Posted on 07/26/2013 11:32:00 PM PDT by neverdem
Democratic politicians are becoming a rare breed in Pennsylvania, a state that voted twice for Obama. According to PoliticsPa, the last voting cycle was “the (Democratic) party’s worst performance in congressional races in a presidential cycle since before the Great Depression.”
Aside from rural rednecks who “cling to guns or religion,” what accounts for the reddening of PA? Redistricting may be partly to blame, and if so, some very savvy Republican must have been in charge of drawing up this map.
PoliticsPA reports: “Major prognosticators list 10 of the GOP’s 13 Pennsylvania U.S. House seats as ‘safe’ with three seats occasionally popping up on the ‘likely Republican’ or ‘lean Republican’ lists… As such, barring an unforeseen tsunami in a mid-term election with the party’s president in the White House, Democrats will continue to languish with a paltry number of U.S. House seats that – just like in neighboring Ohio – is historically unprecedented.”
Pennsylvanians seems confused, however, or maybe they just like to mix it up. In 2012, despite giving their electoral votes to Obama, Keystone State voters “elected the lowest number (five) and lowest rate (27 percent) of U.S. Representatives by a major party whilst simultaneously casting its electoral votes for that party’s presidential nominee.”
(This is made all the more surprising when one considers the trouble PA has had in trying to implement voting ID laws.)
Democrats are doing their best to cut their losses before Pennsylvania ends up looking like Oklahoma. They are in the process of mounting a momentous 2014 campaign to topple Republican Governor Tom Corbett, the so-called “most endangered governor in the country.” His approval ratings are down and falling, and few Pennsylvanians (24 percent) are keen on seeing him re-elected.
“While Democrats remain optimistic about their chances to win Pennsylvania’s 2014 gubernatorial race, that will not alleviate their deficit in the nation’s lower legislative chamber, at least to the extent redistricting has cornered the party into several ‘unwinnable’ districts across the state.”
Pennsylvania should be red. It makes sense. You have union workers in Pittsburgh, and minorities and cosmopolitan liberals in Philly who tend to dominate the elections. What’s left, though, is affectionately known as “Pennsyltucky,” a wilderness of backwoods hunting, fishing, farming, camping, gun-toting, truck-driving, blue-collar, good-old boys and girls, and a healthy dose of Amish who, if they vote, are anything but progressive. (I am from there. I can say these things.)
I think it's the same with all big cities as a general rule because the rats are bunched up in them. It has a number of consequences politically, e.g. the composition of the House of Representatives is increasingly determined by the vote in primary elections, a trend that first started in cities, and financially such as Detroit.
They does?
Yeah, friggin wusses.
In Pa’s case if a Republican wins it it’s likely they still have over 270 without it so this makes sense for us.
PA and MI are perfect states to do it in. Big states that lean rat in Presidential elections with most of the rats packed in a few congressional districts.
Nebraska similarly wussed out on abolishing it there were the only likely split is the rats winning the 2nd district like in 2008.
BTW if every state did it that way Romney would have won 274-264.
Hey Teresa : blow me !
When PA first considered a ME/NE-style method of allocating EVs in late 2011 or early 2012, I opposed it, because I thought that we may need all of PA’s EVs to get to 270; in fact, had Romney won the 24 states he did win plus FL, OH and PA, he would have gotten to 270 had PA had winner-takes-all, but fallen short had Obama won EVs from the 5 heavily RAT CDs in PA (although Romney came closer in VA than in PA, it easily could have resulted in the GOP nominee carrying PA but not VA).
For a switch by PA to make sense, it needs to be made in coordination with the other battleground states, which would result in the GOP nominee having a clear path to 270 without winner-takes-all in those states. The GOP needs for PA, OH, MI, WI, VA and FL all to switch to a system that allocates EVs by CD. And to make it really effective, instead of giving the two extra EVs to the statewide winner (as ME and NE do), they should give one extra EV to the statewide winner and one extra EV to the candidate who won the most CDs. A VA state senator proposed having both extra EVs be allocated to the winner of the most CDs, but that is less justifiable on oolicy grounds than if at least one EV is given to the statewide winner (which would help protect the allocation method from being struck down by the courts on one-man, one-vote grounds). BTW, if there’s a tie for first place in the number of CDs won in a state, that extra CD should be given to the tied candidate with the most statewide votes (normally, this would fesult in the statewide winner getting both extra EVs unless his opponent wins more CDs, but, in a three-person race, it would be possible for the statewide winner not being in the top two in CDs won).
Had the EV allocation method I listed above been in place in WI, MI, OH, PA, VA and FL (each of which had in early 2012, and still have today, both houses of the legislature and the governorship in GOP hands), Romney would have received 275 EVs, with only one EV-giving CD involving a Romney victory margin below 1%, so Romney would have defeated Obama irrespective of recounts.
The GOP state legislatures in those 6 states should change EV allocation methods post haste so that they are in ace for 2016 irrespective of what happens in the 2014 elections; well, in the case of VA, if it would hurt Cucinnelli in this November’s gubernatorial election to have the change made so soon prior to the election, they can wait, but they’d need to do it during the lame-duck session if either Cucinnelli or Lt. Gov. nominee Jackson lose (since the VA Senate is tied, with the Lt. Gov. serving as tie-breaker).
With all six states on board, the GOP would have a near lock on the presidency—it pretty much would need to win NC and those suburban CDs in the six battleground states. While having NC switch to the proposed EV allocation method would make winning the state unnecessary, it would be cutting way too close, and for now we’d need to keep NC as winner takes all and make sure we win it.
If the GOP wins back the legislature and governorship of MN next year, it should adopt the allocation method as well. And if lightning strikes and the GOP wins both houses of the NJ legislature this November—wow! Having NJ give the GOP between 4-6 EVs would really give us some wiggle room, and perhaps NC could change allocation methods as an insurance policy for the state going Democrat in the near future.
Of course, this is all a pile dream, since there is no way tbat six GOP state legislatures and governors will act in concert. Way too logical.
The immediate effect of such an adoption, even on a random individual basis would be more effort by the Democrats to play to the mushy middle and less effort on voter fraud in selected big cities to win the entire state.
Meaning we would get more personally ambitious candidates like Bill Clinton and less hard core ideologues like BO.
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