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Originally Posted by pbaldy
In a similar fashion, that's what the Electoral College is, and why we have it instead of direct election of the President. It's an attempt to give smaller states more say (or at least to lessen their disadvantage). If one carried the Senate/Electoral College philosophy to the county level, you'd have that map.
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From what I've read on the subject, the reason you cited is only one of several which led the Founding Fathers to write the Electoral College into the Constitution. They were concerned that the fairly uneducated populace of the time wouldn't know enough about candidates from different regions to make an informed decision, as well as being concerned about wild (unstable) swings in popular opinion from the aforementioned uneducated public. The idea was that the people would elect more educated electors who would then decide
for them who the President should be. The framers were fairly well versed in the ancient Greek and Roman political systems, and knew quite a bit about their strengths & weaknesses - the Constitution was written with that in mind.
Given the outstanding idiocy of the majority of Americans these days, I'm not sure most people are any better qualified now to directly elect a President than they were in the late 1700's.
However, I think one could make a strong argument that since national-level political parties have completely taken over the process and electors simply vote down the party line, the original intent described in the Constitution is pretty much dead.