Dems Flip Over Electoral College Initiative

I'm watching with total amusement as the Democrats respond to the initiative filed by attorney Tom Hilthack which would give Californians the opportunity to decide whether to allocate its presidential electoral college votes by congressional district (as the initiative would provide), or winner take all statewide (the status quo).

The only way to describe the Democrats' response is, well, there are a few ways: panic, hysteria, overreaction, flipping out, hyperventilating. There are others but you get the idea.

Here you have an initiative that to date has no funding behind it (or at least none that would cause the filing of any disclosure reports yet), no title and summary, and not a single singature has been gathered.

Yet, this little initiative -- with no title, no summary, no money, and no signatures -- has prompted the Democrat establishment to go to into overdrive by forming a committee to fight it, enlsiting the support of a few liberal millionaires to fund an opposition effort, and a few elected officials to provide window dressing -- all for something which does not yet have a single signature. Our party has barely looked at it.

Folks, there's only one emotion that prompts someone to overreact like this: fear.

What could evoke such panic in the other team that they would go to all the lengths outlined in today's AP story? It's not the amount of money that's been raised for the intiative (zero). Or the number of signatures (zero). Or the awesome power of the proponents' website (there isn't one).

It must be the power of the idea itself, that Californians may choose to do what Maine and Nebraska have done, in choosing a different way to apportion its electoral college votes.

This idea should not be alien to the Democrats, since they championed a nearly identical measure in Colorado in 2004, and they are right now pushing the exact same idea in North Carolina. I wonder if the CA Democrats who are in such a tizzy over this initiative believe that their fellow party members who are promoting this right now in North Carolina and other Republican-leaning states believe they, too, are engaged in some nefarious idea?

The Democrats' blown-out-of-all-proportion response to this initiative will only deepen Republican interest in the idea. They are clearly concerned about something.