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So apparently it’s all over. I actually missed it, last week, thanks to various distractions and a relatively cryptic headline, and was still planning to go look for a petition to sign this week until I checked out the party web site and saw this.

I suppose I’ll start with the good news, because there isn’t much of it: it’s probable that this broad-daylight heist of congressional representation will at least be a catalyst for major reforms to the redistricting process here, simply because the stink has probably gotten too awful to ignore.

Which leads directly to the bad news, of course, the foremost item being that this outcome still really, really stinks.

That's about the reality of it

As an appropriately bitter and disgusted Thomas Suddes writes, “Substitute House Bill 369, Ohio’s new congressional map, tilts so far in favor of Republicans that the Leaning Tower of Pisa appears perpendicular.”

If the number crunchers have it right, Substitute House Bill 369 — the new Ohio congressional map — probably will award 12 of the 16 districts (or 75 percent) to Republicans. Yet even in 2010, a very good anti-Obama year for Ohio Republicans, who regained some of their 2008 congressional losses, the GOP captured 56 percent of the statewide congressional vote — not the 75 percent the new Ohio congressional district map implies.

And 75 percent isn’t politics as usual. That’s larceny.

And it’s now the law, locked in for the next five congressional elections; if this leads to reforms that may arguably be worth it in the long run, though it’s certainly a high price to pay. What happened?

Party Chairman Chris Redfern’s only official comment is a mealy-mouthed declaration of “victory” in the form of compromise progress, but the fact is that John Boehner basically got his way; nothing substantive appears to have been given up by the GOP in this “compromise” map. As I’ve said before, a pile of cow shit with a cherry on top is still a pile of shit.

In examining what happened to Democrat resistance efforts, the Plain Dealer‘s item offers these suggestions:

For one, Republicans were ready to force Democrats to vote on the primary unification bill without the map as part of the deal–essentially daring them to be the roadblock to eliminating $15 million in costs from two primaries.

But House Democratic members were also unsure whether Ohio Democratic Party chief Chris Redfern could gather the signatures needed to force the first map to the November 2012 ballot, which helped make the decision to fold their hand easier, one lawmaker said.

“It’s to bail the Republicans out of having two primaries and to bail Chris Redfern out,” said one Democratic House member who asked to remain anonymous. “That’s what is going on today.”

So, in a lot of ways, what happened here is what usually seems to happen: Republicans played hardball, tied Nell to the railroad tracks, and cackled away when Dudley Democrat ended up signing away the farm after all, rather than bear the responsibility for Snidely’s hostage being run over by a train. Never mind the fact that accommodating terrorist* demands simply encourages further terrorist activity.

And yet, as familiar and reliable as this story seems by now, I don’t think it’s quite enough by itself in this context. After all, fact is that Democrats seemed to be on a roll in Ohio. Union-busting was body-slammed last month, and voter suppression was successfully forced onto a referendum. Then, suddenly, we just ran out of gas.

Or, from what it sounds like, we ran out of cash; cold and holiday distractions have probably played some role, as has general fatigue, but the lack of funds to hire professional signature gatherers for a third referendum drive seems like it was critical. Which was basically what I feared, though it’s still as crushingly disappointing to me as it must be heartening to the reactionary fiends; for Boehner, Kasich et al. this has to feel very close to answering “check” with “checkmate.”

Meanwhile, I have to ask: where did all our allies go? The successful campaign against Issue 2 was supposed to have re-energized unions as a political force, here in Ohio, and rebuilt their alliance with the state Democratic party into an efficient machine which would be a major advantage for Obama in 2012. Given that whatever assistance union organizations may have offered on redistricting proved woefully inadequate and from my vantage point basically invisible, however, I have the feeling that it’s really dopey to count on any kind of momentum from Issue 2. I always thought that was overly optimistic, and this seems to prove it. It looks rather more like the grand alliance was simply a temporary marriage of convenience.

Whereas the GOP’s pile-on strategy of slamming opponents with one atrocious power-grab after another after another seems, if not a complete success, still effective enough that they’re hardly going to have a change of heart and abandon it for genuinely-positive reforms any time soon.

Bottom line, Ohio may be a “purple” state, but the red seems to have effectively tied the blue up inside of a sack.

* Oh, is using the term “terrorist” to describe domestic political opponents inflammatory and wrong, regardless of whether they are employing terrorist methods? Gee, gosh, “my bad.” So sorry. Darn old reality-based thinking.

So, where are all those voices which were pontificating on the virtues of divided government, about a year ago? What’s happened to all of you?

Don’t any of you want to tell us again how divided government is not only preferred by Americans but, in fact, genuinely for the best as it enforces compromise?

Anyone…?

Hm. I wonder what can have happened to all of those people.

To the presumable distress of dictators near and far, the “Arab Spring” appears to be rumbling on, even if its name is more and more awkward, chronologically. As of this week, it seems safe to say that at the very least, Qadaffy’s prospects for hanging onto power are just-above nil. And fears that foreign intervention would prove both messy and ineffective, both, are now giving way to sighs of relief. And, inevitably, to questions about what to make of all this.

Juan Cole has basically said, “this was a valid mission, pursued appropriately and can, up to this point, be called good,” and his opinion carries a lot of weight with me. I find the arguments raised by Cole (and others) as to why this should not be regarded as “Obama’s Iraq” convincing, on their own merits, and I think the established fact that Cole is far from unwilling to criticize Obama is worth something, as well.

Meanwhile, though, I have seen examples of leftish, and libertarian, criticisms of the mission in Libya for further-eroding our Constitution. And my own attitude is rather mixed, on this point.

On one hand, I believe in Constitutional government and, more specifically, in legislative approval before the commander-in-chief can order military action. And more generally, I believe that Obama is by no means perfect, and that measured criticism is valid and indeed important, even from progressives; we can’t let “our guy” off the hook automatically if we’re to stand for anything other than ourselves.

On the other hand, well, reality check, gang. When it comes to presidents circumventing congress to send “troops” abroad, Barack Obama’s contribution has thus far been both minor and very, very late in a historical context. (more…)