Overestimating the blogosphere.

A recent post from Politico gave me a bit of a chuckle. In it they discuss how the upcoming redistricting of Congressional districts across the nation will be affected by new media.

Those bloggers, armed with Census data, software and the collaborative input of their readers, are not going to stand for redistricting plans generated behind closed doors by a few lawmakers and political consultants—they are going to be designing and introducing their own plans into the debate and using their sites to rally support for maps that reflect their own partisan goals.

"Using their sites to rally support for maps."

"Maps."

Seriously?

Now, I appreciate the thousands of visitors I get to 3BP, and I may very well criticize the gerrymandering process as it approaches, but I'm not fooling myself into thinking my blog readers could get fired up about maps and storm the statehouse with torches and pitchforks.

I recognize the power of blogs. 3BP has played an essential role in helping to kickstart a number of stories that went national, from the '08 election voter fraud in Ohio to Jello Stricktaft having his messy mug splattered on Fox News, but one thing we're not expecting is a Tea Party focused on....maps.

Hell, Ohio's Secretary of State couldn't even inspire a Poli/Sci professor to get his class to submit their own maps for extra credit. From back in June:

On Thursday the Ohio Redistricting Competition partners announced the results of the successful Ohio Redistricting Competition, a project years in the making.

[...]

The competition was launched in March 2009 by a partnership of organizations and individuals, including Former Republican State Representative Joan Lawrence, The League of Women Voters of Ohio, State Representative Dan Stewart, Professor Richard Gunther - Department of Political Science at The Ohio State University, Ohio Citizen Action, and Common Cause Ohio.

Only 11 plans qualified to be judged. 14 were submitted. For "a project years in the making."

Hell, if Jennifer, Joan, the League, Dan, Richard, OCA and CCO submit one each that could have been a 50% increase in the number of submissions.

Wow. You can tell the electorate was fired up.

By the way, you can see my submission here.