Today on my Facebook page I posted a few comments relating to the matter of Anthony Weiner and Congressional Redistricting:
Goo-goo Dick Dadey defends eliminating Weiner's seat: “Those who are not on strong ground are more vulnerable, no matter who draws the line.”
And Jerry Skurnik says Republicans could win it. Anthony’s Exposure: New York Has a Long Hard Weiner Problem | PolitickerNY www.politickerny.com
Kalman Yeger says it would be outrageous to eliminate Weiner's district.
Really. Has he seen a map of it?
What's outrageous is that it exists at all. In actuality, it’s elimination could actually lead to less political fragmentation of Brooklyn and Queens’ Orthodox communities, rather than more. The Brooklyn Politics Blog www.thebrooklynpolitics.com
As with many of my prior posting, this drew heat from the left.
Frankly, I’m a bit puzzled.
Why does the left whine for Weiner?
Because he continued to scream about single payer after it was a dead issue, instead of using his credibility to sell the plan which could pass?
He scammed the lefties but good–The real Anthony is one of our Congressional delegation’s most conservative Democrats. He ran for Mayor to the right of Bloomberg on many issues, including congestion pricing. He’s to the right of Netanyahu on the territories and waffled on the Ground Zero Mosque.
For my money, Gary Ackerman is the better liberal, and I'm glad he'll be saved instead.
But still they persist:
Daniel Millstone: Well, some of us, Gate, oppose redistricting as a tool to get rid of a guy. Don't like his crotch shots? Beat him at the polls, not via the polls.
GATE: Well Dan, that blithely ignores some facts of real life, rather than life as lived in “progressive” masturbation fantasies.
To wit:
1) NYS is losing two seats; because the legislature is divided, and who hold which seats, one loss will come from an Upstate Republican, and the other a downstate Democrat.
2) The tipping point downstate is Queens/Nassau –a Democratic district there is surely going bye-bye.
3) Prior to the recent troubles, it seemed likely Gary Ackerman was going to be combined with Carolyn McCarthy, because they are both old.
4) Age discrimination is at least as reprehensible or more so than discrimination against self destructive liars without impulse control.
5) While one can argue that reapportionment decisions should not be made politically, the reality is that they are.
6) If one was instead doing a platonically ideal reapportionment, one would likely eliminate the white seat in Queens/Nassau which was most aesthetically egregious.
7) That seat is Weiner's.
8) The only way a seat like Weiner's could ever survive resembling the current one is in a process devoid of any considerations but political ones.
9) Weiner understand this, which is why he opposes an Independent reapportionment commission; under any truly independent reapportionment, Weiner's district is kaput; he can only be saved by politics.
10) He who lives by politics dies by politics.
11) Given the dire consequences of the GOP House takeover, Democrats are perfectly justified in eliminating their weakest seat in the endangered catchment area.
12) That seat was Weiner's even before his troubles.
"Beat him at the polls" ?
That argument might be relevant in a non-reapportionment year.
To assert that argument now is symptomatic of an inability to assimilate reality.
Someone is going goodbye.
Please suggest an alternate and superior means of accomplishing that.
And if you do find one, it would probably eliminate Weiner anyway.