The babyjesuschristsuperstar on Board: filling the moral void of Clinton’s legacy

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Spanky
So why look at a study that discusses the patently obvious?

The pope threatend to excommunicate Galileo for his theory that the earth revolved around the sun, when it was obvious to all since Aristotle that everything revolved around the earth.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
How is that not relevant? Their conclusion is that the decrease in competitiveness cannot be explained by redistricting because the declines in competitiveness happen more in elections when there was not redistricting than in ones in which there was.

??????????. Incumbants tend to get reelected. The only time you have turnover is when you have an open seat. But in a Gerrymandered district that seat will never change parties. In nongerrymandered seats the seats do change parties. So yes redistricting does not increase the turnover but it does increase the change between partys. In addition, in a nongerrymandered seat, since each party has a chance, the less extremist of the two candidates wins. This encourages both parties to run the less extreme candidate, thereby making congress less partisan.

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.) The sin of gerrymandering is that it decreases competitiveness in elections. What other sin is there? But if there's evidence that gerrymandering doesn't change that competitiveness any more than other forces (fundraising, population trends), it suggests that perhaps it's a lot of wasted effort in the first place. TRMPAC might have gotten more bang for its buck simply by convincing everyone to vote, rather than parceling them into districts so that their vote would increase the inevitable republican victory.

Other forces may effect competitiveness but that doesn't mean you shouldn't address the forces that you can. That is like saying that a guy who has AIDs shouldn't be treated for the diseases that his deficient immunity system lets in. You can't get rid of all the disease so why get rid of any? You fight the fights that you can.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
The pope threatend to excommunicate Galileo for his theory that the earth revolved around the sun, when it was obvious to all since Aristotle that everything revolved around the earth.

No this is not relevent because neither side can go to sit at the edge of the Solar System and see for themselves which celestial body revolves around the other. In this case I have. Telling me that judge redistricting does not make seats more competive, and does not produce candidates that are less extreme, is like telling an Astronaut that has landing on the moon that the earth revolves around the moon.

You can show him all the studys in the world and it won't make any difference.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Spanky
??????????. Incumbants tend to get reelected. The only time you have turnover is when you have an open seat. But in a Gerrymandered district that seat will never change parties. In nongerrymandered seats the seats do change parties. So yes redistricting does not increase the turnover but it does increase the change between partys. In addition, in a nongerrymandered seat, since each party has a chance, the less extremist of the two candidates wins. This encourages both parties to run the less extreme candidate, thereby making congress less partisan.

I agree with your first sentence (with words). But the rest does not follow. Incumbents win. Look at the vote % in the year of first election, and all subsequent elections. Typically it's something like 55%, 75%, 90%, 90%, 90% and so on. Close the first year, not afterwards. That's an incumbency advantage, not a gerrymander advantage. The point of the paper, and other than your own casual empiricism you have not responded to, is that gerrymandering doesn't necessarily alter the course of what would have happened anyway, at least with any reasonable alternative district. Maybe it alters on the margin a couple of districts, but you make it sound like it's responsible for all ills. Sorry, but Orange County and the Central Valley are going to elect rightwingers no matter how you district.

So, what you're really saying is that we should constantly redistrict. That's not crazy, and would address the problem of the incumbent advantage. The idea being, eliminate incumbency. Candidates always have to win some new votes. But that has little to do with how one redistricts, so long as there is change--what matters is that you do it at all.

Now, because I'm at it, I'll also take issue with your premise, which is that Congress should be less partisan. That works assuming everyone is a moderate. But why shouldn't the right-wing Rs and the left-wing Ds also have some representation. If you look at countries with multi-party gov'ts, the seats don't all go to the centrists. Many of them do, but not all of them. Obviously that's partly a product of the electoral systems used. But, there's some merit there too--why should the district including Berkeley, assuming it consists of mostly like-minded liberals, not be able to sent a hard-core liberal to Congress? Same with Wyoming--why not a hard-core rightwinger? It's very possible that the nation's preferences are such that Congress should be more partisan. The median voter theory doesn't apply nationwide when there are individual elections.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Spanky
No this is not relevent because neither side can go to sit at the edge of the Solar System and see for themselves which celestial body revolves around the other. In this case I have.

The pope, who lived on earth, could see that everything revolved around it. He was presented with evidence that perhaps he was mistaken. He said, no such evidence is heretical because I have seen with my own eyes that the sun revolves around the earth.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
The sin of gerrymandering is that it decreases competitiveness in elections.

You'all might have covered this in my absence, but, I thought the sin of gerrymandering was getting more representation from one party or side than reflects the votes of the people. Do we really care if it results in party hacks who won't leave, as long as the representation ends up proportional to what the people want? It's not like, in a world where the parties winnow the choices down from 2000 to 2, that we would be missing our perfect candidate choice anyway. We're still mostly voting for the parties, because those parties' internal structures have done the preselection for us.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
An execution is a sad event, necessitated by the worst kind of evil and the desire to punish it appropriately. What's to celebrate?

Not to defend the sentiment to which you were responding, but, how about "the end of that particular evil"?

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
The pope threatend to excommunicate Galileo for his theory that the earth revolved around the sun, when it was obvious to all since Aristotle that everything revolved around the earth.

Before I am forced to read 37 pages from a Holocaust denier. How do the writers classify whether or not a congressman is an extremist? How do they determine which wing of the party they reside in. My guess is that they don't. And if they don't how do they determine whether gerrymandered distrcts produce more partisan congressmen?

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Spanky
Incumbants tend to get reelected. The only time you have turnover is when you have an open seat.

So, you're for term limits? Protecting us from ourselves?

[Spanky]

Originally posted by bilmore
You'all might have covered this in my absence, but, I thought the sin of gerrymandering was getting more representation from one party or side than reflects the votes of the people. Do we really care if it results in party hacks who won't leave, as long as the representation ends up proportional to what the people want? It's not like, in a world where the parties winnow the choices down from 2000 to 2, that we would be missing our perfect candidate choice anyway. We're still mostly voting for the parties, because those parties' internal structures have done the preselection for us.

This is what I wrote earlier:

The Governator just tried to pass a proposition in California whereby the drawing of the district lines would be taken away from the legislature and given to a panel of retired judges. A system that is used in a few states. Iowa has such a system and three of its five congressional seats were competitive last last election. California, out of 52 seats, did not have any that were competitive. In fact, of its forty state senate seats, eighty assembly seats, and fifty congressional seats, not one changed party hands in the last election.

The Unions spent twenty five million dollars to defeat the Governators proposition. That is reason 116 that I hate Unions.

When you have a large swath of independent voters (38 percent in California) and the election are decided in the primary they do not get any say. In a general election these independend swing voters will not go for extremeists, so when elections are actually competitive in the general election it has a strong moderating influence. That is why the centrists from both parties all come from the swing districts.

In addition, in the primary, especially a non=presidential congressional primary turnout is unbelieveably low (twenty percent). The lower the turnout the less likely moderate are to vote. Extremists always show up to vote, it is the moderating influences that turn out only in big elections.

In addition, in the primary a plurality of the votes can win (it works the same in the general election, but in reality there is just two competitive parties so there are only two candidates). With an open seat in a Republican primary you can get as many as ten candidates. The candidate with the most votes wins, no matter how little votes they get. In districts in California, in the Republican primary (with ten candiates and a twenty percent turnout) you get candidates winning with only fifteen thousand votes. The general election is a non event so you get a person with fifteen thousand votes representing 500,000 people.

Anybody who has spent fifteen minutes in retail politics knows that gerrymandering polarizes districts. Not because it is the conventional wisdom but because it is so painfully obvious a blind brain damaged orangutan could see it.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Spanky
Anybody who has spent fifteen minutes in retail politics knows that gerrymandering polarizes districts. Not because it is the conventional wisdom but because it is so painfully obvious a blind brain damaged orangutan could see it.

I'm getting a clearer picture of why the Bush people aren't calling you back.



(P.S. Good thing national presidential politics aren't gerrymandered, then. We might have ended up polarized.)

[Spanky]

Originally posted by bilmore
So, you're for term limits? Protecting us from ourselves?

Yes I am for term limits. Yes because they protect us from ourselves. Just like the Bill of rights protects us from "ourselves" by limiting the power of the majority. Just like the constitution protects us from ourselves by limiting the presidential term to four years so we can't democratically elect a president for life (note: I am not talking about term limits her I am talking about the lenght of a term).

[Spanky]

Originally posted by bilmore
I'm getting a clearer picture of why the Bush people aren't calling you back.



(P.S. Good thing national presidential politics aren't gerrymandered, then. We might have ended up polarized.)

The Bush administration behind the scenes pushed hard for the defeat of the Governators redistricting proposition. In an open letter I stated that Bush was sacrificing the future of California for narrow, self serving, short term, political interests. I also added that I didn't think Republicans in California needed to show any loyalty to the administration since they have shown such contempt for our future and well being.

I think that was the final nail in my coffin. I am expecting the department of Homeland Security any day at my door.

However, I am going to get my revenge by knocking Delay out in the primary.

Ain't politics fun.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by Spanky
The Bush administration behind the scenes pushed hard for the defeat of the Governators redistricting proposition. In an open letter I stated that Bush was sacrificing the future of California for narrow, self serving, short term, political interests. I also added that I didn't think Republicans in California needed to show any loyalty to the administration since they have shown such contempt for our future and well being.

I think that was the final nail in my coffin. I am expecting the department of Homeland Security any day at my door.

However, I am going to get my revenge by knocking Delay out in the primary.

Ain't politics fun.

BTW, I read this today and thought of you: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...n/3520667.html

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally posted by Spanky
Yes I am for term limits. Yes because they protect us from ourselves.

2. I don't trust us.