On Wednesday morning I'll be starting the day with Toronto's Number One morning man John Oakley, live on AM640 at 8.30am Eastern. Later I'll be south of the border for three hours of substitute-host-level Excellence In Broadcasting, guest-hosting for a fluey Rush on America's Number One radio show, coast to coast at 12 noon Eastern/9am Pacific.
~On Tuesday night I joined Sean Hannity on Fox News to check the state of the Republican race, and a certain structural advantage the Democrats have. Most people are aware that the President is elected not by the popular vote but by the votes in the Electoral College. And most people are also aware that the more densely populated states have more electoral votes than smaller states: California has 55 votes, Vermont has three.
But most Americans, I would wager, assume that those proportions are based on the number of citizens in each state. Not so. As Politico reports, each state's share of the Electoral College votes is calculated by using the "whole number of persons in each state" - including those who shouldn't be there. So the more illegal immigrants you have in your state, the greater the votes you have in the Electoral College. Thus, the armies of the undocumented don't need "a pathway to citizenship" in order to change election results - or, as Politico's headline puts it, "Illegal Immigrants Could Elect Hillary":
This math gives strongly Democratic states an unfair edge in the Electoral College. Using citizen-only population statistics, American University scholar Leonard Steinhorn projects California would lose five House seats and therefore five electoral votes. New York and Washington would lose one seat, and thus one electoral vote apiece. These three states, which have voted overwhelming for Democrats over the latest six presidential elections, would lose seven electoral votes altogether.
So, as I said to Sean, California's illegal immigrants have a greater representation (five votes) in the Electoral College than my entire state (New Hampshire's four votes). Which seems a very perverse system.
So Democrats don't need to nurse illegals through to citizenship; simply moving them into California and other blue states bulks up the Electoral College math in their favor. Click below to watch:
~ As for that book of mine that Sean was kind enough to mention, that's my very latest - "A Disgrace to the Profession", the story of the 21st century's most famous graph and the damage it has done both to science and public policy. It's available in paperback as well as - instantly! - in Kindle and Nook. Lots of lively reviews at Amazon US - and at Amazon UK. For example, Richard Evans:
Steyn has to be the foremost writer in the world...
Okay, I'll stop there. That's what we call on Broadway a money quote.
