I know some folks from our local DFA group and
www.pafrordemocracy.com will be there Wednesday
night. Do you want someone else to live blog?

change "no impact" to "only positive impact"

Using funds for GOTV, etc. can only help everyone on the ticket.

Peterson's sprawling district includes 16 counties including the towns of Lock Haven, Williamsport (part), Bellefonte, State College, Dubois, Punksutawney, and Clarion.

Platts' diatrict includes Adams, York, and  Cunberland counties.  The district includes the towns of York and Gettysburg.

Sherwood's district in Northeast PA includes includes nine counties and parts of 3 others.  Towns include Sunbury and Williamsport (part) as well as Sherwood's home town of Tunhannock.

Any takers here?

Unfortunately, mid-terms usually don't generate the same excitement that presidential elections do.  If we can't successfully nationalize this, there are a couple of ways we can split the difference:

1.  Concentrate donations and activism on candidate facing the most offensive members of the Republican Party, including the leadership. For this to work, we would need to effectively make the case that the actions of the members have hurt people across the country, not just in their own districts.

2.  Concentrate donations and activism in Congressional districts in States where Senate seats will be up in 2006 in order to generate support for both Congressional and Senate candidates.  

Don Sherwoood's district includes more Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Harrisburg and other large city residents than most folks understand. But while they are counted in Sherwood's district for apportionment they are not voting there because they are all imprisoned there. Sherwood, co-chair of the GOP House Incumbent Retention Committee, maintains his own incumbency by mass disenfranchisements and forced minority population shifts thanks to the drug war.

SEE MY PAGE: Pennsylvania -democracy incarcerated-

The New York Times last year described these GOP tactics this way. "The practice recalls the early United States under slavery, when slaves were barred from voting but counted as three-fifths of a person for purposes of apportioning representation in Congress."

Sherwoood's district was gerrymandered to avoid the more politically and socially diverse urban areas. The apportionment is made up by counting the prison populations in his district. The district is also drawn to encompass many of the state and federal prisons in the state. While there are 19 congressional districts in PA Sherwood's district is home to more than 22% of the state and federal prisons in the state.

SEE MY PAGE: Pennsylvania -democracy incarcerated-

The page includes a state senate/U.S. congress district map with all of the 35 prisons in the state located.

Including the 8 prisons that give Sherwood an electoral edge without his having to campaign in more politically and socially diverse communities.

This is how the American right wing has subverted American democracy so that only right wingers can win a majority in America.

I have written more on this at LeftIndependent blog: Incumbent Retention the Republican way