Why is today's Republican Party...

...so extreme? I always suspected the answer was gerrymandering. After all, how else could an embarrassment  like Michele Bachmann win reelection this year? (I grew up for a time in Minnesota. That district must have been very carefully drawn.)

This morning, in a front page article in the Times, I read this interesting statistic (my emphasis):

Most Republicans do not want tax rates to rise on anyone, and such national polls have little sway over House members in districts drawn to favor one party over the other. In November, 204 Republicans — 88 percent of the House Republican Conference — won at least 55 percent of the vote, according to David Wasserman, a House analyst at The Cook Political Report. Thirty-five of them won at least 70 percent.

This is even more stunning when you consider that, over all, Democratic candidates for the House this year received more votes than Republicans.