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Ungovernable? Nonsense.
Topic Started: Feb 19 2010, 05:16 AM (619 Views)
JBryan
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I am the grey one
Charles Krauthammer

Ungovernable? Nonsense.

This isn’t structural failure; this is the system working the way it’s supposed to.



In the latter days of the Carter presidency, it became fashionable to say that the office had become unmanageable and was simply too big for one man. Some suggested a single, six-year presidential term. The president’s own White House counsel suggested abolishing the separation of powers and going to a more parliamentary system of unitary executive control. America had become ungovernable.

Then came Ronald Reagan, and all that chatter disappeared.

The tyranny of entitlements? Reagan collaborated with Tip O’Neill, the legendary Democratic House speaker, to establish the Alan Greenspan commission that kept Social Security solvent for a quarter-century.

A corrupted system of taxation? Reagan worked with liberal Democrat Bill Bradley to craft a legislative miracle: tax reform that eliminated dozens of loopholes and slashed rates across the board — and fueled two decades of economic growth.

Later, a highly skilled Democratic president, Bill Clinton, successfully tackled another supposedly intractable problem: the culture of intergenerational dependency. He collaborated with another House speaker, Newt Gingrich, to produce the single most successful social reform of our time, the abolition of welfare as an entitlement.

It turned out that the country’s problems were not problems of structure but of leadership. Reagan and Clinton had it. Carter didn’t. Under a president with extensive executive experience, good political skills, and an ideological compass in tune with the public’s, the country was indeed governable.

It’s 2010, and the first-year agenda of a popular and promising young president has gone down in flames. Barack Obama’s two signature initiatives — cap-and-trade and health-care reform — lie in ruins.

Desperate to explain away this scandalous state of affairs, liberal apologists haul out the old reliable from the Carter years: “America the Ungovernable.” So declared Newsweek. “Is America Ungovernable?” coyly asked The New Republic. Guess the answer.

The rage at the machine has produced the usual litany of systemic explanations. Special interests are too powerful. The Senate filibuster stymies social progress. A burdensome constitutional order prevents innovation. If only we could be more like China, pines Tom Friedman, waxing poetic about the efficiency of the Chinese authoritarian model and complaining that America can only flail about under its “two parties . . . with their duel-to-the-death paralysis.” The better thinkers, bewildered and furious that their president has not gotten his way, have developed a sudden disdain for our inherently incremental constitutional system.

Yet, what’s new about any of these supposedly ruinous structural impediments? Special interests blocking policy changes? They have been around since the beginning of the republic — and, since the beginning of the republic, strong presidents, such as the two Roosevelts, have rallied the citizenry and overcome them.

And then, of course, there’s the filibuster, the newest liberal bęte noire. “Don’t blame Mr. Obama,” writes Paul Krugman of the president’s failures. “Blame our political culture instead. . . . And blame the filibuster, under which 41 senators can make the country ungovernable.”

“Ungovernable,” once again. Of course, it seems like just yesterday that the same Paul Krugman was warning about “extremists” trying “to eliminate the filibuster” when Democrats used it systematically to block one Bush (43) judicial nomination after another. Back then, Democrats touted it as an indispensable check on overweening majority power. Well, it still is. Indeed, the Senate, with its ponderous procedures and decentralized structure, is serving precisely the function the Founders intended: as a brake on the passions of the House and a check against precipitous transformative change.

Leave it to Mickey Kaus, a principled liberal who supports health-care reform, to debunk these structural excuses: “Lots of intellectual effort now seems to be going into explaining Obama’s (possible/likely/impending) health care failure as the inevitable product of larger historic and constitutional forces. . . . But in this case there’s a simpler explanation: Barack Obama’s job was to sell a health care reform plan to American voters. He failed.”

He failed because the utter implausibility of its central promise — expanded coverage at lower cost — led voters to conclude that it would lead ultimately to more government, more taxes, and more debt. More broadly, the Democrats failed because, thinking the economic emergency would give them a political mandate and a legislative window, they tried to impose a left-wing agenda on a center-right country. The people said no, expressing themselves first in spontaneous demonstrations, then in public-opinion polls, then in elections — Virginia, New Jersey, and, most emphatically, Massachusetts.

That’s not a structural defect. That’s a textbook demonstration of popular will expressing itself — despite the special interests — through the existing structures. In other words, the system worked.

— Charles Krauthammer is a nationally syndicated columnist. © 2010, The Washington Post Writers Group.

"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne


There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it".


Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.

From The Lion in Winter.
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John D'Oh
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MAMIL
It was worth reading that just to see a conservative commentator singing Clinton's praises as a highly skilled leader. :lol:
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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jon-nyc
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He might be right but there are key differences between 2010 and 1980, I think we're a much more polarized society now, thanks in large part to an overabundance of hyper-partisan media.

I do think our system is in a very different place in terms of its ability to produce political compromise. Hopefully I'm wrong. Obama's fiscal commission might provide a clue.
In my defense, I was left unsupervised.
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JBryan
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I don't recall the political atmosphere or the partisanship of the media to be a whole lot different in 1980. The only real difference I recall is that the media was more limited in the number of outlets and those outlets were (and still are) monolithically liberal. One aspect of this was every time throughout the '80s they wanted a reliably conservative (read loony) point of view they would hunt down Newt Gingrich. Problem was the things he was saying were not interpreted by the general population as loony but resonated with many. This stood out to me as an example of the major disconnect between the media elites and the average American and has not changed to this day.
"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne


There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it".


Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.

From The Lion in Winter.
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jon-nyc
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THink of all the people that start their day with WorldNetDaily, Redstate, DialyKos, or TPM, with Fox/MS-NBC on in the background, and drive to and from work with listening to their favorite screaming head demonize the political opposition.

There was no real equivalent to that in the 80s.


And these people are big time primary voters.
In my defense, I was left unsupervised.
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John D'Oh
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JBryan
Feb 19 2010, 05:32 AM
The only real difference I recall is that the media was more limited in the number of outlets and those outlets were (and still are) monolithically liberal.
Whilst the mainstream media is more liberal than not, I think to describe it as monolithically liberal is inaccurate. The FoxNews network is a major outlet, and there are more than a couple of newspapers that are depressingly right wing in their outlook, at least it's depressing to me. Some people here might consider the Murdoch-owned Boston Herald to be centrist, but I think that would say more about them than it says about Murdoch.
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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JBryan
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I am the grey one
Quote:
 
THink of all the people that start their day with WorldNetDaily, Redstate, DialyKos, or TPM, with Fox/MS-NBC on in the background, and drive to and from work with listening to their favorite screaming head demonize the political opposition.

There was no real equivalent to that in the 80s.


And these people are big time primary voters.


True, but the success of people like Rush Limbaugh was not in that they were spreading any new ides but because they were saying things a great many people already thought but never heard on any media outlet. IOW the populace is no more polarized today than they were in the past. It just seems that way because a greater diversity of ideas are now being aired.
"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne


There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it".


Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.

From The Lion in Winter.
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JBryan
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I am the grey one
John D'Oh
Feb 19 2010, 05:42 AM
JBryan
Feb 19 2010, 05:32 AM
The only real difference I recall is that the media was more limited in the number of outlets and those outlets were (and still are) monolithically liberal.
Whilst the mainstream media is more liberal than not, I think to describe it as monolithically liberal is inaccurate. The FoxNews network is a major outlet, and there are more than a couple of newspapers that are depressingly right wing in their outlook, at least it's depressing to me. Some people here might consider the Murdoch-owned Boston Herald to be centrist, but I think that would say more about them than it says about Murdoch.
Fox News did not even exist in the '80s. The mainstream media at that time was definitely monolithically liberal. This has changed a bit now with inroads made by the likes of Fox News but only a bit.
"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne


There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it".


Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.

From The Lion in Winter.
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jon-nyc
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Well I'll grant you that there were liberals and conservatives in the 80s as well, of course, but I think you're underestimating the effect of the feedback loop that hyper-partisan media provides. Its much easier to froth up the base in 2010 than it was in 1980. This has the effect of enforcing ideological purity on congressmen, who now live with a much greater threat of nasty primary fights.
In my defense, I was left unsupervised.
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jon-nyc
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Anyway, the Bowles-Simpson commission will offer a test. My guess, or perhaps fear, is it will be a very different outcome from the Greenspan commission of yesteryear.
In my defense, I was left unsupervised.
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JBryan
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I am the grey one
That depends on whether the Bowles-Simpson Commission produces recommendations that are substantive and taken seriously by Congress and Obama or whether its real purpose is to provide cover for tax increases with no real cuts in spending. We shall see.
"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne


There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it".


Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.

From The Lion in Winter.
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jon-nyc
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Cheers
I suspect they'll offer political compromise to a congress that won't have any of it.

We'll see.

In my defense, I was left unsupervised.
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John D'Oh
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MAMIL
JBryan
Feb 19 2010, 05:46 AM
John D'Oh
Feb 19 2010, 05:42 AM
JBryan
Feb 19 2010, 05:32 AM
The only real difference I recall is that the media was more limited in the number of outlets and those outlets were (and still are) monolithically liberal.
Whilst the mainstream media is more liberal than not, I think to describe it as monolithically liberal is inaccurate. The FoxNews network is a major outlet, and there are more than a couple of newspapers that are depressingly right wing in their outlook, at least it's depressing to me. Some people here might consider the Murdoch-owned Boston Herald to be centrist, but I think that would say more about them than it says about Murdoch.
Fox News did not even exist in the '80s. The mainstream media at that time was definitely monolithically liberal. This has changed a bit now with inroads made by the likes of Fox News but only a bit.
I'll take your word for it since I wasn't here. The majority of the mainstream newspapers in the UK in the early 80's were pretty right wing. Many of the tabloid newspaper editorials read like Alf Garnett diatribes. (Alf Garnett was a British sit-com character used as the basis for Archie Bunker in the US)
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
jon-nyc
Feb 19 2010, 05:26 AM
He might be right but there are key differences between 2010 and 1980, I think we're a much more polarized society now, thanks in large part to an overabundance of hyper-partisan media.

I do think our system is in a very different place in terms of its ability to produce political compromise. Hopefully I'm wrong. Obama's fiscal commission might provide a clue.
How old were you in 1980? And how politically aware were you? -- nothing has changed regarding the political landscape of America, the map of what has basically always been there has just been more sharply drawn.
Edited by ivorythumper, Feb 19 2010, 11:33 AM.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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jon-nyc
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I was 15 when the Greenspan commission met, and I was pretty wonkish, but I object to your line of questioning as irrelevant, counselor. Certainly we could talk about the political landscape of the antebellum south or Weimar Germany even though none of us were alive or present then.


To your second point, I think you, like JB, are underestimating the effect of the media explosion that has occurred in the last decade. Hours after Obama announced the Bowles-Simpson commission, the bobblehead blogs had already denounced it as the 'catfood commission', a line of unreasoning that will no doubt get picked up by the screaming heads on TV and radio.
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
jon-nyc
Feb 19 2010, 01:16 PM
I was 15 when the Greenspan commission met, and I was pretty wonkish, but I object to your line of questioning as irrelevant, counselor. Certainly we could talk about the political landscape of the antebellum south or Weimar Germany even though none of us were alive or present then.


To your second point, I think you, like JB, are underestimating the effect of the media explosion that has occurred in the last decade. Hours after Obama announced the Bowles-Simpson commission, the bobblehead blogs had already denounced it as the 'catfood commission', a line of unreasoning that will no doubt get picked up by the screaming heads on TV and radio.
My point is that you seem to have some sort of nostalgia for some golden age of harmony in the past-- something you could only have really gotten second hand since you were maybe 12 or 13 in 1980.

Given the improbability that America was really more cohesive in 1980 than 2010 -- and the leftist assault on Reagan certainly does not support your position -- the simple explanation is that your understanding of the political landscape was through the eyes of an adolescent (as precocious as you undoubtedly were) and whatever you have gleaned from other sources (as predictably not unbiased as they were), set against your more developed understanding of politics as it really is and you now understand it to be: polarized and contentious as always.

In short, the notion that America is more polarized today than 30 years makes no sense, nor should it for anyone who reads political history.
Edited by ivorythumper, Feb 19 2010, 06:14 PM.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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jon-nyc
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Not sure where you're coming from, IT, no where have I been assaulting Reagan or expressing any nostalgia about the 80s.

My point is about the effect on our political culture of the emergence of the internet and the explosion of new forms of political media. These have indeed fundamentally changed the ability of the more partisan elements to connect with and mobilize their supporters. My view, a fear really, is that that has made the idea of political compromise much less likely. I suspect we'll see that in December when Bowles-Simpson reports.
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
I didn't suggest you assaulted Reagan -- but rather that his presidency from the start was subject to vitriol and mockery and divisiveness -- nothing different from the presidencies of Clinton, Bush or Obama -- so I don't accept the whole notion that 30 years ago the US was any less politically polarized.

In keeping with the spirit of your comment about the hyper-partisan media, it seems to me that political critiques from the right (Limbaugh, Hannity, Fox, etc) and the subsequent reaction from the left (Matthews, Kos, Olberman, etc) have only drawn more clearly the map of what was already there.

Whether the question of compromise is impacted remains to be seen -- I doubt that the citizenry is really getting polarized here, they already have mostly made up their minds, but I think that with the internet there is more ownership of the political landscape by the citizens. You might mock "teabaggers" and call them morons, but that is in my view to the benefit of democracy from the internet, not its detriment.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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jon-nyc
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Ok, so I think the internet and the explosion of media will have a transformative effect on our political culture, you don't. Time will tell which of us is right.
In my defense, I was left unsupervised.
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VPG
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Pisa-Carp
IT and Jon,
I enjoyed your back and forth. Took turns agreeing with you both.
One thing you both left out regardind Media in the 80's and now.
Tho all media had a side in the 80's, they all tried to hide their bias.
And were much more subtle. (and sneaky)
I'M NOT YELLING.........I'M ITALIAN...........THAT'S HOW WE TALK!


"People say that we're in a time when there are no heroes, they just don't know where to look."
Ronald Reagan, Inaugural, 1971

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Jeff
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jon-nyc
Feb 20 2010, 12:16 PM
Ok, so I think the internet and the explosion of media will have a transformative effect on our political culture, you don't. Time will tell which of us is right.
The phrase you are looking for is "gerrymandered district".

Surely a larger factor than talk radio, news and blogs.
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Jeff
Senior Carp

http://www.economist.com/opini...fm?story_id=15545983

American politics seems unusually bogged down at present. Blame Barack Obama more than the system
Feb 18th 2010 | From The Economist print edition

Derek Bacon
THIS week Evan Bayh, a senator from Indiana who nearly became Barack Obama’s vice-president, said he was retiring from the Senate, blaming the inability of Congress to get things done. Cynics think Mr Bayh was also worried about being beaten in November (though he was ahead in the polls). Yet the idea that America’s democracy is broken, unable to fix the country’s problems and condemned to impotent partisan warfare, has gained a lot of support lately (see article).

Certainly the system looks dysfunctional. Although a Democratic president is in the White House and Democrats control both House and Senate, Mr Obama has been unable to enact health-care reform, a Democratic goal for many decades. His cap-and-trade bill to reduce carbon emissions has passed the House but languishes in the Senate. Now a bill to boost job-creation is stuck there as well. Nor is it just a question of a governing party failing to get its way. Washington seems incapable of fixing America’s deeper problems. Democrats and Republicans may disagree about climate change and health, but nobody thinks that America can ignore the federal deficit, already 10% of GDP and with a generation of baby-boomers just about to retire. Yet an attempt to set up a bipartisan deficit-reduction commission has recently collapsed—again.

This, argue the critics, is what happens when a mere 41 senators (in a 100-strong chamber) can filibuster a bill to death; when states like Wyoming (population: 500,000) have the same clout in the Senate as California (37m), so that senators representing less than 11% of the population can block bills; when, thanks to gerrymandering, many congressional seats are immune from competitive elections; when hateful bloggers and talk-radio hosts shoot down any hint of compromise; when a tide of lobbying cash corrupts everything. And this dysfunctionality matters far beyond America’s shores. A few years ago only Chinese bureaucrats dared suggest that Beijing’s autocratic system of government was superior. Nowadays there is no shortage of leaders from emerging countries, or even prominent American businesspeople, who privately sing the praises of a system that can make decisions swiftly.

It’s alright, Abe
We disagree. Washington has its faults, some of which could easily be fixed. But much of the current fuss forgets the purpose of American government; and it lets current politicians (Mr Obama in particular) off the hook.

To begin with, the critics exaggerate their case. It is simply not true to say that nothing can get through Congress. Look at the current financial crisis. The huge TARP bill, which set up a fund to save America’s banks, passed, even though it came at the end of George Bush’s presidency. The stimulus bill, a $787 billion two-year package, made it through within a month of Mr Obama taking office. The Democrats have also passed a long list of lesser bills, from investments in green technology to making it easier for women to sue for sex discrimination.

A criticism with more weight is that American government is good at solving acute problems (like averting a Depression) but less good at confronting chronic ones (like the burden of entitlements). Yet even this can be overstated. Mr Bush failed to reform pensions, but he did push through No Child Left Behind, the biggest change to schools for a generation. Bill Clinton reformed welfare. The system, in other words, can work, even if it does not always do so. (That is hardly unusual anywhere: for all its speed in authorising power stations, China has hardly made a success of health care lately.) On the biggest worry of all, the budget, it may well take a crisis to force action, but Americans have wrestled down huge deficits before.

America’s political structure was designed to make legislation at the federal level difficult, not easy. Its founders believed that a country the size of America is best governed locally, not nationally. True to this picture, several states have pushed forward with health-care reform. The Senate, much ridiculed for antique practices like the filibuster and the cloture vote, was expressly designed as a “cooling” chamber, where bills might indeed die unless they commanded broad support.

Broad support from the voters is something that both the health bill and the cap-and-trade bill clearly lack. Democrats could have a health bill tomorrow if the House passed the Senate version. Mr Obama could pass a lot of green regulation by executive order. It is not so much that America is ungovernable, as that Mr Obama has done a lousy job of winning over Republicans and independents to the causes he favours. If, instead of handing over health care to his party’s left wing, he had lived up to his promise to be a bipartisan president and courted conservatives by offering, say, reform of the tort system, he might have got health care through; by giving ground on nuclear power, he may now stand a chance of getting a climate bill. Once Mr Clinton learned the advantages of co-operating with the Republicans, the country was governed better.

Redistricting the redistricters
So the basic system works; but that is no excuse for ignoring areas where it could be reformed. In the House the main outrage is gerrymandering. Tortuously shaped “safe” Republican and Democratic seats mean that the real battles are fought among party activists for their party’s nomination. This leads candidates to pander to extremes, and lessens the chances of bipartisan co-operation. An independent commission, already in existence in some states, would take out much of the sting. In the Senate the filibuster is used too often, in part because it is too easy. Senators who want to talk out a bill ought to be obliged to do just that, not rely on a simple procedural vote: voters could then see exactly who was obstructing what.

These defects and others should be corrected. But even if they are not, they do not add up to a system that is as broken as people now claim. American democracy has its peaks and troughs; attempts to reform it dramatically, such as California’s initiative craze, have a mixed history, to put it mildly. Rather than regretting how the Republicans in Congress have behaved, Mr Obama should look harder at his own use of his presidential power.
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George K
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Finally
The Illinois (please, don't pronounce the "s") 4th Congressional District. See at the far west, where it parallels I294?

Yeah, it's about 500 feet wide there.

Posted Image
Edited by George K, Feb 20 2010, 05:59 PM.
A guide to GKSR: Click

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Dewey
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HOLY CARP!!!
The only way abominations like that happen are because we must, in general, officially align ourselves with one of the two main political parties, enabling the mapping out of districts like that. I really wonder if we wouldn't be much better off, all the way around, if instead of having two-party primaries - the only reason for the government needing a record of your preferred party - we simply had a primary election where individuals ran, with or without official party endorsement; and the top two vote-getters in such a primary - regardless of party affiliation, or no affiliation - were the candidates in the general election.
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jon-nyc
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Or formulaic district drawing like Iowa does.
In my defense, I was left unsupervised.
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