My major takeaway from this Sean Trende piece [Link fixed] (“Gerrymandering Isn’t to Blame for D.C. Impasse”) is this: the Democrats lost one hell of a chance to fix their party’s own major structural problem in 2008. They had just finished a two-cycle program to seize and keep control of Congress, and they did it by electing a lot of people in swing-district territory. If they had taken those people, integrated them into their leadership properly, and not enacted the core Congressional Democrat holdouts-from-1993 wishlist, they’d probably still control Congress and the GOP would be talking up regionalism like nobody’s business.
Of course, that would have meant no stimulus, no Obamacare, no push for gun control, no Obamacare, no attempt at cap-and-trade, no Obamacare, the Keystone Pipeline, and of course no Obamacare – so there’s no way that was going to happen. Still, that was the way to go.
…And I didn’t address the actual article. Well, it’s good; and the Online Left’s going to hate it, because it doesn’t take their religious beliefs seriously. So it goes.
Moe Lane
You may want to fix that link, Moe.
Done. Thanks!
I’m pretty sure I’ve said this ( or something similar on multiple occasions) if the Far Left hadn’t gotten greedy they’d still control Congress. The fact of the matter is the Districts themselves haven’t changed all that much in redistricting ( certainly not enough to be called “gerrymandering”) the nation atleast as it is divided up in House Districts, is decidedly centre-right. There just aren’t enough College Campuses or Coastal Cities ( like San Fran) to create a Progressive Majority.