Who wants to belong to a political party that can’t win fairly?
Michigan Republicans’ intend to change the rules to assign our state’s presidential electoral votes by Congressional District. While this may seem sort of innocuous, once you realize how severely they have gerrymandered our state, the implications of this begins to sink in. Here’s the reality:
- More Michiganders voted for Democrats statewide than for Republicans
- President Obama would have gotten less electoral votes than Mitt Romney in the 2012 election
I will be writing more about this topic but I wanted to draw your attention to some of the smartest writing and smartest advice on this topic that I have seen yet. It comes from MMColo at Daily Kos. Their article is titled “Republicans Plan to Steal the Presidency (And might not be able to ) and How Democrats Can Stop Them”.
Here’s an excerpt from their “advice” section:
This should provide some suggestions for the Democrats over the next 8 years.
- In the close Congressional Districts in Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginai and Washington, you should be going balls to the wall to party build. This includes recruiting good Congressional candidates and spending whatever it takes to have them win in 2014. You can rest assured that the Republicans will be doing likewise.
- You need to concentrate on gubernatorial elections in these six states between now and 2022. You must win them all. Again, lots of money, good candidates, good work by elected candidates. You can’t afford to fuck up.
- You need to work on the legislatures in each of these six states and other states which might be in play for the next census (like Colorado, Nevada, NH and maybe places like AZ). The reality is even if you have the governors of these states, the most you can hope for is a “fair” redistricting. You will need to get the legislature and governor back in all of these states to reverse this horrible legislation. You might pick up a few seats in redistricting with a “fair” plan, but a plan gerrymandered the Democratic way in all six of these states would probably result in a minimum of 20 seats in the US House and 20 electoral votes and will put Democrats well on their way to being a long-term majority party. This means, yes, you need to play in state legislative races in these six states and other states where at some point in the near future the Republicans might have a chance for the trifects. This means party building in a lot of places, and not just for two years. This needs to be a twenty year plan, just like the Republicans was.
I received an email this week from someone asking me what we can do about this egregious plan to distribute electoral votes by Congressional District. The answer to that question is contained in the blockquote above. Frankly, they probably will do this unless enough shame can be heaped upon them for conceding that they can no longer win elections unless they game the system. But what is done can be undone and the people of Michigan are not going to stand for this tinkering with our elections. The House Speaker, Jase Bolger, is already well-known for engaging in election fraud to win elections so this nothing to a corrupt legislator like him. National Republican National Committee (RNC) Chair Reince Preibus is on board, too.
If you rearrange the letters in Reince Priebus you get Be Precise Ruin. I think that's the perfect name to lead the GOP.
— Anne C. Savage (@Anne_Savage) January 25, 2013
We have work to do in Michigan, kids. Are you up for the task?
