging male who remembers what it was like to be a15-year-old boy and as a father of two daughters, I have a certain empathy for parents who recoil at the thought of boys sharing the shower room with their middle-school or high school daughters after phys ed class. A narrowly structured law could address this concern without the ban on anti-discrimination laws and other portions of HB2. Likewise, the bathroom issue can be resolved by admitting that transgender people — a minuscule subset of the population — have been using the bathrooms of their choice for years.

Some Republicans now appear willing to reconsider HB2, but the damage to North Carolina's economy and pride has been done. Pay Pal isn't going to reverse course. Springsteen won't give a "make-up" concert. The NCAA is accepting invitations from other states to play post-season events there. North Carolina, the home of the ACC, will likely be on the outside looking in for years to come. You might even have to worry about the ACC headquarters. If ACC teams can't play tournaments in North Carolina, can the conference keep its headquarters in Greensboro without being accused of hypocrisy?

Even people who support HB2's provisions have to admit that the law has hurt the state in economic, cultural and prestige measures. The Republican General Assembly will have to undo this error as soon as possible, like it or not.

North Carolina sinks to bottom in public education

No doubt, many conservatives will explain the excoriating criticism North Carolina received at the Emerging Issues Forum this week as just another liberal, Democratic rant. After all, the Emerging Issues Forum was founded by Democratic Gov. Jim Hunt.

But it's hard to dismiss the criticism of the downward slide of North Carolina's commitment to public education. Teacher salaries, once near the national average, are now ranked 46th in the country. Teacher morale may be at an all-time low, ground to bits by the pressures of constant student testing, new curricula, greater administrative scrutiny and stagnant pay. Certified teachers are fleeing the state's public schools.

 The Republicans who took over the legislature in 2009 and gerrymandered electoral districts to ensure their predominance for a decade or longer have gleefully shoved public education over the guardrails. Class sizes have increased, the Teaching Fellows program has been scrapped, master's degrees no longer improve pay, tenure has been eliminated, pay has been frozen, and charter schools and vouchers for private education are reducing the amount of money available for public schools. It's no wonder that national education experts are mourning the decline of North Carolina's once-exemplary educational achievements.

A neutral observer would have to admit that the progress under Democratic legislators and governors was not all for the improvement of the state. Many Democrats were more interested in pleasing the teacher unions and gaining their election-day support than they were in being sure Johnny could read. The N.C. Association of Educators made their interests clear in questionnaires sent to legislative candidates. The questions were all about teacher pay, teacher benefits and teacher job security and not about improving education.

But what the Republicans have done in setting a new direction for education (take that, NCAE bullies!) is jeopardize the lives of North Carolina's children and the critical infrastructure that had lifted North Carolina off the bottom of the economic ocean. An increase in starting pay for teachers, as Gov. Pat McCrory and GOP legislative leaders proposed this week, will not correct the problems they have created. For North Carolina to revive its educational reputation from the morgue, a whole new attitude will be needed in the Legislative Building, one that declares that public education is not the enemy; it is the best hope for the state's children and its economic future.

Long needles coat the yard

Overnight, the landscape had changed. The green grass, sprinkled with broad-leafed weeds, had taken on a new coating.

The longleaf pine needles had fallen with the timing of a theater curtain. All leaped to their deaths together, a mass suicide of the pine needles. The shrubs and the lawn all wore a new coat of brown needles that gave the yard the look it takes on after an unexpected snowfall, but with brown needles instead of white flakes. The needles clung to the juniper and the azaleas. They coated the lawn and formed a brown carpet over the asphalt. No Winter Wonderland, this was an Fall Fling, a takeover by the needles that usually hide in plain sight high up in the longleaf pines. It was a coating as thorough as any early snowfall.

"Here's to the land of the longleaf pine," goes the state toast, and in the eastern half of that state, the longleaf pines still thrive, though not in the masses that once covered the Coastal Plain right down to the shoreline. The tall, thin trees are worrisome to some residents, who know they can snap in hurricane winds and fly like a javelin through a bedroom wall. These trees need a forest where they can cling together against the wind. A yard tree all alone cannot hide from the hurricanes. Chain saws eliminate the possibility, no matter how remote.

I've paid men with chain saws and trucks to take out diseased trees whose needles had all fallen, and limbs and bark, too. But I've nurtured the other trees, and this Monday, after a weekend away, I find my yard turned brown, coated like a cake with too much brown frosting, dripping and uneven over the shrubs.

With a rake, I coax the needles into piles, from which they will mulch flower beds and herb gardens. I find the green still there beneath the needles, and the driveway's black beneath its brown cloak. The needles will find their place, though my labor. Here's to the land of the longleaf pine. Grab a rake.

Obama is counting on North Carolina

President Obama was back in North Carolina Wednesday, an indication that he thinks he might be able to repeat his win in the state. His 2008 taking of North Carolina, the first Democratic presidential win here since Jimmy Carter in 1976, seemed miraculous and impressive at the time. Repeating that win might truly be miraculous.

North Carolina not so long ago enjoyed its success as a job-creating economic engine. Manufacturing and high-tech companies came here for the state's low taxes and low unionization rates. But since the recession began in 2008, North Carolina has trailed the nation as a whole in jobs and economic stability. The state's downward economic spiral seems likely to continue with Bank of America, headquartered in Charlotte, announcing 30,000 job cuts earlier this week.

Rightly or wrongly (mostly wrongly), the president and his party get blamed for economic misery, so Obama's effort to keep North Carolina in his camp will be especially difficult unless the economy turns around. An economic boost seems unlikely in the next year. Forecasts are for weak growth, at best. The unemployment rate seems likely to remain stubbornly high, and that rate is worse than in recent past recessions because so many of the unemployed are mid-career or older breadwinners. The housing crisis, which sparked this recession, will not be solved soon because so many mortgages are delinquent or in foreclosure.

To win in North Carolina and nationwide, Obama will have to hope for mistakes on the other side. If Republican primary voters nominate a Tea Party favorite who appears to threaten the existence of Social Security and Medicare or who suggests continuing war in Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere, Obama's task will seem more manageable, though still an uphill slog.

State's paving priorities make no sense

Last week, I got stuck in a traffic jam on London Church Road and had to turn around and take a detour to avoid a long delay.

That's right: London Church Road, the rural two-lane that meanders (with a couple of cool S-curves) between N.C. 42 East and N.C. 97 near the Rocky Mount-Wilson airport. I use the road as a convenient shortcut on frequent trips to Rocky Mount. The route isn't shorter, but it is far less traveled and has fewer stoplights than U.S. 301. It's a pleasant rural course flanked by tobacco and cotton fields and rural homes.

The hold-up on London Church Road was a paving project. A contractor had milled all of the asphalt from the road, leaving a dusty bed of crushed run or gravel. A flagman had set up to stop traffic, and a pilot car would lead drivers through the maze of heavy equipment to next flag stop far down the road. After sitting idle for about 10 minutes when I needed to be back at the office, I turned around and took another lightly traveled two-lane over to N.C. 58 and back into Wilson.

But you have to wonder: Why was London Church Road, a smooth, well-maintained road, being milled and repaved when so many other state roads (take a look at Nash Street, Goldsboro Street, U.S. 301 and others in the Wilson vicinity) that are in far worse shape are left to crumble into traffic hazards? One can only assume that this is another example of the state Department of Transportation's wasteful and misguided sense of priorities. North Carolina used to proclaim itself "the good roads state," but that moniker is an embarrassing joke these days. It's not that North Carolina isn't collecting plenty of highway money. It has the highest gasoline tax in the region, but it can't seem to keep roads paved or even patched. Rebuilding a perfectly good road that relatively few people use while badly damaged and heavily traveled roads are left to serve as obstacle courses gives a hint as to why we are no longer the "good roads state."

Perdue aims for ambitious government reforms

The News & Observer reports today that Gov. Bev Perdue is thinking of performing a radical remake of state government, in the mold of Gov. O. Max Gardner. During his 1929-1933 reign, Gardner changed the face of state government forever, taking advantage of the urgency of the dire economic situation to have the state take responsibility for roads and schools, along with other reorganization of state government.

Gardner employed the urgency of economic collapse, the bankruptcy of dozens of local governments, the closings of scores of banks and his own political skills to implement a series of recommendations by the Brookings Institution, which he hired to study state government. Gardner's reforms gave us the state-paid teachers, state-paved roads and state sales tax we've known all our lives. Perdue recognizes that the anticipated $3 billion budget shortfall, the crisis in mental health care and the heavily politicized Department of Transportation align the stars for her in much the same way the crises of his era opened the reform door for Gardner.

State government cries out for reform, but it will take great political skill and grassroots support to bring about significant change. Powerful interests entrenched over 75 years will not dissolve easily. But real reforms could save the state precious tax dollars and make the state more efficient.

Highway costs have ballooned far beyond the rate of inflation, and it is obvious that some road-construction decisions are compelled by politics, not by transportation needs. Perdue's decision to take road-building decisions out of the hands of the politically appointed state Board of Transportation (though it still must be approved by legislators) is a first step in the right direction. Construction decisions must be made more wisely and professionally, and costs must be better controlled. The department has long been viewed as a political cesspool where cronies can go on to their earthly reward; the nepotism and cronyism must be cleaned up.

Although Gardner took the first step toward consolidating the university system (joining what is now UNC-CH, N.C. State and UNC-G) and Bob Scott, who died Friday, completed the consolidation of all state-supported schools under one umbrella, there still is plenty of political influence in higher education. Witness the planned new dental school at ECU at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars over the long run and the recently announced push by UNC-G for a second state-supported pharmacy school. Alumni and other supporters push programs for the aggrandizement of their alma maters without regard to the benefits, or lack thereof, for taxpayers.

Duplicative state programs and responsibilities have survived other reform efforts. The state has the SBI, the Highway Patrol and state ALE, all involved in enforcing laws, but no consolidation has been successful. When a commission recommended folding Crime Control and Public Safety into existing departments, the proposal lost to political empire-building. No programs better illustrate the state's duplication of efforts for political reasons than Gov. Jim Hunt's Smart Start and Gov. Mike Easley's More at Four, separate programs both aimed at preparing children for school.

Despite recommendations by the Brookings study more than 75 years ago, North Carolina still elects far too many state officials. The commissioner of labor, commissioner of insurance, state treasurer, superintendent of public instruction, attorney general and secretary of state should all be appointed by the governor, just as the president appoints his Cabinet. And the state has too many departments, each protecting its own turf and running up expenses, as previous studies have shown. Reforming these anachronisms might be the most difficult reform of all. Voters who can't name a single candidate on the ballot below the governor insist that they don't want their vote taken away. Judicial elections (I doubt that 1 percent of voters can name more than two statewide judicial candidates on any given election day) should be replaced with an appointment and referendum system as has been repeatedly proposed in the past.

Reform of state taxes will have a natural urgency in an economic crisis, and this year might see some movement on this issue. Studies have frequently shown that the state retail sales tax implemented in the 1930s has lost its relevancy to a modern economy, which is far more service-driven. Most services are not taxed. But newspapers, which don't want their ads taxed, and professional organizations, which don't want their legal fees or accounting fees taxed, have prevented significant reform.

Meanwhile, the state gives away millions of dollars to lure industry to the state. These giveaways are funded by individual taxpayers and by corporations who then must compete with the subsidized industries. It's an unfair and ultimately futile exercise. The state would be wiser to reduce corporate taxes for everyone, treating newly recruited industries and established ones the same.

If Perdue succeeds against the odds to implement fundamental reforms that bring reduced costs and less efficiency, she will have earned her place in history. She has a long, hard row to hoe before she reaches that pinnacle.

North Carolina looks a lot like Illinois

The indictment and arrest of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his chief of staff reads more like a court filing against organized crime in the Tony Soprano/John Gotti/Vito Corleone tradition than anything in American politics. Federal prosecutors charge that Blagojevich attempted to sell the U.S. Senate seat from Illinois (being vacated by President-elect Barack Obama) to the highest bidder. He also seeks paybacks for state contracts and wants plush jobs for himself and his wife, according to the indictment.

Political corruption is nothing new, but the audacity and openness of Blagojevich's efforts made headlines nationwide. Illinois has a history of political corruption. Blagojevich's predecessor is in prison. But these alleged activities are so blatant that they are unbelievable, even by Chicago standards.

North Carolina can't be self-righteous about political corruption. We have seen  a former congressman, a former agriculture commissioner, a former speaker of the state House, a former legislator, a former lobbyist, another former legislator and former state employees sent to prison in the past decade. What many of them were convicted of doing differs from the Illinois standard only in degree of magnitude.

And North Carolina still leaves the door open for more deal-making, favor-swapping, paybacks and corruption. The state Board of Transportation is an open invitation to corrupt practices. Its members are appointed based on their ability to raise money for political candidates. Once on the board, they have the authority to steer road projects to benefit themselves, their friends and their political sponsors. Gov.-elect Bev Perdue has not endorsed any significant reform of the board's powers, in part, no doubt, because she has benefited from board members' fund-raising.

The Blagojevich investigation also implicates the Service Employees International Union, with which the State Employees Association of North Carolina has recently allied. Does anyone see a connection here?

Despite widespread corruption, inefficiency and incompetence in state government, North Carolina voters returned the same old power brokers to their positions of power in Raleigh last month. Not even the imprisonment of high state officials was enough to bring fundamental reform to Raleigh. It reminds me of Illinois, where the imprisonment of one governor was not enough to stifle the greed and malfeasance of another governor. Who will be the next N.C. elected official to go to prison? And will the voters care this time?

National Popular Vote forgotten in 2008 campaign

As the presidential election approaches, just eight days away, we haven't heard much about the National Popular Vote, a proposal to have the states sidestep the Electoral College system called for in our Constitution. It is essentially a conspiracy among the states in which the states agree to cast their electoral votes for whichever candidate wins the popular vote. Only three times in history, the most recent being 2000, has the winner of the popular vote not won the electoral vote.

The North Carolina Senate passed the National Popular Vote bill in May 2007. The argument made at the time was that poor North Carolina gets no respect in national elections. The state has voted Republican in every presidential election since 1976; it was reliable, so both presidential candidates pretty much ignored North Carolina.

Not so this year. Presidential and vice presidential candidates have scheduled appearances in North Carolina in the final two weeks of the campaign. Barack Obama and John McCain have visited the state several times this fall. So have Sarah Palin and Joe Biden. North Carolina is getting the attention the supporters of the National Popular Vote bill had promised would come our way if we abandoned the Electoral College system. The difference is that this year North Carolina is "in play." Obama thinks he might win here.

There are two things wrong with the National Popular Vote. First, it is an end run around the Constitution, which calls for electors to select the president based on the voting in each state. If we are to abandon the Electoral College, we should do so honestly, by a constitutional amendment, which would require ratification by three-fourths of the states.

Second, the National Popular Vote would not benefit often-ignored states in the way many advocates contend. A popular vote system would change political strategies, but not in the way you might think. Some populous but often ignored states, such as North Carolina and California, might get more attention from presidential candidates, but political strategy would shift from winning states to winning mass numbers of voters. The most populous states — California, New York, Pennsylvania, Florida, for example — would command most of the candidates' attention. Less-populous states that are now in play, such as Colorado, Iowa or West Virginia, would almost certainly be ignored. Candidates would fish where the largest number of fish are.

The changing political environment this year has shown that electoral strategy is not static. States that have not been contested can suddenly become "battleground states." It all depends on the country's political mood.

Good arguments can be made for a national popular vote strategy, and good arguments can also be made for keeping the Electoral College system, which emphasizes state sovereignty as the Founding Fathers intended. But these arguments should be made on their merits in a debate over a constitutional amendment, not over a back-door conspiracy to void the constitutional mandate to elect presidents via the Electoral College.