I'm becoming increasingly convinced that talk of 2016 is designed to distract from 2014 [View all]

[Cali_Democrat]

Very likely to be a coordinated GOP/Tea Party/Libertarian effort.

They saw what happened in 2010 when Dems didn't go to the polls with nearly as much enthusiasm as 2008 and 2012. They were able to win 2010 in a land slide from the state houses to the US Congress. They were then able to redraw Congressional districts because of the 2010 census and the results were disastrous for Dems:

Despite the fact that Republican Congressional candidates received nearly 1.4 million fewer votes than Democratic candidates last November (2012), the Republicans lost only eight seats from their historic 2010 romp, allowing them to preserve a fat 33-seat edge in the House. Unscrupulous Republican gerrymandering following the 2010 census made the difference, according to a statistical analysis conducted by the Princeton Election Consortium.

<...>

In Pennsylvania, Democratic candidates took 51 percent of the vote across the state's 18 districts, but only five of the seats.

<...>

And Pennsylvania was not alone. According to the Election Consortium analysis, gerrymandering helped Republicans secure 13 seats in just six states – including Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Virginia and North Carolina – that, under normal rules of engagement, Democrats would have won.

<...>
As Rove wrote in a Wall Street Journal column in early 2010: "He who controls redistricting can control Congress."

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-republicans-rig-the-game-20131111

I suggest you read the entire article. It will blow your mind.

The GOP/Tea Party/Libertarians would like nothing more than to turn 2014 into another 2010. What better way than to get Dems to look past 2014 to 2016?

Don't let them distract you.