Eschaton reminds us, as if we needed reminding, that the DCCC is bad at the game of electing Democrats to Congress. Gerrymandering explains a nice chunk of the Dem’s deficit, but not all of it. By the way, that counts in the South too. I do not buy that Southerners will not elect a smart Democrat who is good at explaining why they’re the better bet for their jobs/pocketbooks/futures.

If the radically conservative Republican party needs to split apart and reform into one or more responsible sane parties again with a viable center option, so do the Democrats have to be split up, in order to have a real live lefty party. Maybe, just maybe, if the GOP does SCHISM! That will allow the Dems to take stock and do so too. We need a viable Labor/Green/Working Family’s party to push from the left.

I dream of a Congress with members of 3 or 4 parties as well as independents and the subsequent deal making that is the hallmark of a functioning legislature. Lord knows I have bemoaned the compromising nature of lawmaking (the compromise often not actually solving the issue at hand), but our recent experiment with complete stasis and government paralysis has made me nostalgic for crappy deals rather than none at all.

Fingers crossed!