Maryland votes to become more irrelevent

Maryland's state House voted yesterday for a plan to have their electoral votes go to whichever candidate wins the popular vote nation wide. Leaving aside the question of the constitutionality of such a plan, how do the politicians in Maryland justify this as being in their state's best interest? Currently, the electoral college system is the only reason presidential candidates bother visiting any of the smaller states. If we switch to a popular vote system, election results wouldn't change as much as the way campaigns are conducted. Issues of importance to only a few states would not get much attention. This idea is being floated in a number of states by people who don't understand what they should have learned in 5th grade social studies and are still upset about the 2000 election results.