Republican blogger Jason Tolbert commissioned a Republican polling firm to poll Fayetteville residents on the Republican-opposed idea to move the city into the 4th Congressional District. Shazam! Most oppose the idea. I can save them the trouble of polling any of the 200,000 or so people who will have to change congressional districts regardless of the plan adopted and tell them that the majority will similarly be opposed. People like the status quo. Unfortunately, some 200,000 are going to have to move, whether they like it or not.

The Fayetteville-is-holy noise is having an impact on wobbly Democrats, though, and the plan may be scuttled. Thoughts on that: The time to scuttle it was BEFORE, not AFTER after it was proposed. The Fayetteville upset was predictable. If Democratic leaders weren’t prepared to fade that heat, they shouldn’t have proposed it. And if they wilt now, they will have handed the Republicans a template for future successful tantrums on other issues.

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PS — It’s not too late for my plan to take 2nd District into the Delta, perhaps all the way to Craighead County.

UPDATE: Republicans will try two maps in the Senate today. You’d think they’d be unsuccessful in committee, but with weenie Democrats, you never know. The House will vote on the Fayetteville-to-the-Fourth plan tomorrow. If it fails, Rep. Uvalde Lindsey, nominal Democrat, but toady for the NWA establishment, has one of what will be several alternatives. He slices and dices any number of counties, but makes Republicans happy by keeping Fort Smith and Russellville in the 3rd and continuing to screw the 2nd District with removal of Democrat-leaning regions and addition of Republican ones. Republican pollsters won’t be polling anybody in the 2nd about THAT or about his Cleveland County gerrymander.

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