I see that there is at least one opinion pole out there that suggest that the present close up of the federal government is doing the Republican Party all sorts of harm. The problem is that the general opinion of the party can just about drop through the floor nationally and still not adversely affect the re-electability of the 80 or so Congressmen who are driving the effort simply because, by deliberate Gerrymandering or accident of geography and demographics, those Representatives come from districts so red that a yellow dog would be elected if it ran as a Republican.
For instance, our own dear Representative Steve King (ex-farm implement dealer, Kiron, Iowa), one of the leading wind bags and thinkers of great thoughts of the movement, represents a wide and pretty much depopulated swath of fertile prairie covering a fair part of Western and North Central Iowa. The district is just about the most rural, elderly, conservative Protestant (read: Dutch Reform), Northern European white and under educated one could imagine. These people vote Republican because Lincoln won the war. The irony is that a big percentage is getting federal agricultural subsidies, social security and Medicare.
Our only chance of being shed of Congressman King is that the gradual depopulation of his district and the general demographic shift in the State catch up with him before the Grim Pepper does. There is nothing he can do or say that will lose him the support of his constituency.
That’s all of them, you think? That isn’t even a majority of the caucus.
But anyway, it only takes 17 seats, loony faction or not as long as they’re Republicans, to flip in 2014 and they’ll be back outside, still howling at the moon. Don’t you think that the 17 weakest of them just might be underwater after this?
And don’t lament gerrymandering, necessarily. The process inevitably involves weakening your support by spreading it over more districts. If the tide goes against your party, as is what seems to be happening, you have *more *seats vulnerable than if you hadn’t pulled that crap.
I lament gerrymandering. Even when a party is out of favor nationally, most people like their own particular congress person.
Besides, even if gerrymandering eventually overreaches (which isn’t much of a comeuppance), it subverts the will of the people. Its intent is to give greater voice to one party over and above their representation in the populace.
The most disturbing thing is that they can orchestrate all of this with a slim majority in one house of congress, which, taking purely the popular vote, they should have lost. How the fuck is the American political system that easy to completely destroy?
You’re complaining in the wrong thread. The liberal Senate is the one you should be complaining about; they have not passed a budget bill since 2009. And yet they sit and whine about how the evil Republicans are causing a crisis.
And you are blithering in the wrong thread. As I just posted over here Harry Reid has been proposing a conference to work out differences on the budget for months.