Frequently I have written about red states and blue states. That makes me as guilty as any other journalist of perpetuating one of the greatest myths in America. There are, in fact, no red states or blue states.

No matter how often the blow-dried boys on TV rush to colorize their election coverage, no matter how passionately Republicans salivate over their maps of "red" America, all 50 states are varying shades of purple. The political philosophy across our land is just as purple as the majesty of our mountains.

This is especially true in Clark County. In the 2004 presidential election, our county was 52.0 percent red and 46.6 blue. As my kindergarten teacher would insist, that's purple. In 2000, our county was even more amalgamated: 49.6 percent red and 45.6 percent blue. What's so aggravating is that our supposedly red county had virtually no impact in either presidential election. All 11 of our state's electoral votes went blue, to John Kerry in 2004 and to Al Gore in 2000.

So we have these huge mischaracterizations of large groups of people as red or blue when not one of the groups is either. The root of this problem is the Electoral College, without which there probably would be no red or blue states.

Every time this subject comes up, I repeat my mantra question that no one has convincingly answered: What could possibly be wrong with the leading vote-getter winning an election?

Truthfully speaking, both political parties should be furious about the Electoral College. In 2000, it cost Democrats the White House, when Gore was the top vote-getter. And in 2004, it almost cost Republicans the White House. Change just 60,000 votes in Ohio, and Kerry would've won the presidency via the Electoral College despite Bush having 3.5 million more votes nationally.

Alas, abolishing the Electoral College is out of the question. It would require a constitutional amendment, and if Americans can't even ratify equal rights for women, it's doubtful that we'd agree to close the Electoral College, which some dolts probably think is a school, perhaps a member of the Pac 10 Conference.

A reasonable path to reform

But there's hope. It appeared on the political horizon only recently. A bipartisan group is promoting a plan called the Campaign for the National Popular Vote. Here's how it would work:

Instead of abolishing the Electoral College, the states would enter into a compact and agree to give their Electoral College votes to the national winner. This is not as startling as it sounds; states already are free to allocate their votes however they choose. In fact, Maine and Nebraska award some of their electoral votes to the candidate who wins each congressional district.

Of course, no state wants to be first to take this step. So the legislation, already introduced in Illinois, would not take effect until enough states join the compact to represent 270 electoral votes, the number required to win the presidency. Then, electoral votes would be awarded according to the national popular vote, and the leading vote-getter would always be assured of becoming president.

Why is this necessary? Two reasons:

So true. Especially here in Washington state, where 748,000 people voted for Bush in 2004. Their votes did not mean diddly-squat. They might as well have stayed home. All 11 of the state's electoral votes went to Kerry, the loser.

Those people were neither red nor blue, just purple ... with rage.

And that's just wrong.

John Laird is The Columbian's editorial page editor. His column of personal opinion appears on the View page each Sunday. Reach him at: john.laird@columbian.com .