The Republicans' dilemma

[Econoline]

Good analysis, from an Austrailian commentator. Your thoughts, Jim (and other Republicans)?

Republicans to struggle with crisis they created

October 4, 2013
Waleed Aly

The US cash coma has its origins in the Republicans' recent success in creating gerrymanders. The Obamacare crisis was waiting to happen.

Contrary to obvious appearances, the Republicans in Congress who this week forced the US government into a coma are not insane. That doesn't mean this wasn't an insane result. It was, on almost every level. That includes the level of pure politics, with polling showing predictably that the American people see no need for this mess, and even Republicans acknowledging that the electorate will blame them, not President Obama.

They know this because that's what happened the last time they tried this in the mid-'90s, handing Bill Clinton a political gift he took all the way to a landslide victory in 1996. The Republicans are not merely holding a gun to the nation's head; they're holding one to their own.

But that doesn't make individual Republicans ''lemmings with suicide vests'', as one of their own described them. It's not that simple. As individuals, Republican politicians are embracing this insanity for perfectly sane reasons. And that's the problem. The political system is now such that Republicans keep their jobs by making the party as a whole increasingly unelectable.

This week's farce has its roots in 2010 when Republicans swept their way to majorities in both houses of Congress. It was a stunning return from exile, after Democrats had banished them from every limb of the government in 2008. But then Republicans tried to entrench their position through a colossal gerrymander. Several Republican-controlled states proceeded to redraw their electoral boundaries to make Democrat success nigh on impossible. And it worked. By 2012, results in the House of Representatives were so skewed that the Republicans comfortably maintained their majority despite Democrat candidates receiving more than a million more votes.

Take Pennsylvania, where Democrats won nearly 51 per cent of the vote, but Republicans won 13 seats to five. Or Michigan where the Democrat vote was nearly 53 per cent while Republicans took almost twice as many seats. North Carolina: 51-49 to the Democrats but nine Republican seats to a paltry four. And on it goes. That sort of result landed in at least 10 states - only one of which was rigged to favour the Democrats. To get a sense of the scale of it, consider that in the seven states redrawn by Republicans, near parity voting (16.7 million votes to 16.4 million) delivered 73 Republicans and 34 Democrats.

That's a clear perversion of democracy and it's no accident. Indeed the Republican State Leadership Committee made it explicit. They ran a $30 million project called Redmap, aimed at winning key seats at the state level, which would give them the power to draw electoral boundaries. What's more, they planned to do this in a census year so they could draw with precision - 2010 was exactly such a year.

So the plan worked. They played the system. But now the system is playing them. Sure, Republicans look set to control the House well into the future. But in the American system, the political contest doesn't simply vanish. It shifts to the primaries. Now if you're a Republican House member, your greatest threat comes not from Democrats, but from other Republican challengers hungry for your seat. The result is that Republicans are talking more and more to their own base, and less and less to everyone else. It's the rational thing for a politician to do. Even if that base is becoming increasingly irrational.

Old-school Republicans might shake their heads at the rising rabidity of their Tea Party colleagues, but the truth is they're currently no match for them. The last thing aspiring congressional Republicans need is a well-funded lobby group running campaigns lacerating them as closet socialists. Freed from the need to defeat any meaningful Democrat challenge, Republican politics is now such that everyone's racing to outbid each other for the mantle of true believer. It's a classic case of a closed system encouraging ever more radical posturing.

It doesn't get much more radical than trying to bring the government down. And that's the real concern here: what if this isn't really about Obamacare at all? What if the government shutdown itself is the goal? Truth be told, Republican candidates have been talking about doing this since 2010. Back then it was just as likely about budget cuts - ''a down payment on fiscal sanity'' is that well-worn Republican phrase. Either way the subtext has always been the same: that shutting down the government would be a good thing; it would not usher in the kind of dysfunction that, say, in a country like ours happens once in 100 years and causes a government to be dismissed.

America's problem is even more serious than it now appears. America is now two artificially created countries, operating in parallel. There's the country that chooses presidents and the one that can only rail righteously against them. The country where funding the government is a matter of sensible routine and the country where shutting down the government is a badge of pride, a slogan you can sell.

The Republican Party is going to have to figure out which country it wants to rule because these countries cannot be reconciled. They won't be until every state hands over the power to draw electoral boundaries to an independent, non-political body. In the meantime, the Republican Party is trapped in a bubble largely of its own making.

Waleed Aly is a regular columnist. He hosts Drive on ABC Radio National and is a lecturer in politics at Monash University

http://www.theage.com.au/comment/republ ... 2ux7m.html

[Lord Jim]

I wholeheartedly agree that the root cause of the current ridiculousness is gerrymandering. (In fact I was just about to start a thread on that very theme when I saw this one)

One of the forum's most politically astute members discoursed quite lucidly on the general topic here:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9957&p=126375&hilit ... er#p126375

Gerrymandering has created a Frankenstein's Monster situation with The Law Of Unintended Consequences on full display...(I would argue that with only 17 GOP seats in the House being in districts carried by Obama, and only six Democratic seats being in districts carried by Romney that the problem applies to both sides; it's only more noticeable at the moment on the Republican side because they control the House.)

Gerrymandering, as a concept was originally conceived by establishment politicians as a way to protect incumbents (or other "establishment" politicians seeking to move up the ranks). But it has been taken to the level now where it has exactly the opposite effect. As I pointed out in my earlier post on the topic gerrymandering now primarily empowers the most extreme elements of the parties. (the ones who disproportionally show up at primary elections that especially in off years can attract as little as 30% of the electorate, meaning that in gerrymandered districts, member of Congress can be selected with as little as 16% of the total available vote)

In the primary process, gerrymandering now favors the most shrill, uncompromising horses ass in the field...(maybe we should adopt the Australian system of mandatory voting for primaries)

In pundit land, they talk a lot about the 40 or so radical Randians in the House GOP Caucus (the ones who are just pleased as punch that the government is shutdown, and who think a US default on debt obligations would be no big deal) driving the process in the current crisis, but that really misstates the situation. If it were just those 40 nuthouse types, even applying the so-called "Hastert Rule" they would represent a small minority of the majority.

No, the real problem isn't the nuthouse faction; the real problem is 100 or so members of the GOP caucus beyond that who are scared shitless of being defeated by a nuthouse candidate in a primary, if they don't kowtow to the nuthouse types...

I have a lot of regard for Peter King, and I agree completely with his position on this whole nonsense, but Peter King is in a moderate/conservative upper middle class district on Long Island, where his position is so strong he doesn't have to worry about being picked off by a nuthouse candidate in a primary; that makes it a lot easier for him to be reasonable than it is for a number of other folks.

The ironic thing is, that if most these representatives represented less gerrymandered districts, their hold on their jobs would probably be more secure, and they wouldn't feel the need to perform The Hindlick Manuever on the propeller beanie crowd....(which would result in better governance for the country)

To give you an idea of just how far this has gone, it was mentioned on one of the news programs a couple of days ago that in 1995, when we had the last government shut down, there were seventy nine GOP House members who represented districts carried by Clinton in '92. In the past 20 years, the "swing district" has become an endangered species...(which is terrible for the country)

The long term solution to this situation, is to get away from gerrymandered districts, (which there might be some hope for,since the process clearly no longer favors the political establishment....the 40 members of the Kookaboo Caucus in the House are accountable to no one and serve only their unbending ideology...they don't even care about business interests; the business community sure as hell doesn't want a government default.) and/or somehow find a way to get a higher percentage of sane people participating in the primary process.

But even if those things are done, that isn't going to help us get out of the current clusterfuck....

The only way we're going to get out of this mess is for the leading players on both sides to get over their own egos and stop worrying about who's "winning"...

I don't know who's "winning" this politically, (the polls seem to be kind of ambiguous on this) but I can tell you who's losing...the millions of Americans who are suffering while this show goes on, and the millions more who will suffer if the economy goes further down the drain...

And while this painful tragedy goes on, and an even larger one looms before us, the principle players on both sides, (Boehner, Reid and Obama) seem to be treating this like it's some sort of juvenile testosterone charged school yard "who blinks first" game...

Both sides have to accept some fundamental facts:

A. It is unreasonable (and frankly irrational) for the GOP to expect this President (or any President for that matter) to accept the gutting of the centerpiece legislation of their Presidency in exchange for a six week CR or a raising of the debt ceiling. And I say this as someone who opposed Obamacare and would certainly not have voted for the legislation. But the fact of the matter is that at some point you have to accept that the political system has worked it's will, and if you want to undo it you're going to have to control more than one half of one third of the government.

The whole debt ceiling thing should be abolished; once Congress votes to spend the money, that should be the end of it; no other country in the world operates this way...The ramifications of default are so grave that if it looks like it's coming to that I would support Obama invoking the Full Faith And Credit clause to prevent it unilaterally; it's probably impossible politically to abolish the debt ceiling process legislatively...If Obama does take that route, I hope the courts will support it.

B. It is unreasonable for Obama and the Democrats to expect the GOP to walk away from this process with absolutely nothing. They need to get off of their "no negotiations" maximalist position, and figure a way out of this. (something like the proposal in the article I posted earlier.)

They and their supporters may believe they somehow have the "high ground" by standing pat and waiting for the House Republicans to cry "uncle" but the only ones being made to cry with that macho stance are the American people....You can't eat, or pay your mortgage or rent with "high ground"...

It's time for the leaders on both sides to stop acting like children and get their asses in gear to end this thing. This isn't some sort of game; the government shutdown is already causing suffering for millions of Americans as well as endangering national security. The longer it goes on, the worse it gets and if God forbid we come to debt default, it will be a full blown catastrophe.

Grow up!

[Lord Jim]

Just watched John Boehner on This Week...

Very depressing...

Almost as depressing as the road show I saw Obama do last week...

Since the beginning of his Presidency, whenever he has had difficulties with Congress, his idea of how to deal with them has always been to go on a quasi campaign tour, appearing in front of friendly partisan crowds, to do a comedy shtick mocking the other side....

That may wow 'em in Berkley, but it has yielded exactly zero for him in terms of legislative success, (in fact it's counter productive; all it does is piss off and alienate the opposition leaders) so it's puzzling to me as to why he keeps doing it. (The only thing I can figure is that he does it because he enjoys it; it's a lot more fun than doing the serious tedious work of hammering out agreements with the opposition and twisting arms in his own party. He seems to have no appetite for that sort of thing; I sometimes get the impression that he thinks that it's somehow beneath him...though it's a central element of any successful Presidency)

All the finger pointing and dick waving on both sides must come to an end...this is serious shit...

[Econoline]

I wholeheartedly agree that the root cause of the current ridiculousness is gerrymandering. (In fact I was just about to start a thread on that very theme when I saw this one)

One of the forum's most politically astute members discoursed quite lucidly on the general topic here:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9957&p=126375&hilit ... er#p126375

And you might also recall my response to that earlier post of yours.

This whole problem is simultaneously less serious and more serious than the peculiar fundamental constitutional structure of the U.S. system of government. I hope that enough reasonable members of both major parties can realize that gerrymandering is the root cause of the current (and possibly--but hopefully not--future) legislative dysfunction, and that it's in everyone's best interest to prioritize solving that root cause ASAP.

As for the rest of your post, and the next post...

I have to agree with the President that negotiating his way out of this would be akin to negotiating with terrorists or kidnappers*, and that doing so would only encourage them to employ this sort of tactic on a regular basis in the future.

That said, the FBI and other authorities DO do these sorts of negotiations on a regular basis, and a sufficiently skilled negotiator can usually find a way to save face for both sides by coming to a solution that neither side can claim as a "victory" for their side or a "capitulation" by the other side. (Maybe Obama and Boehner could agree on the appointment of the FBI's best hostage negotiation team to conduct a super-secret mediation to end the crisis?) Whatever the deal, it would have to be something that would NOT be seen by what you called the Kookaboo Caucus as a "victory" for them and a "defeat" for the President, because that would only encourage them to repeat this behavior again and again. We as a nation simply *CANNOT* afford to let this become "the new normal."

ETA: *But see this post--especially the highlighted part.

[rubato]

The Republicans real dilemma is that they are at war with themselves and Boehner is too weak to control his own party:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/won ... ezra-klein

The shutdown is a Republican civil war

By Ezra Klein, Published: October 5 at 10:13 amE-mail the writer

We’re used to brinkmanship in Washington resulting from conflict between Democrats and Republicans. But this shutdown is different. It’s a fight between Republicans and Republicans -- or, more specifically, Republicans and the Tea Party.
John Boehner is just trying to survive. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

John Boehner is just trying to survive. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

In 1995 and 1996, Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich proudly led Republicans into their shutdown fight with President Bill Clinton. In 2011, Speaker John Boehner was enthusiastic about using a possible shutdown and default as leverage for Republicans to make good on the promises they'd made in the last election.

But Boehner didn’t want this week’s shutdown. He didn’t want to sign onto Ted Cruz’s doomed effort to defund Obamacare. Boehner’s strategy was to pass a clean bill to fund the government at or near current sequestration levels - - a major victory for Republicans, by the way -- and then secure additional spending cuts in negotiations over the debt ceiling.

The dysfunctions of the House Republican Conference are often blamed on the so-called Hastert rule. The Hastert rule, which isn’t an actual rule, is named after former House speaker Dennis Hastert, who famously tried to bring to the floor only bills that had the support of a majority of House Republicans. Boehner has generally followed it, which is why he won’t allow the Senate’s immigration bill on the floor; it may have the support of a majority of the House, but it doesn’t have support from a majority of House Republicans.

What’s strange and fascinating about the shutdown debacle, however, is that a majority of House Republicans were with Boehner: They didn’t want a shutdown. “Two-thirds want a clean CR,” Rep. Peter King told the National Review, using the acronym for a “continuing resolution” to fund the government. “Including some of the people who got elected as tea party candidates from the South. You talk to them, they think this is crazy.”

The White House thinks it’s crazy, too. “One faction of one party, in one house of Congress, in one branch of government doesn’t get to shut down the entire government just to refight the results of an election,” President Obama said this week.

The question that’s puzzling Washington is how a minority of the majority is managing to dominate the House of Representatives.

Robert Costa, Washington bureau chief for the National Review, estimates that there are only “30 to 40 true hardliners” among House Republicans. He says more than 100 House Republicans are solidly behind Boehner. But Boehner’s troops are scared. “Could they stand firm when pressured by the 30 or 40 hardliners and the outside groups?” he asked.

You’d think they could. Or, at the least, you’d think Boehner could. Typically, party leaders protect the mainstream members from the demands of the fringe. They control fundraising and committee assignments and the floor schedule, which gives them substantial power over individual members. And if outside groups want a seat at the table, they need to stay on leadership’s good side, which tends to keep them from going too far off the reservation. But the Republican leadership no longer has the strength to play that role. “What we’re seeing is the collapse of institutional Republican power,” Costa said. ... "

yrs,
rubato

[Big RR]

Jim--while I differ with you somewhat on the ACA, I agree with your assessment of what must be done. We once had a government where compromise was not a dirty word, and where legislation like the civil rights act of 1964 and many other major pieces of legislation could be passed dispite significant differences between the parties and the caucuses. Sadly ,that spirit of cooperation seems to be gone (I hope not forever).

Econoline--perhaps some backroom negotiations are in order; in any event, the parties should be talking. But the idea of using these high risk options--government shutdowns, defaults on debt, impeachment) merely to achieve an upper hand must be stopped. Clearly congress can do all of these things, but in the past cooler heads prevailed and realized the potential of the damage their tactics could wage far outweighed any short term benefit they might get by risking that damage. Now that doesn't even seem to be considered. There may well be times when these tactics are justified, but this is clearly not one of them.

[Guinevere]

Boehner and his buddies are no better than terrorists, trying to hold the government of the United States hostage, because they lost in the legislature (multiple times), they lost in the elections (remember in 2012, post-ACA passage, the Dems gained 15 seats in the House and 2 in the Senate) and they lost in the courts. We cannot and should not negotiate with terrorists. There is nothing to "give" - the Republicans need to let a clean CR (and this is JUST A CR, it's not even the BUDGET for godsakes) come to a vote, and then take up their legislative issues in the appropriate manner.

[Sue U]

It's not just gerrymandering; it's a GOP kulturkampf that has predictably come around to bite the party in the ass. The Republicans were only too happy to use the "Tea Party" to pander to the retarded extremists they could mobilize for their Rascal Rallies in the early days of the Obama administration. But the Koch Brothers, Richard Mellon Scaife and Dick Armey saw an opportunity for more. As I said more than three years ago after the Delaware Masturbation Witch successfully primaried Mike Castle:

Jim, what you are witnessing is a genuine hijacking of the Republican party by powerful anti-tax, anti-regulation corporate interests working hand-in-glove with far-right extremist ideologues to manipulate an angry and ignorant bloc of the electorate. Recognizing that it could not successfully create its own independent neo-Fascist party out of whole cloth, the "Tea Party" funding is essentially nothing less than a wholesale purchase of the GOP apparatus in situ. It's a shrewd move: even if it doesn't result in electoral majorities, a sufficiently strident opposition can hamstring legislative initiatives of the majority (as we've seen the last 18 months). It's cynical, it's disgusting, and it's proving to be very effective. But if you're looking for a party of principled policy positions capable of the political give-and-take necessary for a functioning government, the GOP is no longer your first choice.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1127&p=13306#p13306

Gerrymandering to ensure "safe" districts has certainly contributed to the problem: after all, in a generally conservative district, a "moderate" Republican is still going to vote for the Republican candidate over a Democrat, even if the Republican is a certifiable nutcase/idiot like Louie Gohmert or Michele Bachmann. But this is because our two-party winner-take-all system provides only a take-it-or-leave-it "choice" that is at the mercy of the primary-voting party base, and simply doesn't allow for any wider variety of views. In a party with weak leadership and a radicalized element, this system will predictably lead to its increasing extremism and polarization. There is no question that the GOP has already effectively purged its actual moderates like Castle, Christie Whitman, Tom Kean, William Weld and Chris Shays.

This "de-fund Obamacare" stunt is the kind of feet-stamping petulance that is painting the party in worse and worse light. The Affordable Care Act is law, the GOP's constitutional challenges failed, and to the extent that 2012 was a referendum on Obama and his policies, the Republicans lost that fight too. The result of these antics is to make Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, John Culberson and Randy Neugebauer the new face of the GOP. And as they say, good luck with that.

[Big RR]

Guin and sue--while I agree with you in principle, I have also found it is rarely useful to just let things get worse and refuse to talk or negotiate. Face it, the shutdown is hurting a lot of people, and many more will be hurt as it continues. By all means the ACA should be off the table, but ending this should clearly be on it. Letting the repubs make fools of themselves, or saying we won't negotiate with the "terrorists", as attractive as it sounds, doesn't do much to ease that pain. Sometimes we have to doing more to help the people being damaged--and IMHO that's more important than a clean win.

[Guinevere]

Except I don't think its about "winning" -- its about upholding the law of the land.

I'm also not convinced its all gerrymandering. For me, its about the campaign finance laws, and getting to real reform. I've said it before, but I'll say it louder now:

1. All elections should be publically funded, no private monies allowed at all.
2. Every candidate gets a share of air time -- since the airwaves are a public resource. Amount of time based on the office sought, i.e. President gets the most, state rep the least. Each campaign can decide how and when to use the time, and if there is a conflict over a specific date/hour, there is some neutral method to resolve the priority.
3. Candidates need to meet a certain threshold of signatures to be eligible for any ballot.
4. Allowing people who aren't millionaires but who have good (or bad) ideas and want to spend the time and energy running for office will allow more voices, more ideas, and maybe even more parties to be represented.
5. More competition will create more accountability, and may set the term limits ideas to rest.
6. More competition, and more varied representation will make gerrymandering more difficult.

[Sue U]

Big RR, this is simply not the proper vehicle for "negotiating." If the GOP wants to talk about budget priorities or national debt reduction strategies, the place to do it is in drafting the legislation that crafts these policies in the first place. It is not in the context of what should be pro forma procedural votes to keep the government operating on existing terms and paying its already-incurred (and congressionally approved) debts. If the Republicans have policy initiatives, they should put them forward in the legislative process and try to get them enacted into law. They shouldn't be permitted to hold the nation hostage to their demands now simply because they couldn't win any of their 43 stupid "repeal Obamacare" votes.

[Guinevere]

Someone should just give Sue and I the keys to the kingdom -- we'd have it all sorted in no time.

[Sue U]

Someone should just give Sue and I the keys to the kingdom -- we'd have it all sorted in no time.

More specifically, in time for margaritas on the deck at 7 (at least while the weather stays warm).

[Guinevere]

Someone should just give Sue and I the keys to the kingdom -- we'd have it all sorted in no time.

More specifically, in time for margaritas on the deck at 7 (at least while the weather stays warm).

Well, duh.

[Guinevere]

Some more data on the gerrymander effect:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the ... ?tid=sm_fb

The math is stark. Of the 199 Democrats in the House at the start of the 113th Congress, a majority — 51 percent(!) — won their race with 67 percent of the vote or higher. Among the 234 Republicans elected in the last election, 67 — or roughly 29 percent of the GOP conference — won with 67 percent or higher.

Add it up and you have 168 seats in which the current incumbent won with 67 percent or more of the vote. That’s 38 percent of the entire House with virtually no concern about losing a general election.

[Big RR]

Sue--you're preaching to the choir; but we still need to end this.

Guin--well, unless you can get a constitutional amendment through, your plan is a lost cause. If we can't implement that, gerrymandering is a good start.

[Sue U]

Someone should just give Sue and I the keys to the kingdom -- we'd have it all sorted in no time.

More specifically, in time for margaritas on the deck at 7 (at least while the weather stays warm).

Well, duh.

You have to set goals, is all I'm saying.

[Econoline]

I know several people here are probably sick and tired of me quoting and recommending this blog (Stonekettle Station), but I really think Jim Wright hit a grand-slam-dunk-touchdown out of the park with this latest post:

The President cannot give in.

He. Can. Not.

And you don’t want him to.

No really, you do not want him to.

There can be no compromise on the government shutdown.

No matter what happens, the House must not win this fight.

Notice that I didn’t say the House cannot win, I said the House must not win.

And you don’t want them to.

You, whether you are a liberal or a conservative, whether you are for or against the Affordable Healthcare Act, whether or not you hate Barack Obama’s stinking guts with every fiber of your being, if you believe in the America of your forefathers you do not want the House to win.

Because if they win, if this precedent is allowed to stand, then America as you know it, as you have known it, is over.

[...]

What House Tea Party Republicans are demanding with this shutdown is nothing less than a line-item veto over the established laws of our nation.

If this tactic is allowed to stand, if it succeeds, if Present Obama capitulates to a small minority of extremists, then we will have given both this legislature and all future ones, the absolute power of tyranny via deadlock.

If allowed to become precedent, our government will permanently cease to function in any effective manner, perhaps not immediately, but eventually and if history is any guide it’ll be sooner rather than later.

Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. And you don’t have to look any further than Congress to see the truth of that platitude.

If we allow this tactic to become precedent, it will be abused. It is inevitable.

Just as changing the Senate rules to allow for secret holds instead of public filibuster is daily abused by a fanatical and cowardly minority on both sides of the aisle.

If we allow extremists to hold us hostage, they will continue to hold us hostage and we open the door to any extremist who disagrees with the majority.

If they are successful, then the very next use of this tactic will be its use to defund any portion of our civilization that the outvoted minority vehemently disagrees with, from abortion to immigration to energy to climate change to gay rights to evolution right on across the political spectrum to oil drilling and nuclear power to gun control to the military to law enforcement.

This doesn’t end.

[...]

Yes, I know that some of you hate Barack Obama so much that you’re willing to risk it, but you must look beyond the current crisis. Look to our own history. Look to human nature. When congress handed George W. Bush the power of warrantless wire taps and waterboarding and the ability to terminate Americans overseas via remotely controlled targeted killing, to their horror they only too late realized that they had given that same power to Barack Obama.

Just so, if you give the current legislature the power of deadlock, you’ve automatically given it to all future ones as well, conservative or liberal.

Think about that. Think about what that implies for the future. Think about it with a different arrangement of power. Think about it hard.

[...]
Read the whole thing here (PLEASE!): . . . http://www.stonekettle.com/2013/10/deadlock.html

[Econoline]

This guy doesn't have a blog, but he's a Republican...and he said something quite similar:

What is our present condition? We have just carried an election on principles fairly stated to the people. Now we are told in advance, the government shall be broken up, unless we surrender to those we have beaten, before we take the offices. In this they are either attempting to play upon us, or they are in dead earnest. Either way, if we surrender, it is the end of us, and of the government. They will repeat the experiment upon us ad libitum.

[rubato]

Maybe more states should try the system Calif. used in the last election: the primary is open and the two candidates with the most votes go to the general election. This would prevent the tea-partiers from bumping people off in the Republican primary. In largely conservative districts they would often have a choice of two Republicans in the general election which would give the voters a real choice.

yrs,
rubato