Motley Moose – Archive

This is a part of a series of posts analyzing the 2010 midterm elections. This post will analyze the Colorado Senate election, one of the few Democratic victories that night. In this election,  Democrat Michael Bennett narrowly defeated Republican Ken Buck.

Colorado’s Senate Election

The results of the Colorado Senate election, like many other elections throughout 2010, closely matched the results of President Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential election. In fact, this senate election may have followed Mr. Obama’s performance more closely than any other election in 2010:

Only one county switched hands from 2008 to 2010: rural Chaffee County, which Senator Bennet won by a mere 44 votes.

More below.

By: inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

There’s a common refrain among both parties of the American political system. Members of Group X always vote for the opposing party. But it doesn’t make sense for Group X to be so antagonistic against us. Our party’s policies are actually much more in line with what members of Group X believe. They’re voting against their own self-interest. If only members of Group X woke up and saw the light, they’d be voting for our party all the time.

More below.

This is a part of a series of posts analyzing the 2010 midterm elections. This post will analyze the Pennsylvania Senate election, in which Republican Pat Toomey won a narrow victory over Democrat Joe Sestak in a Democratic-leaning state.

More below.

By: inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

Perhaps no group in America has suffered more from Communism than the Hmong community.

The CIA first recruited the Hmong, impoverished tribes living in the hills of Southeast Asia, to help fight the Communists in Vietnam and Laos. When the Communists won in Vietnam and then Laos, the Hmong were persecuted and sent to camps for their anti-communist role. Eventually many found their way as refugees to the United States. They faced opposition from the Clinton administration, but strong support from Republicans enabled most to come to America as immigrants.

How do the Hmong vote?

More below.

This is the last part in a series of posts examining how to create super-packed districts of one race. The other posts in this series pack Asians, blacks, Hispanics, and whites.

Packing Native Americans

Alone out of all the ethnicities examined, there are not enough Native Americans in the United States to form a majority Native American congressional district. Indeed, Native Americans compose a mere 0.9% of America’s total population.

More below.

This is the part of a series of posts examining how to create super-packed districts of one race. The other posts in this series pack Asians, blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans.

The Districts

The previous post stated that

I drew a lot of districts in the quest for the whitest district of them all. It wouldn’t do the difficulty of this task justice to just show one district. Rather, I will show the five whitest districts of all the ones that I drew. Numbers five and four will be in this post. The top three will be in the next one.

The fifth-whitest district was in the state of Indiana, the fourth whitest was in the state of Kentucky.

Now for the third-whitest district.

#3: West Virginia

Population – 98.2% white, 0.3% black, 0.5% Hispanic, 0.2% Asian, 0.2% Native American, 0.7% other

More below.

This is the part of a series of posts examining how to create super-packed districts of one race. “The Whitest District of Them All, Part 2” can be found here.

The Challenge

The other posts in this series pack Asians, blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans. All of these groups are minorities in the United States.

Whites, on the other hand, compose a majority of America’s population, numbering more than three out of every five Americans.

This makes creating the whitest district possible an extremely difficult task.

More below.

By: inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

Out of all the regions in the United States, the South probably has the most unique and interesting history. Looking at the geographic origins of each president provides a fascinating proxy of Southern influence in America. To do this, I have compiled a table which lists whether each president had Southern origins or not.

Here are the early years of America:

In this table, Southern is defined as simply the former states of the Confederacy. Presidents with two terms get two entries; those with one term get merely one. It is generally pretty clear whether or not a president had Southern origins; the only two difficult cases are that of President Harry Truman (raised in Missouri) and President George W. Bush (who was born in Connecticut but spent most of his life in Texas).

As the table indicates, Southern presidents dominate the early life of the republic.

More below.

By: inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

The Democratic Party has always been the party of immigrants. Even as everything else about the party has changed, as it has turned from a party of Southern whites to the exact opposite, immigrants continue to vote Democratic. In the 1850s the immigrants were Irish-Americans. Today they are Mexican-Americans.

Of course, not all immigrants support the Democratic Party. Many immigrants, such as Cuban-Americans and Vietnamese-Americans, vote strongly Republican. There is a very simple explanation for why this is so, an explanation that requires merely one word:

Communism.

More below.

You currently seem all caught up in the idea of adopting the congressional district system that’s currently used by Maine and Nebraska.  You believe that it would give you a hand up in those Democratic and swing states where you control the legislature and the governorship.  You also know that everyone sees through what you’re doing and realize that it’s nothing more than a naked power grab.  Therefore, I have a little piece of advice for all of you.  Dispense with the pleasantries and formality of democracy.  Dispense with the whole concept of letting the people vote for their president.  Openly, and completely, embrace your naked power grab that attempts to subvert the will of the people and prevent that evil Democrat Party from doing pesky things like winning election.

So, how, exactly, can this be done?  It’s good that you ask.  You claim to love the Constitution and only want to enforce it.  Well, there’s a provision in the Constitution that would allow you to do exactly that.  It’s Article II, Section 1, second paragraph:

Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector.

See these words:

in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct

?

That means you don’t have to hold elections to appoint electors.  You can just state that your state will have their electors appointed by the legislature, rather than by popular vote.  This means that you can just appoint Republican electors and it won’t matter that the people you claim to represent support a Democratic candidate for president and vice president.  You’re just exercising your constitutional authority.  It’s perfectly legal and it’s perfectly undemocratic.  In fact, there’s even precedent for it.  In the early days of the Republic, nearly all states had electors appointed by the legislature and not elected by popular vote.  In fact, it wasn’t until after the Civil War that South Carolina finally gave up that practice and every state saw presidential and vice presidential electors voted in by the people.