It helps from time to time to recall the differential distribution of election results as filtered through our system of 50 states and the electoral college. It's complicated but it reminds us that even though public opinion may be skewed toward, say, reforming the health care system, the fortunes of the two parties are so equally distributed that a more conservative democracy may lose in a presidential election yet lose because conservative democracy has a fallback position: stalling, obfuscation and outright lying.
And the winning party may be less than skillful in countering these fallback maneuvers on the part of the losing party.
In time the public may grow so frustrated, disgusted, and mistrustful of the winning party for its inability to deliver on its promises and even administer a punishing rebuke to the winning party in a state like Massachusetts that should have been perfectly safe.When one side loses badly, as the Republicans did in 2008, they can use the Senate, and its small-state bias along with the filibuster to drag out the process forever. In the House the Democratic majority contains a powerful minority of moderate or conservative Democrats who represent districts or states that have an aggressive "red" population.
Hence, an impressive victory in the presidential election my be turned to dust. And of course we will blame the White House instead of a system that requires reforms that are almost impossible to enact.
The best maps are here. They have been prepared by Mark Newman, Department of Physics and Center for the Study of Complex Systems, The University of Michigan.
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