Who is your favourite also ran?

[indianasmith]

To those who gripe about the Electoral College, I will say this:
Every President in American history was chosen by the Electoral College - many without a majority of the popular vote.
Abraham Lincoln?  40% of the popular vote.  Bill Clinton? 42%.  Woodrow Wilson?  Just over 40%.
Sometimes it reflects the popular vote, sometimes it doesn't.  But the system wasn't changed to put Bush43 or Donald Trump in office.
You take the good with the bad.

[ER]

Funny I don't recall Democrats complaining when President Clinton failed to get a majority vote in 1992. I was so glad he won I couldn't believe it. It felt like Christmas that night.

[Pacman000]

Is it true that, early on, people voted for electors by name, not the candidate/party?

[Svengoolie 3]

Funny I don't recall Democrats complaining when President Clinton failed to get a majority vote in 1992. I was so glad he won I couldn't believe it. It felt like Christmas that night.

Normally i don't waste time responding to trolls like you, but i have to clarify that clinton [b]got more popular votes that bush in 1992[/b].

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1992

Hillary got more popular votes that that thing putin was running, in fact she got more popular votes than anyone in american history other than president obama. The electroal college and gerrymandering gave it to puttin's thing.

I won't reply to whatever troll you throw at this, i was speaking to other people here who may not know you were spreading lies about american elections.

[indianasmith]

Well, in terms of raw numbers, there were more voters in 2016 than there had ever been at any point in American history, and it was a high turnout election, so of course the winner of the popular vote got more votes than anyone ever before.

Clinton did in fact get more popular votes than Bush Sr., however, it was NOT a majority because it was a three man election.
He got 42%, Bush Sr. got 37%, and Ross Perot got 18%, with the remainder going to fringe candidates.

What ER said, and what you said, were both accurate statements.
No need for drama.

[RCMerchant]

Whatever happened to Ross Perot? 

[Pacman000]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Perot

Still around. Still richer than most men. His party lasted a few years after his failed election, but I think it eventually fell apart.

[HappyGilmore]

Maybe not necessarily 'also rans', but in 2008/12 I liked Ron Paul and Rand Paul. 

Ron was a little out there, sometimes, in his ideas, but I'm a Libertarian, so I was okay with a bunch of it.

[ER]

Funny I don't recall Democrats complaining when President Clinton failed to get a majority vote in 1992. I was so glad he won I couldn't believe it. It felt like Christmas that night.

Normally i don't waste time responding to trolls like you, but i have to clarify that clinton [b]got more popular votes that bush in 1992[/b].

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1992

Hillary got more popular votes that that thing putin was running, in fact she got more popular votes than anyone in american history other than president obama. The electroal college and gerrymandering gave it to puttin's thing.

I won't reply to whatever troll you throw at this, i was speaking to other people here who may not know you were spreading lies about american elections.

It's like I explained to my six-year-old the other day, Sven, reading comprehension is important in life. I didn't say President Clinton did not receive the most votes, only that he did not get a majority. So once again I'm, uh, right, and you're...wrong. Some things never change, do they?

I been coming here for ten years, if I was a troll I don't think I'd have gotten good karma from almost everyone here at once point or another. If I was a troll I wouldn't have paid for a member here who'd fallen into homelessness to get off the street and into an apartment. Actually my negativity coincided with your arrival here, always having to correct you, and you getting mad at being disproven instead of humbly learning something new and adjusting your misfounded beliefs accordingly. But there was more to my regrettable bad attitude here than that. It was complicated but not without reason. I'm back to white now, wishing you and everyone here good things, prosperity, happiness, laughs, what the Irish call peace of spirit. And to prove my heart is in the right place, I'm going to give you, Sven, positive karma on a daily basis, just to set us back on a better path.

[Svengoolie 3]

To those who gripe about the Electoral College, I will say this:
Every President in American history was chosen by the Electoral College - many without a majority of the popular vote.
Abraham Lincoln?  40% of the popular vote.  Bill Clinton? 42%.  Woodrow Wilson?  Just over 40%.
Sometimes it reflects the popular vote, sometimes it doesn't.  But the system wasn't changed to put Bush43 or Donald Trump in office.
You take the good with the bad.

Sigh..  In may cases there we're more than. 2 candidates running and the winner got the. Largest share of the vote. 

[Svengoolie 3]

[indianasmith]

That is true because the size of the House of Representatives was frozen a hundred years ago to keep it from outgrowing the capitol building.
Each state is guaranteed at least three electoral votes; one for each Senator and representative they have.
Your mistake is in thinking that America is a democracy; we are not, we are a Republic.   A Republic runs by the rules in its Constitution and can change that Constitution at any time by the formal Amendment process.  The Electoral College was set up in our Constitution 220 years ago; numerous proposals have been made to amend it, and all have been rejected because they did not clear the threshold for an amendment - a 2/3 majority of states to propose, and 3/4 to ratify. 
I am an advocate for enlarging the House of Representatives to more accurately reflect and represent our growing population, but until that happens, yes, the individual votes made in smaller states will count for a bit more than those in the largest states. BUT the large states will still have an enormous advantage in the number of Electoral votes they have.  This is entirely legal and constitutional, even if it is not purely democratic.

But, as I said, America is NOT a democracy and never has been, and that's not a bad thing.
Democracy in its pure form is nothing but mob rule.

[Svengoolie 3]

Tell you what,  first time a conservative loses the white house due to the electoral college i'll listen to your views on it.

As is it is working to keep democrats out of the white house and let republicans in.

[indianasmith]

Considering the entire system was created long before the two current political parties came into existence - and considering that the Democratic Party WAS the party of conservative Southerners for over a hundred years - I find that whole point irrelevant.  The system could not have been created to favor a party or ideology that did not yet exist.

FWIW, Grover Cleveland lost the electoral college in 1888 to Benjamin Harrison.
Of the two, Cleveland was a strong fiscal conservative and an advocate of white rule in the South.
Many Jim Crow laws were passed and went unchallenged during his two non-consecutive terms of office.
So you could certainly argue that he was a conservative who lost the EC after winning the popular vote.

Maybe the Democrats just need stronger candidates, who can appeal to rural voters as well as to residents of large cities and overpopulated states.

[ER]

Way to fight ignorance even off the clock, Indy!