Dirt-y Politics
Commenters on another site where this cartoon appeared accused me of "playing the race card" with this one. I have to try very hard to put myself in the mindset of someone who thinks the Republicans' sudden interest in changing the way electoral votes are apportioned in certain swing states has absolutely nothing to do with race. This post by Jamelle Bouie in The American Prospect gives a nice rundown of the problem. Fortunately, it looks like that plan may be fizzling in my old home state of Virginia.
A few readers have pointed out that the "cow town = city of one million" phrasing is inaccurate, since districts all roughly have the same population. I agree that panel could be written better. But, as Bouie points out, the end result is a gross distortion of the popular vote that privileges the land:
In addition to disenfranchising voters in dense areas, this would end the principle of “one person, one vote.” If Ohio operated under this scheme, for example, Obama would have received just 22 percent of the electoral votes, despite winning 52 percent of the popular vote in the state.
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January 30th, 2013 - 20:44
Kneel before Sod
February 3rd, 2013 - 15:18
The fact that districts all have roughly the same population has nothing whatever to do with the problem. Manipulating the vote, whether through gerrymandering, voter registration restrictions, winner-take-all voting rules, long delays at certain voting places or other means, severely undermines the American democracy.
Yet in recent years many Republican officials have bragged privately and publicly about succeeding at it, including Republican National Committee chairmen Michael Steele and Reince Priebus, and Republican governors Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Pat McCrory of North Carolina, Rick Perry of Texas, John Kasich of Ohio, and Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania. How do they sleep at night? What do they tell their grandchildren about their work?
February 4th, 2013 - 07:18
Did you not see the FARMER, FARMER, FARMER ad during the Superbowl? Hey, at least farmers are not homeless, that is until some municipality wants their ancestral land for a highway or reservoir, or some Republican wants to surround his estate with a wildlife management area. Land is the only thing they can’t make any more of, so don’t give it up without a fight.
February 5th, 2013 - 21:21
The voting distribution problem reminds me of Carcassonne. The scoring especially: you can possibly get more points farming a bunch of little cities, than building a large city or two; now think of points as votes….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcassonne_%28board_game%29