I live in a state where the common wisdom says McCain is a shoo-in, and where neither candidate is running ads or campaigning at all ~ "before the popular vote is even cast," just like in Maryland. This has nothing to do with corruption or cheating, just probablilities that "the experts" agree are overwhelming.

I'll vote for Obamam anyway, and will be in the majority in my majority-black hometown, but much of the largely-rural statewide vote is pretty much guaranteed to go to any Republican candidate.

I haven't been an anti-Electoral-College activist in the past, and I've always been interested in how Presidential elections shake down, under the arcane old set of rules, but I've come around to the position that it's time to abolish that obsolete institution. This country is no longer the loose federation of independent and unique states that it was in the late 1700s. Our population is highly mobile and increasingly homogenized, and a nationwide popular vote would be a fairer and more representative way to elect a Preident than the way we're doing it now.

Under a revised system that counted the national popular vote, neither Bruce's Republican vote in Maryland nor my Democratic vote in Louisiana would be futile and wasted the way they are under the present system.