I realize the electorate has changed radically since 1968, but that election is instructive in teaching us just how tricky the electoral college math can be and how plausible it is for a lot of scenarios to produce a general election with no winner. And just because third party candidates like Ross Perot and Ralph Nader didn't win any states, they surely helped the eventual winners of several states capture the winner-take-all electoral vote tallies in their respective elections.



I also realize that many people looking at this strategy will find it all too Machiavellian and distasteful in a way that would make even "House of Cards" President Frank Underwood blush. Wouldn't resorting to this kind of strategy, even if it succeeds, anger millions of Americans and sour the nation on the political process for generations to come? Perhaps it would, but the GOP is desperate now. And even if it weren't, it's long past time for all of us to recognize that no politician from either major party ever walks away from seizing office, especially when the path to do so is actually 100 percent legal.

The only time politicians willingly give up on power is about five seconds before it gets taken away from them unwillingly. And while an ugly fight for the presidency that goes to the House of Representatives might look bad, it can't possibly be worse than the 5-4 Supreme Court decision that the Republicans gleefully took to get George W. Bush into the White House 16 years ago.