Download Free The Vote That Made The President Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online The Vote That Made The President and write the review.

A New Statesman Book of the Year “America’s greatest historian of democracy now offers an extraordinary history of the most bizarre aspect of our representative democracy—the electoral college...A brilliant contribution to a critical current debate.” —Lawrence Lessig, author of They Don’t Represent Us Every four years, millions of Americans wonder why they choose their presidents through an arcane institution that permits the loser of the popular vote to become president and narrows campaigns to swing states. Congress has tried on many occasions to alter or scuttle the Electoral College, and in this master class in American political history, a renowned Harvard professor explains its confounding persistence. After tracing the tangled origins of the Electoral College back to the Constitutional Convention, Alexander Keyssar outlines the constant stream of efforts since then to abolish or reform it. Why have they all failed? The complexity of the design and partisan one-upmanship have a lot to do with it, as do the difficulty of passing constitutional amendments and the South’s long history of restrictive voting laws. By revealing the reasons for past failures and showing how close we’ve come to abolishing the Electoral College, Keyssar offers encouragement to those hoping for change. “Conclusively demonstrates the absurdity of preserving an institution that has been so contentious throughout U.S. history and has not infrequently produced results that defied the popular will.” —Michael Kazin, The Nation “Rigorous and highly readable...shows how the electoral college has endured despite being reviled by statesmen from James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson to Edward Kennedy, Bob Dole, and Gerald Ford.” —Lawrence Douglas, Times Literary Supplement
“Wegman combines in-depth historical analysis and insight into contemporary politics to present a cogent argument that the Electoral College violates America’s ‘core democratic principles’ and should be done away with..." —Publishers Weekly The framers of the Constitution battled over it. Lawmakers have tried to amend or abolish it more than 700 times. To this day, millions of voters, and even members of Congress, misunderstand how it works. It deepens our national divide and distorts the core democratic principles of political equality and majority rule. How can we tolerate the Electoral College when every vote does not count the same, and the candidate who gets the most votes can lose? Twice in the last five elections, the Electoral College has overridden the popular vote, calling the integrity of the entire system into question—and creating a false picture of a country divided into bright red and blue blocks when in fact we are purple from coast to coast. Even when the popular-vote winner becomes president, tens of millions of Americans—Republicans and Democrats alike—find that their votes didn't matter. And, with statewide winner-take-all rules, only a handful of battleground states ultimately decide who will become president. Now, as political passions reach a boiling point at the dawn of the 2020 race, the message from the American people is clear: The way we vote for the only official whose job it is to represent all Americans is neither fair nor just. Major reform is needed—now. Isn't it time to let the people pick the president? In this thoroughly researched and engaging call to arms, Supreme Court journalist and New York Times editorial board member Jesse Wegman draws upon the history of the founding era, as well as information gleaned from campaign managers, field directors, and other officials from twenty-first-century Democratic and Republican presidential campaigns, to make a powerful case for abolishing the antiquated and antidemocratic Electoral College. In Let the People Pick the President he shows how we can at long last make every vote in the United States count—and restore belief in our democratic system.
In presidential elections, do voters cast their ballots for the candidates whose platform and positions best match their own? Or is the race for president of the United States come down largely to who runs the most effective campaign? It’s a question those who study elections have been considering for years with no clear resolution. In The Timeline of Presidential Elections, Robert S. Erikson and Christopher Wlezien reveal for the first time how both factors come into play. Erikson and Wlezien have amassed data from close to two thousand national polls covering every presidential election from 1952 to 2008, allowing them to see how outcomes take shape over the course of an election year. Polls from the beginning of the year, they show, have virtually no predictive power. By mid-April, when the candidates have been identified and matched in pollsters’ trial heats, preferences have come into focus—and predicted the winner in eleven of the fifteen elections. But a similar process of forming favorites takes place in the last six months, during which voters’ intentions change only gradually, with particular events—including presidential debates—rarely resulting in dramatic change. Ultimately, Erikson and Wlezien show that it is through campaigns that voters are made aware of—or not made aware of—fundamental factors like candidates’ policy positions that determine which ticket will get their votes. In other words, fundamentals matter, but only because of campaigns. Timely and compelling, this book will force us to rethink our assumptions about presidential elections.
Contents: (1) Intro.; (2) Competing Approaches: Direct Popular Election v. Electoral College Reform; (3) Direct Popular Election: Pro and Con; (4) Electoral College Reform: Pro and Con; (5) Electoral College Amendments Proposed in the 111th Congress; (6) Contemporary Activity in the States; (7) 2004: Colorado Amendment 36; (8) 2007-2008: The Presidential Reform Act (California Counts); (9) 2006-Present: National Popular Vote -- Direct Popular Election Through an Interstate Compact; Origins; The Plan; National Popular Vote, Inc.; Action in the State Legislatures; States That Have Approved NPV; National Popular Vote; (10) Prospects for Change -- An Analysis; (11) State Action -- A Viable Reform Alternative?; (12) Concluding Observations.
A seasoned political analyst and strategist argues why the U.S. must elect a woman president now and lays out a plan of action to make it happen. Yes. She. Can. Vote Her In addresses the unrealized dream of millions of American women: electing our first woman president. It makes the case for the urgency of women attaining equal executive power at all levels, including the presidency, and offers a comprehensive strategy for every woman to be a part of this campaign—the most important of our lifetimes. Women are wildly underrepresented at every level of the U.S. government: federal, state, and local. Research has shown that women in executive government positions are far more likely than men to commit to policies that benefit women, girls, and other marginalized groups. So, after centuries of underrepresentation, it’s clear: our best bet for creating a system that is more fair, balanced, and just for everyone is electing our first Madam President—as soon as we can. Vote Her In is organized around the inspirational messages seen on protest signs carried at the record-breaking 2017 Chicago Women’s March. Part One outlines the case for why we need to mobilize now, and Part Two provides a clear strategy for how to do it. Each chapter in Part Two includes an action plan that women can complete to help each other (or themselves) attain political power and work toward electing our first woman president. Author Rebecca Sive draws on her decades of political experience to create this crucial book, which empowers every American man, woman, and child who cares about our nation’s democratic future to harness their collective power in the run-up to 2020 and, at last, form a more perfect union. Praise for Rebecca Sive’s Vote Her In “Rebecca astutely explores a critical question: If we believe in justice for every American, will we work to elect women to public offices across the country, including the presidency? We must!” —Lisa Madigan, former attorney general, Illinois “Sive takes her years of dedication to advancing women’s political careers and causes and turns them into a call to action?along with some of the practical tools needed for real and rapid progress.” —Katherine Baicker, dean, University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy “Far too few women, especially women of color, have the opportunity to become political leaders. Let’s #VoteHerIn, as Sive’s inspirational guide so powerfully argues.” —Kimberly M. Foxx, state’s attorney, Cook County, Illinois
A fresh interpretation of the disputed presidential election of 1876 between Rutherford Hayes and Samuel Tilden, which was characterized by allegations of election fraud and a narrow victory by a single electoral vote. Many historians consider this election the precursor to the bitterly divisive 2000 Bush-Gore election.
By many measures--commonsensical or statistical--the United States has not been more divided politically or economically in the last hundred years than it is now. How have we gone from the striking bipartisan cooperation and relative economic equality of the war years and post-war period to the extreme inequality and savage partisan divisions of today? In this sweeping look at American politics from the Depression to the present, Doug McAdam and Karina Kloos argue that party politics alone is not responsible for the mess we find ourselves in. Instead, it was the ongoing interaction of social movements and parties that, over time, pushed Democrats and Republicans toward their ideological margins, undermining the post-war consensus in the process. The Civil Rights struggle and the white backlash it provoked reintroduced the centrifugal force of social movements into American politics, ushering in an especially active and sustained period of movement/party dynamism, culminating in today's tug of war between the Tea Party and Republican establishment for control of the GOP. In Deeply Divided, McAdam and Kloos depart from established explanations of the conservative turn in the United States and trace the roots of political polarization and economic inequality back to the shifting racial geography of American politics in the 1960s. Angered by Lyndon Johnson's more aggressive embrace of civil rights reform in 1964, Southern Dixiecrats abandoned the Democrats for the first time in history, setting in motion a sustained regional realignment that would, in time, serve as the electoral foundation for a resurgent and increasingly more conservative Republican Party.
From abortion to same-sex marriage, today's most urgent political debates will hinge on this two-part question: What did the United States Constitution originally mean and who now understands its meaning best? Rakove chronicles the Constitution from inception to ratification and, in doing so, traces its complex weave of ideology and interest, showing how this document has meant different things at different times to different groups of Americans.
Classic Books Library presents this brand new edition of “The Federalist Papers”, a collection of separate essays and articles compiled in 1788 by Alexander Hamilton. Following the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776, the governing doctrines and policies of the States lacked cohesion. “The Federalist”, as it was previously known, was constructed by American statesman Alexander Hamilton, and was intended to catalyse the ratification of the United States Constitution. Hamilton recruited fellow statesmen James Madison Jr., and John Jay to write papers for the compendium, and the three are known as some of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Alexander Hamilton (c. 1755–1804) was an American lawyer, journalist and highly influential government official. He also served as a Senior Officer in the Army between 1799-1800 and founded the Federalist Party, the system that governed the nation’s finances. His contributions to the Constitution and leadership made a significant and lasting impact on the early development of the nation of the United States.