I had always thought that the real defect in the plaintiff's case was 
the absolute failure to suggest a workable standard.  Unlike racial 
gerrymandering, where arguably any use of race in the political process 
is at least suspect, the same cannot be said for politics.  I expected 
that the plaintiffs would have at least come up with something for oral 
argument but sounds as if they did not.  I agree with you Dan that it's 
not clear why the Court took this case.  I would not be surprised 
however if there were at least four who agreed on cert but not much 
else.  Clearly some Justices want to find partisan gerrymandering 
non-justiciable (O'Connor, Scalia, Rehnquist?) and others want to 
heighten the Bandemer standard (Stevens, Breyer, and maybe Ginsburg?). 

guy