These essays in defense of the Electoral College, edited by Gregg (The Presidential Republic), a professor of leadership at the University of Louisville, echo the conservative ethos: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Admittedly, the college is a peculiar constitutional institution; each state is given a number of "electors" who in turn vote in each state for the president, in most cases on a winner-take-all basis. So candidates actually must win states, and can—as with Gore—win the popular vote and lose the presidency. Peculiar indeed, but the scholars assembled here—among them Walter Berns, Andrew E. Busch and Daniel Patrick Moynihan—argue that the Electoral College has "done much good and very little ill in American history." The college makes of the states more than just administrative units, giving them a voice in national affairs. Bush the younger won, after all, by only one electoral vote, so each electoral vote counts and candidates must pay attention to the diverse regions of the country. Minorities are empowered as they tend to be concentrated and their influence is most felt in state voting. Parties must moderate their stances to appeal to voters across a diverse continental nation, and the winner-take-all system helps reinforce a stable two-party system. Unfortunately, the wisdom here is sullied by too much sectarian silliness. Those on a certain side of the abortion debate, for instance, are labeled "advocates of infanticide," and those questioning the Electoral College are "discontented demagogues" or "shameless demagogues." But a system in which voter turnout in presidential elections averages 50% might legitimately raise some questions, and the authors here would do well to temper their tone lest they be seen as more concerned with defending Bush's election than with the fate of the republic. (Oct.)
