Naked Politics on Parade

Our colleagues over at The Sausage Factory have linked to this amusing post by California Democratic Party operative Steve Maviglio. The upshot: Golden State Dems are fighting a state GOP plan to change the way California allocates electoral votes in presidential campaigns -- rather than having winner take all, each candidate would get a proportional take based on how many congressional districts he or she wins.

There's no faulting the Dems for wanting to fight this. The change would undoubtedly benefit the GOP, giving the Republican presidential candidate some portion of California's 55 electoral votes, possibly enough to make the difference in a tight race.

What amuses me, though, is that both sides act as though their position is rooted in principle, when really, they're all just looking out for their own partisan interests.

After all, it's not like the Republicans came up with this plan during the decades when the state consistently went Republican in presidential races. Nope, the old way suited them just fine during the Reagan years.

And it's not like the Dems have a passion for the winner-take-all Electoral College. They fumed and complained about it after 2000, and many have lined up in support of the "National Popular Vote" scheme, which would send all the state's electoral votes to whomever wins the popular vote nationally. (Hey, if you want to make the presidential-election system more representative of popular will, wouldn't the GOP's district-by-district plan be an improvement?) Many party bigs also oppose Congressional redistricting, which would allow Californians to actually choose their members of Congress is competitive elections, but could jeopardize Nancy Pelosi's rule in the House.

Alas, don't look for consistency here from any of the political parties. And know that if the situation were reversed, and California were a GOP-majority state, the two sides would swap positions -- and self-righteous rhetoric -- in a heartbeat.