Changes of State Representatives and Electoral Votes in 2012

We are close enough to the 2010 Census time that pretty good predictions should be possible for the states which will gain seats in the House of Representatives and states which will lose seats there.  Since the number of Electoral College votes each state has is the sum of the number of Representatives and Senators they have, this also has possible important implications for the presidential race in 2012.

On 23 December 2009, the Census Bureau made its last U.S. population estimate by state as of 1 July 2009 prior to the census.  If these figures were translated into seats in the House of Representatives, the blog site 270toWin says the apportionment results would be:

Texas +3

Arizona +1

Florida +1, now RED

Georgia +1

Nevada +1, now RED

South Carolina +1

Utah +1

Washington +1

Illinois -1

Iowa -1

Louisiana -1

Massachusetts -1

Michigan -1

New Jersey -1

New York -1

Pennsylvania -1

Ohio -2

The states that voted for Obama in 2008 are in blue and those that voted for McCain are in red.  Meanwhile, the voters in Florida and Nevada have become very unhappy with Obama, so Florida and Nevada are now red.  So, of the now Red States, there is a net gain of projected 2012 Representatives and Electoral Votes of +8.  The loss among the Blue States is -8, for a net swing of 16 Electoral College votes and 16 Representatives to the Republicans.  Of course, this is just a zeroth order estimate with respect to the effect upon the House of Representative's party affiliations.  Redistricting and the quality of candidates will have a major impact on the number of Republican Representatives a state winds up with.  The impact on the re-election chances of Obama is more straightforward.

There is something else to observe here.  People go where they can find jobs.  The Red States are clearly creating many more jobs than are the Blue States.  There is a long-term downside to being the more highly socialist party.  The Party of Mass Destruction, the Socialist Democrat Party, is very effective in destroying the business climate and in destroying jobs.  When jobs are killed, as in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, and Illinois, people have to move away to states with jobs.

This is just a snapshot of the jobs issue, but if one weights the state unemployment rate of November 2009 by the absolute number of Representatives projected as gains or losses, the average now Red State unemployment rate for those changing number of Representatives is 10.24%.  That for the now Blue States changing representation is 10.92%.  By November of 2009, the huge sums of money sent to Wall Street for the bailout had surely kept employment from falling as much in NY and NJ as it otherwise would have.  A huge amount of bailout money was transferred to the auto industry in MI as well.  Since the stimulus bill was mostly a long-time wish list of Democrat special interest funding, more of it went to Blue States than to Red States.  Nonetheless, the Red States still had a lower weighted November 2009 unemployment rate!

Who Is Shirking Their CO2 Emissions Responsibilities?

Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has just been in India trying to get India to sign on to a commitment to reduce their CO2 emissions. She apologized for the high CO2 emissions of the United States. Indian officials made it clear that India would not make a pledge to reduce its emissions, but joined in the criticism of the U.S. for its high emissions. India maintains that because the per capita CO2 emissions of the Indian population are very low, there is no reason to criticize India.

While I applaud India for not pledging CO2 emission reductions, they are terribly wrong that there is no reason to criticize India. Here is why:

• Global warming is no longer occurring.
• It was not primarily due to CO2 emissions when it was occurring.
• CO2, far from being a problem, is a great boon to mankind by virtue of its role in greatly enhancing plant growth.
• Increased plant growth means increased food and oxygen production.

Thus, Americans are valiantly producing large amounts of wonderful CO2 on a per capita basis, while Indians are sadly failing to do their fair share. We Americans are increasing their per capita food production far more than they are increasing ours. We Americans are increasing their per capital oxygen supply far more than they are increasing ours. Americans are giving the world a great gift which is not adequately reciprocated by most of the people of the world!

So which country's people are doing the most yeoman work in producing this great gift of CO2? Using the estimates for each country for the year 2004, they are (in metric tons per person)

1 Qatar 69.2
2 Kuwait 38.0
3 United Arab Emirates 37.8
4 Luxembourg 24.9
5 Trinidad and Tobago 24.7
6 Brunei 24.1
7 Bahrain 23.9
8 Netherlands Antilles 22.2
9 Aruba 21.3
10 United States 20.4
11 Canada 20.0
12 Norway 19.01
13 Australia 16.3
14 Falkland Islands 14.8
15 Nauru 14.2
16 Estonia 14.1
17 Faroe Islands 13.8
18 Saudi Arabia 13.4
19 Kazakhstan 13.3
20 Gibraltar 13.0

29 Israel 10.8
30 Russia 10.5
34 Japan 9.84
37 United Kingdom 9.79
38 Germany 9.79
39 South Korea 9.77
43 Netherlands 8.74
52 Italy 7.69
59 Venezuela 6.57
61 Iran 6.31
63 France 6.2
66 Sweden 5.89
69 Switzerland 5.47
82 Mexico 4.24
91 China 3.84
120 Brazil 1.80
123 Indonesia 1.69
133 India 1.20

As we can see, no people compare to those of Qatar in producing huge quantities of the beneficent CO2 at 69.2 metric tons of CO2 per person! Then Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates are by far the next best performers. Then there are the people of such countries as Luxembourg, the United States, and Canada who produce very healthy amounts of CO2 per person in the range from 25 to 20 metic tons per person. Now note that the people of Japan, the United Kingdom and Germany do not even contribute as half-way decent an amount as 10 metric tons per person! The ever-critical French are miserable CO2 producers at a miserly 6.2 metric tons/person. The Chinese cannot even manage a contribution of 4 metric tons per person. Brazil cannot manage a contribution of 2 metric tons per person, while India proves that its people are absolutely incompetent in producing CO2 emissions at a minuscule production of 1.2 tons per person.

So, how did Hilary Clinton get all of this backwards? I cannot imagine, but it sure is entirely consistent with the persistent wrongheadedness of the Democrat Party and the Obama administration. They get everything backwards.

So hooray for the many wonderful producers in the United States and Canada who are contributing so much to world plant growth! Boo those people in Japan, Britain, Germany, and France who cannot contribute even half as much. Then I really do not know what to say to those people of the undeveloped world such as China, Brazil, and India who cannot contribute as much as a fifth as much as Americans and Canadians. They are pathetic CO2 producers.