kane

I guess I disagree. The way I look at it now Obama doesn't give a damn about states like Texas and Oklahoma because he has zero chance of winning them. Romney likely feels the same about states like California and New York. They are spending very little time there during the campaign and I doubt Obama has really worried too much about Texas over the last 3.5 years.

However, if there were no electoral college, there is likely a hub of potential democrats in Texas just like there are conservatives in parts of Cali or NY. They would then want to pay more attention to those people because now their votes actually have more value.

Also, the electoral college breeds corruption. Look at 2000 and 2004. Everyone was talking about how it was going to come down to Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004 and they were correct. Bush ends up winning by a handful of votes in Florida and a slightly larger number in Ohio in the respective years. Both campaigns dumped everything they had into those states and were working hard to get every last vote they could because a handful of votes could win the election for them. If you are going to be willing to pull shady shit, that is the place to do it because the stakes are so high. There were questionable things that happened in both states because there is a very high reward for the risk.

If there is no electoral college the candidates wouldn't spend millions of dollars and scour the state for every last vote because those few votes would hold less power. Instead of spending multiple days and millions of dollars hitting everywhere he can in Florida trying to gain a few hundred votes Obama could spend that money in Texas or Alabama or Georgia where his efforts to get democrats to turn out could net him tens of thousands of votes. The same goes for Romney. He could hit parts of NY or Cali or even come to parts of Oregon or Washington that have more conservatives in them, but many of them don't bother to vote because they live in liberal dominated states. By activating those disenfranchised voters he could gain a lot of votes.

Any kind of shady, corrupt crap would also have to be carried out on larger scale which would expose you to more risk and deliver a smaller reward. Risking everything you have for a few hundred votes in Florida when the winner of that state wins the election is worth it. Doing that when it is a nation wide general election and a few hundred votes likely won't affect the result isn't.