Posted on 12/24/2011 11:23:29 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Of course he is. Protecting black Democrats will only increase the odds of Republicans winning surrounding districts through “bleaching” of the electorate.
MD is 29.4% black and around 57% Democrat. Assuming blacks are 28% of the electorate and vote 90% Democrat (which, if anything, understates the black turnout and propensity to vote Dem in MD), that means that non-blacks in MD (a group overwhelmingly composed of whites) vote 56% Republican and 44% Democrat. And since whites in southern Montgomery County and inner-city Baltimore are heavily Democrat, that means that whites outside those areas are over 60% Republican. So RATs need to make sure that districts are at least 25% Dem (at least 35% Dem in rural areas) if they want to win. And to draw districts that are 25%-35% black, they need to minimize the number of black-majority districts they draw, and minimize the black percentage even in the few black-majority districts that they countenance. That’s why MD blacks are getting the shaft from Democrats, and the same thing happens in just about every state the Dems control.
Is there a majority conservative district in Maryland?
This map is for the state legisl00ture.
Majority-black districts destroy the State? If anything, they enhance the State, since those districts WILL elect Democrats (party of big, quasi-Marxist government).
What strange politics? I believe the Blacks might have gotten all 14 of “their” districts, had they not opposed the gay marriage bill.
Basically, anything outside Baltimore, MontyCo, PG Co, and Howard Co.
“Maryland redistricting plan hit by blacks” which mneans it hurts Democrats - nice Christ-mass gift.
Thats my understanding of this. The white dems are trying to dilute the black vote with crazy shaped districts so that they can eliminate a few republican seats.
Republicans and black dems are working together to prevent this from happening.
All this from the same folks who supported white
liberal candidates over the likes of a black
Republican like Michael Steele.
Okay so that is the western part of the state and the eastern shore?
Essentially, but there are large pockets stuck in the middle. The liberal pull of the central pockets is very strong and proves the usefulness of the principle of electoral colleges as well as equal vs. weighted representation. People in the more conservative parts - which is the majority - feel screwed by a few square miles.
Mostly Republican.
So Maryland has some gerryandered districts? Here, Florida has a state seate seat that go through St. Pete’s black area, Tampa’s black area, and the Hispanic area of Hillsborough County. Somehow, it misses the Apollo Beach area (average home prices 300k) and the retirement areas, both Republican areas.
LOL - you can’t get worse than this. I’ve lived all my life in this ridiculous district:
I’m still pissed about the Congressional map. By putting more of Montco in it they manged to dilute the McCain % in the 6th to 42%. By my estimation the Bush % should be 5-7 points higher than that, a tie with Kerry at best.
That district looks like a child drew it up. It looks like it is about 5 miles across, if nnot les.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b9/IL17_109.gif
That's Illinois-17, designed to help a certain minority population. Let's put it this way: that district went to Obama 56%-42%. The "neighboring" 18th District went to McCain 50%-48% (and he sucked as a candidate, as we all know). The 18th went for Bush in '04 by 58%-42%, while the 17th went for Kerry that year. Ahhh, the wonders of gerrymandering...
In those “connector” areas you see, it is or has been (they’re constantly fiddling with these things) often just 1 street. That 1 street may connect bloated areas 10-15 mi wide.
It is absolutely horrendously absurd.
All we need is some geometrical language in there to get more logical, normal zones.
I agree we need to get normal lines, not these jigsaw shaped districts. Yes, it might help Republicans, but shouldn’t we try to getthe message about Empowerment to the blacks?
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