Under the guise of fairness, Republicans in California are attempting to change election rules which could ensure a Republican president for years to come.

The chutzpah award for this summer has a runaway winner. It's the small team of Republican operatives trying to rig the 2008 presidential race.

"Rig" means tilting the playing field to assure continued Republican occupancy of the White House -- perhaps for a very long time.

The GOP would do this by ending the winner-take-all system of parceling out electoral college votes in Democratic-leaning California. Instead of all 55 of California's electoral votes being awarded to the candidate who wins the popular vote statewide -- presumably the Democrat -- they'd be divvied up by congressional district. Whichever candidate carried a congressional district would get that district's one electoral vote.

The 53 congressional districts are mostly Democratic, but at least 20 favor Republicans. In fact, President Bush carried 22 in 2004. So the GOP scheme would seize 20 or more electoral votes that otherwise would go to the Democratic nominee. That's tantamount to losing Ohio.

The two other California electors, pegged to the two U.S. Senate seats, would be awarded to the winner of the statewide vote.

Meanwhile, all other states -- except midgets Maine and Nebraska -- would continue to allot their electoral votes on a winner-take-all basis. That includes Republican Texas.

To put this in perspective, California's 55 electoral votes represent 20% of the total needed to win the presidency.