OK, this is neither here nor there, but I notice via Phoebe Connelly at TAPPED that a group of four College Republicans has embarked on a cross-country road trip, whose premise is that "Republicans can truly boast to being a coast-to-coast party, with the
ability to travel from the Atlantic to the Pacific without ever
touching a Democrat controlled district." It's true you can do this--even though Republicans control only about 100 miles of the Pacific Coast, in southern California--but they're not doing it. For one thing, on their blog they boast about having already visited Turner Field in Atlanta (in Democrat John Lewis's district) and Lamar Alexander's campaign office in Nashville (in Democrat Jim Cooper's district). Also, they say they will "will proceed through Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa into the Republican strongholds of Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma." They'll be disappointed to learn that Indiana's entire western border is represented by Democrats (Peter Visclosky's 1st District and Brad Ellsworth's 8th), and so is Iowa's entire border with Illinois (Bruce Braley's 1st District and Dave Loebsack's 2nd). So I assume this entire thing is a gimmick to the effect of, "Hey, even though it would be theoretically possible to take a trip across America without touching a Democratic congressional district, we're not going to actually do it because it wouldn't be very fun, but you should pay attention to us anyway!" About what you'd expect from future leaders of the GOP.
Incidentally, it's pretty cool that if Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick picks up the open seat in Arizona's 1st District as she is favored to, Democrats will (for what I believe is the first time in history, though I can't seem to verify this for certain) control the entirety of the Four Corners region (and pretty much the whole Colorado Plateau, except for the Hopi Indian Reservation that's in Trent Franks's bizarrely shaped district because the Hopi and Navajo have traditionally been placed in different districts as a result of historical tension between them).
--Josh Patashnik