Redistricting is a deeply political process, with incumbents actively seeking to minimize the risk to themselves (via bipartisan gerrymanders) or to gain additional seats for their party (via partisan gerrymanders).

First, his job approval ratings have been trending down for many months, a trend that has accelerated in recent weeks as the war on terrorism has been supplanted in the public's mind by corporate scandals, stock market declines, and a growing sense of economic insecurity.

Second, the President's popularity has not translated into increased support for the Republican party or for the policies and approaches on domestic policy championed by the President.

Presidents are elected not by direct popular vote but by 538 members of the Electoral College.

In addition to the decline in competition, American politics today is characterized by a growing ideological polarization between the two major political parties.

Redistricting is a deeply political process, with incumbents actively seeking to minimize the risk to themselves (via bipartisan gerrymanders) or to gain additional seats for their party (via partisan gerrymanders).

The public's evaluation of the job George W. Bush is doing as president changed dramatically as a result of the horrific attacks of September 11 and his response in leading the country on a campaign against terrorism.

But presidential approval also became a surrogate measure of national unity and patriotism.

Congress requires states to draw single-member districts.

Votes in federal elections are cast and counted in a highly decentralized and variable fashion, with no uniform ballots and few national standards.

A healthy degree of party unity among Democrats and Republicans has deteriorated into bitter partisan warfare.

In the House, Republican prospects have been buoyed by several successful rounds of redistricting, which have sharply reduced the number of competitive seats and given the Republicans a national advantage of at least a dozen seats.

Responsibility for overseeing the implementation of election law typically resides with partisan officials, many with public stakes in the election outcome.

Further-more, partisan attachments powerfully shape political perceptions, beliefs and values, and incumbents enjoy advantages well beyond the way in which their districts are configured.

The increase in straight-ticket party voting in recent years means that competitive congressional races can tip one way or the other depending on the showing of the candidates at the top of the ticket.

All of this suggests that while citizens became more comfortable with President Bush after September 11 and thought him to have the requisite leadership skills, they continue to harbor doubts about his priorities, loyalties, interests, and policies.

America is an outlier in the world of democracies when it comes to the structure and conduct of elections.

While Republican voters have remained universally supportive of their President, Democrats and Independents are returning to a more naturally critical stance.

With the parties at virtual parity and the ideological gulf between them never greater, the stakes of majority control of Congress are extremely high.

Democrats do best in urban centers, Republicans in outer suburbs and rural areas.

I don't believe in a golden mean; I don't believe you find policy wisdom between two polar points. I don't dismiss that possibility, but I look at the platform that's so ideologically based, that's so dismissive of facts, of evidence, of science, and it's frankly hard to take seriously.

Incumbency adds a layer of advantage on top of this party dominance. But rather than foster an environment in which members of Congress feel free to buck popular sentiment and wrestle seriously with the problems confronting the country, it reinforces the ideological divide between the parties.

Mandates are not objective realities but subjective interpretations of elections sold successfully by the winning candidate or party.

Partisanship particularly increased after the 1994 elections and then the appearance of the first unified Republican government since the 1950s.

Party and ideology routinely trump institutional interests and responsibilities. Regular order - the set of rules, norms and traditions designed to ensure a fair and transparent process - was the first casualty. The results: No serious deliberation. No meaningful oversight of the executive. A culture of corruption.

Private sector labors unions continue to suffer losses in their membership while public sector and service unions grow.

The country has sorted itself ideologically into the two political parties, and those partisan attachments have hardened in recent years. It will take an extraordinary event and act of leadership to break this partisan divide. I thought 9/11 might provide such an opportunity, but it was not seized.

Knowledge of the soul would unfailingly make us melancholy if the pleasures of expression did not keep us alert and of good cheer.

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

To say that an artist sells out means that an artist is making a conscious choice to compromise his music, to to weaken his music for the sake of commercial gain.

Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempest.

The older I get, the greater power I seem to have to help the world; I am like a snowball - the further I am rolled the more I gain.

Today, unless women gain jobs and athletic scholarships commensurate with their percentage of the population, feminists scream discrimination.

A man's moral conscience is the curse he had to accept from the gods in order to gain from them the right to dream.

Give way to your opponent; thus will you gain the crown of victory.

You must continue to gain expertise, but avoid thinking like an expert.

All myths that are something more than fancies gain rather than lose in value with time, by reason of the accretions of human experience.

One of the ways I think I gain fodder for characters is by watching people.

One of the greatest victories you can gain over someone is to beat him at politeness.

I want to do very useful buildings and I would like to find a method of producing these buildings through our technology because I think that this is the only way that we will gain wonderful environment easily in the future.

It seems to me that if Mr. Obama wins the presidential election, then Messrs. Farrakhan, Wright, Ayers and Pfleger will gain power for their need to demoralize this country and help create a socialist America.

Everyone in a complex system has a slightly different interpretation. The more interpretations we gather, the easier it becomes to gain a sense of the whole.

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

Our farmers round, well pleased with constant gain, Like other farmers, flourish and complain.

Most economic fallacies derive from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another.

As I've been able to once again gain the benefits of speed work, I'm enjoying my running more and more.

You want the story to end when it's supposed to and not be squeezed for somebody's financial gain.

We pay some price when necessary to bring down inflation but that price is temporary and is not large relative to the permanent gain from reduced inflation.

The historian must have some conception of how men who are not historians behave. Otherwise he will move in a world of the dead. He can only gain that conception through personal experience, and he can only use his personal experiences when he is a genius.