Conservatives thought they were going to win the 2012 Presidential Election. Instead, they were trounced by Barack Obama for the second time, sending the party off to search if not for its soul, then at least for a way to win a major election. The GOP has long been hostile to anyone that isn't rich, white and male, and with the country trending against that demographic in just about every way, the GOP needs to rethink what it stands for and who it wants to stand for it. It is, the thinking goes, the only way that they can stay competitive on a national level in a post-Obama landscape.
Oooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr they're just going to try and rig the elections.
You know, whatever works. Led by Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus (pictured above), the party is attempting to work state legislatures to award electoral votes by congressional district instead of giving all electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the popular vote in that state. As you're probably aware, Republicans win far more congressional districts in presidential elections than Democrats do, but they (more often than not) lose the ones where all the people are. By making the congressional district containing Armpit, Ohio equal in power to the one that holds Cleveland, the Republicans hope to remedy that problem.
The Huffington Post whipped together this nifty graphic that shows what the 2012 electoral map would have looked like if every state adopted the congressional district plan.
In Virginia, a bill to move to this system will likely soon hit the floor of the State Senate. Of course, very few states — if any — will be stupid enough to adopt this plan, but that's not going to stop the Republicans from trying.
See you in 2016, dipshits.
[via Huffington Post, image via Getty]