Posted on 01/15/2006 9:18:39 PM PST by AuH2ORepublican
Marrone changed his mind about running?
Oh boy. Someone better tell that boy to start dressing normal.
It would have worked better if they had put the most of the 66th, 64th, and 55th wards, along with the necessary precincts of the 57th ward into CD8, added Cheltenham, Abington, Lower Merion, Conshohocken, Swarthmore, Levitttown, Bristol, Morristown, Croydon, and Norristown into the Philadelphia-Chester-Yeadon CD's 1, 2, and 3, and taken portions of Wards 35, 56, 63, and 58 for CD 13 in Montco, expanding it into northern Chester County for Gerlach to try to take from Hoeffel. Then you leave Weldon in a better CD 7. Then combine a strip from Reading to Scranton for Kanjorski, and put Murtha and Mascara together. That leaves solid 6 Democrat (3 Philly, 1 Scranton-Reading, 1 Johnstown, 1 Pittsburgh) districts and 13 solid Republican ones (Bucks, Montco, Delco, Lancaster, Bethlehem, Harrisburg, York, Altoona, Erie, Butler, Williamsport, Pittsburgh Suburbs, State College).
Oh well, 2010 should be interesting, with 2 more seats disappearing.
All of Reading should have been added to Pitts's Lancaster CD (putting Reading in Kanjorski's CD makes you have to go through too much GOP turf), which combined with the less Republican parts of Chester would still have given Bush like 59% in 2000. Harrisburg should have been placed in Platts's CD, which would still have been like 60% for Bush. The more Democratic parts of Schuylkill would be combined with Democrat areas from Scranton to Wilkes-Barre and parts of Allentown or Bethlehem to create a ridiculously Democrat district to be fought over by Kanjorski, Holden and perhaps one of the Caseys. Gekas would have been safe in his district, since Holden wouldn't be able to come close to winning there (it would be at least 58% for Bush, as opposed to 56%, and would exclude much of Holden's home base). Excluding part of Allentown or Bethlehem from the 15th CD would make Toomey and his GOP successors much safer.
As for the 3 Philly CDs, I defer to your knowldge about which Philly precincts to include in the 8th, but the trick to making the 6th, 7th and 8th CDs comfortably Republican is to place Bensalem, the Bristols, Morrisville, Falls and Tullytown from Bucks County in the 13th, the more heavily RAT parts of Delco in the 1st CD, and Lower Merion, Narberth, Conshohocton, West Conshohocton, Plymouth, Norristown, Whitemarsh, Springfield, Cheltenham, Abington, Jenkintown, Upper Dublin and Ambler in Montco to the three Philly CDs. I selected for inclusion in Democrat CDs the boroughs and townships that had the lowest ratios of (i) 2000 population to (ii) net votes for someone other than Bush in 2000; e.g., if a borough has 10,000 persons, cast 5,000 votes and 2,000 of then were for Bush, then its Democrat Ratio would be (10,000)/(5,000 - 2,000 - 2,000) which equals 10.00.
Montgomery County is what I hope to God Oakland County does not become.
The Midwest has done a pretty good job keeping suburban counties Republican. Except perhaps for some of Chicago's inner suburbs, the only suburban areas in the Midwest that vote Democrat are those with a lot of black voters (such as parts of Oakland County, MI and St. Louis County, MO). The only white suburbs that have turned into Montgomery County, PA-type Democrat wastelands are those surrounding Boston, NYC, Philly, DC and LA.
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