Damning with faint praise
In personnel evaluations, the term "damning with faint praise" means that the supervisor wrote a favorable-sounding evaluation, but it was weak. The employee thinks it's a good eval, but it's not in comparison to his/her fellow employees.
That is what Common Cause is doing with regards to Prop 77 in California. I receive weekly emails from Chellie Pingree, extolling me to support the election reforms in Ohio because the evil special interests are pouring money into the election and publishing misleading materials.
Nowhere have I seen any Common Cause national-level drives to pass Prop 77. Remember the saying, "As California goes, so does the rest of the nation." Buried in the CC-California section of this website is a little post about how a town meeting was held. There are no outraged emails about the money that out-of-state Democrat congressmen are sending to the No-on-77 campaign. There are no emails about the improper tactics as described in this SF Chronicle article: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?
blogid=14&entry_id=1552#readmore .
What do I infer from this whispering endorsement of Prop 77? That Common Cause is in favor of redistricting, just not in California, where the redistricting is supported by a Republican govenor and which happens to have a Democrat-majority in the state house and Congress.
THe hypocrisy of Common Cause: Support redistricting, but only where it will help Democrats.
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