Many of my friends on facebook and elsewhere have been celebrating the big Democratic wins of last week – but while celebrating Obama and Baldwin, they haven’t really noticed that all of the demonstrations here in Wisco from the last couple of years have now officially gone for naught. Zero, zilch, nada, bupkis.
The Republicans took back the state senate, giving them the Assembly, Senate and Governorship for the next legislative session that starts in the new year. The Democrats owned the Senate for a few months, while it was not in session.
I see a lot of positive that will come from this. The Republicans still do not have a quorum busting majority in the Senate, but I think if the state senators make a move like last year and flee to Illinois again that people will go absolutely nuts and burn this place to the ground. We have been absolutely pounded by political ads and demonstrations and other nonsense for almost two years and I have a feeling that Walker stomping Barrett in the recall election was a sign that we have all had enough of this temper tantrum.
Across the country, Republicans have thirty governor seats.
The county by county map still is vastly more red than blue.
I just wonder, are the state and local elections Miss Congeniality contests now or do they really serve some good? Is the federal overreach so great that the states will just get pounded into oblivion? I think these are the trillion dollar questions.
Something related to your post Dan that I found interesting was the famous red vs blue map of the US – overwhelmingly red except for South Texas and the heavily urban areas – and from this one can understand why the House remained Republican.
The state and local elections are the farm teams for the federal offices. For every Ron Johnson, you’ve got a half dozen Linda McMahons. People need to learn how to be effective politicians so they don’t self-detonate like Akins and Mourdock, who obviously didn’t get enough training to supplement their lack of common sense. Look at the donk bench. If Hillary doesn’t run in 16, who will? Sheriff Joe? Hahahaha. And then there’s….
Agreed Anon, the D bench seems very thin at this point.
“…the famous red vs blue map of the US – overwhelmingly red except for South Texas and the heavily urban areas – and from this one can understand why the House remained Republican.”
Not quite sure what you mean here Bill. Obviously the red-blue maps look overwhelmingly red because Republicans do well in rural, empty spaces that take up a lot of room on a geographic map.
You are aware, are you not, that the Democrats actually won more votes in the combined House races? Only the fourth time in history, I believe, that the party that won more House votes overall did not win the most seats.
The GOP maintained control of the House because of its skill at gerrymandering districts. The people, collectively, actually voted for a Democratic house.
The GOP maintained control of the House because of its skill at gerrymandering districts.
Not.
The donks are just as good at gerrymandering as the trunks. It’s just that they didn’t control as many state houses when redistricting came up. That’s another reason why those down ticket races are important.
In this election, a lot of funny things happened that have rarely happened before. The donks won’t have Barry next time and they will have 4 more years to defend.
The up and coming donk would be Andrew Cuomo. He’s done a faster fade than dad.
The wit & training of the Republican bench has been a bright spot; our district is represented by Flores, who is sharp, and our state by Cruz, who is also quite attractive.
“The donks are just as good at gerrymandering as the trunks. It’s just that they didn’t control as many state houses when redistricting came up”
Why do you think this contradicts my point?
It may be — I haven’t seen a district-by-district analysis — that Democrats gained more from gerrymandering this year than Republicans. Michael Barone noted that they gained in California (where they conned a nonpartisan commission), Illinois, and Maryland. Those gains may have more than offset Republican gerrymandering in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Those efforts in Ohio and Pennsylvania were directed at protecting Republican gains, not adding new seats, by the way.
I have long thought that, if we had completely “fair” districting without respect to parties, the Republicans would have a significant edge in House races. Why? Because Democratic voters are naturally more concentrated than Republican voters. (You can see that in the better county maps, the ones that show vote margins, not just winners.
Jim,
“the Republicans would have a significant edge in House races. Why? Because Democratic voters are naturally more concentrated… You can see that in the better county maps”
I don’t think you are correct in your this. Or at least it is not something that would show up in _county_ maps.
With the constraint that all districts be of equal size, you could always draw the district lines in such a way that the number of seats each party would win (all else being equal) should match the proportion of the vote – within each state. If there were no state lines, then you could draw the district lines so that the national popular vote and the seat allocation were the same.
The confounding factor here is the fact that state lines impose “artificial” lines that mess up any ideal, even distribution. So perhaps you would be correct if Dems were more concentrated in particular _states_ – not in smaller jurisdiction. And I don’t know if that is really correct. Republicans are packed into red states as much as Dems are in blue states. Perhaps moreso. No states are really totally urban, but quite a few have no real big cities to speak of.
“The county by county map still is vastly more red than blue.”
If you adjust the county map of the US by scaling the size of each county to its population, you get a somewhat different picture:
LINK
Joe Citizen – Stay focused and on point or I will delete your comments. One warning.
All anyone needs to do is look at Danny Davis’s district in Chicago and you will see a modern wonder of gerrymandering.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IL07_109.gif
Dan,
I responded directly to one of your comments. And to Bill’s. How is that off-topic?
And where did I ever deny that there are Democratic gerrymandered districts? I merely pointed out the fact that Dems won the popular vote, but won 30+ fewer seats. So this time out, it seems that the GOP dominance of statehouses has allowed them to gerrymander enough districts so as to hold the House, despite the will of the people. No doubt the Dems would have done so if they could have.
I didn’t say you were off topic, just giving you a warning. I don’t take kindly to thread hijacking.
Dan,
If everyone else would do as I do and not read (certainly not respond) to Joe C.’s spewings, then there would be no need to delete them.
@Scotus – I agree.