Response to my 10/2/13 shutdown blog post

The following article was sent by a reader as a response and follow-up to my shutdown blog post of October 2, 2013. I offer the article and link as an interesting study which counters conventional views and explanations:

"Gerrymandering Didn’t Cause the Shutdown

By Nolan McCarty, Keith T. Poole & Howard Rosenthal Oct 9, 2013

What if we told you that the gerrymandering of congressional districts has nothing to do with political polarization in Washington? Gerrymandering didn’t have anything to do with the shutdown, or the battles over the debt ceiling, or Obamacare. In fact, the accepted view that politically based redistricting led to our state of intransigence isn’t just incorrect; it’s silly...."

see the link below for the rest of this article; see especially the comments to the article which challenge, sometimes very strongly, the conclusions: 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-09/gerrymandering-didn-t-cause-the-shutdown.html