Okay, this posting isn't really related to online marketing, but I thought this was interesting.  Yesterday, California passed a bill that would grant all of its electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote instead of the intra-state vote.  Similar bills are currently being considered in Colorado, Illinois, Louisiana and Missouri.  The major limiting factor to the bill is that it would only be enacted if enough states totalling 270 electoral votes were to agree to it (the combined number of electoral votes of the aforementioned states is 105).

The beautiful thing about this topic is that it is interesting enough on its own...I don't need to offer my opinion!  ; )  However, aside from the topic, the method might be the most compelling aspect of this story.  Anybody who has taken an American civics class at some point in their schooling knows the avenues for making Constitutional amendments...both the grassroots strategy and the congressional strategy are difficult processes.  So, this middle-of-the-blade-of-grass movement by the states is fairly innovative. 

I think we can all agree that the electoral college has been outdated for quite a while now.  No longer do we need to submit our vote to the only guy in town with a horse in order for it to be counted.  However, our "modern" day counting procedures aren't much better...does anyone consider that there is probably a statistically significant margin of error in the disparate counting methods that we use?  Still, I guess the counting method is immaterial as long as the final determination is being made by the antiquated electoral college.

So, is this state-driven movement the solution to this problematic system?  With a powerhouse state like California on-board, perhaps we'll find out.  Still my guess is that the college football BCS system will be revamped before the electoral college.

How is Simon going to possibly bring topic back to anything remotely related to online marketing?  I'll make a half-hearted attempt:  in your organization, try to consider your "mid-blade" possibilities.  Sometimes in business we know what the C-level "feds" think and we know what the individual contributor "citizens" think, and the mid-level manager "states" are the only people who know how to bridge any potential gaps.  So, why not let them strategize the solution?  It might just be a compromise that the company (or country) will consider.