There appeared to be two forces at work here, and are occurring at the state level.

First, If you have partisan primary elections, the attendance is very low, and skewed toward the extreme right in the case of Republicans, as well as the extreme left of Democrats; Ed described these individuals as “ardent voters.”

Second, is the extreme gerrymandering which occurs at the state level. Apparently, this has been engaged upon by both major political parties.

Ed suggested that gerrymandering needs to be stopped, and be reversed. He stressed that once that it had been made illegal, that the process of redistricting should be strictly carried out by a bipartisan committee.

 He also noted that there are states that have gotten rid of the partisan primary. He gave the example of Alaska; he noted that Sarah Palin (as an extremist, not by party affiliation) has been defeated twice in her efforts to be elected as the single US house of Representatives legislator, that is assigned to Alaska (Alaska’s total population as well under 1 million citizens).

In regards to gerrymandering, Ed presented two examples, one for each major political party.

Asheville, North Carolina is a “blue city in a red state.” The city was divided up into three districts, each of which contained roughly a third of the entire state. As the result, all three strict reliably vote Republican.

Also, Ed gave an example of another state which has been successfully gerrymandered to the advantage of the Democrats.

He noted that actions have been referred to as “packing” and “cracking.”