So what's so wrong with the Gerrymander?

We hear pundits of both the left and the right claiming that Washington's dysfunction is all because of gerrymandered election districts.  They wax eloquent about the evils of districts controled by the other side.  Districts controlled by their side are clean and virtuous, districts controlled by the other side are dark and evil.
   The gerrymander was invented by Elbridge Gerry, a governor of Massachusetts back in the Federal period.  Gerry was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a signer of the Articles of Confederation, and was present at the constitutional convention in Philadelphia.  He refused to sign the original Constitution because it lacked the Bill of Rights.  This resume makes Gerry as American as apple pie.  Maybe not quite in George Washington's class, but plenty respectable enough.
   While Gerry was governor of Massachuetts after the Revolution, the commonwealth redistricted.  (Massachusetts is not a state, it's a commonwealth, ask any native) One of the new districts came out looking like a salamander, kinda long and thin, and curvy.  Gerry's political opponents called it a gerrymander and the name has stuck to this day.
   When redistricting, which happens every ten years, sometime after the federal census,  the party in power gets to draw the new district lines.  Principles are simple.  For "my" districts, include only enough of "my" voters to win the district.  For "their" districts, pack in as many of "their" voters as possible.  There is only one seat to be won in each district .  A district of 90% "their" voters only wins one seat.  The same district redrawn to move a lot of "their" voters into "my" districts might win lots more seats.  Anyhow, an experienced politician can come up with new district lines that give his party an edge.  The edge is probably in the order of 10%, which is enough to win a lotta elections. 
   The real objection to gerrymandered districts is loss of control of elected representatives.  A compact district, where the voters know each other from face-to-face contact, can rally behind some issue and tell their rep which way to vote.  If the district is all stretched out and fifty miles long, it's harder for the voters to get together on issues.  I mean, how many people do you know who live fifty miles away, as opposed to next door neighbors.  The rep from a real gerrymander district has a much freer hand than the rep from a compact district.
   If we the voters, really wanted to end gerrymanders, we could with one simple law.  Require a 2:1 aspect ratio, or less for all districts.  By this we mean the longest distance across the district shall not exceed twice the shortest distance across the district.  Of course, the politicians don't want this, and we the voters don't really care that much, so it hasn't happened yet.
   My own district in the back woods, used to be just two neighboring towns.  Then my good friend Paul Mirsky, in charge of the 2011 redistrictings, gerrymandered it.  My district now is five towns, running from here to the Vermont border, some 30 miles away.  Paul thought that the new district would return a Republican rep.  Did not happen, we are currently represented by Rebecca Brown, a Democrat.  Door to door campaigning is easier to do on your home turf than in a rural town 30 miles away.