So I stumbled upon a diary on Daily Kos that was posted last week, and found it fascinating. The diarist created the State of Delmarva by taking Delaware and adding the Eastern Shore counties of Maryland and Virginia and then examines the effects on redistricting of on this new state.

At just under 1.4 million residents, [the state of Delmarva] has two congressional districts, gaining one in addition to Delaware’s original at-large district[.]

DE-01 (blue): Rep. John Carney (D) – 64.9% Obama, 33.4% McCain

This very blue district contains all of liberal New Castle County and all of conservative Cecil County, as well as most of Kent County (MD) and parts of Queen Anne’s County and Kent County (DE). (Obviously something would have to be done about those two Kent counties.) Ultimately, it comes out to one of the bluest non-VRA districts in the mid-Atlantic. Carney, who lives in Wilmington, would romp here. Safe Democratic.

DE-02 (green): OPEN – 46% Obama, 52.9% McCain

Due to Delmarva’s concentration of population in the urbanized north, this southern district is considerably larger, including most of the Eastern Shore taken from Maryland and all of Virginia’s portion of the peninsula. Southern Delaware and the Middle Shore are famously conservative, though their red tinge is tempered somewhat by liberal population centers in Somerset and Wicomico counties, as well as the state capital of Dover. It still ends up being a district in which Republicans would be slightly favored, but the area is also ancestrally Democratic and not averse to electing Blue Dogs. Frank Kratovil Jr. might want to take a run here. Lean Republican.

Thinking about scrambling the state boundaries has always been a kinda hobby of mine. Yeah, I’m weird. I have created maps showing the new states of Appalachia (West Virginia and Western Pennsylvania), a unified state of Carolina, North California and South California, the new state of Jefferson (Southern Oregon and Northern California) and Cascadia (Idaho and eastern Oregon and Washington State) a smaller state of Oregon (Coastal Oregon and Washington). The reason is many of our states are at odds culturally with themselves. Chicagoland versus downstate Illinios. Philly v. Pittsburgh v. the Alabama T in the middle. New York City versus Upstate.

Hell, look at Delaware and our above and below the canal battles. Such a battle is not solved with a new state of Delmarva. To solve that, you create a state of Delmarva sans Northern New Castle County, which is added to a new state of Franklin (SE Pa and Southern Jersey). But I digress. What do you think of this? I have always felt Delaware deserved a second congressional district as we approach a million Delawareans. But I doubt it will ever happen unless the state actually gets bigger. LOL.

While we are at it, perhaps some new counties in Delaware. Make Middletown a county seat of a new below the canal county between New Castle and Kent. And divide Eastern Sussex and Western Sussex into two counties. Yeah, yeah, I know, not practical or feasible in this day and age of budget cuts and consolidation. But I dream.

“President Obama called for the removal of Gaddafi. Just want to make sure we’re talking about the same thing before I say, yes I agree, I know I didn’t agree. I do not agree with the way he handled it for the following reason — no, that’s a different one. I gotta go back to… Got all this stuff twirling around in my head. Specifically, what are you asking me, did I agree or not disagree with on what?”

That’s Herman Cain, struggling to collect his thoughts in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, which was videotaped. In the same interview, he came out in support of collective bargaining rights for public employees, a conservative sin graver than any harassment of women. At the link, you can watch the video of his Perryesque Libya answer and his new found love of worker’s rights.

So Cain’s over. He is already dropping like a stone in the polls.

ORC International for CNN. 11/11-13. Republican primary voters. ±4.5%. (10/14-16 results.)

Romney: 24 (26)
Gingrich: 22 (8)
Cain: 14 (25)
Perry: 12 (13)
Paul: 8 (9)
Bachmann: 6 (6)
Huntsman: 3 (1)
Santorum: 3 (3)

An 11 point drop before this interview. I expect Cain to be Bachmann territory shortly. Meanwhile, a new Public Policy Polling survey shows Newt Gingrich taking the lead, with 28%, followed by Herman Cain at 25% and Mitt Romney at 18%. The rest of the field: Rick Perry at 6%, Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul at 5%, Jon Huntsman at 3%, and Gary Johnson and Rick Santorum each at 1%.

“Gingrich’s lead caps an amazing comeback he’s made over the last 5 months. In June his favorability nationally with Republican voters plummeted all the way to 36/49. Now he’s at 68/23, representing a 58 point improvement in his spread since then. As recently as August Gingrich was mired in single digits at 7%, and even in September he was at just 10%. He’s climbed 18 points in less than 2 months.”

So the King (Cain) is dead, long live the King (Gingrich). How long will Gingrich last? I mean, the GOP cannot possibly nominate him, right?

Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.

The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows Romney leading the race with 32%, followed by Cain at 27%, Gingrich at 22%, Paul at 9%, Perry at 4%, Bachmann at 2%, Santorum at 2% and Hunstman at 1%.

“Debates are good, but we’re reaching overload.” — Political consultant Ed Rollins, in an interview with The Hill, noting that “there are going to be 20-plus debates in this primary process.”

Five reasons why Rick Perry will survive … for now.

The County by County breakdown in Ohio from last week, with blue counties voting for collective bargaining and red voting against.

If all publicity is good publicity, the Occupy Delaware people have plenty to be pleased about with yesterday’s News Journal coverage.

“100 Protesters” feels like a large number and for the first few paragraphs the coverage was relatively free of the sneering condescension that NJ editors typically spray all over stories like this.

WILMINGTON — About 100 Occupy Delaware protesters marched through downtown on Saturday, stopping in front of several banks to shout their frustrations over inequality, corporate greed and political corruption.

“Banks got bailed out, we got sold out!” they chanted in front of Bank of America.

“The people, united, will never be defeated!” they yelled at PNC Bank and Citizens Bank.

“We are the 99 percent!” they cheered. “And so are you!”

This fits a trend nationally, as the greatest success of the OWS movement has been to shift the narrative in the media. But the News Journal could not resist in finding the protestors with different agendas:

Other protesters brought different agendas to the march.

Some signs urged an end to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. One pushed for an audit of the “unconstitutional Federal Reserve,” another for an end to genetically modified organisms in the food supply and still another proclaimed “Robin Hood was right.”

Bernie August of Newark said he was most concerned about the threat of nuclear weapons and “the machines of war.” He wore a Soviet Union pin on his black beret and a Malcolm X pin on his fleece vest. He calls himself “a red” but doesn’t consider himself a Communist.

Bernie sounds like exactly the professional elder experienced protestor Liberal Geek spoke of several weeks ago: trying to jump on the bandwagon of the Occupy Movement so as to continue their decades long history of protesting that began in the 60’s. I am sorry Bernie, but you are the type of person who gives the Occupy movement a bad name. Nuclear Weapons? Machines of War? Malcolm X? I’m a Red? Sweet Jesus. Try to stay on topic there Bernie. Indeed, if I didn’t know better, I would have to assume Bernie was a plant from the Republican Party.

So Now we know that Herman Cain actually listens to the voices inside his head.

Cain said he finally realized after much praying that G-D was saying that he needed to enter the presidential race. He compared his situation to Moses, who in the Bible initially questions whether G-D has chosen the right person to lead the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt.

Herman, I knew Moses. Moses was a Jewish prophet of mine. Herman, your no Moses. (with apologies to Lloyd Bentsen)

I just logged in from a demo computer in the Apple store. (If anybody knows another Amish with mad skillz like mine, I’d like to meet them.)

Anyway… there does not seem to be a recession in here.

Herman Cain leads Iowa with 23%, followed by Mitt Romney at 19%, Newt Gingrich at 15%, Ron Paul at 12%, Rick Perry at 9% and Michele Bachmann at 5%. In South Carolina, Cain leads with 26%, followed by Gingrich at 19%, Romney at 16%, Perry at 6%, Bachmann at 5%, Ron Paul at 3% and Rick Santorum at 1%.

And the Republicans are debating for the 4,439th time this evening. This time they will embarrass themselves on the topic of national security and foreign policy.

Since the Occupy Wall Street movement began, it has been hard for the media and ourselves to judge if the protest is working. This is because the protestors don’t have a single leader, or organization, or a list of demands. But this chart may be the only way we can tell that it is working:

It seems like just yesterday that John McCain was the “not Romney.”

And has it really been 4 years since we really first grasped how bigoted and crazy the GOP base had become?

I’m old enough to remember a time before Cain, Bachmann, Newt, and Perry we had a whole roster of other “not Romneys” who had their day in the sun including Fred Thompson, Rudy Guliani, Mike Huckabee and Sam Brownback.

It is as if the GOP has been boiled down to two bricks of highly condensed hatred. One brick of hate for President Obama, and one brick of hate for Mitt Romney. And make no mistake, Republicans know how much they suck. Listen to the baleful tone of this journalistic heavy sigh courtesy of The New Republic:

Take a moment to imagine the following GOP presidential field: two popular, former big-state governors (one a former U.S. Treasury secretary, the other a hero of the conservative movement), two Hall of Fame senators (one of them a former vice-presidential nominee, the other a future White House chief of staff), a former CIA director, ambassador, and party chair, and a couple of miscellaneous House members. Not bad, right? That’s your Republican candidate field in 1980: Ronald Reagan, John Connally, Howard Baker, Bob Dole, George H.W. Bush, John Anderson, and Phil Crane.