AP projecting Mark Sanford the winner of House seat from SC. Not surprising.

Family Values!

It's my fault. They kept begging me for money and I never gave them any.

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All you have to have in SC is the Republican label...plus our 100% unverifiable voting machines built by a Republican company.

barf

wonder who Jenny voted for?

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rankandfile
All you have to have in SC is the Republican label...plus our 100% unverifiable voting machines built by a Republican company.

Maryland is the same - for democrats...

The very conservative candidate won over the conservative candidate. Ho-hum.

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Saint Cloud, Minnesota, where the weather is wonderful even when it isn't.

South Carolina is too small for a republic and too large for an insane asylum." James L. Pettigru, 1789-1863

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Mac-A-Matic

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rankandfile
All you have to have in SC is the Republican label...plus our 100% unverifiable voting machines built by a Republican company.

Maryland is the same - for democrats...

Common now, even you might admit that a south of the Mason-Dixon line state to be solid blue is an exception. Maybe you meant to compare with Michigan or New Jersey, although I'm not sure I can recall any voting machine executives who are declared Democrats.

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"Who's more foolish - the fool or the fool that follows him?" - Obi Wan Kenobi

(Borowitz) Sanford comeback gives hope to liars:

[www.newyorker.com])

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RgrF
Common now, even you might admit that a south of the Mason-Dixon line state to be solid blue is an exception. Maybe you meant to compare with Michigan or New Jersey, although I'm not sure I can recall any voting machine executives who are declared Democrats.

I'm not really concerned about Maryland, The Old Line State, being "south" of the Mason-Dixon Line. That's irrelevant.

Here in Maryland, all you have to have is the Democrat label and you're virtually guaranteed of winning (or maintaining) the seat. Not to mention the blatant and obscene gerrymandering, corruption and draconian approach to laws.

So, while people complain that SC is corrupt and republican (evidently it's corrupt because of the republicans), Maryland is corrupt and democrat (which must mean that it's corrupt because of the democrats).

Of course, both states (and others) lack a semblance of balance in government, which inevitably means corruption.

Single party rule breeds corruption quicker than lettuce brings rabbits. The polarization of politics only promises more of the same. Excommunication of political heretics exacerbates the problem.

It's obviously easier to influence a secure state legislature than one subject to change. Look at the old South and North for good examples.

Political parties are not different than commercial interests, both unrestrained entities tend toward monopoly. Monopoly gleefully breeds corruption.

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"Who's more foolish - the fool or the fool that follows him?" - Obi Wan Kenobi

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Mac-A-Matic

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RgrF
Common now, even you might admit that a south of the Mason-Dixon line state to be solid blue is an exception. Maybe you meant to compare with Michigan or New Jersey, although I'm not sure I can recall any voting machine executives who are declared Democrats.

I'm not really concerned about Maryland, The Old Line State, being "south" of the Mason-Dixon Line. That's irrelevant.

Here in Maryland, all you have to have is the Democrat label and you're virtually guaranteed of winning (or maintaining) the seat. Not to mention the blatant and obscene gerrymandering, corruption and draconian approach to laws.

So, while people complain that SC is corrupt and republican (evidently it's corrupt because of the republicans), Maryland is corrupt and democrat (which must mean that it's corrupt because of the democrats).

Of course, both states (and others) lack a semblance of balance in government, which inevitably means corruption.

I call BS, Mac-A-Matic. I live in MD, and i can say with some certainty that the Democratic Party is hardly a monolith. We've also had a Republican governor in the last decade. Yeah, it's tough for the GOP here, but that doesn't mean that the Liberal Agenda reigns unchecked here. O'Malley took his sweet time getting to support same-sex marringe, and the Democratic legislature was slow to illegalize capital punishment. There's a vibrant political ecosystem here.

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rj
AKA
Vreemac, Moth of the Future

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rjmacs
I call BS, Mac-A-Matic. I live in MD, and i can say with some certainty that the Democratic Party is hardly a monolith. We've also had a Republican governor in the last decade. Yeah, it's tough for the GOP here, but that doesn't mean that the Liberal Agenda reigns unchecked here. O'Malley took his sweet time getting to support same-sex marringe, and the Democratic legislature was slow to illegalize capital punishment. There's a vibrant political ecosystem here.

Let's see, you mentioned a republican governor, Bob Erlich, who backed casinos and slot machines for the state but was stalled at every turn by the General Assembly - as the then mayor of Baltimore described casino gambling as "morally bankrupt."

Fast forward a couple of years and that former Baltimore mayor turned Maryland Governor, Martin O'Malley suddenly came to believe that casino revenue was a great way to fund the state and would lower taxes (lower taxes? In Maryland??? Bwahahahaha!)

Here's an article from The Baltimore Sun on O'Malley's "transformation":
[articles.baltimoresun.com]

As a side note, have you been to Maryland Live! Casino? Table minimums are $50 or $100 and the place is jam-packed. The casino reported $46million in earnings last month. My taxes still haven't gone down - or at least Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake is talking about lowering Baltimore property tax by charging groundwater fees. "Nice."

But that's only one, small slice of Maryland politics. Last year, the democratic party redrew the districts to maintain their power by carefully cutting around republican leaning areas to create democratic majority districts in a process known as Gerrymandering.

Now, since everyone here seems to accept the assertion that South Carolina is a backwater state run under the thumb of republicans (which is bad), let's compare that domination with Maryland.

Maryland General Assembly
Senators: 47
Democrat Senators: 35 (74%)
House of Delagates: 141
Democrat Delegates: 98 (62%)
[en.wikipedia.org]

South Carolina General Assembly
Senators: 46
Republican Senators: 27 (59%)
House of Representatives: 124
Republican Representatives: 76 (61%)
[en.wikipedia.org]

So, to presume that South Carolina is dominated by Republicans and pretend that Maryland isn't the same is just ridiculous. In fact, the numbers bear out that Maryland is worse - that democrats in Maryland control a greater percentage of the Senate (by far).

Now to say that "Maryland is hardly a monolith" - especially when compared to South Carolina, is just not based in reality.

Classic Republican "Do As I Say, Not As I Do."

Prosecuting President Clinton for lying about cheating, billing taxpayers = OK.

Re-electing Sanford, a Republican adulterer, who abused taxpayer money = OK.

Gotcha.

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It feels good to win one and bust the democrats bubble.

Republicans are always grateful when their adulturers are sleeping with a woman.

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$tevie
Republicans are always grateful when their adulturers are sleeping with a woman.

I bet they are like the Muslims when they hear about a terrorist bombings - "Please don't let it be a Muslim." The Republicans are saying, "Please let it be a woman."

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Gutenberg
AP projecting Mark Sanford the winner of House seat from SC. Not surprising.

For Sanford, it was like a walk in the country.

South Carolina sure does like those lieing cheating husbands.

The political makeup of Congress will be unchanged; Sanford replaces Republican Tim Scott, who was promoted to the Senate to replace Jim DeMint, who recently retired to lead the Heritage Foundation and do war against the immigration reform bill. While Sanford was celebrating his victory, DeMint was unveiling a big study showing that immigration reform would cost the country trillions and trillions of dollars. Its methodology was ridiculous, and The Washington Post discovered its co-author had once argued that Hispanic immigrants would have “low I-Q children and grandchildren.” Truly, South Carolina politics is a gift that just keeps on giving.
-Gail Collins

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Our Elections Really Are Rigged—by Gerrymandering and Districting Abuses

Partisan redistricting—not just classic gerrymandering but a variety of structural factors—assures that the vast majority of congressional districts in the vast majority of states produce predictable results. Even if the candidate of the dominant party is flawed, even if a challenger has financial advantages, FairVote executive director Rob Richie reminds us that “partisanship is the dominant factor in determining election outcomes.”

Another reform group, Common Cause explains, “For decades partisan wrangling has led to gerrymandered redistricting maps, collusion among the major political parties to create safe Congressional and state legislative districts, and the packing and splitting of concentrations of voters to weaken or strengthen their influence to gain partisan advantage.”

Common Cause notes, correctly, that the circumstance is growing worse, explaining that “advances in information and mapping technology has enabled a level of precision in district drawing that in effect, enables legislators to choose the voters they wish to represent and makes it difficult for voters to hold their elected officials accountable.”

There’s always been gerrymandering, but we are not at a place where the general process of drawing and redrawing district lines has become definitional: If a district is drawn to elect Republicans, it almost always elects Republicans. If a district is drawn to elect Democrats, it almost always elects Democrats.

Money is influential, personality is a factor.


But nothing comes close to redistricting when it comes to defining the results of elections.

Time for all electoral boundaries to be drawn by an independent commission not beholden to any politician.

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Comedy Central: Best news channel that isn't a news channel.

Fox News: Best comedy channel that isn't a comedy channel.

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Spock
Time for all electoral boundaries to be drawn by an independent commission not beholden to any politician.

Agreed.

Democrats have done dramatic gerrymandering in Maryland. Here's just one district:

Amateur hour compared to Republicans in Texas.

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"Who's more foolish - the fool or the fool that follows him?" - Obi Wan Kenobi



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/09/2013 11:02PM by RgrF.

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RgrF
Amateur hour compared to Republicans in Texas.

Is this to say that it's somehow "okay" when democrats gerrymander states???

If your post was about gerrymandering in general, I'd have stayed out. it was an indictment of Democrats in your home state. Thought I'd balance the scales a bit.

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"Who's more foolish - the fool or the fool that follows him?" - Obi Wan Kenobi

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RgrF
If your post was about gerrymandering in general, I'd have stayed out. it was an indictment of Democrats in your home state. Thought I'd balance the scales a bit.

So what you've "proven" is that republicans gerrymander in states such as Texas.

Unlike a number of the posters here, I don't work under the belief that one party is somehow "better" than the other. There was a condemnation by people here that somehow South Carolina (with it's majority republican) was somehow "bad" - I pointed out that in states such as Maryland, where a democrat majority exists, the corruption is at least the same.

Further, the implication about South Carolina's republican base was that it was (again) somehow "worse" than democrats when, in Maryland, democrats hold a dramatically larger percentage of the state's General Assembly. So, if South Carolina is "bad" because of its republican domination then Maryland must be "worse" because of its greater domination by democrats.

Of course, all of this is very inconvenient for blind liberals who want everyone to believe that only republicans are corrupt.

I'm not an inconvenient liberal, ask your new model max about that. He's pretty certain I'm (in his worst sense of the word) a Socialist. Get a brain, think for yourself.

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"Who's more foolish - the fool or the fool that follows him?" - Obi Wan Kenobi

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RgrF
I'm not an inconvenient liberal, ask your new model max about that. He's pretty certain I'm (in his worst sense of the word) a Socialist. Get a brain, think for yourself.

Liberal, socialist, communist - whatever your chosen philosophy doesn't change the fact that democrats and republicans perform gerrymandering and that its a corrupt practice that should not be tolerated.

"Single party rule breeds corruption..." That's your own quote and while you're quick to condemn republicans for corrupt practices you cannot acknowledge when democrats are guilty of the same.