The Elephants In the Room

What, the Republican presidential nomination contest still isn't over?

When it became apparent that Mitt Romney was going to have a good night on Super Tuesday, I pretty much expected the aura of inevitability to finally shine on him. But Rick Santorum came within a whisker of wining the Ohio primary, and he was also able to claim wins in North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Tennessee - highlighting Romney's problems in the South and the Plains states and revealing a remarkable acceptance these rednecks and yokels have for Italian-American Catholics like Santorum. Romney, going into upcoming contests in Mississippi and Alabama as well as Kansas, admitted he's going into "foreign territory." Conservative voters just aren't warming up to him - there'll be another Ice Age before they do.

That said, President Obama isn't out of the woods yet. He'll have to face negative ads from numerous right-wing super-PACs in the fall, plus a virulent Tea Party ready to turn out for the Republican presidential nominee even if it's a cow. Righties will gladly overlook the flaws of the eventual nominee (Romney) to get Obama out of office. The fact that Obama's poll numbers have improved is irrelevant, especially considering how marginal these improved ratings really are.

Meanwhile, the Republican power grab plot is in full force. A redistricting of U.S. House seats in Ohio, done by Republicans in Columbus with the blessing of Speaker John Boehner (who represents a suburban Cincinnati district) after Ohio lost one seat, forced liberal Democratic incumbent representatives Dennis Kucinich and Marcy Kaptur in a primary contest for the same seat, even though the distances between their respective home bases of Cleveland and Toledo are 120 miles apart. (Their new district snakes along the shore of Lake Erie.)  Kaptur won, ending Kucinich's political career - to the delight of Republicans who were sick and tired of his progressive policy initiatives and to the dismay of Republicans who will no longer have him to kick around anymore. But more Republicans are delighted than dismayed. Kucinich's forced retirement is the latest in a series of GOP efforts to establish a permanent majority in the House of Representatives by eliminating Democratic districts in states currently under Republican control that lost House seats as a result of the 2010 census even as Republican states in the Sun Belt are gaining seats.

Many of these states losing House seats have more Democrats than Republicans, so Democratic votes in Democratic states will be neutralized. In New Jersey, the Eleventh U.S. House District, where I live, was redrawn to include a good part of the liberal Essex County town of Montclair (which was divided between two Democratic districts), but the Eleventh District remains heavily centered in Republican Morris County. Starting in January, the Democratic voters in Montclair who now find themselves in Republican Representative Rodney Frelinghuysen's district can now look forward to a decade of having their positions and concerns underrepresented - or not represented at all.  

The era of Democratic dominance James Carville predicted back in 2008 ended before it even began, and the demise of the Democratic party can't be far behind. Even if Obama wins re-election, the Democrats can't possibly overcome in 2016 the built-in advantages Republicans are creating for themselves in terms of reapportionment and super-PAC money.