Bush Wins Popular, Loses Electoral?

This Time, Bush Could Get the Gore Treatment (washingtonpost.com)

The day after speculating about a tied electoral college vote the Washington Post is wondering about Bush losing the electors but winning the popular vote.

Not only are the red states getting redder and the blue states bluer but, as Emory University political scientist Alan Abramowitz points out, it's "the big states like New York, Texas, California, Illinois and New Jersey that are no longer battlegrounds." Combine big-state blowouts that introduce huge popular-vote fluctuations, with small-state victories that can shift electors by the swing of just a few hundred votes (such as Gore's 366-vote New Mexico victory in 2000), and you have a recipe for misfired elections.

All of which calls into question -- again -- the Electoral College method for choosing a president.

In 2004, as always, the likelihood of a misfired election remains small. But if the election is close, Kerry and the Democrats could suffer Gore's fate. Or, because close elections can tip either way, Bush could find himself leaving the White House the same way he arrived -- as the candidate with a surplus of votes in the wrong states.

el - But if Bush loses popular vote the GOP will try to ignore the electoral college as they had plans for last election despite the media spin it was Gore who was guilty of unmitigated chutzpah.