Democrats need to win state legislatures to un-Gerrymander the entrenched GOP

[jpak]

and kick these asshole out.

Yup

[Gman]

1. The left sat on their hands 2 years ago

Bitching about Obama while the right worked their asses off. Now it's what we've got.

The left in general had such a profound ignorance of what the 08 election was about. Many thought they would punish Obama and the Democrats. What fools.

[Le Taz Hot]

3. Scapegoating is what the other side does.

The (semi-)Left shouldn't engage in it. Besides, you have nothing to back up your claim.

[myrna minx]

5. How do you know it was "the left" and not the moderates?

Do you have anything to back up that assertion? I'm considered "left" and everyone I know voted for the Dems in '10.

[liberal_at_heart]

6. exactly

We're easy to blame.

[Gman]

7. Oh yeah, like the left was so happy with Obama

And just worked so hard to win back the state houses. Just like in 08, huh?

[myrna minx]

8. As I said, I'm a lefty as are my friends and while I was disappointed with the healthcare battle,

and had many criticisms about this administration early on, I voted as did all of my "lefty" friends, and we all voted for Dems in '10.

I've voted in every election since 1990, even if it's a primary for school board.

So, you have nothing to back up your assertion other than your feelings? Where were the moderates? Did they come out to vote in droves or is your assertion based upon your own perception? Do you have exit poll evidence? Polls? Or just your "gut"?

[tkmorris]

9. So, in other words, you have no evidence for your assertion

If you are going to place the blame for 2010 squarely at one groups feet you REALLY need to back up such a claim. Otherwise you just sound angry and a touch close-minded.

[neverforget]

11. Take a look at the exit polls for 2010

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/2010-midterms-political-price-economic-pain/story?id=12041739#.UKcS64aPzbg

Swing-voting independents who, as usual, made the difference, favored Republicans for House by a thumping 16 points, 55-39 percent. Compare that to Obama's 8-point win among independents in 2008. It was the Republicans' biggest win among independents in exit polls dating to 1982 (by two points. The GOP won independents by 14 points in 1994, the last time they took control of the House.)

Sixty percent of whites backed Republican House candidates, the most in exit polls dating back to 1982. (In presidential rather than House vote Ronald Reagan won more whites in 1984).

Conservatives accounted for 41 percent of voters -- a high in recent exit polls exceeded, in available data, only by 43 percent in that Reagan re-election of 1984.

[liberal_at_heart]

13. As far as I can tell no one on here claims to be an independent

In fact those of us who are on the left still consider ourselves democrat and vote democrat. Lord knows why. We get plenty of abuse and disrespect simply for daring to criticize anything Obama does. I'm done defending myself to people who are not worth wasting my time on. I am a liberal. I am on the left. I do like some of the policies that the Green Party believes in and I am not ashamed of it.

[myrna minx]

14. Just as a side bar, what was your 2010 GOTV participation?

Did you knock on doors etc, or did you expect "the left" to do so?

[joshcryer]

10. Moderates don't do GOTV.

[Le Taz Hot]

2. They won't "un-Gerrymander," they'll

RE-Gerrymander it which is just the other side of an otherwise evil coin. By initiative, CA bypassed all of that and the districts are now drawn via a bi-partisan commission. The result? We have a Super Majority in both houses of the CA legislature. Here's a FAQ sheet on what California does:

http://wedrawthelines.ca.gov/faq.html

[Roland99]

4. Howard Dean and his 50-state strategey

Oh, how I miss that.

[hrmjustin]

12. We have to win PA back. And we have to win the 2020 cycle, because that is when the lines will be...

... drawn again.

[dsc]

15. well the places we have a shot would be

WI we would need lege and gov. MI we would need the same. OH we would have to win 2 out of 3 of Gov, Aud, Sec of State. PA Gov and lege. NC lege only. NJ gov only. Those were the worst screw jobs. Realistically our best shots are NJ, OH (where we don't have to overcome a gerrymander) and PA (state leg drawn by commission). In the rest we would have to overcome partisan maps to be able to redraw the maps. NC is just not possible. We might be able to redistrict NY depending on how the state senate turns out but we already have a 21 to 6 majority. I think the best we ever did was hold the GOP to 4 seats so we are close to the limit there. NJ also can realistically only get us a couple seats (we have a 5/5 split now and maybe could get a 7/3 split with a better draw). If we got all three of the 'easy' states and redrew NY maybe we could get 2 in NY, 3 in NJ, 4 in PA (that would be a fair map given our percent of vote), and 5 in Ohio (4 to get us to fair plus one). That is a real stretch and is only 15 seats.