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six,
We’ve always had gerrymandering. Through relocation, however, we have sorted ourselves nationally into ever more homogeneous communities of people who think, vote, earn, and act more or less the same way. Forgetting gerrymandered district lines, fewer and fewer counties are truly in play in an election.
Totally right re gerrymandering, sixyears. Both parties do it, and often collude. Boundaries should be set by an independent commission.
Six,
A lot of them will be dependent on the amount of drilling that is going on, i.e. the roughnecks are probably not all from the area will move away if the rig is laid down. That said, this is an important new play, and so there will have been an increase in aars, restaurants etc. Also some of the landowners will be seeing the benefit from lease bonuses and royalty checks. There was some older oil and gas production there, but this is amajor increase.
(but who knows, maybe they just built a jail that I don’t know about…)
Bxgrl and MM,
One of the reasons both the Democrats and Republicans are becoming more extreme and polarized is gerrymandering, which is much easier now that we have computers to collect data and draw congressional district boundaries. Gerrymandering protects incumbents and they only have to play to the base in their district. There are probably something like 170 seats in the House that will *never* be Republican and a similar number that will *never* be Democratic. That leaves 95 seats that are in theory open to competition but in reality lean one way or the other – there are probably 40 seats that actually have competitive elections where candidates have to play to the center.
In my own district (Yvette Clarke is my Congresswoman) there have been elections without Republicans on the ballot. This is a shame, and in general elections I usually vote for any non-Democrat simply on the principle that no candidate in America deserves a Stalinist-style 95% reelection.
re MM at 11:24- Yeah! What she said!
Montrose & bxgrl – Well said! Thanks.
dave you have a biscuit joiner?
I went to Bark Hot Dogs last night, it was yummy. Although you can’t just ask for a dog with what you want, you have to order one of the preselected options. they have breakfast options though so I think I’ll try that next.
and snappy, those mashed potatoes sound delicioso.
Etson, would those factors actually create that many new jobs in such a small region? I mean, there’s only X number of people needed to operate an oil well…or is this because it’s shale oil that’s only worth extracting when oil is above a certain price?