RUSH: You know, Hillsdale College is one of our sponsors here at the EIB Network, and in telling you about Hillsdale, I’ve often regaled you with stories about Dr. Larry Arnn. He’s the president of the institution. He used to run Claremont Institute out in California. He’s a brilliant man. He’s the guiding light behind the Hillsdale foundation of the Constitution being taught to every graduate, regardless of major, they have to be proficient in it or they don’t get out of there. They don’t graduate.
I brought him on to discuss the Electoral College. One of the movements that’s out there — and we haven’t discussed this yet so now’s a good time — there is a petition out there that now has four-and-a-half million signatures. Have you heard about this petition? It’s a petition designed to get as many signatures as possible to tell the electors to elect Hillary Clinton president when they meet in December because she won the popular vote.
Now, the electors can do what they want to do, but tradition and custom mandates they vote for the person who won their state. And they always have. I can’t think of a word to describe it if what the signers of this petition want to happen. But they’re dead serious about it. So Fox went out and got Dr. Arnn on to react to this. And it was Eric Shawn that was talking to him. The question, “The petition on Change.org, about four-and-a-half million have signed that petition calling for the end of the Electoral College. They want the college to anoint Hillary as president when they meet on December the 19th because she received a million more votes than Donald Trump. Why do you say, Dr. Arnn, that they are wrong?”
ARNN: Those with foolish people, at least in this respect. Just think what the United States of America achieves and has to achieve. It controls a wonderful land going all the way across a continent, and it’s spread across that land without benefit of colonies. And that’s because people can control things in their states and exercise their very important control over the federal government through states. And so it’s a shame that Donald Trump didn’t get the popular vote, but think what a shame it would be if the president could be elected from 10 pockets of population, they’d be like capitals, maybe like in the Hunger Games, and the rest of us would be like colonies, right? So it matters where people live in America. And the whole country gets represented.
RUSH: Let me add something to this because this is, I think, crucially important. In the first place, I do not yet accept that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. And I’m not trying to be obstinate or stubborn about it. My reasoning is that when it is finally all in and when it’s all counted and when it’s all checked I’m not going to be surprised if we find out that a million or two million illegal immigrants voted, noncitizens. I will not be surprised if that happens and that a majority of them would have voted for Hillary.
But here’s the other thing about this Electoral College business. Right now, let’s look at California and New York and if you are a Republican living in either state. In the presidential race it doesn’t matter if you vote. You are so outnumbered that the Democrat, no matter who it is — it could be Bugs Bunny — is going to win those two states simply because of the majority of Democrats that there are. As such, presidential candidates don’t campaign in those states. Trump didn’t go to California much. I mean, he had a couple of rallies out there early on during the primaries.
Hillary didn’t spend any time in those states other than to go fundraise. But other than campaigning, people don’t do it because it’s a waste of time, waste of money.
They didn’t spend that much advertising out there, accept as it might be run nationally if you buy certain California markets and New York markets. But there are no campaigns in these states. Instead we have battleground states, which are toss-ups based on the electoral vote, and so that’s where the bulk of campaigning takes place every presidential campaign.
And those battleground states are pretty constant, but they change, like North Carolina has become one because of all the Yankees that have left the Northeast and moved in there. It used to be a reliable red state. Now it’s up for grabs. Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania became a battleground state, unreal. Trump wins Pennsylvania, by the way. Michigan, Wisconsin, Hillary’s blue wall crumbled. And all of that could be undone if you go ahead and just count people in New York and California where Republicans didn’t even vote.
If there were no Electoral College, you’d have an entirely different electoral vote count and picture in New York and California because Republican votes would matter. Candidates would campaign there. The entire shape of the campaign, the entire appearance would change dramatically. But because it didn’t, to now go out and erase the Electoral College results for whatever reason is exactly what Dr. Arnn here suggests: It would be foolish and not representative of the campaign at all.
That’s why you don’t get rid of the Electoral College. It’s the same principle of why in the House states have proportional representation based on population, but every state gets two senators. It doesn’t matter, every state gets two. But the House of Representatives is proportional to population. That’s how things are balanced out. It really is a miracle, this entire setup that the Founding Fathers gave us. And it makes perfect sense that a bunch of spoiled little losers want to go out and change the rules after they lose.
They expected to win in a landslide. They expected this was going to be a landslide win, that Hillary was going to be coronated, and since that didn’t happen, these little spoiled brats want to go out now and change the rules post facto, and they want the electors in these states to ignore the vote in their states and vote for Hillary, and that’s what the purpose of the petition is.
Dr. Arnn’s exactly right in everything that he said here. You would have these population centers that would end up electing the president. You’d have New York, you’d have California, Chicago. You would have San Francisco and Los Angeles, maybe San Diego, you would have Chicago, you’d have Seattle, maybe Portland, you would have New York. Those would be the states, the cities — he called them colonies — that would elect the president every year if you did away — and that means everybody that lives in flyover country would not count no matter what they did.
Now, you go look at this county-by-county map, you can’t find any blue on it. The Democrats have lost — this is why I’ve spent so much time, and I’m not finished, detailing the depths of their defeat since 2010. It is monumental. They threw away the white working class vote. They announced it, they did it on purpose going back to 2011. And they got what they deserved. Those people voted against ’em.
Now that that’s happened, they want to go back and say those votes don’t count, we didn’t campaign for ’em anyway. These are some of the most selfish, self-centered, spoiled little children masquerading as mature adults that I have ever encountered. Your modern day Democrat Party and its associated constituencies on the left. One more Dr. Arnn sound bite. Eric Shawn said, “What do you think should happen, Dr. Arnn, and what are you calling for on December 19th when the electors from different states actually meet?”
ARNN: They should do their duty as it is established both in law and in custom. Most states require by law that the electors vote for the person that won the popular vote in that state, and they should continue doing that. But also remember this. You called it venerable. Just think what a miracle is that you can appoint a great executive, powerful enough to rule the most powerful nation on earth and one of the biggest ones, and have him be accountable to the people he governs. We have an old — the oldest successful system for doing that. And people want to change that? That’s just so much hubris to me.
RUSH: His point is if you do away with the Electoral College you’re doing away with the notion that the president is accountable to all the people. If you do away with the Electoral College you’re doing away with national campaigns, by the way, and all of the people would not have a role. You might say, well, look Republicans in New York and California don’t. True, but it’s up to them to fix it, not the rules get changed. If the Republicans can’t mount a challenge in New York and California, it’s time they figure out how to, but you don’t go around after you lose (crying) and demand the rules change to accommodate your loser status, which is exactly what they are doing.