One chart explains why the Dems can't win the House no matter how people vote.

[kpete]

ByTOM KLUDTPublishedNOVEMBER 7, 2014, 6:00 AM EST 2881 Views

After Republicans expanded their majority in the House of Representatives on Tuesday, giving the party its largest number of seats in the lower chamber since World War II, "Meet the Press" moderator Chuck Todd made an observation that probably triggered even more Democratic heartache.

"So this really secures the House Republican majority for the rest of this decade," Todd said during NBC's election coverage. "Not until 2022, I think, at the earliest, will you see Democrats have a chance at winning the House."

A closer look at the numbers shows why the GOP House majority is basically impenetrable until the next redistricting, and maybe beyond. It was never more stark than in 2012, when Democrats received about 500k more votes nationwide than Republicans but still ended up with substantially fewer seats. Some of this is due to an extremely effective gerrymandering effort by Republicans after the 2010 election. But it's not only that. Democrats are also increasingly concentrated in small geographical areas, which greatly amplifies the effect of gerrymandering and is also a significant and growing issue in itself.




http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/chart-why-dems-cant-win-house

[geek tragedy]

1. as much as it pains me to say it, Democrats need to broaden their appeal

to white people in exurban and rural areas.

We can't pass legislation without having bodies in Congress.

[wilt the stilt]

4. Honestly, this will not happen

I said in an earlier post. It is tribal Suburban people(I live in Gwinnett County in GA) and that is not happening. I also covered all of Georgia selling cash registers. These people do not want to be associated with the democratic party because it is the "negro/jew/mexican party.
They have also been voting republican since they were 20. It is not going to change.

The artificial number of 435 congresspeople is one of the biggest problems.Districts hould all have about te same number of people and if that means multiple districts in the urban areas then that is the right solution That probably is not going to happen.

This has to go to a larger body to correct and I don't know how to do this killing our government.

[geek tragedy]

8. places like Ohio and Pennsylvania are much more

plausible places to start

[atreides1]

6. At what cost?

Who does the Democratic party toss out?

[geek tragedy]

7. don't toss out anyone, but reality is people of color aren't being helped

by Republicans controlling Congress.

[seveneyes]

10. The Horror of appealing to white people in exurban and rural areas

Big tent and all that goes with it.

[joshcryer]

11. Shh, off with that Third Way nonsense.

Heads would roll if we had Dean back and he implemented a 50 state strategy. There'd be so many Blue Dogs DU would explode.

[geek tragedy]

12. both parties have an element who are much happier when opposing than

when governing.

Much larger on their side, of course.

[JonLP24]

16. Justin Coussoule Confirms Obama/Kaine Threw Out Dean's 50 State Strategy And Have Given Him NO Suppo

Rahm Emanuel, as the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, famously decided that the best way for the DCCC to claim big wins in the 2006 was to focus his efforts on select safe seats and back candidates that would be easily persuadable to Emanuel in office. He flatly rejected Howard Dean's 50 State Strategy. As a result, the Democratic Party did pick up 30 seats in the House in the 2006 election, but lost some really great progressive candidates like Darcy Burner, because they refused to give them any investment. Who knows how many more they might have picked up (and how much further left of the DLC/Blue Dogs Emanuel backed) if they had went with Dean's strategy. Certainly, Axelrod and Plouffe went more with Dean than Emanuel in their presidential campaign strategy.

Unfortunately, it looks like DCCC head Chris Van Hollen and DNC chair Tim Kaine are listening more to Emanuel in this year's mid-term elections. Justin Coussoule, who is enjoying the full endorsement of Blue America, openly tells Chris Jansing that he has received no support whatsoever from the DNC or DCCC.

That's why your support of our Blue America campaign is so critical. The stupid Democratic Party just doesn't get it. Howie Klein has done an amazing job of vetting these fantastic PROGRESSIVE candidates and that's exactly the kind of people we need to see elected, not the malleable DLC types.

http://crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/justin-coussoule-confirms-obamakaine

But the ground game and Internet network would not have existed if Howard Dean had not pioneered them. The whole model for Obama's campaign was Dean's; Obama even brought the 2004 Dean campaign's Internet team to Chicago to build his own network.

When Dean burst onto the scene in 2003, he was the candidate of change who believed the best way to win was to win everywhere. His was a campaign infrastructure that believed it could stand up to the political establishment on the single most difficult issue of that time, the war in Iraq. And it was a campaign predicated on the belief that someone from outside Washington without a long D.C. resume could effectively compete with the resumes that come from Washington because people want change.

Right message, right infrastructure - but, ultimately, wrong candidate.

So, Dean took that philosophy, and the people-power he had built, and elbowed his way past establishment Democrats to become the DNC chairman.

He did not make a lot of friends along the way. The clashes between him and then-chairman of the Democrats' congressional campaign, Rahm Emanuel, were spectacular during the 2006 mid-term elections. Both wanted the same outcome - a midterm sweep of Congress - yet disagreed over the path to get there. Emanuel wanted to stick to targeted districts; Dean fought for possible wins in Bush-weakened swing districts.

Dean prevailed, and so did the Democrats.

Read more: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/11/dr_dean_laughs_last.html#ixzz3IOc9GrYS
Follow us: @RCP_Articles on Twitter


http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/11/dr_dean_laughs_last.html

[simak]

2. It's worse than that.

Even changing things for 2022 will largely require Democrat legislatures to do the redistricting after the 2020 census.

Possessing districts, it seems, is 9/10ths of the law for keeping them.

[PCIntern]

3. Hi and welcome to DU!

Just to note: we generally prefer the term "Democratic" rather than "Democrat" when the word is used as an adjective, i.e. Democratic legislatures.

[Man from Pickens]

5. Craptstic fatalistic excuses

"May as well just give up trying" is the underlying message these excuses are conveying. That's bullshit.

The real solutions for the Democratic Party are in adopting policies that are supported by strong - not thin - majorities of the electorate.

There's no lack of them. Stop the f-ing wars. Stop the spying and relentless intrusions into personal privacy. Stop the drug war and the mass incarcerations that come with it. Stop the flood of lobbyists writing our laws. Stop the rigging of the tax code so that megacorps pay negative rates while everyone else gets stuck with the bill. Stop the militarization of the police. Stop the rampant criminality in the financial sector. Stop shipping our jobs overseas. Stop the price gouging in the healthcare and education industries. Stop the practically-exclusive focus on the most divisive issues and start beating the drum on the things that unite us.

[Blanks]

9. Ron Todd is a moron...

Last fall when the tea party shut down the government - all of the polls showed the democrats would win the midterms. Here we are one year later.

Even with more gerrymandering, demographics change. It's impossible to predict how people are going to vote in future years - there's no way of knowing.

Honestly, the outcome of this election is probably better for the democrats long term. Of course the democrats need to get off their ass and come up with a winnable plan, but control of the House of Representatives has swing back and forth since Reagan won.

Again, Ron Todd is a moron, and clearly in support of the republicans.

I saw him say that and I've been wanting to comment on it ever since he said it.

[dsc]

13. they aren't changing in places like Ohio, PA, and Michigan

especially those GOP districts. The fact is Congress will be a very heavy lift until some form of redistricting occurs. I have no idea what the vote numbers for NC were this time but last time we won a bare majority of the two party vote and a bare plurality of the over all vote and had a 4-9 split with one of our four having won the closest race in the nation. This time we are 3-10 as that guy retired and we were destined to be 3-10 no matter how many votes we got. Price, Butterfield, and the new person out of Watt's district can't lose and no other Dem can win.

[Blanks]

14. People move, people die, people lose their homes...

You can't gerrymander an area and expect it to stay with the same party for 20 years.

The one constant in life is change. The notion that you're gonna create republican districts now and keep them republican forever is a flawed notion.

[Wabbajack_]

17. High POTUS approval rating is key

To the President's party doing well in the midterms.

Bush was popular in 2002, pigs won the Senate.

Clinton was popular in 1998, +5 D in the House, pretty much a tie outside of that.

NYtimes had an op-ed the other day, "Abolish the midterms", not as crazy as it sounds.

[Proud Public Servant]

15. I've lived in Pennsylvania

Those 13 seats are in "Pennsyltucky" the vast rural area between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. They love their guns and their God in Pennsyltucky and they're racist as hell ("Pennsylvania is two cities separated by Alabama" - James Carville), but they also:

* Have seen their jobs shipped overseas (especially with the collapse of the steel industry);
* Live in relative poverty;
* Rely on a vast array of government services, from SNAP and welfare to disability and unemployment insurance;
* Have an aging population and attendant health and eldercare problems;
* Have a drug problem, particularly meth;
* Produce a disproportionate number of military members, and thus vets.

There is no reason -- NO REASON-- we can't win over that population, given that profile; they're natural Democrats. But we won't do it by being the kinder, gentler Wall Street party. A strong, credible message of economic populism, on the other hand, especially deliverd by a credible speaker, just might do the trick.

[AZ Progressive]

18. In order to change this, Democrats have to win over state legislatures in many states by 2020

And there's the problem about big money nowadays.