William M. Daley Quotes
While imperfect, the electoral college has generally served the republic well. It forces candidates to campaign in a variety of closely contested races, where political debate is typically robust.
Daley, William M. "Don't abolish the electoral college." The Washington Post, 15 Nov. 2016.
Madison was right on most things, but got this one wrong. Of course he did not anticipate the era of mass communication which makes demagoguery in large areas possible.
This is not just a theoretical possibility. It has occurred several times. The latest was on the 1990 election where Gore got half a million more votes than George W. Bush, but Bush became President.
While there had been American wars (the War of 1812 and the Mexican War) where there were many Americans against the war and/or had little idea why they were fighting, the American Civil War was very different. The number of volunteers was very great, and even civilians knew what they and their kinsmen were fighting for. Except, the South was fighting for disunion so that they could maintain slavery while the people of the North were fighting for Union. But almost everyone was involved and most passionately so. It was not until WWII that so many Americans backed a war effort and those were the only two wars that could be called “peoples wars” as opposed to politicians wars. However, even in those two wars, there were a few pacifists.
William Michael Daley is an American lawyer, politician and former banker. He served as White House Chief of Staff to President Barack Obama, from January 2011 to January 2012. He also served as U.S. Secretary of Commerce, from 1997 to 2000, under President Bill Clinton. He has also served on the executive committee of JPMorgan Chase & Co. Daley was a candidate for Governor of Illinois in the 2014 gubernatorial election, until dropping out of the race on September 16, 2013. He ran in the 2019 Chicago mayoral election but came in third in the first-round voting, and did not advance to the runoff. He served as the Vice Chairman of BNY Mellon from June through October 2019. Since November 13, 2019, Daley has served as the Vice Chairman of Public Affairs for Wells Fargo.
