Texas Wants to Secede? That Sounds Great!

Rick Perry’s talk of seceding from the union might seem crazy, but calling the Texas governor's bluff would be a great deal for Democrats, writes Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com. Consider:

• Democrats would suddenly have a filibuster-proof majority in the 98-seat Senate.
• Republicans would lose eight more House members than Democrats.
• George W. Bush would never have been elected.

• Barack Obama would have won the Electoral College 389-147 rather than 365-173; most of Texas’ electoral votes would go to left-leaning states like California and New York.
• There’d be a case for making football an Olympic sport, “which would sure as hell beat rhythmic gymnastics.”

“This all sounds like a pretty good deal to me,” Silver concludes, “provided there weren’t import duties on Shiner Bock." (More Texas stories.)