MARCH 2014
terest. Whether that’s going to result in better
representation for the people of Mobile, AL,
is a political question. By that, I mean, if you
think the Chamber of Commerce Republican sometimes compromising sometimes
with union people and not being interested
in shutting down the government in order to
repeal Obamacare is going to result in better representation for working class people
who don’t have money, then you cheer
money in that race because that’s what it
got you. On the other hand, if you believe
that the problem with this country is that the
federal government is over regulating the
economy, stifling job growth, and rewarding
laziness, and if we just stopped doing that,
all of the working people of this country
would be better off, then you would lament
the role of money in that race. Money is important. Gerrymandering is important. But
the way these things work out in the races
we’ve seen—I know four pretty well, and I
have a sense of ten—is not playing out according to the conventional media script.
VPR: You mentioned gerrymandering.
Do you believe gerrymandering is the
cause of some of the polarization that we
have in today’s Congress?
Gerrymandering isn’t very much involved in polarization that we have. Political scientists have intensely studied this, and
they have always come to the conclusion
that gerrymandering makes only a modest
contribution to the polarization of politics.
We have an interesting experiment going
in Ca