As Monday morning quarterbacking of President George W. Bush’s re-election victory begins to play out in disgruntled counties around the country, the prospect of abolishing the Electoral College is fresh on many tongues.

Hmmm. Abolish the Electoral College, that is duly noted in the U.S. Constitution as the means by which we elect a president every four years. Is this the same U.S. Constitution that “liberals” praise sacred against threats of constitutionally banning same-sex marriage? Never mind, that’s another op/ed – back to the Electoral College.

During the Constitutional Convention, the Founders of this truly great nation were charged with drafting and implementing an electoral system that was fair both to the populous metropolitan states as well as the sparsely populated rural states that made up the 13 colonies.

By granting each state an equal number of electoral votes to the combined number of members it has in the House of Representatives and U.S. Senate, the Founders got the governors of the smaller states to agree to join the Union.

My interpretation of the Electoral College is that it also was meant to give the smaller states a sense of security. Amidst the power of the larger more densely populated states, the smaller states feared the president would ignore their needs if he were solely elected by popular vote.

As our government-101 courses teach, the Founders were not keen on the idea of popularly electing the president because without newspapers, magazines, 24-hour cable news, and yes, the “internets” (that Al Gore invented), the people did not have enough knowledge of candidates outside of their own states, thereby diminishing the probability of electing a president who won a sufficient popular majority to govern the entire country.

Some on the left argue that now that the country has pioneered the information super highway, there is no need to rely on electors to be our eyes and ears on the candidates who run for president.

They contend that the people should be trusted to be the sole electors of the president. With the push of the remote, stroke of a keypad, coins in a box, they say, it is easy for voters to know everything about a presidential candidate from his policy platform to whether he was a colicky baby.

Aside from the fact that the Electoral College has worked almost perfectly for 228 years and 50 presidential elections, I disagree with abolishing the Electoral College because a popular election would weaken the influence of the smaller states.

Additionally, the Electoral College allows for minority groups, be it ethnic-, gender- or issue-based, to have a key role in electing a president. Anyone with a cause and resounding organized support has the potential power to be the deciding factor in a close race, tipping a state’s electoral votes to one side or the other.

Besides, I do not recall these cries of abolition of the Electoral College from Republicans when Bill Clinton won the presidency with less than 50 percent of the popular vote in 1992 and 1996. And they certainly did come from the Democrats who relished in snagging a second term from President George H.W. Bush.

As a registered Republican who voted for Sen. Kerry, I think Democrats need to suck it up because Bush won fair and square.

If legislators and political talking heads have a better way of electing our presidents, let the debate begin.

With Vice President Dick Cheney promising not to run for president, we will have a clean slate in ’08. It is a extraordinary occasion that both sides have nothing to lose, therefore, coming up with and agreeing on a system that both can feel a sense of fairness in the next election – win or lose – is paramount. Other wise, the Electoral College should remain.

I admit that after the U.S. Supreme Court selected president Bush in 2000, I was one who joined in the debate to abolish the Electoral College. But that race was different because Al Gore received over 500,000 more popular votes than Bush, the Electoral College was tied, and I truly believe that minus the butterfly ballot and disenfranchisement of black voters in Tallahassee, Gore won Florida. However, this year I have a sense of calm knowing that Bush overwhelmingly won both the Electoral College and popular vote, even if though I am deeply disappointed that Kerry did not win.

The great thing about our Republic is that we have an opportunity to do this again in four years. And as my colleague LaTasha Currell wrote in an Op/Ed a few weeks back, it is not the end of the world if Bush is re-elected. Democrats, she said, have Hillary Clinton to look forward to in 2008.

We will see…