drsmooth wrote:Surprised no R's are calling for Wretch Preibus's reptilian head on a pike

Obama won Virginia, and Democrats took 3 of 11 House seats. Obama appears very likely to win Florida, but Democrats will, at best, carry 10 of the state’s 27 districts.

slugsrbad wrote:One is elected by his people, and the other is an ass hat who long ago went off the deep end. I cannot stand Gov. Scott, his actions are downright reprehensible, but he's an easier pill to swallow due to being elected. "Entertainers" like Matthews and Limbaugh are the true threats since they speak to the malleable masses.

pacino wrote:

With neither side backing down, senior producers had to find a way to split the difference. One idea was for two members of the decision team, Mishkin and Fox’s digital politics editor Chris Stirewalt, to go on camera with Megyn Kelly and Bret Baier to squelch the doubts over the call. But then it was decided that Kelly would walk through the office and interview the decision team in the conference room. “This is Fox News,” an insider said, “so anytime there’s a chance to show off Megyn Kelly’s legs they’ll go for it.” The decision desk were given a three-minute warning that Kelly would be showing up.

jerseyhoya wrote:

drsmooth wrote:Surprised no R's are calling for Wretch Preibus's reptilian head on a pike

He did his job. He raised a lot of money.

drsmooth wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

drsmooth wrote:Surprised no R's are calling for Wretch Preibus's reptilian head on a pike

He did his job. He raised a lot of money.

if I was one whose $ was "razed", I'd be asking him some pointed questions - or maybe not even bothering to ask, or taking any calls from him ever again.

RichmondPhilsFan wrote:

drsmooth wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

drsmooth wrote:Surprised no R's are calling for Wretch Preibus's reptilian head on a pike

He did his job. He raised a lot of money.

if I was one whose $ was "razed", I'd be asking him some pointed questions - or maybe not even bothering to ask, or taking any calls from him ever again.

I'd think they'd be angrier at the SuperPAC organizers like Rove. I thought the RNC actually did alright.

pacino wrote:
perfectly normal, 13-5 house reps when every statewide race went convincingly democratic

Obama won Virginia, and Democrats took 3 of 11 House seats. Obama appears very likely to win Florida, but Democrats will, at best, carry 10 of the state’s 27 districts.

Same in Ohio and Michigan. 2010 these places were all controlled by republican legislatures and were then gerrymandered in ridiculous ways. NY and CA are likely similar the opposite way, but then states controlled by democrats also sometimes have non-partisan boards decide the new borders every ten years.

dajafi wrote:Do we know the total D/R national vote count for the House?

Although a small number of ballots remain to be counted, as of this writing, votes for a Democratic candidate for the House of Representatives outweigh votes for Republican candidates. Based on ThinkProgress’ review of all ballots counted so far, 53,952,240 votes were cast for a Democratic candidate for the House and only 53,402,643 were cast for a Republican — meaning that Democratic votes exceed Republican votes by more than half a million.

Two caveats are necessary in considering these numbers. The first is that all ballots have not been counted, so these numbers will change somewhat as more returns trickle in. (Because the remaining ballots are more likely to be from Democratic-leaning west coast states, it is likely that the Democrats’ margin will increase somewhat over time.) The second caveat is that these numbers include several California districts where two members of the same party ran against each other, and they do not include districts where a single candidate ran unopposed. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the nation is very closely divided over which party should control the House, with Democrats appearing to enjoy a slight edge.

The actual partisan breakdown of the 113th Congress will be very different, however. Currently, Republicans enjoy a 233-192 advantage over Democrats, with 10 seats remaining undecided. That means that, in a year when Republicans earned less than half the popular vote, they will control a little under 54 percent of the House even if Democrats run the table on the undecided seats.
...
Americans voted for a Democratic president, a Democratic Senate, and, barring significant shifts in the vote tally, a Democratic House. Instead, they will get a House majority similar to the one that held the entire nation hostage during last year’s debt ceiling hostage crisis.

pacino wrote:
perfectly normal, 13-5 house reps when every statewide race went convincingly democratic

Obama won Virginia, and Democrats took 3 of 11 House seats. Obama appears very likely to win Florida, but Democrats will, at best, carry 10 of the state’s 27 districts.

Same in Ohio and Michigan. 2010 these places were all controlled by republican legislatures and were then gerrymandered in ridiculous ways. NY and CA are likely similar the opposite way, but then states controlled by democrats also sometimes have non-partisan boards decide the new borders every ten years.

pacino wrote:
perfectly normal, 13-5 house reps when every statewide race went convincingly democratic

Obama won Virginia, and Democrats took 3 of 11 House seats. Obama appears very likely to win Florida, but Democrats will, at best, carry 10 of the state’s 27 districts.

Same in Ohio and Michigan. 2010 these places were all controlled by republican legislatures and were then gerrymandered in ridiculous ways. NY and CA are likely similar the opposite way, but then states controlled by democrats also sometimes have non-partisan boards decide the new borders every ten years.

Polar Bear Phan wrote:Obama won Pennsylvania by 340000 votes.

Obama won Philadelphia County by 460000 votes.

So, I take it you're cool with gerrymandering as long as Democrats are doing it?

The states of Washington,[51] Arizona,[52] and California[53] have created standing committees for the redistricting following the 2010 census. Rhode Island[54] and New Jersey[55] have developed ad hoc committees, but developed the past two decennial reapportionments tied to new census data.

RichmondPhilsFan wrote:

pacino wrote:
perfectly normal, 13-5 house reps when every statewide race went convincingly democratic

Obama won Virginia, and Democrats took 3 of 11 House seats. Obama appears very likely to win Florida, but Democrats will, at best, carry 10 of the state’s 27 districts.

Same in Ohio and Michigan. 2010 these places were all controlled by republican legislatures and were then gerrymandered in ridiculous ways. NY and CA are likely similar the opposite way, but then states controlled by democrats also sometimes have non-partisan boards decide the new borders every ten years.

I don't know about the other states, but VA didn't really have any serious challengers. Scott Rigell (R-I) versus Paul Herschbiel (D) in VA-2 was the closest, but that district is pretty heavily conservative--Glenn Nye rode Obama's coattails in 2008, but he was a Blue Dog Dem and only lasted a term. They added some Virginia Beach areas after the recent redistricting, but that didn't really change the overall profile anyway. I don't know about the other areas of VA, but here in Richmond the national Democratic groups spent absolutely no money pushing challengers like Wayne Powell--yet Powell took 41% of the vote simply because that many people hate Eric Cantor.

TenuredVulture wrote:

RichmondPhilsFan wrote:

pacino wrote:
perfectly normal, 13-5 house reps when every statewide race went convincingly democratic

Obama won Virginia, and Democrats took 3 of 11 House seats. Obama appears very likely to win Florida, but Democrats will, at best, carry 10 of the state’s 27 districts.

Same in Ohio and Michigan. 2010 these places were all controlled by republican legislatures and were then gerrymandered in ridiculous ways. NY and CA are likely similar the opposite way, but then states controlled by democrats also sometimes have non-partisan boards decide the new borders every ten years.

I don't know about the other states, but VA didn't really have any serious challengers. Scott Rigell (R-I) versus Paul Herschbiel (D) in VA-2 was the closest, but that district is pretty heavily conservative--Glenn Nye rode Obama's coattails in 2008, but he was a Blue Dog Dem and only lasted a term. They added some Virginia Beach areas after the recent redistricting, but that didn't really change the overall profile anyway. I don't know about the other areas of VA, but here in Richmond the national Democratic groups spent absolutely no money pushing challengers like Wayne Powell--yet Powell took 41% of the vote simply because that many people hate Eric Cantor.

The same story holds for AR--only one Dem challenger was even close to viable. The reality is the House simply wasn't a priority for the Dems this election--indeed, there's even some bitterness that Obama did nothing to help Dem house candidates. But even before that, there seemed to be little effort to recruit quality candidates. I'm not sure with limited resources you could do both, but one reason why the Dems did so well in 2006 is that Howard Dean really recruited quality challengers even in districts where the Rep incumbent appeared entrenched. I think both parties should do that every cycle, in part because I think it's democratic and gives us better government, but also in part because I think it's effective.

I think Pac is really overstating the importance of gerrymandering. Quality opposition is much more important. Again, in Arkansas, if there was any gerrymandering going on, it was to favor the Dems. But it doesn't matter when you run guys like Gene Jeffress who seemed to really believe that not raising any money but simply driving around the district and singing in church choirs could beat a well funded candidate like Tom Cotton.