Now this is very good news if it plays out the way The Hill seems to think it will: Texas Republicans are basically looking to settle their redistricting case with the DoJ, which would have to include approval by the minority representation groups that are the plaintiffs, that would give the state a number of new districts that would be won by Dems.
“They’re backed up against the wall and have to come to some agreement and it’ll be awfully favorable on our end,” said one of the plaintiffs in the case.
Another plaintiff agreed. “It’s clear they know they’re in a vulnerable position and that’s why they want to settle,” he said.
Any settlement would need to get the multiple minority group plaintiffs on board, and would create more majority-Hispanic and majority-African American congressional districts. Two of the plaintiffs predicted that an agreement will be reached early next week.
That’s pretty much a massive capitulation by Republicans in the state, who purposely drew the four new districts in the state legislature to favor Republicans precisely by splitting Latino and African-American neighborhoods across district lines and using pencil thin lines to connect them to overwhelmingly red districts, assuring that at least three of the four new districts would be safe GOP seats for the next decade.
But the DoJ gets ultimate veto power over this sort of thing for states like Texas, and that decision by a three-judge panel is expected soon. Texas Republicans are apparently so terrified of this that (especially after the Supreme Court punted the map back to Texas to work it out as a state issue) they are begging for a settlement before the DoJ takes them out back with a two by four and a grim expression.
If the state of Texas and the plaintiffs in the case reach an agreement it would solve a drawn out process with two separate lower court battles and a Supreme Court opinion already on the books.
Texas is gaining four seats in Congress and will have 36 total House seats next election. Most of the state’s population growth has come from African Americans and Hispanics, but the Republican state legislators who drew the maps gave the groups few new opportunities in the state.
Any agreement would lead to a minimum of 13 Democratic-leaning seats, and possibly a fourteenth seat depending on how the districts in Fort Worth are drawn.
With conservative former Rep. Nick Lampson (D-Texas) running for a Galveston-area seat, Democrats could win as many as 14 or 15 seats in the state, up from the nine seats they currently hold. Republicans would hold 21 or 22 seats, down from the 23 they currently have.
Dems picking up 5 to 6 House seats in Texas would go a long, long way towards regaining the House in 2012. Republicans know this and they’re looking to settle anyway, which shows you just how bad they think their position is in respect to the three-judge pre-clearance panel.
On the other hand, the districts that Texas is gaining is coming at the expense of states like Ohio and New York, and ultimately one of the reasons that I think the GOP is looking to take the settlement here is that they know redistricting Dem districts out of existence in other states they control like Missouri and Louisiana (and in Ohio especially) will make Texas into a wash at best for the Donks, especially given that GOP-controlled SC and Georgia are getting a new district and Florida two. They were going for all the marbles in the redistricting pile, and they’ll have to settle for merely half as a losing proposition, which was the point of the entire exercise given the level of state control handed to the GOP in 2010.
And once again we come back to the fact that voters picked a really awful time to give the Republicans more power by deciding President Obama and the Dems hadn’t moved fast enough in Operation Ponycorn With Sprinkles. The repercussions of that nonsense will be felt for, well, a decade.
Mino
Is Texas the only state where re-districting mid-census is legal? And was it always legal or just that Delay made it legal?
Ron
@Mino: This is redistricting based on the 2010 census.
Zandar
No, it just took them this long to get around to doing it.
Anya
The notion that the only elections that matter are national elections is a fallacy. Conservatives know better, and they focus on local elections because local elections have a huge impact on national elections.
Ben Cisco
Should be tattooed backwards on the forehead of Schultz, Maher, etc. Or better yet, have Brad Pitt’s character from Inglorious Basterds practice his artwork some more.
Brian R.
@Anya:
Meanwhile, liberals sit home and wonder why the local city council, school board and mayor’s office are all full of right-wing cranks.
celticdragonchick
@Brian R.:
Because people like Dick Armey actually read “Rules for Radicals” and applied what they read.
We did not.
Social organizing isn’t just for progressives.
Benjamin Franklin
Not terribly OT;
FleaParty endorses Newt….
http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2012/01/florida-tea-party-leaders-endorse-newt.html
Benjamin Franklin
@celticdragonchick:
Channeling Saul Alinsky. Armey: ” I read your book, you sonofabitch!”
Mino
@Ron: @Zandar: The Supreme Court of the US allowed Republicans to re-district Texas again in 2003 after they won a state lege majority in the 2002 elections.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Texas_redistricting
New Mexico Dems thought about it at one time. Do the rules vary from state to state or is there creative mischief going on?
Mino
@Anya: Local elections have a huge impact on how miserably government functions, too. And on how miserable local government can make a citizen.
jurassicpork
Speaking of Republican racism, which is more offensive: Jan Brewer waggling her bony finger in the President’s face then squealing about feeling intimidated or the president not calling out Brewer and the GOP in general for their easily-provable racism?
NobodySpecial
Zandar? I like you. Quit being fucking lazy and spreading the bullshit.
The problem in 2010 was not that liberals stayed home. The problem in 2010 was that the new voters and the independents stayed home.
Nate Silver
LIBERALS DID NOT LOSE THE HOUSE IN 2010. Capiche?
Mino
@jurassicpork: It’s so frigging widespead that the media decided they would be doing nothing, but if they tried to report it all. I think it’s a tactic–just overload the circuits and no one is held accountable.
Zandar
@NobodySpecial: I don’t particularly care for your tone, first of all. Second of all, Nate Silver isn’t as clever as he thinks he is. Third, your argument was bullshit when Lord Saletan made it, and it’s bullshit now.
Get over yourself.
NobodySpecial
@Zandar: Strong rebuttal there, with facts and everything.
piratedan
well AZ indicted/impeached their independent chairperson of the redistricting commission because she wasn’t partisan enough for the non-partisan commission.
barry
Adding on to the well-deserved spanking – 2010 was a backlash election, with miserable economy, a p*ssed off opposition, and an administration which was playing triangulation games.
trollhattan
California Republicans were rebuffed in court a second time yesterday, trying to challenge the new district map.
http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2012/01/supreme-court-a-matter.html
The hilarious bit is the map is the result of a proposition they sponsored, changing the redistricting process to a commission. They got pantsed by the commission and now want a Mulligan on the whole thing.
Babies, the lot of them.
Hill Dweller
@jurassicpork: I’d add the media unquestioningly using Brewer’s account in their reporting to the choices. Even after the two mayors who were present called bullshit on Brewer’s claims, the media continued to act like her word was gospel.
Davis X. Machina
@Mino: May be governed by existing state law, or the state constitution. Maine’s *13 timeline, established in the state constitution, which requiring redistricting in the third year after a census, was just challenged, and lost, in Federal court.
Davis X. Machina
You’re both right. First time voters in particular came in way left of where they usually are.
NobodySpecial
@Davis X. Machina: Shock, someone agrees with me. Here I thought the Nick/Stuck party line of ‘Teh Firebaggers stole it!’ ruled supreme, since even front pagers parrot that nonsense.
Redshift
I can understand why they’re capitulating. In creating their map, they produced documents explicitly talking about dividing minority voters, and tried to claim that they were just using it as shorthand for Democrats (which is, sadly, legal.) Their only hope was that the Supreme Court would pull a Citizens United or Bush v. Gore and use it to undermine the Voting Rights Act. When they didn’t get that, they were screwed.
Given that evidence, the fact that the Supreme Court decided that the judges drawing a replacement map should have based their map on the blatantly discriminatory one that the Republicans produced is pretty appalling. The bar for a SC decision not being considered awful has gotten really low.
Scott
@Hill Dweller:
Well, they’ve already got their narrative. You can’t expect them to change it! Work is harrrrrd.
@NobodySpecial:
It does need to be noted, however, that Firebaggers are barely-sapient GOP tools.
NobodySpecial
@Scott: Point of order.
PUMA’s were GOP tools. BJ-described ‘Firebaggers’ not so much. ‘Firebagger’ has about as much credibility as ‘Obot’.
jfxgillis
Zandar:
Don’t be so pessimistic. If the TX settlement holds, TX + CA = More than enough to offset all the Repub redistricting shenanigans everywhere else.
IM
@NobodySpecial:
I agree too. That said, Davis X. Machina has a good argument: If first time voters from 2008 stayed home in 2010, then in some sense “liberals” stayed home. The first time voters in 2008 being quite left.
NobodySpecial
@jfxgillis: Also Illinois.
handsmile
Appreciate your posting this, as it overturns what I had understood about the legal wrangling over the Texas redistricting cases. Reports on the recent Supreme Court per curiam opinion on the cases (Perry v. Perez et al) all indicated that it would benefit the GOP in Texas congressional elections.
Of course, your last two paragraphs mitigated whatever cheer one might derive from the prospect of Democratic House victories in Texas. (I must say I was happy to learn the phrase, “Donks”; far preferable to ” Dems”.)
There are eleven gubernatorial contests this year. Of the four states with retiring or term-limited Democrats (MT, NH, NC, WA), all are currently assessed (e.g., Larry Sabato) to lean or are likely to turn Republican. All four states with GOP governors are deemed to be safe.
Yet more measure, along with the 23 Senate seats that Democrats must defend with control of the Senate the golden prize, to quicken conviction (and bolster determination) that Obama’s electoral coattails must be tungsten-clad
corwin
One thing about Florida, we passed redistricting amendments to our state constitution that will effectively limit the ability to gerrymander. The republicans are fighting it like crazy, but when it goes to court, as it will, the courts will strike it down. That should be a pickup of a few democrats in the US House. It will also apply to the state legislature, so dems should pickup more seats to balance things out there as well.
Knockabout
Zandar thinks Nate Silver isn’t as clever as he thinks he is?
That is fucking Lenny Bruce levels of funny right there.
J. Michael Neal
@NobodySpecial: The question is exactly what is meant by “new voters stayed home.” They did, *relative to conservatives*. However, they did not stay home relative to the usual turnout for off-year elections. Turnout for all of the Democratic leaning demographics came in at about what one would expect.
What happened is that conservative demographics turned out at a significantly higher than expected rate. All of the leftosphere’s sniping at each other about who didn’t go and vote and who was not treated sufficiently well by everyone else completely misses the point.
The point is that, at the moment at least, the wingnuts hate them some Democrats with the heat of a thousand suns. That’s the difference here. I also suspect that a presidential election year will play out quite differently.
wrb
@NobodySpecial:
The rentless attacks on the administaration’s successes by those who call themselves liberal depressed everyone and were most likely to have depressed the lower information voters into not voting.
Firebaggers Huffinpuffs and Public Option obsessives bear tremendous responsibility for the 2010 losses.
Their nature is such that they would never accept responsibility though.
It is president daddy’s responsibility to make the world sparkly. Their responsibility is to inform him of their disappointment.
gene108
@NobodySpecial:
Why the drop the in voter enthusiasm?
When something major like PPACA gets passed and the Left goes ape shit because it isn’t single payer or has a public option, the low info voter will think, “boy, even liberals hate this, I guess this suck. What has Obama done that’s any good?”
The PPACA is an improvement over the status quo.
With a Fox News sponsored re-branding of the Republican Party, the loss of Ted Kennedy in health care negotiations in the Senate leading to Baucus’ delay and the August of Their Discontent in 2009, and a sluggish economy, what doesn’t help drum up support from non-affiliated voters is when a component of the Democratic base turns on Democrats.
I’m sorry, but when something gets passed that’s closer to universal coverage than anything before it – a long stated liberal goal – gets derided by both the Left and the Right, it’s easy for people, who don’t regularly vote in the first place to decide both sides suck and stay home.
So little of the blame from the Left during the 111th Congress was aimed at Republican obstructionism. That should’ve been 90% of the criticism of Congress from the Left. Rather there were complaints about Blue Dogs, Democrats compromising with Republicans and Obama capitulating to Republican demands on things like the ARRA bill, which is why the economy was still down in 2010; not mind you Republicans trying to prevent a necessary stimulus bill from passing.
At some level the Professional Left has to realize what the big picture is and work towards it. The big picture being that Democrats, for whatever their flaws, are more amenable to liberal ideas than Republicans.
Also, too both sides aren’t the same. If John McCain was President, I don’t think the DoJ would’ve touched the Texas redistricting issue.
NobodySpecial
@J. Michael Neal: I agree. Presidential turnouts are always bigger and more liberal for a reason.
My irritation with the whole thing starts with the point that turnout wasn’t down for liberals – it actually increased relative to 2006 in raw numbers, and the percentage of the total didn’t change at all. Yet somehow, despite the numbers being right there for everyone to look at, this zombie meme about ‘Firebaggers’ has taken hold here and become received wisdom. There wasn’t some income of new liberal voters whom no one had ever seen before that took the place of all those hyperliberals who supposedly stayed home – they grumbled, came out and voted D anyways, and got swamped because Obama’s buffer didn’t show up, like it doesn’t show up for Democrats in ANY off-year.
Like I said, it’s bad enough when you get the centrist trolls and the know-nothings gabbling that shit out in thread after thread. I would hope the frontpagers would know better.
NobodySpecial
@wrb: @gene108: Guys, this is not news.
EVERY off-Presidential election has a lower turnout. Similarly, EVERY off-Presidential election that I know of trends more conservative. That’s exactly what happened here. No conspiracy, no plot, no ‘they killed morale’.
It’s what happens. All the Republicans went batshit crazy after the First Black President got elected and went to the polls. All the new voters who usually stay home stayed home. This year they’ll come out again like they always do, and it won’t be because of some plot – it’s just the way it works.
TaMara (BHF)
That image is going to make me smile all day.
Yutsano
@handsmile:
I think Sabato’s on crack. The campaign has barely started here and McKenna is hardly a guaranteed shoo-in. Not after his little stunt opposing ACA behind Gregoire’s back. She won’t let him get away with whitewashing that.
J. Michael Neal
@NobodySpecial: Me, I’m an Obot, and my sympathy lies with the folks who point to the Firebaggers as a problem. I think that there are a fair number of purity trolls on the left who don’t understand that progress is always made incrementally, including (or especially) by both FDR and LBJ. I just find them annoying.
However, they simplyaren’t to blame for what happened in the 2010 election. The evidence that their complaining suppressed turnout among independents, leaners or the young just doesn’t exist. It isn’t even true that there were any more people on the left that stayed home because they passionately believed that Obama isn’t pure enough.
None of that is what happened. Losing the House in 2010 is explained entirely by the fact that Republican voters turned out in much higher numbers than they usually do for an off-year election. That’s it. End of story.
None of that changes the left’s need to incessantly blame each other for anything that goes wrong.
Omnes Omnibus
@NobodySpecial: Oddly enough, this is one of the cases where I agree with you. 2010 was disappointing, but not surprising. Ordinary trends in voting on the left coupled with rampant assholery on the right added up to something ugly.
@J. Michael Neal: I completely agree with this.
gwangung
To a certain extent, though, I always thought the degree of the conservative turn was higher than expected. And that degree might be laid at any behavior that depressed new voter turnout.
Anyway, I’ve always thought it more fruitful to aim negativity at your opponents, than allies.
Lawnguylander
@NobodySpecial:
Liberals did not match the conservatives in turnout in 2010. It’s shown in the post you linked to. The portion you pasted here says “the percentage of liberals was barely changed,” but “barely” actually means down from 22% in 2010 to 20% in 2008. So conservatives increased their representation of the electorate while liberals let theirs decrease. The Pew likely voter chart foretold the story (and I’m assuming it held up very accurately because the great Nate didn’t say otherwise in that post) Liberals were soundly beaten to the polls by the conservatives. Why pretend it isn’t true?
wrb
@NobodySpecial:
They devote huge effort, lie and miserepresent flamboyently, to drive down enthusiasm and participation and and then say “well I held my nose and voted, so I have noo responsibility for the low participation among those who believed my shit.”
It is pathetic, juvenile and transparent. The “liberals” who argue that they have no responsibility just make an embarrassing public spectacle of themselves.
Zifnab25
@J. Michael Neal:
That’s the impression I got, too. Blacky McBlackington the Black got elected President, and the wingnuts had a shit fit. Toss in bad economy, astroturf Tea Party mobilization, and carpet bombing Citizens United campaign contributions, and you had a recipe for a resurgence of conservatives.
But now we’re seeing a backlash against the black-lash, we’ve got our President on the ballot again, and the GOP is cracking up like ice in a blender. So we should be on much better footing in ’12 than we were in ’10.
J. Michael Neal
@Omnes Omnibus: Proving once again that Gophers and Badgers have more in common than most want to admit.
Stupid cheeseheads.
NobodySpecial
@J. Michael Neal: I don’t have much sympathy for them simply because I got hit with the ‘Firebagger’ label during the public option thing for pointing out that I was one of those unfortunates that was gonna have to shell out a lot of money I don’t have because the aid caps were way too small and set too low.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
2010 was about putting that nigra in his place.
Conservatives will turn out in droves for that.
Anya
@NobodySpecial: F*ck that noise. Stupid liberals were running around the country talking about how everything sucks because their pet issues were not prioritized. They were focused on attacking the President, rather than attacking the ones who were blocking his agenda. Meanwhile, the righties were screaming about the evil socialist muslim kenyan. Now tell me our side didn’t drop the ball.
cmorenc
@Brian R.:
Here in Raleigh, NC both democrats and a great many unaffiliated voters learned this the hard way a couple of years ago when hard-right Tea Party elements of the GOP won control of the Wake County School Board 5-4 by winning a couple of very-light turnout elections (of course their base did turn out in much higher percentages). These elections were off-cycle from the biennial November elections or regular primary elections, and often before had turnout in the low teens. Fortunately, the most recent round, enough people did absorb that message that the dems not only held serve on the four seats they already held, but won a fifth seat by defeating the local school board equivalent of Newt Gingrich; an abrasive, verbal bomb-throwing ass-hole. For one of those seats, we also had to win a close run-off election in a north Raleigh district that is often demographically gop-leaning by defeating one of the leaders of the local Tea Party, despite huge infusions of money by the likes of Art Pope (Raleigh and North Carolina’s version of the Koch Brothers).
Anya
why is my comment in moderation?
Omnes Omnibus
@J. Michael Neal: Isn’t your state bird the mosquito?
NobodySpecial
@Lawnguylander: /sigh.
You are arguing something that I never did.
As the article states, raw turnout increased among Liberals. The problem was that raw turnout exploded among Conservatives and dropped like a rock among ‘Moderates’. Therefore, the argument that the election was lost because ponyless radical Democrats stayed home is a false one.
As I said (and J. Michael Neal and Omnes Omnibus back me up on, along with the data), there was no magical influx of new liberal voters that made up for all the ‘Firebaggers’ who supposedly stayed home. Even if you want to argue they depressed turnout, you’d have to argue that they actually had some kind of visible place where they could argue against Obama’s policies that was larger than the podium the Blue Dogs had to argue against Obama’s policies. That wasn’t true, either. If you want to argue about public statements depressing turnout, I’d bet that Nelson/Landrieu/Bayh/Lieberman has orders of magnitude more effect going on talk shows to downplay Obama’s plans than a million Hamshers.
J. Michael Neal
@Anya: No one knows why WordPress does anything. Just be happy that your complaint posted.
Anya
@J. Michael Neal: I thought it was because I said fuck? Then I changed but it’s still in moderation.
handsmile
@Yutsano: (#39)
Thanks for the aviso! Far preferable to have an informed, on-site assessment. While I can’t speak to Sabato’s recreational habits, I have not found him to be delusional in general.
J. Michael Neal
@Omnes Omnibus: Hey, at least the state beverage isn’t paint thinner.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anya: Nah, you can fucking say fuck all the fuck you fucking want.
@J. Michael Neal: It keeps the mosquitoes away.
Omnes Omnibus
It is 20 degrees out with a 20 mph wind. I think I will go running anyway. If I am not back in an hour, send out the search party.
SiubhanDuinne
@Anya:
If every BJ post using fuck or variations thereof were thrown into moderation, there pretty much wouldn’t be a fuckin BJ.
Just fuckin saying.
Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne: Beat you to it.
Lawnguylander
@NobodySpecial:
I said nothing about why liberals didn’t turn out with the enthusiasm conservatives did. You said that “the problem in 2010 was that the new voters and the independents stayed home.” That was not the only problem. Liberals should have turned out in huge numbers based on how insane the Republican minorities were in 2009 and 2010 and based on how insane the new Republican candidates were but they failed to.
SiubhanDuinne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Fuckin A
NobodySpecial
@Lawnguylander: As the post states, they turned out with even bigger raw numbers than the Presidential election. Those weren’t huge numbers?
MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson
@Knockabout:
It’s not so so long ago that Clever Nate had Romney at 91% odds of winning South Carolina. I like young Mr Silver, but let’s hold off on the proclamation of infallibility for a while, ok?
Just sayin’.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@NobodySpecial: You’re right, the core did not stay home. But all of the people who voted in 2008 should have voted in 2010. I’ll be glad when they learn the lesson.
Sarah Proud and Tall
@Anya:
It’s because you used the “s0ciAl1st” word with the boner drug in it. Rescued now.
J. Michael Neal
Oh, and can we all laugh at the Poms now? All out for 72, when they only had to chase a target of 145? And the Indians completed their Australian disaster; at least they made it to Day 5 this time.
Anya
@Brian R.: We don’t possess the same passion or hatred, or maybe the drive to control every level of government that the righties have. Michelle Goldberg talks in this video about lesson that angry liberal can learn from wingnut activists about how to take over the party from the corporatist wing.
Benjamin Franklin
Really? bon3r pills? What else gets stiffed?
Anya
@Sarah Proud and Tall: Never again. I always learn from my elders.
John M. Burt
@SiubhanDuinne: Yes, BJ is definitely one of those “NSFW” blogs, like the Professional Left Podcast.
And anyway, we all know what “BJ” really stands for.
jurassicpork
Btw, today’s my 7th anniversary as a blogger, or what I call “The 7 Year Bitch.” There’s also a link to my first blog post from January 28th, 2005.
J. Michael Neal
@Benjamin Franklin: Any references to cas1nos or po-ker also get sent to purgatory.
MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson
@Anya:
The problem is that too often we show up for protest marches when it’s too late and the decision has been made by the wing-nut minority that got itself elected by lying about freedom and extracting every last vote from their cranky old base persons. We need to organize better locally to avoid the need for those marches in the first place.
J. Michael Neal
@John M. Burt: Bountiful Jollies?
srv
@NobodySpecial:
lol.
We don’t like your facts or data. There is no amount of data the heirs of Richard Daley here cannot beat with their BJ batons.
And as you can see, even when we agree that the “core” didn’t stay home, they did cause all the other folks to have a sad and not turn out. Remind you of anyone elses gymkata?
Because a lie is something to be embraced with the fire of a thousand suns, and Zandar knows how to win the morning.
PeakVT
If the vote in 2010 was close then blaming a bunch of bloggers nobody reads would be plausible. It wasn’t close. Republicans crushed.
Sarah Proud and Tall
@J. Michael Neal:
@Benjamin Franklin:
And “shoes” for a while there…
The Other Chuck
I think the Republicans figured they’d just keep carving up districts til they ended up with two Texases.
…
What, you’re saying Banach-Tarski Paradox jokes don’t fly with the audience? Tough room.
Anya
@MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson: Amen, brother (unless google tells me otherwise, everyone at BJ is male, except J. Michael Neal).
@Sarah Proud and Tall: Also, too, what the fuck is wrong with “s0ciAl1st” ? How else can we live up to Saul Alinsky’s example if we can’t make fun of the wingnuts?
Lawnguylander
@NobodySpecial:
What? Raw numbers? What do you mean by that term? And the post shows that where?
Here are the Democratic vote totals for the House in the past two elections:
2010: 35,377,756
2008: 65,241,408
Are you claiming that voters identifying as liberals showed up in greater “raw” numbers in 2010 than 2008 and we still ended up with a decrease of 30M votes?
Sarah Proud and Tall
@Anya:
That is a position that does you credit.
Calouste
@Yutsano:
I’m waiting for McKenna to hang himself on the gay marriage law. He has to come out strongly against it, otherwise he will get primaried (I assume Rossi is itching to have another run). But that will allow the Democrats to paint him as the usual right wing wacko rather than the somewhat moderate image he tries to project.
Water balloon
Don’t forget that Illinois came up with a crazy new redistributing plan that’s supposed to give the Demovrats 5 new seats also. Has anyone done a running tally to see what the net effect of all the redistributing nationwide is going to be?
Yutsano
@Calouste:
McKenna has embraced his inner teabagger quite nicely. Apparently he forgets that he’ll need to win at least half of Seattle to get any statewide office. And McKenna is gonna get primaried anyway, the east side will throw up some fundgelical loon to make him spend cash first. Happens every time.
Oh Gawd that would be high comedy. And he’s stupid enough to attempt that too.
MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson
@Anya:
From now on, I want you all to call me ‘Loretta’.
Or Comrade Siblingperson would do, at a pinch.
Sarah Proud and Tall
@Anya:
You can say socia1ist, you just need to make sure it isn’t spelled “socialist”. Change one of the letters that are in the name of the branded erection pill that hides in there to something that looks like it, and your post will sail through.
I don’t make the rules – I just make fun of them.
NobodySpecial
@Lawnguylander: I misspoke, that was my fault. I conflated what I read at another site with what Silver wrote and was wrong.
According to Wikipedia, the numbers for the Senate races were within a million of each other, while the numbers for House races were 5 million less in 2010 than in 2006. Nevertheless, self-described Liberals still showed up to vote in the same percentages they have since 2001. Link
The base did not leave Obama.
Yutsano
@Sarah Proud and Tall:
You don’t have to soften the truth for us hon. I think we’re all aware we are but your great cat toys to bat around at your leisure.
And my trick is sociallist. I think it’s less jarring on the eyes.
srv
@Lawnguylander:
Thirty million members of Operation Ponycorn With Sprinkles, or is Zandar a clown?
Omnes Omnibus
@srv: Why, yes, making an error makes one a clown. What a useful sentiment.
Lawnguylander
@NobodySpecial:
So now it’s the Senate and it’s 2010 vs. 2006? When you first came in here declaring that you knew exactly what did and didn’t happen in 2010, your certainty was backed up by a post that compared House voting stats from 2010 and 2008. Which you didn’t have a firm understanding of. You should stop pretending you have any idea what you’re talking about.
Also, here’s a hint for you, the number of Senate seats up for grabs is not the same in every election. This is why it’s best to compare House vote totals election over election if you’re actually trying to figure out what happened.
@srv:
Zandar can answer that question since he made that statement but as an analysis of the 2010 election results, it’s about as useful as what NobodySpecial’s been up to in this thread.
MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson
@Lawnguylander:
Well said.
burnspbesq
@Redshift:
That’s not a fair description of the Supreme Court holding. What they actually said is that the District Court in San Antonio can’t ignore the initial map simply because it hasn’t made it through Section Five pre-clearance yet.
You should really try harder.
Cain
@Hill Dweller:
It is a business decision. Which story will draw more viewers and eyeballs? And thus allow them to charge advertisers for those eyeballs. It has everything to do with that and nothing to do about reporting the news.
Cain
@gene108:
This. A thousand times this.
I no longer allow bullshit about Obama not doing everything he promised from voters I call when I’m doing GOTV to Democrats.
Some of you need to do the same and explain the situation. Believe it or not most people listen. I had a lot of people who didn’t want to volunteer because Obama didn’t give them the blow job they deserved.
I can change some of their minds..