LOD: Pushing Politics to Extremes

Scott Mooneyham, a veteran Associated Press reporter and now editor of the daily Insider report about NC politics, has written an important column about two factors that fuel overheated partisan politics – big money and gerrymandered political districts. Those factors need attention to give reasonable politicians a chance to survive polarizing posturing and wealthy narrow interests. Meanwhile, a national report shows that the winners and losers in 2012 Congressional campaigns were determined more by the district lines than by the vote counts. For example, the charts show that Democratic candidates for the 13 US House seats from North Carolina received a majority of the state’s votes, but Republicans wound up winning 9 of the 13 seats. In Illinois and Maryland, Democrats won many more seats than their share of their vote justified.