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Hail to the Chief!

S

EVERAL STATES, we read, are organizing to amend the Constitution without calling a convention; they propose to institute direct, or populist, election of the president and vice president, by commanding their electors to vote for the candidates who receive the most votes in the several State elections. The politicians proposing this device must believe that the citizens have very short memories indeed: in 2000, Vice President Gore received just about as many votes as Governor George Bush - but not in Tennessee, where the citizens knew him all too well. (Incidentally, all officers, State and federal, have taken an oath or affirmation to support the Constitution - some of them have delightfully flexible consciences! But you already knew that, didn't you?)

Until the Seventeenth Amendment, in 1913, senators were chosen by the legislatures of their States; now, as we all know, they are chosen directly by the citizens. Raise your hands, all those who think the nation is better governed by today's arrogant, overweening Congress? Those who think that their local school has benefited from there being a Department of Education? Those who think that they have more, and better, automobiles to choose among than in 1967? Those who think that their children have a good prospect of being able to buy a house and bring up two or three grandchildren, without both husband and wife having to work? Those who think that it is equally important in every one of the States for vehicles to use low-emission, low-efficiency engines (requiring expensive, low-sulfur fuel)?

All men are equal - that is, not divisible into classes - but they are not all equally knowledgeable on every question: to take an obvious example, people aged 70 or 80 do not have much idea how candidates aged 45 or 55 compare. What, then, can we do? We do what every political party (even the wildly individualist Libertarians!) does: we meet together and discuss the possibilities - we call this a convention.

I can already hear the politicians telling me that when the parties have held their conventions, there is no need for the electors of the States to assemble together; the electors of each State should merely emulate the national convention of the most popular party. But this argument is superficial: the party conventions are disposed to choose, not the [wo]man who would best preside over the United States or the Senate, but the one who would appeal to the most voters.

Why should we expect the electors to know any better than the convention delegates? Because the electors are a singularly distinguished elite; they exclude all persons holding office in the U.S. And, because they meet only for one day, they may include persons of all professions and trades, doctors and bankers and engineers and professors and grave-diggers and even lawyers. If, in your State, one party nominated electors who included police and prison guards and public school teachers, and another party excluded all the tax-spenders, you would definitely have a choice, not just an echo!

Suppose this count-every-ballot-equally notion were accepted - what would happen? There would be arguments about butterfly ballots and hanging chads and unreliable on-line machines in every one of the fifty States, instead of just a few: this would indeed nicely fill in the interval between early November and early January. But, more important, it would mean that every candidate would have to campaign and advertise in every State, not only those where se had a fighting chance. Why do we say they should not? Because it would mean that they would need money even more avidly than today!

Unless you think that it is a great idea to choose a president from among those who were born rich and those who have married rich, you should be demanding that your State put on the ballot only the candidates for State offices - representative, senator, electors (you surely know who are the well-informed and far-sighted people in your own congressional district, do you not?) And demanding also that your State follow the example of Maine and Nebraska, and choose one elector from each congressional district (as well as two State-wide:) then, in September and October of years divisible by four, you would be able to go to meetings in your district and talk with the most respected citizens of the community - instead of just reading or watching reports of public speeches, filtered through the all-too-humanly fallible press and electronic media.

Why, we may well ask, would anyone want to elect presidents and vice presidents who are professional crowd-pleasers, demagogs? Is it not bad enough that the Congress is stuffed with them? Does history not tell us what ensues once Òpower to the people has prevailed - the Man on Horseback who thinks in terms of Òa whiff of grape-shot?