Gerrymandering. A word that draws contempt from the right and left. One of the few areas of agreement that everyone agrees should be changed and today that’s a rarity. Few issues are agreed upon these days by the far right and left, auditing the Federal Reserve, crime is bad, terrorism is bad and gerrymandering is bad. The two political parties jockey for control of state legislatures every ten years so as to draw up the most advantageous districts for their respective political parties. And we get dead elections as a result. We end up with Nancy Pelosi, the late John Murtha and 359 out of the 435 districts “safe” for the incumbent.

Florida 8th Congressional District

Florida 24th Congressional District

The average congressional district is made up of 700,000 constituents and the population of Orlando and neighboring Winter Park where these two reside is 258,602. I feel bad for Titusville, New Smyrna, Port Orange, Deltona, Deland, Eustis and rural Marion County but it sure is good for us city dwellers. To be fair I should point out these are two of the 76 congressional districts that are competitive.

So how do you make elections more competitive? One simple way would be to mandate whenever possible any urban with a population over 500,000 have one representative. Urban areas including the suburbs should have one representative if possible. Splitting large urban areas with completely rural areas means one side or the other will not have representation. Urban areas should include the ghetto and the suburbs competing against each other. The rural areas will be huge districts but they will be represented. Does anyone in rural Marion County think they are being represented well by the far left loon Alan Grayson?

Alan Grayson is a city boy and he belongs in Orlando competing with Todd Long for the suburban vote including neighboring Winter Park. Winter Park and Orlando have been best buddies for decades and it makes little sense having two congressional representatives representing each city. But like I said if Todd Long and Karen Diebel win I will not be complaining. Works for me.

What can I say but the devil makes me do it.
I had to laugh out loud when I saw the skirmish over crib notes on the hand of Sarah Palin during her speech this week end.

Sort of a HUGE DIFFERENCE I would say … “HI MOM” …
On one hand (pardon the pun) we have a rather consistently articulate woman who has a few words written on her palm and the President who can not seem to get a word out (other than ummm and ahhh) without a teleprompter.
(for those in Rio Linda who do not know the meaning of articulate … it is the ability to speak in meaningful, clear and effective language … probably without a teleprompter.)

The good news … at least the left does not have anything to grievous to bitch about on the Palin playing field right now … the bad news (for them) … it makes them continue to look petty, cheap and stupid not to mention hypocritical.