Reviews for Televised presidential debates and public policy

The average rating for Televised presidential debates and public policy based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-06-11 00:00:00 Craig James James Michener wrote this book in 1969, and it was just republished in 2014. He writes of his experiences as Chief Elector of the Pennsylvania Electoral College in 1968, the year that Wallace was running as an Independent against Humphrey and Nixon. He realized that if Wallace garnered enough votes, he could use the College to give the Presidency to the party who came in second, and thus wield enormous power in the new government. As it turned out, Wallace never got enough votes to be temped to do this, but it made Michener realized that the method of electing a President through the Electoral College was antiquated and opened the door for election fraud. The system had been created before the formation of political parties, and their existence had not been foreseen. The college electors for each state were chosen by different methods in each state, mostly by the political parties of each state, and the jobs were given to party loyalists who had made big donations or worked hard on behalf of the party. In some states, the electors were not even obligated to vote as their state had voted in the popular election, and in the states where they were obligated, there were few if any penalties if the electors voted their own way! He details the problems that could have occurred in several elections over the years, and how the problems were avoided, which was more by luck than anything else. He urges elimination of the College, and elimination of the tossing of the Presidential election in the House of Representatives if the College becomes deadlocked. He provides serval plans to accomplish this. He also predicts that Congress will not act to make changes until a disaster occurs, and so far history has proven him correct, as nothing has changed in the College since his essay was written. Until that happens, the People do not actually elect a President. The President is elected by a small group of unknown individuals, who possess the power to elect whom they wish, if they chose to exercise it.

Review # 2 was written on 2019-06-05 00:00:00 Kip Donlon Michener's 1968 warning clarion sounds quaintly naive today. It is a detailed and powerful analysis that leaves a soft trail of bias so inherent in the American system, remember the 'tyranny of the majority.' This Cold War account of the 1968 election is chilling. They worried about Wallace then, if only we had those sorts of simple problems now. Required reading today as Hillary's vote count exceeds 2 million and America is faced with disaster.