Sunday, December 7, 2014

The Electoral College


        The Electoral College was created as a way to protect the elite from the poor.  The elite did not want the poor people of society to have too much power.  They were afraid that the poor would try to use the government to take money away from the rich.  For that reason they created an indirect democracy that allowed the elite to be protected and poor to feel they have some control over the government.  Another reason that the Electoral College was created is to it allow small states to have several votes in the election for president. If they did it by population, small population states would not even matter to candidates and would be completely ignored.  They are already some what ignored, but they would not matter if it was done by population.

          I personally believe the Electoral College is fair and without it we would have quite a few problems.  The first reason I believe that is because there will always be an immediate outcome.  If we were to vote for president with the popular vote, the candidates will always ask for recounts to try and get more votes which will extend the process and complicate it.  The second reason is that makes it so the president cannot just be popular within a particular region of the country.  That is because of the amount of votes you need to get in order to become president is greater than any, one region of country can give.  The third and final reason is that it helps prevent runoffs that could occur if we elected the president from popular vote.  One example of this is the 1992 election between Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush, (Source).  For these reasons I think the Electoral College is fair.

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Head of State

Head of State is comical movie about an average man running for president. He is picked up by his party to run for president and hopefully bring up the number of votes for their party next year. They never expected him to win, but he surprised them when he started winning in the polls and when he was elected president. The movie satirizes the trivial nature of political parties by having their candidates saying what it is safe say, but not really expressing their ideas or plans for how they want to change the country.
 
When Mays Gilliam first runs for president he follows exactly what his party tells him to say and do. He wears a suit and gives safe speeches that do not really reflect his actual feelings on certain topics. This changes however when Mays's brother tells him to actually speak and run the campaign the way he wants too. The first time he speaks his mind the people love him and chant with him. After this he slowly changes his campaign into a style that he fits him better. He stops wearing suits and starts wearing more ghetto clothing. He even fires his bodyguard and hires Muhammad Ali to be his new bodyguard and most importantly he speaks about actual issues he wants to try and fix in this country.
 
When he realizes that his party chose him to lose he fires both of his party advisers and kicks them off of his bus. He later hires them back though, because he knows he needs them to win. He also has his brother become his running mate in the election since no one else wants the position. At the presidential debate, that took a lot effort to try and get Lewis to actually commit to a debate, he changed back into a suit and rehired his original bodyguard. At this point Mays realizes that in order to win he has to look presentable and that his campaign does not have to be completely ghetto to get his ideas across to the people. The crowd loves him at the debate and he easily defeats Lewis in the debate.
 
In the end Mays puts his issues in his hometown first over his campaign which probably is another reason he actually ends up winning. He decides to keep his promise and bus around people that used to use the bus line, until it was shutdown. The movie ends happily with Mays becoming the first African-American president. He also gets engaged to the girl of his dreams and gets his face carved into Mount Rushmore. Mays Gilliam ran the election in the beginning just hoping he was not going to get shot and ends becoming president by the end of it.