Dingus Power

» Kuff: Precinct analysis: Even in his own back yard

Any excuse possible to use the phrase "Dingus Power!"

As luck would have it, I caught the percentages back on E-night and knew that Dingus was running ahead of the curve in his district. Kuff breaks out the math and shows just how much he did. Obviously, not enough to win. But I can't say I mind starting with 7-8,000 heretofore Republican voters in the greater Odessa area who disapprove of Tom Craddick.

Meanwhile, Burka introduces an interesting meme that I haven't heard before: that the real culprit of the GOP woes is the 2001 redistricting map. Like I said ... that's a new one. And it sounds like some of Burka's lunch hosts are reaching deep for excuses. The map wasn't a problem in 2002. It wasn't a problem in 2004. It wasn't a problem in 2006. Obviously, when you have the levers of power to expand your legislative hold on the map boundaries, you automatically weaken each district on average. But that doesn't seem to have warranted the excuse as recently as 2 years ago.

Not that I'm going to complain too loudly about this. I mean, if Republicans want to keep excusing their losses away with things that have nothing to do with reality, fine. That just helps us a bit more in 2010.

Oh, and on something of a tangent w/ Burka, there's this Bloomberg story out today that suggests the following (and bear with me here) ... despite a surge in voter participation in 2008, Barack Obama did not win due to a surge in voter participation. The logic there is that since the overall turnout didn't meet some "experts" turnout target, the surge in turnout really wasn't a surge in turnout. Got that? Apparently, the "GOTV problems for Democrats" meme is national. Woe is us!