Truth or Tactics…
Posted on: January 18, 2013
- In: Future | Open Thread | Politics | voter suppression
- 15 Comments
Morning Widdershin friends — here’s hoping this is the day you aren’t caught in the loop of wondering why we drive on parkways and park on driveways?
Last week I wrote about the untoward influence of outside groups swooping in and monetarily infusing themselves in a gerrymandered district’s crowded primary with the attendant results of electing a fringe candidate. The case in point was where the ultra-conservative Club for Growth ferreted out a sympathetic long-shot candidate, pumped several hundred thousand dollars into the primary, and elected someone who was not particularly representative of the District, but 
instead elected someone beholden to a shadowy dark-moneyed interest group.
This week, I would like to climb up from the granular level to examine what seems to be the dark arts of organized political tactics. We’ve seen these dark arts refined since Lord Vader Gingrich first employed them in the 1990s to not just disqualify opposing political beliefs, but to delegitimize anyone who dared not swear fealty to the Empire. Since that time, Crown Clown Prince Karl Rove has taken up the mantle.
If there is a Hall of Infamy memorializing these tactics, undoubtedly there are exhibits to Whitewater, Troopergate, Swiftboating, Marriage Inequality, Rev. Wright, Bill Ayers, birth certificates, and most recently, gerrymandering, voter suppression, and union busting. I thought of adding the “47% video” and Bain Capital, but it’s hard to categorize something as a tactic when a candidate self-inflicts the truth.
The water has broken on the birth of a new tactic and this one is a lollapalooza doozy. In terms of tactics, it is the equivalent of the confluence of the Monongahela and the Allegheny Rivers to form the Ohio — it is one-party state control and gerrymandering to form the basis of rigging the Electoral College. A bit of explanation is required.
In twenty-four states, there is one-party Republican control of the legislature and the Governor’s office. Among other things this arrangement has brought us union busting, the most onerous set of women’s healthcare restrictions in generations, and outrageous unfounded exercises in voter suppression.
Official 2012 Electoral College Results
Even with these hands trying to tip the scales of Presidential electoral politics, it wasn’t enough to win an election everyone knew was winnable — so what to do?
Should the Republican party rethink their policies? Should the Republican leadership proclaim a timeout for the extraordinarily uninformed and radical Tea Party? Should the Republican party rethink the Nixonian Southern Strategy that has run its course just as the white sheets have yellowed with the years? No, no, and a resounding hell no!
“Let’s just change the Electoral College,” is the answer instead. Here’s how it works — instead of awarding all the electoral votes of a state to the winner of the popular vote, there is a concerted effort afoot to award the electoral votes based upon the vote in each congressional district.
So in states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Florida, efforts are in the offing to award electoral
votes based upon the newly Republican gerrymandered congressional districts. If this list of states seems familiar, your Ginkgo Biloba is working — these were all “swing states.”
As astute Widdershin readers you are asking, “Why would a state purposefully want to make itself less nationally significant in a presidential election?” The answer: If you can’t win the way you are keeping score, change the way you count.
That is exactly the reasoning behind this change — these states with both a Republican legislature and a Republican Governor are taking one for the “team.” If such changes had been in place during this last election — even though the popular vote would have not changed one jot or tittle with President Obama getting 51% of the national vote and nationally more people voting for Democratic Representatives than Republicans, Gov. Romney would have won the election. Let me say this again, with everything remaining exactly the same, but for this change in the way electoral votes are counted, Gov. Romney would have won.
Without going into too much detail, a state’s electoral votes equal the number of Senators (2) and the number of Representatives — for instance, a state with 5 House districts would have seven electoral votes. What these proposals do is split the electoral votes of the states in accordance with which candidate carries each particular congressional district.
Reince Priebus ready for his close-up…
The effect — diminishing the electoral significance of cities and minorities while elevating the significance of rural agricultural flyover districts and white traditional Republican voters.
To put it succinctly, this effort might as well base our Presidential elections on geographic square footage instead of votes cast.
This tactic is gaining steam — Reince Priebus, the loosely wrapped Wisconsin cheesehead who is the Republican National Chairman has endorsed the idea after being briefed on the concept. The press isn’t covering this “coup d’etat” in the making. It should be or as that great political philosopher Tupac Shakur said, “One day they’re gonna shut the game down.”
This is an “all skate” open thread.
15 Responses to "Truth or Tactics…"
January 18, 2013 at 12:35 pm
I am stuck on the conundum in your thesis statement. I;ll have to get back to you,
January 18, 2013 at 1:49 pm
Perfect case in point Pat — Rep. Stockman from the great secessionist state of TX — he was accidentally elected in the 1994 sweep with Gingrich’s Contract on America debacle. He was a self-described vagrant, with a long rap sheet, and felony arrests. Back then he was too outrageously loony for the party and was kicked out in the next election. One of his signature efforts was to get legislation passed to reexamine the Kinsey Report on Human Sexuality a good 45+ years after the report was issued.
Well, guess who’s back after a fifteen year sabbatical — yep, Stockman is back courtesy of a TX gerrymandered district and the really interesting part is this — where he was once too radical for Republicans, he is now mainstream, right in there with all the other fringers. He was the first person to call for impeachment of Obama for the tyrannical Executive Orders like appointing someone to head the ATF after six years of the NRA blocking both Bush and Obama from appointing someone — or the other radical move of asking the CDC to investigate the underlying causes of gun violence — you know, really radical power grabs.
Here’s an article by Dana Milbank about him:
January 18, 2013 at 2:59 pm
The mainstream (they really are “lamestream!”) media declared Republicans dead in 2008. Oops, that zombie came back. They declared them dead in 2012. Well, that zombie is already back. But they’re too preoccupied with fake girlfriends to notice.
Speaking of what everyone knew about Lance Armstrong years ago:
January 18, 2013 at 6:25 pm
The GOP is now offering a 3 month extension of the debt ceiling./ Correct me if I;m wrong, but weren’t they the ones howling about kicking the can down the road?
January 18, 2013 at 6:38 pm
chat@5: They are probably giving themselves enough time to figure a way to force “entitlement* cuts at the next round.
January 18, 2013 at 6:39 pm
Finally! Yea! They finally indicted this crooked bastard!
http://www.wwltv.com/news/nagin-indictment/Nagin-story-guts-182242111.html
January 18, 2013 at 7:30 pm
Prolix, great post. Thanks for explaining it in a way I could understand. Its terrifying.
January 18, 2013 at 7:32 pm
Fredster, yes, they are dying to figure out a way to cut SS & Medicare/aid. I don’t know why they can’t figure out that it is better for the economy to have them. Unless their goal is to have people dropping dead everywhere from starvation or illness.
January 18, 2013 at 8:59 pm
I haven’t said too much about the Notre Dame player and his g.f. (?) but I did find this shirt that I thought was hysterical!
January 18, 2013 at 10:55 pm
Fredster, laker wanted me to ask you what you thought about that.
January 18, 2013 at 11:38 pm
socal@13: Oh I have no idea! That story is so bizarre it’s beyond belief. The first thing I thought was that he or someone came up with that idea to hide the fact that he was gay or something but really who knows?
January 19, 2013 at 12:23 am
Prolix@3: I loved this from the Milbank article:
All these years later, Stockman can still bring the crazy. The problem is he’s now just one of many purveyors.
Indeed, that *is* the scary part.
Comments are closed.
January 18, 2013 at 8:21 am
The press at the moment is too busy chasing down the “facts” about the athlete from Notre Dame who may have had a fictitious girlfriend while at the same time covering the “confession” of Lance Armstrong who goes on Oprah to admit to something most of the public suspected all along.
Meanwhile the wily GOP is busy, busy, busy, redrawing the lines in order to promote that “one party system” developed by Karl Rove to keep the power within the party for decades to come. And doing it by any means available which inlcudes outright fraud!
Unfortunately there are enough willing “crazies” who will line up with their corporate sponsors to gain a seat in the legislative process where the real power lies in turning the nation into a major failure if enough achieve their goal.
Who would be the “best” candidate for the oil and gas industry than some lunatic who denies science? How about the “best” candidate for the NRA who sees those black helicopters hovering overhead and a communist lurking under the bed? Or how about the bible thumper who declares women and gay rights as abominations as they thumb their way through the “good book”?
Because this is exactly who has “won” these contests over the last 10 years and set policy both nationally and statewide. In “normal times” these nuts would be hard pressed to win a three legged race let alone a seat at the table without sponsors who find them and turn them into “political stars”.