Let's say you're running for dog catcher. Nobody knows your name. You're running against someone else for dog catcher. Nobody knows their name, either.

"Dog catcher" is an ostensibly bipartisan office. Let's say you're running on a platform of no-kill shelters and mandatory licensing or something reasonable like that. You don't need a political party. Let's say the other guy, however, declares himself Republican.

So now you're spending your money to get your name out, while your opponent is spending someone else's money. Even if your message makes the most sense, you're going to have to spend more to get it out. Not only that, but when the Republican party sends out a flier telling everyone who to vote for, your name isn't on it.

Extrapolate that from "dog catcher' up to, oh, state senate. Let's presume there are two Democratic candidates, both qualified, both talented, but one wants to, oh, appoint electoral votes based on popular vote rather than winner-take-all. The other guy just wants to get elected.

Who do you think the Democratic party is going to throw their weight behind?

The electoral college turns local politics national. Eliminating it eliminates the local power of national political parties. And national political parties decide races.

"However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion."

GEORGE WASHINGTON, Farewell Address, Sep. 17, 1796