Burnt Orange Report

Redistricting and Football

By Andrew Dobbs

Alright, I'll put up a Dean-themed post in the very near future, but I figure I'll stay on topic and share a handy little redistricting analogy I came up with.

Think of it this way. The Dallas Cowboys line up against the Houston Texans to play a football game. The Cowboys won the toss so they are on offense, the Texans on D and the Cowboys' head coach Bill Parcells takes a look at the Texans' formation. He doesn't like what he sees, so he calls over the ref and says "Hey ref, I want you to eject their strong safety, their middle linebacker and weak linebacker, their nose guard and one of their tackles." Most would expect the ref to tell Parcells to get bent, but in this scenario the ref is owned by Parcells and scared pissless of the guy. So what does he do? He ignores the rules of the game and fair play and kicks out those 5 players, in fact he lets the Cowboys put an extra five players on offense. We'd be outraged, as well we should be.

The Cowboys, of course, are the GOP (I am a die hard, live and breathe fan of the Cowboys and an equally passionate enemy of the Republican Party, but the analogy works) and the Texans are the Democrats. Bill Parcells is Tom DeLay and the ref is Tom Craddick. Those 5 defensive players are Chet Edwards, Max Sandlin, Jim Turner, Nick Lampson and Martin Frost. In sports we realize that there are rules, and you play by those rules whether you like it or not. The rules exist to make sure that everyone has an equal shake and that you win because you are smarter, tougher and more skilled than your opponent. The Republicans don't want to play by those rules- rather than trying to run qualified, intelligent, winning candidates against Democrats, they want to have the ref change the rules and throw them out of the game. Well that is bullshit, top to bottom.

Finally, let's remember that the last time the two teams in my analogy played the Houston Texans pulled out an upset victory over the Dallas Cowboys. The GOP is doing something that no Democrat has ever been able to do- unify all Democrats- black, white, brown, rural, urban, suburban, conservative, moderate, liberal- with one cause and one goal. If we can keep the rules fair and the officials impartial, we might just have a fighting chance next time we step on the field.