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Comment by legitster | Hacker News Reader

I think it's interesting that the actual proposal is RIFE with some really, really bad analysis: https://www.greateridaho.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Grea...

The best example is how they treat averages: As part of their "win-win" scenario: the new average income for the state of Oregon would rise. As if individuals would actually directly benefit from the average arbitrarily going up.

Inversely, one of the benefits of joining Idaho is the lower cost of living vs Oregon, disproportionally averaging the PDX metro area as their own cost of living.

However, the whole thing is chock full of the assumption that everyone would be happier and better off if elections were less competitive. It's such a weird document in that the group is effectively arguing to gerrymander themselves into a less electorally relevant position.

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People who are into this sort of thing are typically not so good at analysis.

Every few years some Republican assemblyman proposes splitting “downstate” NY from “upstate”. (itself a matter of debate in some quarters)

It gets some play with the AM radio crowd, than someone shows the guy the math, and they go back to some other issue.

One day, the math person isn't going to convince them otherwise.

Sure, and then the upstate counties vote to secede, and the state legislature, dominated by the population center they are trying to secede from says no, and under the Constitution that’s explicitly, unambiguously the ball game, even if you have a friendly federal Congress that would have been willing to approve it.

Barring ratification of a federal Constitutional Amendment stripping the requirement for states to approve any erection of new states using all or part of the land of an existing state, none of these “secession from a state to form a new state or join an adjacent state motivated mainly by partisan interests hostile to the dominant parry of the state being seceded from” moves is ever going to go anywhere.

Does this deserve to be flagged? It would certainly if it were aimed at any other group of people.

I get the feeling the people behind the proposal aren't doing it for political gain. It sounds like they are fully resigned to their group's lack of political power in the region, and just want some respite.

Less competitive elections sound great to me. That would imply that whoever won would have good majority support and maybe politics would fade into the background where it belongs.

Like in Russia or China?

How about just like an Eisenhower or Kennedy or Mandela? Competition isn't a good sign in politics, it just means people havent reached a good consensus.

The difference with Eisenhower and Kennedy is that they were elected in eras when people were much more likely to switch their votes between parties - on average elections we were much more competitive.

Competition is the best sign of healthy politics. It means many different ideas are being expressed and debated. Politics is supposed to be an eternal struggle against competing ideas.

Stagnation is death.

Both Eisenhower and Kennedy were moderates who could not get elected in a gerrymandered district because their strategy of appealing to the national center does not work in an idea logically homogenous district.

That assumes there’s some ideal that can be reached or an ideal leader rather than an ever evolving set of solutions.

Competition is vital in politics. What isn’t so good is when nobody can actually win.

Like California? Voters are very liberal, but they hate the Democratic Party.

I’ve lived in Oregon most my life. Not unlike Washington (or many other states), when you get out of the metro areas the voting turns from “blue” to “red” pretty quickly. East of Bend has significantly more in common with Idaho than the valley (Portland, Salem, Eugene) or the coast- in fact there is a section of eastern Oregon even in the Mountain time zone. Once you get 200+ miles east of Portland, you’re closer (and more likely) to go to Boise than you’ll ever come to Portland.

For reference, Baker City, a larger eastern Oregon population center, is approximately 300 miles from Portland and about 140 from Boise. Pendleton may be about equidistant. I’ve got acquaintances and friends that have only been to the western side of the state a few times in their life and they’re more likely to spend their time in Idaho or Nevada than come west.

The way of life out there is completely foreign to most on the western side of the state, and the eastern side thinks the west is full of “crazy liberals”. It’s been that way my whole life, but the last few years have made it seem completely broken.

I spend a lot of time out east, whether it is Idaho or Oregon, I’ll still spend my time out there- but I’d love to find a way to prevent the divorce (that they’ve been talking about since before I was born).

Less competitive elections sound great to me. That would imply that whoever won would have good majority support and maybe politics would fade into the background where it belongs.

Less competitive elections, at the federal level, are where we are now. As House seats have been gerrymandered to favor mostly conservatives (though liberals play the game too), we get more districts willing to elect extremists like MTG who are unwilling to compromise and hold positions anathema to the majority of the country.

Competitive elections should be more likely to result in moderate candidates, and therefore moderate elected politicians. In theory, this eventually leads to more compromise, and hopefully more progress. With extremists on both sides, we get lots of sound-bites, lots of feigned (and maybe real) anger, and not a lot gets done (and by "nothing gets done", I'm talking about things like government shutdowns because recalcitrant conservatives like McConnell refuse to play ball).

The elections aren’t so much less competitive, the competition simply exists at an extreme because there’s no upside to moderation in a partisan primary.

Funny how your criticism of ‘bad analysis’ is actually a clear admission of the plain fact that liberal metros are farming the surrounding counties for revenues and offer nothing in return.

“No sir, your analysis is dead wrong; we’ve built our entire system on the expectation of money flowing from you to us. You are clearly too stupid to understand this. Pay up.”

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