Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Unpacking the 17th

By Dave Anderson:


The Republicans have a trifecta in Pennsylvania.  This means they can get pretty aggressive in the 2012 redistricting.  The easiest way for them to do so is to unpack the 17th Congressional District (which is 17 points more Republican than the national average) while packing Democracts into four urban districts.


Right now it looks like the Democrats will hold Pittsburgh and Philadelphia and lose most of the suburban ring districts that are currently swing districts.  The Philadelphia suburban swing districts (6,7,and 8) are slightly Democratic leaning in a neutral environment while the Pittsburgh swing districts (4 and 12) are slightly Republican leaning in a neutral environment. 


Unpacking the 17th of Republican voters and shifting them into a single north/east Pittsburgh suburban/exurban district while sending the Pittsburgh anchored 14th further into the Mon Valley and down the Ohio River towards Ambridge and Aliquippa will create one super Democratic district and a pair of solid Republican districts (R+9 or 10.)  This takes care of the net loss of one House seat due to population loss. 


In the eastern part of the state, the Democrats are already tightly packed into two districts anchored in Philadelphia.  Both of those seats are more than thirty points more Democratic than the nation as a whole.  The Democratic objective if they had a say in redistricting would have been to spread the Philadelphia votes out into the suburban swing districts.  That will not happen.  Any Democratic bastion on the Main Line suburbs will be dumped into the 1st and 2nd Districts so we could potentially see a D+40 seat if the map makers are determined enough. 



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