LETTER: Changing rules akin to cheating

To the Telegram:

During the past four years, the Republican Party has tried just about everything to get the White House back.

The party’s big money donors, the super PAC’s the guys like Adelson, and the Koch boys, Karl Rove, they spent literally billions of dollars to get their guy elected; they spread lie after lie with their advertising campaigns. They tried, and sometimes succeeded, in passing legislation to make it hard, and in some cases, expensive for some folks to exercise their right to vote, and yet they still lost. This has caused a lot of finger pointing and soul searching among those in the party who still have a soul. Those who still have a soul have gotten the message — they realize they have a product problem and they have to improve it in order to sell it to American voters.

They’ve realized that we’ve become a centrist country. We’re not afraid of gays. We think don’t think of our women as property. We believe they have the right to equal rights and pay in the workplace, and they have the right to control their own health issues. They now recognize that we believe we are our brothers’ keeper and we should take care of the least among us.

Yes, these Republicans have seen the light but sadly their party is still controlled by the extreme right wing, the Tea Party. These people still believe their product is still what we want, in spite of how the election turned out, and now they think they may have found a new way to give us what we want, even if we don’t want it.

The newest twist for them is to change the way we allot electoral votes. In most states —and it is up to the individual states to decide — electoral vote are awarded on a winner take all basis, whoever gets the popular vote, gets all of that state’s electoral votes. The Republicans want to change that, so whoever the winner is in each congressional district would get that district’s vote. For instance, in Pennsylvania — where the idea has popped up — this would have given Romney an extra electoral votes. It wouldn’t guarantee them a winner but they think it would enhance their chances, though it could backfire on them. Then what; change the rules again? Keep changing them until they get the desired outcome?

Some have suggested we just use the popular vote, but with the changing demographics in the country, I doubt the Republicans would go for that.

Here’s what I think: if they keep trying to sell the same tired trickle down theories and don’t start listening to what the electorate is telling them, then they will have to get used to being the minority party. It does seem like they have realized the only way they can get the White House back, without a complete overhaul of their failed philosophies, is to change the way we do our elections — in other words cheat.

George Richard,

New Richmond, Wis.

Tags: opinion, letters