May I offer up a baseball analogy?
In the 1996 World Series, the Atlanta Braves were trying to defend their World Series championship against the New York Yankees. The Braves won games one and two by comfortable margins at Yankee Stadium, 12-1 and 4-0. The Yankees won games three through five at Fulton County Stadium and then, back in Yankee Stadium, won the series in game six.
I am a Braves fan. After that series, I got to thinking. The Braves scored more runs than the Yankees in the series, because of the comfortable margins in the first two games. The last three games were all close. If the Braves could have moved some of those extra runs in the first two games to the last three games, they would win the series.
In game four, the Braves had an early 6-0 lead, but the Yankees chipped away, tied it up in the eighth inning and won the game in extra innings. So, let's take two of those extra runs from the first game and add them to the fourth game. Then the Braves still win game one comfortably, 10-1 instead of 12-1, and they also win game four in regulation instead of losing it in extras. The two additional runs make the big early lead insurmountable.
Game five was one of the best pitchers duels I've ever seen, won by Andy Pettitte of the Yankees over John Smoltz of the Braves, 1-0. So, let's take another two runs from game one and the Brave win game five 2-1, instead of losing it 1-0. And they still win game one comfortably, 8-1 instead of 12-1.
And the Braves win the series in five games, instead of losing it in six games!
Now, ANY baseball fan — shucks, any Yankees or Braves fan — would agree that this is CHEATING. Brazen, outrageous cheating.
And yet, it is EXACTLY what Republicans do when they gerrymander congressional districts. It's runs and games in baseball gerrymandering, and voters and congressional districts in political gerrymandering.
I've long thought we Democrats should play fairly, making a good example of ourselves as the side that plays the game fairly and honorably in contrast to the many ways in which Republicans brazenly CHEAT. But now, I no longer believe we should refrain from gerrymandering Democratic-leaning states. This situation has reached the point where I believe we are now forced to even the playing the field.
Should Democrats in blue states gerrymander their states to favor Democratic congressional candidates? HELL YES.
— Ron
= new reply since forum marked as read
You have to keep in mind that I am a non sports fan with a sports fanatic husband and in decades together NONE of it has rubbed off on me. He could easily have been a sports journalist or writer and loves to talk about sports but it's not my thing at all. Still, I got the gist of it and totally agree with you. Changing the rules midstream means all bets are off!
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