Misinterpretation Arising from “Winner Take All”

I’ve been trying to avoid political posts since the post-mortem post, but something in today’s paper just got to me. In an article about the Speaker of the House, John Boehner, and his desire to stand firm on taxes there is the line:

Even though election-day exit polls showed most Americans have said they prefer the president’s approach — asking upper-income households to pay higher taxes — Boehner believes his party similarly won a mandate against tax hikes as the majority party in the House.

Boehner’s belief that he has a mandate based on the house majority is wrong. House seats are essentially winner take all: If a Republican is elected to represent a district, that does not mean that the district all agrees with that candidate. Further, the “winner take all” effect for congressional districts is amplified by the effect of Gerrymandering. In most states, districts have gone to particular parties because they were specifically drawn to permit that party to win. In some districts, there was no opposition to vote for. That, my friends, is not representational government. The article on Gerrymandering pointed out that overall, more Democratic votes for congress were received than Republican votes, and that wouldn’t surprise me either.

By the way, this goes both ways. Looking at the electoral map and numbers (332 to 206), you might think there was a strong Democratic mandate. You would be wrong. Here’s a map (h/t David Bell) that shows the states deformed to reflect population:

As you can see from this map, things are pretty much equal (especially when you realize Florida should be blue). Want more evidence? Here’s map showing voting by county where the shading along the line from blue to red represents the vote (h/t to Cousin Cole on Facebook for the original post of the map):

The point — which politicians seem to conveniently forget — is that there is no mandate for either side. The country is pretty evenly divided: who we wanted for President, the makeup of the senate, the voting for congress. This means that the best solutions are the ones that exhibit understand and concern for all sides, that include concerns and ideas from both parties, and that neither party is happy with. Far too often, we forget that a compromise is a solution that neither side loves, but that all sides are willing to hold their nose and live with. Obamacare would fall into that category, only the Republicans moved the goalpost at the end.

 

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