Originally posted by rpm
You must live in a gerrymandered district. Both sides were busy at my polling place.
first, thanks RPM, probably the first time in awhile i had to go lookup a word... I have heard it before but I guess I must have forgotten it..
for those that may not know...
Word History: "An official statement of the returns of voters for senators give twenty nine friends of peace, and eleven gerrymanders." So reported the May 12, 1813, edition of the Massachusetts Spy. A gerrymander sounds like a strange political beast, which it is, considered from a historical perspective. This beast was named by combining the word salamander, "a small lizardlike amphibian," with the last name of Elbridge Gerry, a former governor of Massachusetts—a state noted for its varied, often colorful political fauna. Gerry (whose name, incidentally, was pronounced with a hard g, though gerrymander is now commonly pronounced with a soft g) was immortalized in this word because an election district created by members of his party in 1812 looked like a salamander. According to one version of gerrymander's coining, the shape of the district attracted the eye of the painter Gilbert Stuart, who noticed it on a map in a newspaper editor's office. Stuart decorated the outline of the district with a head, wings, and claws and then said to the editor, "That will do for a salamander!" "Gerrymander!" came the reply. The word is first recorded in April 1812 in reference to the creature or its caricature, but it soon came to mean not only "the action of shaping a district to gain political advantage" but also "any representative elected from such a district by that method." Within the same year gerrymander was also recorded as a verb.
And yes, In Bastrop county, things looked pretty equal at both tables, but I didnt hang out very long either... I am going back tonight at 7 for the caucas... I'm hoping for a knock down drag out on the Dems side of the fire station...
