Though it seems unlikely to me, one way the election could play out, as noted in the Washington Times, is as follows:
On Nov. 5, the presidential election winds up in a electoral-college tie, 269-269, the Democrat-controlled House picks Sen. Barack Obama as president, but the Senate, with former Democrat Joe Lieberman voting with Republicans, deadlocks at 50-50, so Vice President Dick Cheney steps in to break the tie to make Republican Sarah Palin his successor.
“Wow,” said longtime presidential historian Stephen Hess. “Wow, that would be amazing, wouldn’t it?”
“If this scenario ever happened, it would be like a scene from the movie ‘Scream’ for Democrats,” said Democratic strategist Mary Anne Marsh. “The only thing worse for the Democrats than losing the White House, again, when it had the best chance to win in a generation, but to do so at the hands of Cheney and Lieberman. That would be cruel.”
Sound impossible? It’s not. There are at least a half-dozen plausible ways the election can end in a tie, and at least one very plausible possibility – giving each candidate the states in which they now lead in the polls, only New Hampshire – which went Republican in 2000 and Democratic in 2004, each time by just 1.5 percent – needs to swap to the Republican column to wind up with a 269-269 tie.
There are currently 10 tossup states, according to RealClearPol-itics.com, which keeps a running average of all state polls. If Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain wins Ohio, Virginia, New Hampshire and Indiana – not at all far-fetched – and Mr. Obama takes reliably Democratic states Pennsylvania and Michigan, and flips Colorado (in which he holds a slight poll lead), with the two splitting New Mexico and Nevada, the electoral vote would be tied at 269.
Absurd? Possibly, and there is not complete agreement among constitutional experts on whether a newly elected Congress or the currently sitting House and Senate would make the decision.
So try this scenario: The newly elected House, seated in January, is unable to muster a majority to choose a president after a 269-269 tie, but the Senate, which is expected to be controlled by Democrats, picks Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. from the Democratic ticket. If the House is still deadlocked at noon on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, Mr. Biden becomes acting president.
Well, that’s one way to flip an upside down ticket, I guess…
Or try this one on for size: Neither the House nor the Senate fulfills its constitutional duty to select the president and the vice president by Jan. 20, so House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, becomes acting president until the whole mess is sorted out.
B-b-but…she has five kids! How dare she presume to have time for such a job! Who will bake the scones? Who will fold the laundry…?
“That would cause all kinds of lawsuits: We would have 50 Floridas, and we might not know who the president is for two years,” said Judith Best, a political science and Electoral College specialist at the State University of New York in Cortland.
At which point, I say we just fire everyone and hold open auditions. Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul, Randy Jackson as primary judges, then you, the viewer, will select the NEXT AMERICAN PRESIDENT!
Of course, we’ll need some sort of mechanism to keep certain heavily populated states from being overdetermined. Like, perhaps, and electoral college of some sort…
(h/t Bob Reed)
538 is usually more accurate a predictive than RCP. They use some bleeding edge analysis.
the prediction on electoral college is Obama 312, McCain 226.
not even close.
Karl and i usta argue which was better…..
/wistful sigh
We could listen to cries of, “Selected, not elected,” for another four years then. Woohoo!
There is something else to consider here. While we are used to thinking that the electoral votes are automatically allocated by the voters, is it not true that the electoral votes are actually cast by people who are under no obligation to vote the way the voters said for them to vote? Some of them might decide to break the tie themselves.
OT – hey Jeff I sent you an e-mail this morning. (Update: The Alamo is about to get overrun over there.)
That’s strictly true, cranky, but the electors are chosen for party loyalty. There’s been one, maybe two “unfaithful” electors in US history.
Other than “faithless elector” laws in various states — which only penalize the person and don’t affect the validity of the offending vote — the one thing most likely to control electors’ votes is the way the respective parties select their electors. They’re generally highly loyal apparatchiks.
Also, the “prisoners’ dilemma” would come into play: the electors cast their votes in 51 separate venues. How can a McCain elector in Arizona know what an Obama elector in Arizona will (or won’t) do?
…what an Obama elector in
ArizonaIllinois will (or won’t) do?Your pardon, please.
I see you point, gentlemen, about the party loyalty of the electors. Still, I hope this situation does not come to pass. While it would be interesting from a historical perspective, I’d rather not be one of the people living through it. If you think we’re divided now, wait until something like this happens.
you -> you’re
you’re -> your
sigh
Just to be like a troll and post one comment after another, let it be said that once you start making corrections, you open the door for even more mistakes. Sometimes it might be best to let mistakes stand, and count on the reader to make the correction for you.
Karl is posting at Patterico’s now, on occasion, and making suggestions to Ace for posts. Why not bring your charming blend of redundancy and crass materialism to those venues if this one is no longer to your liking?
another, let –> another: let
is nishit ever right about anything?
#11, from your lips to the dillo’s ears….
Ah, Jeff, Kate can’t quit you. You know that.
Anyone who floats the idea of Pelosi as president, even as a hypothetical, needs to be shot on principle. Seriously, that shit gives me the heebie-jeebs.
Cheney is never really even seen anymore because of the Pelosi “Heebi-Jeebs” everyone should have / has now to begin with.
nishi seems not to understand that “smart person” does not imply “better person”.
Nor that “educated person” implies neither “smart person” nor “better person”.
November surprise? Oh, gaack!
“November surprise.”
“What is, ‘something you don’t want your wife making for Thanksgiving dinner,’ Alex?”
But if the House of Representatives DOES pick Obama over McCain in the event of a 269-269 electoral college tie, then what difference does it make how the Senate would vote? Under the Constitution, the Senate only decides the election if the House is unable to reach a decision.
Also, re faithless electors, each of the last two elections have had exactly one, and there was one in 1976 but in each case the faithless elector voted for someone other than their party’s candidate for President. In the even of a 269-269 tie (in which case the vote is destined to go to the House anyway), a faithless elector would have no impact on the electoral college vote unless the voted for the major party candidate of the other party and I don’t think there is a single example of that happening in our entire history.
That’s not to say a faithless elector couldn’t alter the election, just not in the way you’re describing. If, for example, the Republicans see the writing on the wall, they could free a handful of electors to vote for a Democrat who they might prefer over Obama — say, Evan Bayh. If Bayh received more votes than anyone not named McCain or Obama he would then advance to the House of Representatives. If Bayh peeled off enough Obama support to deprive him of a majority of state delegations, THEN the election would be decided in the Senate.
538 is drunk on O! vintage kool-aid…but then, so is nishi…
RCP does an average which is sooooooooo much more fair
say, Evan Bayh.
Better: say, Hillary Clinton.
Actually, as I understand it, doesn’t the House only chooses the president, and then the Senate chooses the veep?
It’s unfair to paint Pelosi with the “five children” brush.
She had them before she was allowed to abort them.
She had them before she was allowed to abort them.
Well, she could’ve eaten her own young. She seems like the type, yes?
Wasn’t there a Gothic horror tale about a woman who kept her beauty by eating children?
I think that pretty much rules out Pelosi and the “eating her young” thing.
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