The name of the piece that wins him this award is 'The Democratic Party's Long Term Problem is Worse Than You Think' where he basically seems to think that the Democrats have such large 'structural issues' that they'll never win the House again.
"As I noted this morning, anyone who cares about the future of the Democratic Party needs to ask whether the party’s elders and wise men are thinking hard enough about how to regain ground on the state level. That would make it more likely that the next round of redistricting battles, in 2020, could help Democrats win back the House in the face of population shifts and GOP redistricting successes that have gamed the national map in favor of GOP control. This process needs to start now.
If you look a bit more deeply into the problem, though, it appears even more daunting than you might have expected."
"Today I chatted with David Wasserman, who closely tracks House districts for the Cook Political Report. Wasserman recently wrote that due to population shifts and redistricting that have resulted in huge concentrations of Democratic votes in Dem districts — wasting a lot of those votes — Democrats can now expect that the percentage of seats they win will consistently trail their victory in the overall popular vote by about four percentage points."
"The starting point for changing it, Wasserman notes, would be in the big swing states that President Obama carried in 2012. Even though Obama won them, Dems still hold far fewer legislative and Congressional seats than Republicans do. In Ohio, the breakdown of seats in the next Congress will be 12 Republican, four Democratic. In Pennsylvania the breakdown will be 13 Republican, five Democratic. Those two states, Wasserman notes, are particularly lopsided because Democratic districts are “heavily urbanized,” with huge numbers of Dem voters concentrated in them around Columbus, Cleveland, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh.
"Meanwhile, in Michigan the breakdown will be nine Republican, five Dem. In Wisconsin the breakdown will be five Republican, three Democratic. In North Carolina it will be 10 Republican, three Democratic."
"In all of those states, Republicans control the state legislatures. In all but one of them — Pennsylvania — Republicans also control the governor’s mansions."
“If Democrats were to get neutral maps drawn by God in all 50 states, they would still fall well short of winning back the House,” Wasserman concludes. “What Democrats really need is a massive resettlement program.”
"Of course, Democrats can hold power in Washington by winning the White House next time, or winning back the Senate, or both. But even if they do win those, the Dem agenda will continue to be frustrated by GOP control of the House. And if they don’t win those, we’re looking at total GOP control. Ironically, the Democrats’ best near-term hope for winning back the House may be a Republican president who is unpopular enough to trigger big Dem wave elections, like those in 2006 and 2008."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/12/08/the-democratic-partys-long-term-problem-is-worse-than-you-think/
Thanks a lot Greg-this is not what we pay you for! No question the problems the Dems currently face are formidable-though the GOP faces just a few problems of its own, like the fact that the number of Republican voters are shrking while the number of Democratic voters are increasing. Of course, that doesn't help the Dems quite as much as it should as the Dem voters are badly placed as one Sargent commenter shows.
"Michigan's gerrymandering is pretty amazing. For example, Dems received the most votes in the state and federal houses but only 43% of the seats in the state house and 36% in the federal house. Dems received 49.3% of the state senate votes but only 29% of the seats."
Michigan has a referendum option and like California, this is the only possible solution to the obscene gerrymandering in Michigan.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/12/08/the-democratic-partys-long-term-problem-is-worse-than-you-think/
I don't know if this following commentator is right but he at least offers some hope where Sargent offers none.
"I've been making comments about this on this blog since the 2010 election.
How can the Democrats, Greg Sargent and the rest of the 'national' press be so dim?
Has it never occurred to them that that re-districting is everything? Urinate on changing demographics. With the kind of gerrymandering Republicans do, demographics mean nothing. Duummies.
"What Democrats need to do is become the anti-gerrymandering party. Everyone hates gerrymandering (except the people who want a majority minority district while being oblivious to the fact that means they will NEVER be in a majority party) and most Republicans are probably oblivious that THEIR party has taken it to this extreme. "
How can the Democrats, Greg Sargent and the rest of the 'national' press be so dim?
Has it never occurred to them that that re-districting is everything? Urinate on changing demographics. With the kind of gerrymandering Republicans do, demographics mean nothing. Duummies.
"What Democrats need to do is become the anti-gerrymandering party. Everyone hates gerrymandering (except the people who want a majority minority district while being oblivious to the fact that means they will NEVER be in a majority party) and most Republicans are probably oblivious that THEIR party has taken it to this extreme. "
"The Democrats need to start pushing for non-legislative bipartisan redistricting commissions NOW. They need to prefile bills in every state NOW."
"The goal should be ending as many safe districts as they can and making as many competitive districts as they can. That could mean a re-settlement plan may not be necessary - envision a wheel spoke radiating out from urban centers to get the district as evenly split as possible."
"The goal should be ending as many safe districts as they can and making as many competitive districts as they can. That could mean a re-settlement plan may not be necessary - envision a wheel spoke radiating out from urban centers to get the district as evenly split as possible."
"The added benefit of competitive districts is that it should increase voter turnout to make sure your guy wins. Do this or we continue the slide into Libertarian fascism."
I have to say that if the only hope is 'massive resetttlement plan'-then why were the Dems able to win House majorities prior to 2010? The answer given here is often that in this case Bush and his Administration were so unpopular that the Dems were able to take advantage. Speaking of Bush, it's funny, I'm currently on a reading jab about him, reading about him and his relationship with Cheney particularly.
https://read.amazon.com/?asin=B00CK8CJVS
At this same moment, ole W is back in the news again.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/08/us/politics/bush-and-cia-ex-officials-rebut-torture-report.html?_r=0
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/12/08/why-the-upcoming-battle-over-the-senate-torture-report-is-such-a-big-deal/
Even if this theory is true, it shows that the GOP advantage in the House-assuming it exists-is not insurmountable. I'm a little skeptical. I do agree the Dems face some structural issues but think the GOP faces worse ones and that there is too much of a tendency to do what Keynes warned us of in predicting the future; we have an innate tendency to bias to believe it will look too much like the present and the recent past. It's just like football. Most years when you ask the pundits and prognosticators who they think will win the Super Bowl it's last year's champ or the team that played it in the SB or other teams that went far in the playoffs who are at the top of every list.
Nevertheless, clearly there are some real problems that hopefully someone in the Democratic party is thinking about. Gerrymandering and redistricting is a legitimate perpetual problem.
P.S. Logically though it makes more sense to agree with the commentator who says its restricting than Sargent wallowing in talk of a resettlement plan-as the latter amounts to praying for rain.
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