Last modified: Sunday, November 16, 2008 1:44 AM EST FLANAGAN: Fix economy, then the electoral college It was great to go to bed on Nov. 4 knowing who the next president would be. But there's a downside to the efficiency of the 2008 election - the pressure is off to reform the electoral system. After the weeks-long wait to learn the president-elect's name in 2000, it was easy to find agreement that the electoral college needed fixing. Reform proposals made a lot of headlines and a little bit of headway in the following years. But Barack Obama's relatively easy win gives the person in the street reason to say "hey, what's the problem?" Meantime, priorities have changed: It's the economy, not the electoral college, smartie. Americans' notoriously short memories are likely to kick in. "Hanging chads" will be as much a household term as the name of the candidate Rutherford Hayes stole the 1876 election from in the electoral college (Tilden, for anyone who cares). Of course, local voters may also remember that 2008 was the campaign where neither major candidate needed to stay overnight in Massachusetts, since its electoral votes had been assured to the Democrat since... oh, I'd say Nov. 3, 2004. If the state's votes were awarded on a proportional basis, both parties would have to woo the Bay State. That, alas, might give the Republicans an opportunity to recover some strength here. Democratic leaders won't have any of that. As often as this newspaper has said, "would you please take your foot off the little guy's neck," Massachusetts' majority party has shown no inclination to do so. It's as easy as... I was just thinking about how the easiest thing I ever did was to open three or four checking accounts. Somewhere around 30 years ago I filled out the paperwork to start a checking account with Attleborough Savings Bank. A few years later, my checking account read Attleboro Pawtucket Savings Bank, but I never had to pick up a pen or paper. That was all taken care of by the folks who arranged the Attleboro-Pawtucket merger. Ditto, a few years later when I suddenly found myself with not only a Fleet bank account - thanks to another merger - but with two Fleets to choose from that were directly across the street from each other, just over a block from the office. It didn't make sense for Fleet to compete with itself, so I soon found myself with a Sovereign Bank account, again without ever putting pen to paper. Bringing this litany to mind - and I'm not sure it's complete; might have missed a merger - was the recent acquisition of Sovereign by Spain's Banco Santander. Does this mean that old started-at-Attleborough-Savings-Bank account will wear yet another new name? So far it hasn't made a bit of difference. Marketing nostalgia An overheard conversation about the looming takeover of the Ro-Jack's Food Store at Baker's Corner, Seekonk, by Stop & Shop featured a complaint about Attleboro having been only a two supermarket town - the Stop & Shop on Pleasant Street and A.J. Seabra on South Main. To add my two cents, there was a time when the city was a five-supermarket town. The Seabra site was a SuperPlace; Almac's and Star Market had stores on Route 1, and Ro-Jack's was running its original store on Route 1 and another on Pleasant Street (a former IGA). Prior to becoming SuperPlace, the South Main Street site was part of the Fernandes Supermarket chain, which competed with the South Attleboro Almac's and Star Market and with an A & P on Pleasant Street (now a CVS store), which for a time in the mid-1950s had had Attleboro to itself as a one-supermarket town. There were, however, many smaller markets during that era, including First National and New Public markets on Park Street and Sunny Rose on Union Street. That was a time when food specialty shops abounded near the center of the city. Shoppers bought their meat at a butcher shop (Walter's, the East Side Market, Bill's and Mullaney's, a combination butcher shop and neighborhood store), cakes at a bakery (Cottage, Tiptop, Bobby's) and stuff like butter and eggs at ... where else, Kennedy's Butter & Eggs. Every neighborhood had a variety store or spa, with at least a few essentials like bread and milk on hand. MARK FLANAGAN (mflanagan@thesunchronicle.com) is Opinion Page editor of The Sun Chronicle. He can be reached at 508-236-0335.