That's what I Call Blowback

A friend emails me this link, with the comment that it "looks like the Republicans are dumb enough to lose even when they cheat." Heh. Indeed.

WASHINGTON -- Gerrymandering was supposed to cement Republican control of the House of Representatives, offering incumbents a wall of re-election protection even as public opinion turned sharply against them. Instead, the party's strategy of recrafting district boundaries may have backfired, contributing to the defeats of several lawmakers and the party's fall from power.

The reason: Republican leaders may have overreached and created so many Republican-leaning districts that they spread their core supporters too thinly. That left their incumbents vulnerable to the type of backlash from traditionally Republican-leaning independent voters that unfolded this week.

Can we maybe now have a discussion about non-partisan redistricting?

(Don't worry, I'll discover a less-strident form of partisanship in my heart sometime in January. 2009.)