If it's a center-right country, why cheat?
by David Atkins
Mitch McConnell on President Obama's second inaugural address:
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican minority leader, called the address “basically a liberal agenda directed at an America that we still believe is center-right.”
Sure. Here's what Republicans are actually doing to reinforce this belief:
Virginia Republicans Ram Through Redistricting Plan While Black Civil Rights Veteran Senator is Out of Town
And this:
Specifically, Priebus is urging Republican governors and legislators to take up what was once a fringe scheme to change the rule for distribution of Electoral College votes. Under the Priebus plan, electoral votes from battleground states such as Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin and other states that now regularly back Democrats for president would be allocated not to the statewide winner but to the winners of individual congressional districts.
Because of gerrymandering by Republican governors and legislators, and the concentration of Democratic votes in urban areas and college towns, divvying up Electoral College votes based on congressional district wins would yield significantly better results for the GOP. In Wisconsin, where Democrat Barack Obama won in 2012 by a wider margin than he did nationally, the president would only have gotten half the electoral votes. In Pennsylvania, where Obama won easily, he would not have gotten the twenty electoral votes that he did; instead, under the Priebus plan, it would have been eight for Republican Mitt Romney, twelve for Barack Obama.
Not even Republicans believe that this is a center-right country anymore (if it ever was.) They know better. That's why they have to cheat to stand a chance.
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