Pat Meehan (R-Oil Spill)

Delco Dem Dave Landau gets it right when he declared the newly redesigned 7th Congressional District more resembles an "oil spill" than what a congressional district is supposed to look like. It spreads the district out over five counties.

"In the end, it means the people in Delco won’t have the clout they did with the congressman,” said Landau. “The Republicans should be blamed. They are scared to death of the Democrats in Delaware County — that they could run and beat Patrick Meehan.”

Delaware County GOP Chairman Andrew Reilly accused Landau of “playing politics” with his comments. Spencerblog is shocked, SHOCKED! that politics might have something to do with all this gerrymandering. But it is hardly the Delco GOP's fault. As Reilly explains.

“I am disappointed in the new 7th Congressional District and would prefer as much of Delaware County to stay intact as possible with any needed spillover to adjacent Chester County,” Reilly said. “This new district is the result of our district being pinched between more senior Philadelphia congressmen who need to expand into Delaware County to pick up population and more senior Chester County congressmen who are reluctant to yield territory.”

While the state Democratic party whines, most incumbent Democrats have to be quite happy with new map. It protects their seats quite nicely, even if it remains an insult to democracy, not to mention geography.

Somebody get a boom before innocent wildlife are mired in this goo.

UPDATE: Pennsylvania get Sean Trende's vote for "Gerrymander of the Decade."

Republicans in Pennsylvania, however, took a state that is two or three points more Democratic than the country as a whole, and created 12 districts (out of 18) that are more Republican than the country as a whole. They did so by creating what can only be called a group of Rorschach-inkblot districts in southeastern Pennsylvania.

The net result is a map that shores up their vulnerable incumbents, and that may well result in a 14-4 Republican edge by the end of the decade.

Way to go, boys. Shame, in politics, is reserved for losers and minorities.

UPDATE: Of course, I meant political minorities.