by DemFromCT
There are two interesting (free) WSJ articles today. The first is on gerrymandering, and confirms the posts by Mimikatz and other Hurrah posters - it weakens as well as strengthens to have done what the GOP did.
Redistricting: Home to Roost
How Republicans' Gerrymandering Efforts May Have Backfired
Gerrymandering was supposed to cement Republican control of the House of Representatives, offering incumbents a wall of re-election protection even as public opinion turned sharply against them. Instead, the party's strategy of recrafting district boundaries may have backfired, contributing to the defeats of several lawmakers and the party's fall from power.
The reason: Republican leaders may have overreached and created so many Republican-leaning districts that they spread their core supporters too thinly. That left their incumbents vulnerable to the type of backlash from traditionally Republican-leaning independent voters that unfolded this week.
That helps to explain why three of four Republican incumbents in the Philadelphia area were beaten this week, while the remaining incumbent hung on by just a few thousand votes. In Florida, meanwhile, state lawmakers had shifted some Republican voters from the secure district of former Rep. Mark Foley in an attempt to shore up the re-election chances of Rep. Clay Shaw without risking the Foley seat. Instead, Democrats took both. In Texas, former Majority Leader Tom DeLay's decision to transfer thousands of stalwart Republican voters from his district in 2004 to boost a neighboring seat heightened the burden on the write-in candidate trying to hold Mr. DeLay's seat. She lost it.
"The trade-off in redistricting is between safety and maximizing the numbers," says Alan I. Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta. "You can't do both,"
See also this leadership discussion as the GOP implodes and Mike Pence makes a move.
After the party's Tuesday losses, both Speaker Dennis Hastert (R., Ill.) and Rep. Deborah Pryce (R., Ohio), who has chaired the House Republican caucus, said they would withdraw from the leadership. That leaves Reps. Boehner and Blunt as the chief targets, and both are being challenged by members of the Republican Study Committee, a conservative bloc in the party caucus.
Mr. Boehner appears to be in the stronger position since he won his post only nine months ago and is being challenged by a less experienced candidate, Rep. Mike Pence (R., Ind.). By contrast, Mr. Blunt's potential vulnerabilities include his longer tenure in the leadership and the fact that his opponent is Rep. Shadegg, who has been in the leadership before and has alliances with Mr. Boehner.
Your turn.
