Vote for Republicans Because........Gerrymandering

With the gradual takeover of heartland states by Republicans, we've begun to hear a lot of Democrat whining about a process called "gerrymandering". Well given it's origins, all that whining is nothing, if not, disingenuous.  

Gerrymandering, refers to the process of slicing and dicing districts to favor the incumbent party. It's why some congressional districts look like they were designed by chimpanzees. Gerrymandering, as it turns out, is actually named for Massachusetts Governor Eldridge Gerry who, in the early 1800s, famously sliced up one voting district into such a contorted shape that it looked vaguely like a salamander and, of course, favored his own party. A clever pro-Federalist newsman conjured up the term "gerrymandering" for what he viewed as a shady redistricting practice.

Typical gerrymandered congressional district

Eldridge was a member of the fledgling Democratic-Republican party which later became (you guessed it) The Democrat Party. So, the game was actually invented by the Democrats who only cry foul when it's Republicans doing the "gerrymandering". Yahoo news complained a while back because Republicans were, quote, "good at it".

Odd that you don't hear the same complaint from the mainstream media when Democrats are doing it. You can expect to hear more complaints from the media about gerrymandering's unfairness if Republicans do well this fall, even if Donald Trump turns out to be a disaster.  If the Democrats take the field, however, you won't hear nary a word of complaint about the slicing and dicing of voting districts except, of course, from conservative media.

Even if I hate Donald Trump, I'll vote for the down ticket conservatives because whoever wins those contests gets to carve up the districts, whether you think that's fair or not. Neither party will do away with gerrymandering either because it's one of the spoils of victory and both sides are arrogant enough to believe that they will be the victor to whom such spoils will go. Besides a properly gerrymandered district can insure you have a long and rewarding political career - at least for yourself it will be rewarding. For taxpayers, not so much.

© 2016 by Tom King

ABC's Rick Klein Gives "Helpful" Advice to Republicans

Rick Klein - Boy King of all things
Political at ABC News

Ditch the Tea Party Candidates

Yahoo News' gleeful analysis of two East Coast state governor's races draws the conclusion that Republicans ought to reject the Tea Party conservative wing for candidates that are just slightly right of center - a formula for disaster virtually everywhere else in the country except the East Coast. Author Rick Klein cites Chris Christie's success in New Jersey and Tea Party supported conservative Ken Cuccinelli apparently losing campaign in Virginia as THE examples of what's wrong with the Republican Party.

Before the GOP starts taking advice from Klein, the brother of openly leftist Huffpo columnist Ezra Klein and would-be guru of all things political, as the new political director at ABC, they might want to consider the source of all this helpful advice and the premise behind it.

New Jersey as Klein's article points out is "Deep Blue" and Virginia, while ostensibly a Southern State, is virtually a parish of Washington DC so far as the number of Northern Virginians working in the capital goes. So many DC workers depend on Democrats for their continued and growing employment opportunities these days that the modern Army of Northern Virginia while still distinctly pro-Democrat, supports a very different party from the one that poor white Southerners fought for in the name of "States Rights". The Democrat party's pro-union and anti-states rights policies are the polar opposite of what Bobby Lee's descendents once claimed to have fought for, although very much pro-rich plantation owner if you judge by the number's of so-called 1 percenters that contribute heavily to Democrats.

Rick Klein's "strategy" to help the Republicans win elections might work in a heavily Yankee state like Jersey or the new Virginia, though I suspect that what the Yankees like most about Christie is his saucy, kick-ass rhetoric rather than his Republican-ness.  However, Klein's advice to kick the Tea Party conservatives to the curb would pretty much finish dividing the party and secure a Democrat majority ad nauseum anywhere west of the Alleghenies or East of the Sierras - which is likely just what Mr. Klein hopes for.

Klein, trained in the best leftist journalism schools, buys the mistaken premise that one captures the moderate "swing vote" best by running a moderate candidate, despite the fact that the moderate lost to the leftist in both of the last two elections. The only big wins for Republicans in the past 40 years have been when they've run a hard nosed conservative for president and similarly conservative candidates in most of the heartland.

What Klein neglects to mention in his "advice" is, that if the Republicans run a bunch of Chris Christies next go round, the Tea party will exit stage right and take their votes with them to a third party, or worse, to nowhere at all. Given the leftist tone over at the Libertarian Party, it's not likely they'll go there, so a fourth party (if you count the Libertarians as a party) becomes an even more likely possibility, leaving the plurality of votes solidly in the hands of the Democrats and likely to remain there.


How much more entertaining would it be for an ABC political director to have three or four political parties upon which to opine?


© 2013 by Tom King

Watching from the Bushes

My friend, Jay and I watched Glenn Beck yesterday - a practice that does not benefit our blood pressures. I am of the opinion that the world is coming to an end.  Jay doesn't think so.  Three prominent Democrats have withdrawn from their respective senate races in the last couple of days, opening doors for Republicans. I'm betting it won't matter.

I hate being pessimistic when I am an optimist by nature, but I fully expect to be either jailed or hunted down by the Gestapo along with other Christians and conservatives in the coming decades. Seriously!

I have been watching things happen over the past 30 years that I used to read about in Revelation and think "How will that ever happen?"

Now not so much. I have a regular blog that started out grim, went light and humorous and now has slid back toward grim again. I'd like for my regular blog to be funny again, so I've decided to move my notes on the on-going Apocalypse to this page.  So here goes.....

January 7: Flint, TX:  Democrats have been dropping like flies in the past week. Three senators have announced they won't run in 2010. The wheeling and dealing behind closed doors, give us a hint of where things are going as the 2010 elections come on. This president has gone totally opaque after once promising to be the most transparent in history Something's up. I don't know what, but the Democrats aren't planning to lose this election. I wonder if there will ever be another free election in America's future.  It's going to be a horse race from now to November between the forces of good and evil and the bad guys don't play fair. There's a reason for the closed doors.

Tom King