An Obama/Romney White House. And not from them running together.

[mckeown1128]

Nope I am not crazy. Follow me here. According to my own predictions Obama's worst case scenario is him winning: Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

and him losing: New Hampshire, Ohio, Florida, Missouri, and Nevada.

This would make it 269 Obama and 269 McCain, which would send the president selection into the House for a vote. But it isn't a straight up vote. Each states delegation gets 1 vote unless they are evenly split... in which case they have to abstain. The president select must have 26 votes. Thanks to our fantastic showing in 06 Obama would have the vote of 27 state delegations. The number is 28 now thanks to our recent pickup in Mississippi which slung the state from a tied state now into a dem state.


But, that is only for president. The VP spot goes to a vote in the Senate. Each senator gets a vote and they must choose between the to VP candidates. While we control the senate LIEberman has endorsed gramps for president. This would cause a 50/50 split in the Senate vote. In comes Cheney to break the tie... The republicans may well decide to place their VP in order to
A: Cause havoc
B: Set them up for President in 2012 and
C: Just to annoy us.


There you have it. Obama/Romney or Obama/Huckabee or Obama/Cheney :( or Obama/Bush(Jeb)

Please rec and kick so others can read this. Thanks.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. I don't think this would happen

because of what happened in 1800. Wasn't an amendment passed after that to make it impossible for this sort of thing to happen?

[mckeown1128]

2. This is how the rules currently stand..

the amendment you refer to was to change the old system of making the GE loser automatically the VP. This on the other hand is a very real possiblity.... if they were to tie in the electoral votes.

[Alexander]

3. That was regarding the electoral system they had in place back then...

Which was somewhat different in that whoever placed second in electoral votes became the VP.

[billyoc]

16. No, that 1800 biz was to stop the electoral college from choosing

Pres. and VP separately. After that they had to choose them as a package deal.

This other thing could still happen because the electoral college is out of the picture at that point.

[Orangepeel]

4. Wouldn't the new Senate be seated before the vote?

The Senate that would vote for VP won't necessarily look like the current Senate.

[mckeown1128]

5. Nope...

The electoral college meets in December. The constitution specifically demands an "immediate" session to vote in the house and senate.

[Orangepeel]

7. but... the electoral votes aren't counted until January

:shrug:

[mckeown1128]

9. Are you sure about that....

I thought they voted in December... don't they count them when they vote?

[Orangepeel]

18. They do vote in December and we'll know how they voted (we know how they will vote in November)

The electors are chosen by the nominees so we know when they are elected how they will vote. But the votes aren't officially counted until early January. I remember watching in on TV in 2001, and it was after the new House and Senate convened.

[featherman]

6. Very clever, very unlikely scenario - thanks for the work up

[anonymous171]

8. Whoah. This is really interesting.

:kick:

[mckeown1128]

10. kick. nt

[AllentownJake]

11. If this happens

I'm convinced that we no longer live in a democracy and that the writers from the west wing are in charge of writing the election results for the cable networks.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

12. McCain would be at least 1,000,072 Year Old

Cause this won't happen in a million years. You think either of the Senators from Maine would vote to do that (just for starters)? It would require a complete fucking idiot to go there -- even by Repubclian standards. Republicans know that the gridlock they created would be blamed entirely and exclusively on them. And as I recall, there's another election in 2010.

[billyoc]

17. Well, that wouldn't really create any gridlock, unless you count tiebreaker votes

in the Senate. Remember, the VP doesn't even get an office in the WH.

[AllentownJake]

13. Chuck Hagel

would do the right thing :-) So relax.

[insanity]

14. Won't happen

I have made a few predictions this electoral season and most of them have been wrong, but I do not believe that this will ever happen.

[Hippo_Tron]

15. Nope, the new Senate is sworn in before the electoral votes are counted

The electoral college meets in December but the votes are counted after the new Congress convenes in January. And as for the makeup of the new senate, if we don't pick up seats this time then we are a complete failure as a party. Even if Bush's approval ratings somehow rebounded before November, at the very least we would pick up seats in Virginia and New Hampshire both states in which we have very popular former Governors running for Senate seats. If we pick up those two and even lose Louisiana (I'd say right now Mary Landrieu has about a 60% chance of being re-elected) then we still have a Lieberman-proof majority in the new Senate. And that's the worst realistic scenario as far as the Senate goes.

[mckeown1128]

19. kick. nt