A new Republican plan could change the state's electoral system so that each congressional district gets its own electoral vote, rather than the winner-takes-all system that's in place now. Since the GOP controls both houses of the state legislature plus the governor's mansion, "the so-called 'redistricting trifecta'" in Pennsylvania, Nick Baumann smells trouble:
Under the Republican plan, if the GOP presidential nominee carries the GOP-leaning districts but Obama carries the state, the GOP nominee would get 12 electoral votes out of Pennsylvania, but Obama would only get eight—six for winning the blue districts, and two (representing the state's two senators) for carrying the state. This would have an effect equivalent to flipping a small winner-take-all state—say, Nevada, which has six electoral votes—from blue to red. And Republicans wouldn't even have to do any extra campaigning or spend any extra advertising dollars to do it.
Jonathan Bernstein scopes the big picture:
It would be entirely possible for a Republican to win the 2012 presidential election despite losing the popular vote by a solid margin and losing states containing a solid majority of electoral votes. Democrats would likely retaliate the next time they had a chance. Close presidential elections would wind up being decided by all sorts of odd chance events, rather than, you know, who wins the most votes.
Weigel thinks the plan is doomed. Drum sighs:
As recently as a couple of decades ago this would have been a bridge too far for most of the party's mandarins: conservative pundits and senior GOP officials would have sounded off against it because it was just too raw a deal even for flinty political pros. But now we live in the era of Lee Atwater and Karl Rove and Tom DeLay and Fox News. There's really no one left who might object to this merely out of a decent respect for institutional integrity and fairmindedness.
Joyner defends PA's right to do it as smart political gamesmanship:
It’s by no means certain that, whatever the intent, this will advantage Republicans. Pennsylvania has 7.8% unemployment. An August Quinnipiac poll shows a majority of Pennsylvanians believing Obama does not deserve a second term, Mitt Romney beating Obama, and Obama in a statistical tie with Rick Santorum! It’s at best even odds that Obama takes the state. So, this tactic could actually do Obama a favor in 2012.
Jamelle Bouie parses the racial politics:
African Americans are a large share of the population, and under a winner-take-all system, they play an important part in determining the election outcome, despite the fact that they’re concentrated in a few urban districts. Under the Republican plan, the state’s rural voters – who are mostly conservative and overwhelmingly white – would have the most say over the distribution of electoral votes, due to the larger number of rural districts.
The Dish 