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.Continue reading "Back to the election maps and the future" »