56% of self-described moderates voted for Obama
November 8, 2012 7:20 AM Subscribe

Exit polls for the 2012 presidential election (CNN). The most likely bottom line from AP: "Overall, 53 percent had a favorable opinion of Obama, while only 47 percent felt that way about Romney. And 53 percent felt Obama was more in touch with people like them than Romney was." Initial reactions among the disappointed.
posted by Brian B. (510 comments total) 21 users marked this as a favorite

47 percent eh? seems appropriate
posted by slapshot57 at 7:26 AM on November 8, 2012 [33 favorites]

So this is where we make a "47%" joke just to get it over with?
posted by fifthrider at 7:26 AM on November 8, 2012

In a stressed environment, just like most other animals, humans will eat their own.
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 7:28 AM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

"The billionaire donors I hear are livid," one Republican operative told The Huffington Post. "There is some holy hell to pay. Karl Rove has a lot of explaining to do … I don't know how you tell your donors that we spent $390 million and got nothing."

I love the smell of schadenfreude in the morning. Smells like victory.
posted by dinty_moore at 7:29 AM on November 8, 2012 [79 favorites]

Somewhat amusing to read, too, that the response in the Republican funding base is to demand that the leadership be hung out to dry, and that the party double down on ultraconservatism.

Suddenly, I'm feeling a lot more confident about a Democratic win in 2016.
posted by fifthrider at 7:30 AM on November 8, 2012 [55 favorites]

From the last link: The GOP was blindsided Tuesday

Blindsided because they didn't believe in math? These organizations are too large to not have superb analysts on staff that could have fully prepped them on the outcome that was overwhelmingly likely, even without doing any analysis themselves (cough, Silver, cough, Yang).

I see how GOP is reeling from the loss, because they got their asses kicked, but blindsided? If that's the case, they are revealing themselves to be much stupider than even I thought.
posted by mcstayinskool at 7:31 AM on November 8, 2012 [31 favorites]

Feeling like a pol is "more in touch" is nice, but their actions mean rather more.
posted by Ideefixe at 7:31 AM on November 8, 2012

Obama even got a bare majority of the Cuban-American vote in Florida, 49% to Romney's -- wait for it -- 47%.

fifthrider, 2014 comes before 2016. Gerrymandering will make it tough to flip the House until the next census, but it has to be a focus before 2016.
posted by maudlin at 7:32 AM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

Somewhat amusing to read, too, that the response in the Republican funding base is to demand that the leadership be hung out to dry, and that the party double down on ultraconservatism.

I don't understand this, from the perspective of the funding base. Why would they double down on something other than being in power? Obviously, you're going to have some hardcore ideologues in there, but isn't the bulk of (probably both parties') funding coming from people who are looking to buy influence and nothing more? Romney's top contributors are all big banks, wouldn't they rather double down on winning so that they can have their man in a position of power? Goldman Sachs's concern would seem to be power, rather than ultraconservative ideology.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 7:34 AM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

2014 comes before 2016.

Yeah; I've pretty much given up on flipping the House in the next ten years for exactly that reason. Until the Democratic Party gets better at handling state-level elections, the House is out of reach.
posted by fifthrider at 7:36 AM on November 8, 2012

Obama even got a bare majority of the Cuban-American vote in Florida, 49% to Romney's -- wait for it -- 47%.

Is there some reason both you and the article you linked to refer to 49% as a majority? It's a plurality, not a majority.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 7:36 AM on November 8, 2012

Is there some reason both you and the article you linked to refer to 49% as a majority? It's a plurality, not a majority.

Because most people either don't know what "plurality" means, or just don't regard third party votes as counting for anything.
posted by fifthrider at 7:38 AM on November 8, 2012 [6 favorites]

At least some Republicans think Romney lost because women are enormous Slutty McSluttersons.

I am ok with this. Not with his stupid hate, but with the "right to slut" being something Republicans cannot get away from.
posted by emjaybee at 7:41 AM on November 8, 2012 [22 favorites]

still waiting for my obamaphone
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 7:41 AM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

still waiting for my obamaphone

You mean your ReaganPhone?
posted by fifthrider at 7:42 AM on November 8, 2012 [7 favorites]

"I don't think anyone on our side understood or comprehended how good their turnout was going to be," said Henry Barbour, a Republican committee man from Mississippi. "The Democrats do voter registration like a factory, like a business, and Republicans tend to leave it to the blue hairs."

Republican says Democrats do it "like a business." Huh.
posted by Western Infidels at 7:42 AM on November 8, 2012 [35 favorites]

"Blindsided" here is a bullshit line from the conservative media as a way of covering their own asses for the lies they told their audiences, themselves and their funders. The truth is there in Nate Silver's numbers: rabid conservatism is not a salable product on the national stage.

Really they only have their own mindset to blame. In an harshly authoritarian hierarchy there is almost no upside to the delivery of bad news to your superiors. The culture rewards toadies, yes-men and echolalics. Plausible deniability is the core metric for anything to be written down: "___ said this, it must be true!"

I can only hope that like Ouroboros their machine will gradually feed on itself until there's nothing left but the dull stink of hate.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:46 AM on November 8, 2012 [40 favorites]

Waitaminnit . . . .

LA voters got MARIACHI BANDS at their polling places!!????

New Mission In Life - in 2016 Cleveland voters will have polka bands at all the polling places.
posted by soundguy99 at 7:47 AM on November 8, 2012 [29 favorites]

Why would they double down on something other than being in power?

Yeah, this is one of the more stupid things I've heard in a while. So their ideology was so far out there that they couldn't succeed with it? Oh yes OF COURSE the correct and logical response is to make it even MORE INTENSELY CONSERVATIVE.

jackasses.
posted by elizardbits at 7:48 AM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

The guy at the other end of the Slutty McSluttersons link is Christian, misogynistic, and racist.

Is that the trinity they are always talking about in church?
posted by COD at 7:48 AM on November 8, 2012 [18 favorites]

At least some Republicans think Romney lost because women are enormous Slutty McSluttersons.

You don't see a lot of honest to goodness monarchists anymore, but you read the comments on that post, and low behold there one is.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 7:49 AM on November 8, 2012 [5 favorites]

God I love seeing people with delusions realize they were deluded. Whatever those delusions are. Keep THAT coming, please.
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 7:49 AM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

It will be interesting to see how the demographic changes play out. Republicans are talking about getting on board with immigration reform but that isn't going to make up for all of the middle and lower income voters they are losing because right-wing social views are dying out. Will they somehow figure out how to get 50%+ of the vote by making major party platform changes internally and re-inventing the party, or will it be more chaotic with factions splitting the vote and making things worse for them for a while? Unless they get very lucky in terms of things going horribly wrong for the Democrats, the party platform that has a chance to get the GOP a president in 2016 and beyond is not going to be able to look at all like the one they were pushing this year.
posted by burnmp3s at 7:50 AM on November 8, 2012

The right to slut.

Wow. That was a pretty misogynist essay. I don't think I've read anything quite so hateful towards women since I stopped reading "NoMarriage.Com" for the lols. This was less lolly, though.
posted by jb at 7:52 AM on November 8, 2012 [7 favorites]

I think the Republicans plan is to keep on moving further and further right so the Democrats also creep further right and so the Democrat platform becomes the current Republican platform.

In which case, the Republicans seem to be winning.
posted by dinty_moore at 7:52 AM on November 8, 2012 [21 favorites]

Victoria Jackson and Ted Nugent CRIED.
posted by stormpooper at 7:52 AM on November 8, 2012 [30 favorites]

I'm in Canada, where less than 40% of the votes can translate into a majority government. In addition, we have third parties up here, and those third parties actually form the loyal Opposition sometimes, which also makes us very familiar with the challenge of voting our beliefs versus voting strategically. We don't just know that third parties exist, but we vote for them in very respectable numbers.

Also: oops. I made a mistake when I used a term. That's unprecedented.

And on the point of giving up on the House: fuck, no. The Democrats gained a few seats this time, and even if they don't flip the House in 2014, getting another few seats then sets them up better for 2016. If the power of the organization that got the Presidency and gains in the Senate this year was turned completely on the House and the Senate in 2014, there may be more than a few seats gained, even if the flip doesn't quite happen.

I think also working on the local and state level NOW instead of passively waiting for "the Democrats" to do the heavy lifting is pretty self-defeating. You guys want the equivalent of the NDP forming your government? (Well, so would we, but the Opposition is a great first step.) The charisma and drive of a Layton is not easily found, but even when it does appear, you don't get even as far as forming the Opposition without YEARS of work on the municipal and regional level.
posted by maudlin at 7:52 AM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

Trump tweeted, inaccurately.

You might be able to use this as a tl;dr for the article....
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:53 AM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

I really hope that Obama's presidency doesn't set a precedent in Congress of "obstruct everything for the first term and use that as a bludgeon during the re-election campaign." I don't think we can survive with alternating do-nothing/compromise cycles.
posted by backseatpilot at 7:53 AM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

About that black voter turnout:

What to do when the people you dismiss, kick your ass…

As I knocked on door after door in a black neighborhood in Columbus, it was clear that folks heard the Mitt/wingnut code-talking and that it pissed them off. They heard the endless disrespect of the President and the general contempt for anybody who is not white that has become the core message of the modern conservative movement. They heard it and they decided to kick Mitt’s ass in the voting booth.
Mitt’s “Vote for me, I’m white” strategy made my job of getting Obama supporters to the polls really easy.

posted by octothorpe at 7:53 AM on November 8, 2012 [19 favorites]

You don't see a lot of honest to goodness monarchists anymore, but you read the comments on that post, and low behold there one is.

There are lots in Canada, only we're not crazy. Monarchy has worked out pretty well for us - even (or perhaps because) outsourced.
posted by jb at 7:53 AM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

At least some Republicans think Romney lost because women are enormous Slutty McSluttersons.

Wow, just wow.
posted by DavidHogue at 7:53 AM on November 8, 2012

Wow. That was a pretty misogynist essay.

Who wants to bet it's getting great play on /r/mensrights right now...?

I'm not going to be the one to check, though.
posted by fifthrider at 7:54 AM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

Admittedly my only exposure to Republican thinking on what this election means for them has been a few snippets from the think tank folks that are on the Diane Rehm show in the morning, but they've all been basically saying that the GOP needs to basically drop their current anti-immigration, anti-abortion and anti-gay rights platforms to be viable in the future. That honestly scares me a little bit more than the opposite scenario because a United States with reasonable laws in all of those areas but with a super-regressive fiscal policy would still be a tremendously shitty place to live, and it's a more plausible one too.
posted by invitapriore at 7:54 AM on November 8, 2012 [7 favorites]

From that same thread, octothorpe:

When talking about AA voter turn out, I think mad props should go to urban radios. The last two days leading up to the election I was paired with a young AA man from Lorain, Ohio so I was exposed to Hip hop stations and they really contributed a great deal to the GOTV efforts. In between songs and in every AA talk radio they encouraged people like mad to stay in line, to vote and to report back any challenges they were having. They played Mittens saying: “I am not concerned about the very poor,” in every segment. This was repeated over and over again and then the presenter would say something like: show him that “you care” or “you matter” by staying in line and voting.

The 2014 GOTV model should be repeated in every election. We really need to mobilize all of our forces.

posted by maudlin at 7:55 AM on November 8, 2012 [35 favorites]

"The billionaire donors I hear are livid," one Republican operative told The Huffington Post. "There is some holy hell to pay. Karl Rove has a lot of explaining to do … I don't know how you tell your donors that we spent $390 million and got nothing."

I find this really hard to believe. Billionaires have absolutely no other way to effect policy change than through Mitt Romney? Sure.
posted by DU at 7:56 AM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

Republicans are talking about getting on board with immigration reform but that isn't going to make up for all of the middle and lower income voters they are losing because right-wing social views are dying out.

Obviously, I knew that right-wing social views were dying out, but I hadn't realized how much until recently. My wife teaches in a school in the inner-city that is 100% black. Last year we went to church with a student's family at a similar school and were treated to a 45 minute diatriabe about gay marriage from a preacher from Liberia who seemed to direct every comment to us (the only white people in the room). I had sort of assumed that, while they would be reliably Democratic, her student's views would be in-line with their parents on gay marriage.

I was wrong. When she asked her students to say who they agreed with on various issues, a ton agreed that gay marriage should be legal. I'd say most of them. It was encouraging. If people gay marriage is popular among the young in a community like that that is so intensely religious, I don't see how opposition to it will last too much longer.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 7:56 AM on November 8, 2012 [4 favorites]

If the Republicans drop the anti-abortion plank they'll splinter into two parties as the Christian Right will secede from the party. There is no more dedicated single issue voter than the anti-abortion voter. I know a few and they literally can not discuss any issue without it coming back to abortion eventually. Thoughts of abortion makes their world go round.
posted by COD at 7:57 AM on November 8, 2012 [19 favorites]

a United States with reasonable laws in all of those areas but with a super-regressive fiscal policy would still be a tremendously shitty place to live, and it's a more plausible one too.

Honestly, the Prop 30 results in California make me more happy and optimistic than any other election this year. And I live on the East Coast.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 7:58 AM on November 8, 2012 [4 favorites]

Yeah I was actually talking about this with my boyfriend today. He said something like, great, now that the polls have shown that anti-abortion, anti-immigration, anti-women, anti black and Latino views are not popular with the American public, maybe the Republican party will moderate itself and become less socially conservative. That actually gave me pause, because I actually feel that a socially liberal but financially conservative Republican party would have a better chance of winning nowadays. Should we be more scared of such a scenario? My boyfriend is all about the oh it's good to have moderate conservative voices in the debate, but I think the Democrats are already a moderate conservative voice.
posted by peacheater at 7:58 AM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

electionresultsbutthurt.tumblr.com
posted by backseatpilot at 7:58 AM on November 8, 2012 [10 favorites]

Rightwing social views are not dying out. Democrats and Republicans are moving forward at exactly the same speed--just out of phase by 30 years.
posted by DU at 7:58 AM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

Wow. That was a pretty misogynist essay.

Understatement of the week. My skin crawls.
posted by ook at 7:58 AM on November 8, 2012 [11 favorites]

What gets me isn't that the Republicans lost so much as they could not even imagine that they could lose. Pandering only to Old White Men is no longer sufficient to get you the White House, but the GOP seems unwilling to abandon it as their only strategy.

Putting it another way, sometimes negative feedback is better than positive feedback.
posted by tommasz at 7:58 AM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

DU: I expect they're still upset they got squat for all that money. Overpromising and Underdelivering is not a good way to make friends.
posted by leotrotsky at 7:59 AM on November 8, 2012

I'm read a lot, a LOT, of Weekly Standard, National Review, American Conservative, etc. Lots of folks are still reeling, for lack of a better word, a lot of backpedaling, a lot of second-guessing.

Looks like there are significant fractures in the tripartite coalition that the Rs have been riding the last few years. Hopefully, we'll see a split between the business/libertarian faction and the social conservative faction - that would generate a third party.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:59 AM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

And the fun is about to begin for the GOP - Mitt was too moderate

Tea Party Vows to Hijack GOP in Time for Next Election
posted by DreamerFi at 8:00 AM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

"He didn't get enough votes."

-- New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), quoted by CNN, explaining why Mitt Romney lost the presidential race.
posted by schmod at 8:01 AM on November 8, 2012 [148 favorites]

Mitt was too moderate

I keep hearing that - if only Bachmann or Santorum had been nominated!

If we keep disenfranchising voters, surely we will get more votes!
posted by backseatpilot at 8:02 AM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Tea Party Vows to Hijack GOP in Time for Next Election

oh please do! Pick some more Senate candidates!
posted by leotrotsky at 8:02 AM on November 8, 2012 [18 favorites]

Tea Party Vows to Hijack GOP in Time for Next Election

The GOP, eaten by their own Astroturf. There's karmic justice in that.
posted by fifthrider at 8:02 AM on November 8, 2012 [18 favorites]

Should we be more scared of such a scenario? My boyfriend is all about the oh it's good to have moderate conservative voices in the debate, but I think the Democrats are already a moderate conservative voice.

Presumably the Democratic party would be further left in that scenario, since there's not much reason to occupy the exact same space on the ideological spectrum as the opposition party (presuming that people vote ideologically). The alternative would be a completely marginalized Republican party and single party rule by the Democrats which seems like a bad idea for all the reasons that single party rule is a bad idea.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 8:03 AM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Billionaires have absolutely no other way to effect policy change than through Mitt Romney?

The smart billionaires, the truly self-made men, all backed Obama. Ellison, Page, Buffet, Gates...

It's not about fiscal policy for Sheldon Adleson or the ~~Penis Twins~~ Koch Brothers - it's about the power. They want to prove they are powerful, and make the nation pay homage to them, to do as they wish despite the best interests of the people. It worked pretty well for them in 2010, but 2012 saw a democratic opposition who was ready and waiting for it, and a mercenary campaign machine more interested in draining their bank accounts than in running a winning campaign.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:03 AM on November 8, 2012 [14 favorites]

I guess there's only so many times you can say "screw you" to women, African-Americans, Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, blue-collar workers, low income earners, intellectuals, and gays before even the centrists in those groups start saying "screw you" right back.

It's probably a valuable lesson for any political party, really. Be very, very picky when you decide who you say "screw you" to. They won't have your back when the other side says, "Well, we don't agree on everything, but gosh, let's talk."
posted by kyrademon at 8:04 AM on November 8, 2012 [10 favorites]

DreamerFi: "Mitt was too moderate"

“If I hear anybody say it was because Romney wasn’t conservative enough I’m going to go nuts,” Graham said. “We’re not losing 95 percent of African-Americans and two-thirds of Hispanics and voters under 30 because we’re not being hard-ass enough.”

-- Lindsey Graham (R,SC)

This is coming from the guy who took Strom Thurmond's seat after he retired.
posted by schmod at 8:05 AM on November 8, 2012 [48 favorites]

Guy on AM talk radio this morning was saying that Benghazi/Fast and Furious didn't take out Obama because "women didn't like it" and the Republicans needed to learn to "talk woman." Women apparently are "more compassionate" and don't like to see "mean" campaigns.

Between that and the Right-to-Slut guy, I have never felt more powerful. Me and my sluttin', compassionate ways.
posted by emjaybee at 8:07 AM on November 8, 2012 [53 favorites]

I actually just looked at /r/mensrights to see if that article was getting any traction, but it didn't seem to be. There was little talk of the election beyond one article that reached the conclusion that women were now going to run the world to the exclusion of men and the only solution was a John Galt style revolt of the men based around the PUA community.

The wind literally whistled in my ears as I fell into that well of insanity.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 8:08 AM on November 8, 2012 [23 favorites]

DU: I expect they're still upset they got squat for all that money. Overpromising and Underdelivering is not a good way to make friends.

All WHAT money? $390 million from "billionaire donors" is like if I and my buddies each give $1000, on a percentage basis. And if you calculate that progressively (since I need more of that $1000 to buy food, etc than they need the 3-4 million each) it's even less of a sting.

The real money they are spending is in bribes, lobbyists, propaganda machines, etc, which would still have to largely continue even with a slightly more friendly WH occupant.
posted by DU at 8:08 AM on November 8, 2012 [4 favorites]

You know, if we want to actually get stuff done in the next four years instead of jus hating the GOP, it would be nice if we could reach out to guys like graham and Rubio to get the dream act officially passed, and so on instead of just shitting on them when they reach out.
posted by empath at 8:10 AM on November 8, 2012 [7 favorites]

Lindsay Graham has always been remarkably sane for a Republican. I wish he'd come out of the closet already.
posted by leotrotsky at 8:10 AM on November 8, 2012 [6 favorites]

They were only "blindsided" because they have spent years being able to spread their just-so stories and steamroller the reality based community. And they've gone too far.

They're not going to move to the center, I fear - their rabid base seems too, well, rabid.

Conservativism can't fail - it can only *be failed*. So clearly, the problem isn't with their positions, it's that they weren't ideologically pure *enough*.
posted by rmd1023 at 8:11 AM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

You don't see a lot of honest to goodness monarchists anymore, but you read the comments on that post, and low behold there one is.

Speaking of monarchists, it looks like Daniel Larison is also giving the Republican Party grief for doubling down rather than adapting to the realities of the electorate, and when an avowed theocratic monarchist thinks you need to stop retrenching your conservatism, you know you're in a dark place as a party.
posted by Copronymus at 8:11 AM on November 8, 2012 [4 favorites]

Liberal clap trap!
the GOP lost because of the hurricane--Sandy
or: because Christie said nice things about Obama
or: the bias of the liberal media
or: Candy Crowley favored Obama in the debate
or: ACORN stole the election for the Dems.
or: the Dems had more voter because the lazy and shiftless did not want to lose free handouts from Washington
or: the illegals always favor the indifferent leftwingers
or:early voting is no reason to vote early and the Dems all did this
posted by Postroad at 8:12 AM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

...that sounds like a cheap shot by me on re-reading, but I didn't intend it as such. I think that it would do the party some good. Graham, McCain, etc, represent what could be a re-centered Republican Party, and they're not going anywhere. Graham would have the credibility to come out and stay a presence
posted by leotrotsky at 8:13 AM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

It feels more like this is just normal, day after, gnashing of teeth, woe-is-us, what shall we do kind of stuff. If the Dems had lost they would be picking all the scabs of their campaign in the same way.

Mittens was a blank, a cypher, a not particular warm or likeable suit who tried to be relatable while having car elevators and off-shore bank accounts. He had no plan going forward and ran with a rabid ideologue. AND HE ONLY LOST BY THE SLIMMEST OF MARGINS.

That does not sound like a party going down in flames to me. Or a party that is going to completely re-construct itself. In a couple months (weeks even) things will swing back to the norm and the same old obstructionist, no-party will be back in action.

Who wins in '14 and '16 will be entirely dependent on what the economy is doing at the time and the personalities of those running. Either party is entirely electable with the current platforms they espouse. Not a happy thought unfortunately but, I believe, accurate.
posted by pixlboi at 8:14 AM on November 8, 2012 [38 favorites]

Speaking of monarchists, it looks like Daniel Larison is also giving the Republican Party grief for doubling down rather than adapting to the realities of the electorate, and when an avowed theocratic monarchist thinks you need to stop retrenching your conservatism, you know you're in a dark place as a party.

Daniel Larison has totally sold out since he doesn't rant about evils of the Glorious Revolution anymore.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 8:14 AM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

Dear Tea Party,

I know you've already run an "I'm not a witch" candidate but there is so much more.

"I'm not a werewolf."
"I'm not a vampire."
"I am a vampire but not one of those evil sexy ones."

d_w_s
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 8:14 AM on November 8, 2012 [7 favorites]

Unfortunately, as the show went on, it became painfully clear that the guests didn't feel the problem was in the Republican message. Rather, the problem was with the way the message was delivered. They all seemed deaf to the idea that, perhaps, their message was hurting them.

There's something to this, though, if you restrict "their message" to the things that they would agree are their message -- lower taxes, smaller government, traditional morality, blah blah. There ares lots of black Americans who are socially conservative evangelical protestants, who might be receptive to a message like that if it weren't delivered by Republicans. I don't have survey evidence here, but I would bet that there are a lot of black Americans who would favor government policies that made jobs more likely and government assistance less necessary if a Democrat proposed them.

A core problem, though, is that Republicans have spent pushing fifty years now fucking around with black people, and that would have to stop first. No more vote suppression, no more dicking around with districts, all that crap. Which means that making Republican inroads among African Americans would be a long-term proposition with a LOT of wandering in the desert before you could reach the promised land. And it's hard to imagine the party passing up a whole series of short-term opportunities to get a few percent of through vote suppression or getting whites pissed-off about blacks.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:15 AM on November 8, 2012 [9 favorites]

In Politico, Mike Murphy said one of the more intelligent things about it and our current media climate:

“The conservative media bubble is totally self-defeating for us. It denies us any realistic view of the real world of the general election, assuming instead that all politics is simply an extension of the Republican primary. It blindly drives us off one cliff after another,” said Republican presidential strategist Mike Murphy. “We will not win the real world of big-turnout, presidential-year politics until our bubble realizes that a big world exists outside the precincts of the Republican primary.”

Said Murphy: “Much of the conservative media bubble, with its isolation, denial and semi-paranoia, only incentivized us to lose general elections.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1112/83537_Page4.html

When all you hear is what you like to hear, it's really hard to address hard issues. I know people that feel strongly about the issue feel strongly about it, but you have to wonder with the Rape/Abortion chatter that came up during the campaign season if they shouldn't down play that part of the platform.
posted by Nelson69 at 8:16 AM on November 8, 2012 [16 favorites]

I know you've already run an "I'm not a witch" candidate but there is so much more.

The way I hear it, the new line is "the other candidate is a level 85 Orc Rogue."
posted by fifthrider at 8:17 AM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

The election results butthurt tumblr is less personal than the Slutty McSlutterson link, but both of them make me want to take a shower after reading that shit.
posted by immlass at 8:18 AM on November 8, 2012 [8 favorites]

Victoria Jackson and Ted Nugent CRIED.

Not together, right? I am not sure the world is ready for that unholy, cretinous, hateful alliance.
posted by elizardbits at 8:19 AM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

Tiger Beat On The Potomac has a blog post on Chris Matthew's coverage of the GOP civil war
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:19 AM on November 8, 2012

Nothing new offered in my analysis, but I think it bears repeating. Massachusetts Romney could have won the election. Massachusetts Romney couldn't win the primary. Primary Romney couldn't win the general and he couldn't shake the Etch-a-sketch fast enough for the electorate to forget. He couldn't be all things to all people, but instead ended up being a gooey mess without a spine. Personally, he lost me early on at "corporations are people, my friend". It smelled too much like pandering to his corporate overlords.
posted by karst at 8:20 AM on November 8, 2012 [8 favorites]

Pixlboi I totally agree with you. That's the flip side of the old saw that the parties are more alike than different.

I still hope the biggest donors tear Rove to pieces with their actual fingernails and teeth on live TV.
posted by maniabug at 8:21 AM on November 8, 2012

From that butthurt tumblr:

"HES DISRESPECTED THE PLEDGE OF ALLIGANCE AND HES A TERRIBLE GOLFER!!"

That made my day.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 8:21 AM on November 8, 2012 [8 favorites]

Daniel Larison has totally sold out since he doesn't rant about evils of the Glorious Revolution anymore.

I think he just needed Romney to spout off more on English history, since he's clearly still inclined to rant about it when given the opportunity.
posted by Copronymus at 8:23 AM on November 8, 2012

There's something to this, though, if you restrict "their message" to the things that they would agree are their message

This is the magic formula that put our current crop of Cons over the top in Canada. They discovered that, hey many parts of the immigrant communities are fairly (very) conservative, both financially and socially and were only voting for the other guys because the Libs were pro-immigration.

Harper appointed one of his slickest to the immigration file to clear the application backlog and started making noises about how Canada needed more immigrants. All of a sudden he steals the Liberals traditional safe votes in the immigrant communities and starts winning suburban ridings in many of the big cities. He's converted single-issue voters into values voters, and it's worked quite well for him.
posted by bonehead at 8:23 AM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Hey, I forgot about the Orc Rogue lady. She won!
posted by echo target at 8:24 AM on November 8, 2012 [14 favorites]

I wouldn't be too cocky. A couple of percent would have made a big difference. If the GOP turns on immigration and hires some hot shot numbers guys that can do what Obama's campaign did in terms of targeting and turnout, they'll be a force in four years.

Obama ran a great campaign but it's not as if he was an underdog at any point. He was ahead in July by about the same amount he ended up winning, well before the GOTV efforts ramped up. The only time the Republicans caught up in the polls was when Romney did a better job of seeming like a moderate in the first debate. Even if the Republicans have an advantage over the Democrats on the ground, the deck is going to be stacked against them if they keep pushing an unpopular platform. Going forward the demographics will be even more slanted towards the Democrats as more elderly voters die off and more younger people reach voting age, which is exacerbated by the fact that the US population boom happened 60 years ago and will soon stop skewing the population older. The Republicans figured out how to capture a reliable portion of the vote starting with the Southern strategy forty years ago, and they've been chasing after that demographic ever since, but it's increasingly clear that they have painted themselves into a corner by ceding nearly every other demographic to the Democrats.
posted by burnmp3s at 8:26 AM on November 8, 2012

The failure on Romney's part was a failure to develop a coherent strategy oriented towards his mission and goals. The result was a lack of sustained and coordianted actions that could win the election.
posted by humanfont at 8:28 AM on November 8, 2012

The way I hear it, the new line is "the other candidate is a level 85 Orc Rogue."

That's State Senator Elect Santiaga (Level 85 Orc Rogue), now (aka Colleen Lachowicz).

I'm not a gamer, but I'm really happy to hear that she won her race, when faced with such idiotic opposition.
posted by jb at 8:30 AM on November 8, 2012 [4 favorites]

Odd that the "education" polling seems off in the link--may be reading it wrong. "Vote by Education" had Obama down in "College Graduate" 47/51, BUT he's up in "Are you a College Graduate" 50/48.
posted by whatgorilla at 8:30 AM on November 8, 2012

At least some Republicans think Romney lost because women are enormous Slutty McSluttersons.

I read through that entire post to see if there was some punchline at the end, or maybe some "copied from The Onion" citation or something... and came away with nothing more than a deep desire to punch that writer in the face at least once for every time he's ever used the word "slut" in his life. What a horrible human being.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 8:32 AM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

He's up among literate college graduates, obviously.
posted by leotrotsky at 8:32 AM on November 8, 2012

couldn't shake the Etch-a-sketch fast enough for the electorate to forget

And it was transparent that that's what he was trying to do. The moderates would have voted for Massachusetts Romney, the conservative base would have mobilized for Primary Romney, but Actual Romney was clearly just saying whatever he thought would get him elected. I thought we'd all learned after 2004 that Politician Who Obviously Just Wants To Be President loses to Vulnerable Incumbent Who Believes What He's Saying.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:33 AM on November 8, 2012 [4 favorites]

"[...]party that sounds like that party hates brown people"

"Sounds like"? Dude, your party hates everyone who isn't white, tight, and upright worth a million bucks.
posted by Old'n'Busted at 8:37 AM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

White People Mourning Romney.
posted by emjaybee at 8:38 AM on November 8, 2012 [7 favorites]

At least some Republicans think Romney lost because women are enormous Slutty McSluttersons.

That link should have come with a warning. I lost four sanity points.
posted by Foosnark at 8:39 AM on November 8, 2012 [9 favorites]

Before we pronounce the GOP/tea party DOA, I have to relate this bit of reality...

Here in Indiana, Mourdock was defeated by Donnelly. However, what a lot of people seem to be missing is that there was a third-party Libertarian candidate in that Senate race, too. Watching the returns, the Libertarian was steadily polling in the 5-6% range, which seemed to track with Donnelly's lead. My take-away was, yes, Mourdock torpedoed himself with his batshit rhetoric. However, had there not been that Libertarian siphoning-off votes (and, they most certainly would be coming from Mourdock's count. Indiana Libertarians run to the right of the GOP) Mourdock may very well have squeaked-out a win over Donnelly. Had he also kept his stupid mouth shut, he may have actually lived-up to expectations and crushed Donnelly.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:39 AM on November 8, 2012 [7 favorites]

Confessore ‏@nickconfessore

So, some post-2012 theories of the super PAC era.

12) I think when the dust settles we may find that super PACs were actually very influential in House elections -- huge bang for buck.

11) Opacity of ad spending and the utter black box of "field" make it really hard for political reporters to know what is really going on.

10) The headline is not $1B in outside spending didn't matter. The headline is that Team Obama fought Team Romney to a draw.

9) Let's do that math again. In a $2.6 *billion* presidential election, GOP outside groups netted a $200M spending advantage. Not that much.

8) The final net Team Romney outside spending advantage in general election, not including party $, was a mere $200M. http://bit.ly/WG2p46

7) It feels significant that in 04 and 12, the side that relied on outside spending more lost. But I don't know what.

6) No aspiring candidate will want to disarm. So they will have to be even more attuned to priorities of those who can finance super PACs.

5) Cashwise, Obama beat Romney + super PACs w/ an unprecedentedly big small-donor base. Dems who can't match it in future may get swamped.

4) There is now some strong evidence that the efficiency loss of outsourcing ads and field to outside groups is extremely high.

3) The big donors to super PACs either do not care about or actively support gay marriage. What does that mean for GOP?

2) super PACs allowed GOP establishment to take control of presidential primary from Tea Party -- but opposite happened in Senate primaries.

1) "$1B for nothing" is a vast overstatement. Possible Obama would have won a landslide w/out outside money.

posted by shothotbot at 8:41 AM on November 8, 2012 [6 favorites]

Thorzdad: This is why we really need to get these crazy ignorant people talking more about the crazy ignorant things they believe.
posted by rmd1023 at 8:43 AM on November 8, 2012 [4 favorites]

came away with nothing more than a deep desire to punch that writer in the face at least once for every time he's ever used the word "slut" in his life. What a horrible human being.

I'm curious, are all of these "sluts" lesbians? Or does masturbating count as sex now? Because otherwise, I can't help but think that maybe men might have been involved in that sex somehow...

yeah, it's kind of obviously a double standard. I just always wonder on abortion/birth control: if we're talking about reproduction, that means that men are always involved. Most of us women aren't over here hosting miracles.
posted by jb at 8:44 AM on November 8, 2012 [7 favorites]

See, sluts tempt men from virtue. If a slut is involved, it can't be the poor man's fault! It's her magic hair rays or other, uh, features. The men involved in slutty sex have no responsibility AT ALL for their actions, or the consequences. A few mea culpas and some shirt-tearing and God will surely forgive their weaknesses.
posted by bonehead at 8:51 AM on November 8, 2012 [10 favorites]

Odd that the "education" polling seems off in the link--may be reading it wrong. "Vote by Education" had Obama down in "College Graduate" 47/51, BUT he's up in "Are you a College Graduate" 50/48.

"Are you a college graduate" includes people with post-grad degrees.
posted by oinopaponton at 8:51 AM on November 8, 2012

Obama ran a great campaign but it's not as if he was an underdog at any point.

Really? I thought his campaign was awful. The only thing about it that I found even remotely stirring or inspiring was Biden's performance at the debate and Obama's brutal zingers at the foreign policy debate. I've been pretty surprised at the tone from the Obama administration all along.

I had no sense that there was progress or hope at the center of the Obama campaign, so much as an overriding need to hold the line against a huge Republican counterattack that had been building over the last four years. That's no small thing, but... yeah. I dunno. They kept talking about going "forward," but all I really saw was "hold the line." That's not exactly inspiring, I know, but that's what I saw.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 8:53 AM on November 8, 2012 [9 favorites]

Lindsay Graham has always been remarkably sane for a Republican.

I can't seem to find the link now, but I read (heard?) that Lindsay Graham is in Grover Norquist's target sights for a primary battle next time around.

So, yes, it seems the part is going to go further to the right for the foreseeable future.
posted by rocketman at 8:56 AM on November 8, 2012

At least some Republicans think Romney lost because women are enormous Slutty McSluttersons.

That is truly vile. Where did you even find it? Who is that taintstain, anyway?
posted by adamdschneider at 8:56 AM on November 8, 2012

Ed Kilgore on why the GOP is not gonna change.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 8:57 AM on November 8, 2012 [4 favorites]

I still think it's all about denial of reality. True believers can always be convinced that black is white, but fortunately that doesn't make it so. If they can ever come up with something based on reality...

I wonder how long Prince Rebus will keep his head, hope he at least gets a case of brandy as a going away present.
posted by ackptui at 8:58 AM on November 8, 2012

adam, it was featured on Gawker and BoingBoing. Apparently the reason it's a cache is that the dude made it "private" shortly after it hit Gawker.
posted by emjaybee at 8:58 AM on November 8, 2012

At least it was great in terms of being successful, but a lot of generally balanced commentators in the USA and elsewhere said there was too little serious talk about what Obama would try to do.
posted by ambient2 at 8:58 AM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Karl Rove reading results on Fox was a perfect kind of punishment.
posted by PHINC at 8:59 AM on November 8, 2012 [7 favorites]

Guy on AM talk radio this morning was saying that Benghazi/Fast and Furious didn't take out Obama because "women didn't like it" and the Republicans needed to learn to "talk woman." Women apparently are "more compassionate" and don't like to see "mean" campaigns.

Ann Coulter actually said it was her fondest wish (or something like that) that women lose the vote because they're so damn likely to vote for Democrats.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 9:01 AM on November 8, 2012

. . .would favor government policies that made jobs more likely and government assistance less necessary if a Democrat proposed them.

But Democrats do propose policies that make jobs more likely, at least if we look at the data.

And I can think of nothing that would increase the need for government assistance more than Republican proposals to dismantle government assistance programs.
posted by General Tonic at 9:01 AM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

yeah, it's kind of obviously a double standard. I just always wonder on abortion/birth control: if we're talking about reproduction, that means that men are always involved. Most of us women aren't over here hosting miracles.

Anecdotal Evidence (and TMI) Warning: So it turns out, I write some erotica. I'm a guy, and so I started out writing with a sympathetic male lead and "woohoo multiple female partners and no hard feelings due to magical circumstances," and a lot of male readers just ate it up. I had lots of positive female reader feedback, too, so I like to think I was writing reasonable female characters...

...anyway. Each time I've written a story with similar multiple-partner circumstances but flipped sexes -- i.e., a female character who has more than one MALE partner over the course of a story, no jealousy issues involved -- I get guys responding with the slut label. Crazy, right? You pick up a story you KNOW is erotica, and when it does what it says on the label, you scream and snarl about it? But there it is. They get angry at me as an author when I call out the double-standard, too.

In the minds of a pitifully large segment of men, it's natural for a man to sleep with many women over the course of his life, but each of those women should be virgins who will never move on to anyone else ever again once that man is gone.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 9:02 AM on November 8, 2012 [11 favorites]

The republican party was sabotaged from the inside.
posted by Ad hominem at 9:03 AM on November 8, 2012 [6 favorites]

I've been sampling some of the GOP reactions, and even well before the election, I'd read a prediction that if Romney lost, the GOP—or a faction in it—would conclude that it was because he wasn't conservative enough.

And lo, it is thus. The election results make that conclusion seem puzzling to me (to say the least)—it's hard for me to see how Romney lost votes for not being conservative enough. But something I read (forget where) gave me an inkling of what the true believers, uh, believe: they apparently believe that there is a huge mass of die-hard conservative voters who simply stayed home because Romney didn't move them.

I don't think the turnout numbers really bear that out—my gut sense is that Romney got a good number of votes, just not enough. But I can at least understand the rationale. Good luck turning out those unenthused hard-core conservative voters next time.
posted by adamrice at 9:04 AM on November 8, 2012

Perhaps the GOP needs to acknowledge that it's a changing country. The demographics are changing. It's not a traditional America any more. And there are 50% of the voting public who want stuff. They want things. And who is going to give them things? President Obama. He knows it and he ran on it. And, whereby twenty years ago, President Obama would have been roundly defeated by an establishment candidate like Mitt Romney. The white establishment is now the minority. And the voters, many of them, feel that the economic system is stacked against them and they want stuff. You are going to see a tremendous Hispanic vote for President Obama, overwhelming black vote for President Obama. And women will probably break President Obama’s way. People feel that they are entitled to things and which candidate, between the two, is going to give them things?*

*As said by Bill O'Reilly, spokesperson for the Stormfront Institute of Race Relations.
posted by MuffinMan at 9:05 AM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Oh god, I'm going to throw up from eating all this schadenfreude.

*continues stuffing face*

Primary Romney couldn't win the general and he couldn't shake the Etch-a-sketch fast enough for the electorate to forget.

No, the Obama campaign made a very smart and very risky decision to pick up the Etch-a-sketch so it couldn't be shaken. It was risky because they decided to spent most of their money at that point painting Romney in a negative light. They literally didn't know if they'd have enough money come the fall.

Team Romney made a very dumb decision to let that happen. They intentionally waited until the fall debates to present a more reasonable Romeny. It was bit late by then.

Looking back, Romney's team was astoundingly dumb and short sighted. Did the real managers take off for the islands and leave the interns running things?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:05 AM on November 8, 2012 [6 favorites]

Said Murphy: “Much of the conservative media bubble, with its isolation, denial and semi-paranoia, only incentivized us to lose general elections.”

you forgot abject stupidity Mikey
posted by any major dude at 9:05 AM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

I've been pretty surprised at the tone from the Obama administration all along.

Yeah, the campaign's tone and message was very lackluster, and underplayed. I think, up until the aftermath of the disastrous first debate, the strategy was to let the Republicans doom themselves with their own extremism - which worked, right up until it seemed this passivity was weakness. You can't wait two weeks for a rope-a-dope knockout.

The other part of the campaign, the ground game, was masterful, and saved his bacon - Team Obama knows how to GOTV, and can really break down what's in reach and how to reach it on a precinct-by-precinct basis.
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:06 AM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

Looking back, Romney's team was astoundingly dumb and short sighted. Did the real managers take off for the islands and leave the interns running things?

NPR was reporting after the primaries that Romney's campaign advisers all got some serious bonuses after he won the nomination. Maybe they were simply acting like the rest of Romney's ilk and prioritizing short-term private gain over long-term success.
posted by backseatpilot at 9:10 AM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

I absolutely agree with Slap*Happy's analysis above. Team Obama's biggest asset in the campaign itself was Romney. That was a huge factor, but eventually that alone just wasn't enough. Their GOTV game is masterful, though, and I can only hope other Democrats can continue on with that in the future. They're gonna need another high-charisma candidate to do that, though, and sometimes those candidates just don't wanna run (see 2012 Republican Primary for details).
posted by scaryblackdeath at 9:10 AM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

I hate to give her the clicks, but Debra Saunders (conservative columnist for the SF Chronicle) said this morning:

President Obama's re-election puts Republicans on notice. No matter what we do, the media will portray us as extreme, venal, stupid or antiwoman, if not as individuals, then guilty by association. The GOP nominee must bear the burden of admittedly medieval statements on pregnancy and rape - uttered by Senate hopefuls Richard Mourdock in Indiana and Todd Akin of Missouri. Mitt Romney renounced the statements - and still they tarnished the GOP brand.

When your nominee talks about 47% of the electorate as a bunch of lazy whiners, that's okay, but we're supposed to act like your candidates are each special snowflakes, with no ideological or philosophical ties to other candidates in the same party? Dude.

Also? The media didn't need any help making you guys look stupid. You did that your own selves.
posted by rtha at 9:12 AM on November 8, 2012 [14 favorites]

have as much hot alpha sex as possible

And this is a bad thing?

BYW, What The Actual Fuck is "hot alpha sex?"
posted by Danf at 9:16 AM on November 8, 2012 [4 favorites]

Apparently the reason it's a cache is that the dude made it "private" shortly after it hit Gawker.

Truly, the mark of someone with principles.
posted by adamdschneider at 9:18 AM on November 8, 2012

Why The Media Turned A Foregone Conclusion Into A Horse Race, starting with the Republican primaries.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:20 AM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

"Leftists need to be careful. If push comes to shove, and shove to shoot, the Red-Staters will clean your clock. After all, they have the guns."--Bill Vallicella, the Maverick Philosopher, speculates about civil war.
posted by No Robots at 9:21 AM on November 8, 2012

Yeah; I've pretty much given up on flipping the House in the next ten years for exactly that reason. Until the Democratic Party gets better at handling state-level elections, the House is out of reach.

Does anyone here know the Michigan Dem party? They seem ill-equipped to strategize/ organize on the local level. Who are the most promising organizers?

How can I help to get the local party to follow the Obama team’s lead in tactics? How do we find fresh local candidates who could perhaps appeal to wavering Rs and also do better GOTV to younger/ “minority” and other disaffected people?

And finally, how the hell can we put an end to gerrymandering in the first place, for which Dems have suffered greatly at the state and US House level?
---
I wouldn't be too cocky.
Yes, the “omgRepublicansscrewedforeveryeahPres.HilaryVPCastroorBooker16Weownthesenate” stuff here is either cocky or naïve.

Get back to me when all the people I encounter stop getting their “news” from Fox and only Fox. When we truly are rid of the teaparty-driven majorities in US House and too many states.

The Rs are still fooling/ B.S.ing a huge number of people, fanatical, unwavering people.

To think the GOP is somehow breathing its dying gasps seems as off as the other recent trend here- believing that Christie, just because he showed a little human compassion, is suddenly a great all-around guy. I guess the latter is because liberals always want to think the best of people (and/or are suckers), but didn’t you learn your lesson with McCain?
posted by NorthernLite at 9:21 AM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

What The Actual Fuck is "hot alpha sex?"

It's sex that you can get early access to if you fund the Kickstarter at the $35 level. Pretty buggy, though, so back up your junk regularly.
posted by cortex at 9:22 AM on November 8, 2012 [19 favorites]

What The Actual Fuck is "hot alpha sex?"

All I know is it worked pretty good in beta.
posted by Floydd at 9:22 AM on November 8, 2012 [6 favorites]

Also? The media didn't need any help making you guys look stupid. You did that your own selves.

I know right? I'm not sure why this is surprising to anyone. Did they think Nate Silver and just about every other person who paid any attention was lying? There is no way the top brass didn't know what was going on, they have just as much money to spend on pollsters and analysts.

That may be why the donors are pissed. Not that they lost, candidates lose all the time. They knew they were going to lose and spent the money anyway.

Because that is what this is all about for republicans, book deals, speaking fees, appearing on TV. The Republican party is just a gravy train.
posted by Ad hominem at 9:23 AM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

What The Actual Fuck is "hot alpha sex?"

I am pretty sure that googling this phrase will lead you to a lot of NC-17 Teen Wolf fanfic.
posted by elizardbits at 9:24 AM on November 8, 2012 [10 favorites]

Blindsided because they didn't believe in math? These organizations are too large to not have superb analysts on staff that could have fully prepped them on the outcome that was overwhelmingly likely, even without doing any analysis themselves (cough, Silver, cough, Yang).

Yeah, I don't think Romney's people were actually that surprised by the election outcome. Thier best hope was a poor showing at the polls for Obama's supporters. Mitt Romney's internal campaign polling showed President Obama leading Ohio by five points on Sunday, the final day the campaign polled the state, two GOP sources told CNN. Rasmussan and "unskewed" polls seem to be part of the GOP bullshit factory. They were part of creating the perception that Romney had the momentum, and the public had rejected Obama.

The GOP establishment doesn't seem to be that interested in what the populace is saying. It's the other way around, they are trying to push their ideas and culture onto people, even when policies are against their interests. The GOP's primary effort is to create an alternate fox news/Limbaugh culture and perception of reality; often by creating hate and negativity towards Obama and "liberals." If this has truly stopped working for them, it is a gift for America.
posted by Golden Eternity at 9:24 AM on November 8, 2012 [7 favorites]

My "favourite" post-election rationalization is from the previously-metafiltered Orson Scott Card.

His analysis is that there was a mass conspiracy amongst the media to shape the outcome of the election including, for example, how FEMA and the Obama administration handled Hurricane Sandy in a way that was worse than Katrina except there was a massive media coverup to keep the electorate in the dark.
posted by whittaker at 9:25 AM on November 8, 2012 [4 favorites]

I am pretty sure that googling this phrase will lead you to a lot of NC-17 Teen Wolf fanfic.

But I am at work and feeling that it's even dicey to have typed "hot alpha sex" not once, but now twice.
posted by Danf at 9:25 AM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

What The Actual Fuck is "hot alpha sex?"

Sex with men who are not the author?
posted by Summer at 9:26 AM on November 8, 2012 [8 favorites]

After all, they have the guns.

Oh, that horsecrap again. Firearms are easy to get in a war. They're easy to make, easy to smuggle, and cheap to buy in bulk. Guns don't win wars - organization and logistics do. Red Staters don't do that stuff so well.
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:26 AM on November 8, 2012 [10 favorites]

No one's going to mention that exit polls were cancelled for about one-third of the country? I like statistics as much as the next guy doesn't, but that puts a pretty big asterisk on the already-limited generalizability of this data. On preview, the recent posts about the false competition generated by the news cycle just adds to my worry of placing the numbers in the hands of commercial media.

Can we please fix this before the next show? I really feel like it's stifling creativity (read: likelihood for third-party voting).
posted by Johann Georg Faust at 9:28 AM on November 8, 2012

What The Actual Fuck is "hot alpha sex?"

Winter is coming.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:31 AM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

And the fun is about to begin for the GOP - Mitt was too moderate

Tea Party Vows to Hijack GOP in Time for Next Election

Frank Rich wrote this a few weeks ago:

The Tea Party Will Win in the End - This is a nation that loathes government and always has. Liberals should not be deluded: The Goldwater revolution will ultimately triumph, regardless of what happens in November.
posted by homunculus at 9:31 AM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

What The Actual Fuck is "hot alpha sex?"

Doing it the Greek way?
posted by MuffinMan at 9:33 AM on November 8, 2012

A new show on SyFy?
posted by zamboni at 9:34 AM on November 8, 2012

What The Actual Fuck is "hot alpha sex?"

Roark/Francon roleplay.
posted by bonehead at 9:34 AM on November 8, 2012

Ok, so this is how I see the next two years.

In the 'spirit of bipartisanship,' Republicans are going to push for comprehensive immigration reform and compromise. Why? If they are smart, they will do this soon, and allow some slogging out on the floor, but they will likely give Democrats most of what they want. It will pass with a razor thin majority - just enough for a bipartisanship claim by the Republicans. Largely this will be done in states where republicans can loose an incumbent and replace them with a more batshitinsane republican - where a democrat cannot be re-elected. This will be the sacrifice play.

Democrats, unused to this, will think this ushers in a new era of communication. Like Charlie Brown and Lucy, we will line up to kick the football a second time and find no further compromise by the Republicans. Everything else will be shut down hardcore.

Fastforward two years, Republicans will take the hit, and vote out the scapegoats, replacing them with (preferably) Hispanic ultra-conservatives, that will fall in line with the Republican party. At this point, now the goal is to put the screws to the social services - though not in an obvious manner. Rather than push for removal, they will push for expansion of faith based services, preferably Hispanic faith based services, and badmouth Democrats that fail to support God and the Hispanic community. What this will do is stretch budgets to ineffectiveness.

Now, Hispanics no longer fear for deportation, faith based social programs are growing at the detriment to established social programs, the economy doesn't grow a lot (improves, but slowly), and we're at year 3.

The call is now for fiscal conservancy, that the programs provided are good, but that privatized non-profit programs do better - and now money gets funneled through the churches this way. Conservative churches now funnel this money back into the political system to protect faith based services, all the while citing abortion as a service that is unfair for them to be asked to support.

Effectively, the Republican party needs to court the Hispanics - which means turning - immigration into a non-issue. They need Hispanic officials, and they need to rally the religious (particulary the Hispanic) communities. By doing so, they may capture just enough electorate that they have a chance.

Will it be palatable for the Republicans? Who knows, but they will need to address that divide, because trying to separate Cuban Americans from Hispanic Americans will not net them enough positive press - and immigration reform will always be at the back of their minds.

For those who don't know, the path for citizenship for Cuban refugees is significantly easier than any other hispanic - all they need to do is make it to dry land (no small feat) to be on a path to citizenship.
posted by Nanukthedog at 9:35 AM on November 8, 2012 [10 favorites]

Lindsay Graham has always been remarkably sane for a Republican.

Not when he was an impeachment manager.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:38 AM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

It's impossible to do a postmortem of the Republican side of the campaign without reminding yourself why the GOP was unable to field a candidate who would be compelling enough to overcome Obama's considerable powers of persuasion with some of his own. It's pretty clear that the electorate wanted that guy; the one time that Romney got a big bump in the polls, after the first debate, was because for one brief shining moment the people who were still on the fence thought he might be that guy, and that bump trickled away as it became clear that Romney only seemed to be That Guy if/when his opponent showed up to debates only in body. But if there are any of Those Guys (or Gals) in the GOP, they either didn't run or were ignored if they tried.

And that is, in large part, I think, because the people that the GOP truly admires and looks up to as leaders, even if they don't really display any particularly remarkable qualities of leadership, are the billionaires. It goes beyond simply being "the party of the 1%" (which isn't strictly true, as there are many, if not most, party members who aren't and have virtually no hope of reaching the 1%) or that many of these billionaires have given huge sums to the party and its affiliates and consultants (although they certainly have). It's that the Republicans worship these people. Simply having ten figures or more in your bank account gives you much-coveted status as a "job creator", even if you've never created an American job in your life or have even eliminated or sent overseas thousands of jobs. It's why they gave more than a minute of attention to Donald Trump, the world's most successful clown with his flyaway orange hair and perpetual pout that may as well be drawn on with greasepaint and publicity stunt antics that couldn't be more farcical if they literally involved seltzer bottles and whoopee cushions.

And it's why they ultimately went with the guy who was surpassingly bland, seemingly devoid of an inner life, and possessed of no particular principle aside from being willing to cop to any belief or stance in order to close the deal, even if it meant throwing his one genuine great accomplishment under the bus, repeatedly and unabashedly. The anguish and rage of people who were egregiously and repeatedly lied to about Romney's chances of winning is obvious and easy to find, but something I find striking is that no one seems to inquire, or care, as to how Romney himself is handling the defeat. And why would they? Caring seemed as anathema, as irrelevant to Romney, as bicycles to fish.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:53 AM on November 8, 2012 [14 favorites]

"The billionaire donors I hear are livid," one Republican operative told The Huffington Post. "There is some holy hell to pay. Karl Rove has a lot of explaining to do … I don't know how you tell your donors that we spent $390 million and got nothing."

Maybe they got a reality check.
posted by cherrybounce at 9:55 AM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

The problem for the GOP if they decide to get real on the immigration issue is that they're going to lose a big part of their base. They're not going to have the momentum or passion for a lot of success for the 2014 midterms unless they find a new rallying point that isn't "get rid of the black guy." They're probably going to spend a lot of time hashing it out this time around.
posted by perhapses at 9:56 AM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

From a friend's FB post this morning:

"A pretty phenomenal piece of information was shared at this evening's fabulous WOW event in Cambridge. If you were to remove the U.S. LGBT population from the electorate, Mitt Romney would have won the popular election on Tuesday and may well have won the electoral college as well. This is quite an amazing testimony to how the LGBT population has evolved as a force in politics. Without our involvement and votes, our country would likely be on a very different trajectory today."

Gallup Special Report: The LGBT Vote in the 2012 Presidential Election.

posted by ericb at 9:57 AM on November 8, 2012 [9 favorites]

> New Mission In Life - in 2016 Cleveland voters will have polka bands at all the polling places.

Voter suppression is a serious crime.
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:00 AM on November 8, 2012 [39 favorites]

Richard Socarides: Gay Wins Demolish DC's Archaic 'Groupthink'

Obama's support for marriage equality helped him win the election and helped us win the ballot initiatives. During this latest campaign, President Obama's support for gay-rights was never an issue used by Republicans against him. In fact, it worked to his advantage to energize progressives and young people.

... For as long as I have been in politics—which is all of my adult life—it has been “Washington groupthink” that gay issues are dangerous and only mean trouble for elected officials, even ones who are sympathetic to our cause. It is now a new day — one that has been a long time in coming. Politicians need to recognize that their embrace of us is not only the right thing to do, but leads to success at the ballot box.

posted by ericb at 10:00 AM on November 8, 2012 [4 favorites]

New York Times Says Anti-Gay Activists Need To Wake Up.
posted by ericb at 10:01 AM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

No one's going to mention that exit polls were cancelled for about one-third of the country?

I don't see that anywhere in the article; it actually says that they polled more people this year by over 38 percent. It does say that they did bare bones polling in 19 states that were not tossups, but that's not cancellation.
posted by oneirodynia at 10:01 AM on November 8, 2012

I was thinking, as O'Keefe was leading the charge to make voter fraud a thing, how insanely desperate that move was. It's saying, openly, "we can't win elections in a traditional sense". It's a weak strategy that shows a total poverty of creativity or hope.

Embracing the Tea Party was a similarly weak move. Anyone with a pair of eyeballs, access to census data, and a brain can see that the white majority is dying, and that a multi-racial electorate who doesn't care that much about abortions or homosexuality is replacing it. Why would you rush to that same dying electorate if not to try to make last second changes to laws that will negate the actual electoral process? They tried to to do this - to enshrine voting laws that would eat away at any base other than their own - and failed miserably. When they didn't lose in the courts, the GOTV efforts of the other side, and the own feedback loop of making bigotry a campaign platform and being surprised when the targets of that bigotry fight back, made them lose anyway.

Once again, it was a weak desperation move... short term gains in 2010 for long term losses going forward. It flies in the face of basic strategy.

It's shockingly... atemporal, I guess is the word. It embraces conservatism in a very literal sense, where the prospect of change or progress (even minute steps towards this, like immigration reform, legalizing marijuana, or throttling back on gay marriage) is fought tooth and nail within the party. Doubling down only works if things remain as they were in 2010 forever, and of course, they won't.

My main desire is that at some point the GOP either recenters, allowing the Democratic party to do the same, or there's a widescale splintering that creates space for third parties across the board, and finally gives me a real leftist party to vote for in America. I'm not in love with the Democrats, but represent me better than the theocratic death-cult that has overtaken conservatism in America.

My other main hope is that someone (either side, I don't care) embraces Marijuana legalization as an issue. Even if it's the republicans, and it gets them short-term wins with youth voters, it will force the democrats to start seriously considering the issues, and require them to move one way or the other (and I'm going to assume that way will be towards legalization).
posted by codacorolla at 10:08 AM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

In the 'spirit of bipartisanship,' Republicans are going to push for comprehensive immigration reform and compromise.

The leadership might want this, as George Bush wanted it in 2005, but there's still a powerful and vocal core of Republican members of congress that is dead-set against anything that looks even remotely like "amnesty". Jim Sensenbrenner is still in the congress; I doubt the Republicans wil be able to present an united pro-reform vote on this issue until he's dead. And in the fight, you'll have a bunch of Republican congressmen spouting off racist nonsense left and right, which will not help the party capture the Latino vote.
posted by mr_roboto at 10:09 AM on November 8, 2012

So if it wasnt about the color of his skin, why have I seen the n-word more times since tuesday night than I had in my entire life up to that point?
posted by Senor Cardgage at 10:10 AM on November 8, 2012 [11 favorites]

Victoria Jackson and Ted Nugent CRIED.

Victoria Jackson On Obama's Win: 'I Can't Stop Crying, America Died'.

Julie Brown as Victoria Jackson Tea Party Spokesmodel.

And ...

'Demoralized' Ann Coulter To Laura Ingraham: 'It's Over, There Is No Hope' (AUDIO).

Sarah Palin On Obama Victory: 'It's A Perplexing Time For Many Of Us Right Now' (VIDEO).

Rush Limbaugh On Obama's Win: 'I Went To Bed Last Night Thinking We'd Lost The Country' (AUDIO).

Grover Norquist: Why 2012 Election Was Actually Good For GOP (VIDEO).

posted by ericb at 10:16 AM on November 8, 2012 [8 favorites]

Aw. Don't cry, Emo Coulter.
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:20 AM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

I don't see that anywhere in the article; it actually says that they polled more people this year by over 38 percent. It does say that they did bare bones polling in 19 states that were not tossups, but that's not cancellation.

There was some talk about it and the WaPoBlog link seems to confirm that exit polling was scaled back. Not sure if this is the same thing as noted or if it actually came to pass, but this was the announcement a month ago.

Networks, AP cancel exit polls in 19 states
Posted by Jon Cohen and Scott Clement
October 4, 2012
washingtonpost.com
posted by lampshade at 10:21 AM on November 8, 2012

Grover Norquist: Why 2012 Election Was Actually Good For GOP (VIDEO).

You know who this was great for? John McCain.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 10:22 AM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Eleven dollars. DAMN, THAT'S GANGSTA.

(I'm sorry, I'm going to be laughing at those idiots all damn day, from inside the office where I run my company, which I started myself two years ago from nothing and grew into a six-figure business, all while being a slutty, white Ohioan election-ruiner with a vagina).
posted by bitter-girl.com at 10:23 AM on November 8, 2012 [22 favorites]

Sarah Palin On Obama Victory: 'It's A Perplexing Time For Many Of Us Right Now

I imagine every day is perplexing for her.
posted by elizardbits at 10:25 AM on November 8, 2012 [42 favorites]

O'Reilly: And there are 50% of the voting public who want stuff. They want things. And who is going to give them things? President Obama. . . .

What's funny is that this is essentially Romney's 47% speech (remember--the supposed "gaffe" and "misstatement"?) only with the numbers bumped up by 3%. And now the sentiment is said publicly and embraced rather than said privately and denied.
posted by flug at 10:27 AM on November 8, 2012 [7 favorites]

"Thirdly, I believe we all need to express disgust with Obama and Democrats in public places. To some extent I already do this. Example:

When I'm at the Wal-mart or grocery story I typically pay with my debit card. On the pad it comes up, "EBT, Debit, Credit, Cash." I make it a point to say loudly to the check-out clerk, "EBT, what is that for?" She inevitably says, "it's government assistance." I respond, "Oh, you mean welfare? Great. I work for a living. I'm paying for my food with my own hard-earned dollars. And other people get their food for free." And I look around with disgust, making sure others in line have heard me.

I am going to step this up. I am going to do far more of this in my life. It's going to be my personal crusade. I hope other libertarians and conservatives will eventually join me. "

Good luck with that crusade, asshole.
posted by perhapses at 10:28 AM on November 8, 2012 [17 favorites]

Julie Brown as Victoria Jackson Tea Party Spokesmodel.

That was hilarious!
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:28 AM on November 8, 2012

As a 1%er, I voted for the 1%er. In the end, the other 1%er won.
posted by Tanizaki at 10:33 AM on November 8, 2012

Good luck with that crusade, asshole.

Yeah, that is the kind of thing that would get him slapped by someone like my late gramma. Slapped til he cried.
posted by elizardbits at 10:33 AM on November 8, 2012 [7 favorites]

> I am going to step this up. I am going to do far more of this in my life. It's going to be my personal crusade. I hope other libertarians and conservatives will eventually join me.

Here's my Facebook Page. Watch me as I ~~get started on my new lifetime crusade~~ run down the hallway yelling I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU and slam my bedroom door.
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:35 AM on November 8, 2012 [10 favorites]

Later he will write angry poetry in his livejournal.
posted by elizardbits at 10:39 AM on November 8, 2012 [15 favorites]

You know, I'd love to see his results if the crusade by the Libertarian Republican carried over to all manner of government assistance. Doing business with a company that gets corporate tax breaks? Stop it! Have a mortgage and take advantage of the mortgage interest tax deduction? Sell that house! Driving on public roads? Cut that out!
posted by rmd1023 at 10:39 AM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

I'm so glad Obama invented food stamps. I would never be able to afford Foie Gras and Caviar three meals a day without them.
posted by Ad hominem at 10:39 AM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

My "favourite" post-election rationalization is from the previously-metafiltered Orson Scott Card.

Wow, I knew Orson Scott Card was a homophobic jerk, but I didn't realize he was bat-shit crazy, too.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 10:39 AM on November 8, 2012

You know, I'd love to see his results if the crusade by the Libertarian Republican carried over to all manner of government assistance.

Using US currency? NOT ANY MORE YOU'RE NOT! Barter only! Blocks of gold! Purchasing gasoline sourced to you locally due to international treaty organizations? NOPE RIDE A HORSE. Oh I'm sorry, your state-funded high school diploma is no longer valid, and you are thereby fired.
posted by elizardbits at 10:41 AM on November 8, 2012 [13 favorites]

Obama's support for marriage equality helped him win the election and helped us win the ballot initiatives.

Yup. It was absolutely ridiculous it took Obama so long when it was morally wrong not to and when it was a political benefit. It wasn't just Washington group think that got in the way there, plenty of his supporters (otherwise believers in gay rights) from all over argued tooth and nail that he could not endorse gay marriage right up till the moment when Biden let the cat out of the bag.

Medical Marijuana is another issue just waiting for some more Presidential bravery. Obama should take a stronger stance on it and do whatever he can without congress to ease the restrictions. When something has 80% national support and is the right thing to do, just do it!

As for the Republican party, the biggest problem with Romney to my mind was that he was simply not likeable. I think he successfully convinced people he would be good for the economy and cared about folks, but they like Obama better and people realize his term was not the nightmare Republicans make it out to be.

The electorate does still remember Bush, they do still remember what party was in power when the recession that crippled us happened. They remember how we got into Iraq and how Afghanistan was bungled. (and will always value killing OBL as a bigger FP issue than unproven conspiracy theories about Benghazi) They were willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt that he would continue slowly putting this stuff to right.

If Romney was more likeable, and he actually had a reasonable and detailed plan to put forward, he would have done much better. Ideology and party matter, but not enough that they will always be decisive. It's still a center-right country. It is entirely plausible that a quality "generic Republican" could win in 2016 even if they don't shift on immigration or gay marriage or abortion or anything else.
posted by Drinky Die at 10:43 AM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

BYW, What The Actual Fuck is "hot alpha sex?"

A date with Bud Cort?
posted by jb at 10:47 AM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Based on a hugely unpleasant dip into the cesspool of my local newspaper's website comments section, here is what the conservative base has learned from this election:

Not a goddamn thing.

The reality distortion bubble still holds. Romney lost because he was a good honest hardworking white man who got robbed by scary black Muslim socialists. America is doomed, and we are all minutes away from having to gay-marry a solar panel.

Perhaps reality will seep in over time. But right now, wow. These people are angry. And duuuuuuuuuuuumb. But angry.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 10:47 AM on November 8, 2012 [26 favorites]

Comment from that blog linked above:
JasonK said...
I don't post much, but I am on the site several times a day. My wife and I are struggling this morning with how we are going forward. She wants to move, but where??
I can tell you that my 10 year old son will be getting his first introduction to shooting this weekend, with my 8 and 6 yr olds soon to follow. I haven't been shooting much the last few years, and I can tell you that will be changing!
posted by NorthernLite at 10:50 AM on November 8, 2012

On the other hand, we had right-wing militias saying the same stuff during Clinton's first term and repeating it more loudly after his reelection. This is a pretty decent read on the rise and fall of violent conservative movements through the 1990s.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:54 AM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Texas is going to be a blue state soon. Get New York, Florida, and Ohio, and you can have the amazing 11 state victory.
posted by BeeDo at 10:54 AM on November 8, 2012

Man. If Obama lost, I'd have ben annoyed that my $400 donation went nowhere. I can't imagine 400 MILLION.
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 10:56 AM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

Here is another look at the exit polls from the New York Times, which gives some state-by-state breakdowns and some additional categories than the CNN page linked in the OP.

Big cities - Obama: 69%
Mid-sized cities - Obama: 58%
Small cities - Romney: 56%
Suburbs - Romney: 50%

I found that interesting in light of one complaint made about both campaigns and the debates--that they completely ignored urban issues.
posted by flug at 10:56 AM on November 8, 2012

Let's not get too carried away. If the Republicans had run a good candidate, they could easily have won this thing. We (Democrats, nation, world) just got lucky that the best they could come up with is Romney. If they had done a better job with the ground game, they could have had a shot too.

Demographics are going to continue to help, and social issues are going to tear apart the GOP coalition eventually, but we aren't there quite yet and may not be next time around either.
posted by callmejay at 10:58 AM on November 8, 2012 [7 favorites]

"Leftists need to be careful. If push comes to shove, and shove to shoot, the Red-Staters will clean your clock. After all, they have the guns."--Bill Vallicella, the Maverick Philosopher

1. You tried that particular brand of crazy back in 1860 and got your ass handed to you.

2. You just got your ass handed to you again and the only ones surprised are you.

3. Learn from 1 and 2.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:00 AM on November 8, 2012 [37 favorites]

I can tell you that my 10 year old son will be getting his first introduction to shooting this weekend, with my 8 and 6 yr olds soon to follow. I haven't been shooting much the last few years, and I can tell you that will be changing!

See...This is what weirds me out about a lot people on the right today...These folks honestly believe that Obama is about to unleash some kind of socialist UN takeover or something, and they're seeing themselves as the kids in Red Dawn. How do you come to that point in your life where such scenarios make more sense than actual reality?
posted by Thorzdad at 11:01 AM on November 8, 2012 [14 favorites]

If the Republicans had run a good candidate, they could easily have won this thing.

That's the point, they believed they did and actually turned away any sort of candidate who could have won.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:01 AM on November 8, 2012

Some right wingers didn't learn a thing. Akin says he lost due to his "six second mistake". In his head the problem isn't that he believes only some rapes are legitimate and biology works by willpower, the problem was that he said it out loud.
posted by Babblesort at 11:03 AM on November 8, 2012 [9 favorites]

"College Graduate" 47/51, BUT he's up in "Are you a College Graduate" 50/48.

The NYTimes exit poll summary, at least partly explains that. They have:

Some College - Obama 49%
College - Romney 51%
Postgrad - Obama 55%

Presumably the "College" and "Postgrad" categories combine to make the overall 50/48 split you reference (the "Postgrad" group is quite a lot smaller, so it looks to me like the numbers do add up that way).
posted by flug at 11:03 AM on November 8, 2012

If the Republicans had run a good candidate, they could easily have won this thing

If my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle.

Any Republican Party which could nominate a good candidate would be a vastly different party than now exists. They are hamstrung by an extremist base that determines the primary winners. Romney actually was a theoretically good candidate who sold out in the primaries and took positions that sunk him in the general.
posted by empath at 11:04 AM on November 8, 2012 [12 favorites]

Man. If Obama lost, I'd have ben annoyed that my $400 donation went nowhere. I can't imagine 400 MILLION.

Also consider that this is money that people are willing to spend so that they do not have their taxes raised by scary kenyan muslim commies. They were willing to spend that much fucking money in order to not have to give it to the government to be used for public services that might potentially benefit the scary poors and coloreds and queers and hairy wimmins.
posted by elizardbits at 11:05 AM on November 8, 2012 [27 favorites]

callmejay: "If the Republicans had run a good candidate, they could easily have won this thing."

That's the thing. As they are, I don't think the Republicans are capable of running a good candidate
posted by brundlefly at 11:05 AM on November 8, 2012 [4 favorites]

For Obama, a Bigger Win Than for Kennedy, Nixon, Carter or Bush

John Nichols: Overwhelming Obama Victory Not Just a Mandate for the President, but for Progressives
posted by homunculus at 11:06 AM on November 8, 2012 [5 favorites]

Let's not get too carried away. If the Republicans had run a good candidate, they could easily have won this thing. We (Democrats, nation, world) just got lucky that the best they could come up with is Romney.

This is the question I keep asking and had been asking even during the primaries when it was becoming clear Romney would pull it out. I guess I am just not "in the know" enough to understand why the GOP basically threw this election away when there were clearly better candidates they could have rallied behind. Even more baffling is when I mention this to some of my conservative friends, their eyes sort of gloss over and can offer not even the faintest reasonable answer. Instead, they almost always change the subject as if they are in the state of shock and denial.

Very, very, very, weird and I just don't get it.
posted by lampshade at 11:07 AM on November 8, 2012

See...This is what weirds me out about a lot people on the right today...These folks honestly believe that Obama is about to unleash some kind of socialist UN takeover or something, and they're seeing themselves as the kids in Red Dawn. How do you come to that point in your life where such scenarios make more sense than actual reality?

Millenarianism is hardly the sole province of the modern American right. There's something about the idea that the world is shortly coming to some kind of a major change/end that's compelling for people in lots of different places. I'm not sure if it has to do with plausibility as much as it does with the fact that the idea that the world is coming to end is exciting and gives your life meaning, but lots of people fall for it.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 11:08 AM on November 8, 2012

For Obama, a Bigger Win Than for Kennedy, Nixon, Carter or Bush

When you compare raw vote totals between 2012 and 1976, you lose whatever argument you're trying to make.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:08 AM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

In his head the problem isn't that he believes only some rapes are legitimate and biology works by willpower, the problem was that he said it out loud.

Quite honestly, he's probably right. Had Akin (and Mourdock et.al) simply kept their traps shut, or had bothered to rehearse boiler-plate talking-points, they might have actually carried the day. I suspect this is the lesson that has been learned..."Speak only officially-sanctioned talking points"...Not "Don't have crazy opinions".
posted by Thorzdad at 11:08 AM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

The first hour of Diane Rehm is just finishing up. In it, she had guests from Republican organizations analyzing and discussing the failure of the Republican message with voters, with an eye to evolving demographics. It started out hopeful, and most of the guests seemed to agree that there was indeed some serious and much-needed work on the part of the Republican party insofar as women, minorities, etc. are concerned.

Unfortunately, as the show went on, it became painfully clear that the guests didn't feel the problem was in the Republican message. Rather, the problem was with the way the message was delivered. They all seemed deaf to the idea that, perhaps, their message was hurting them.

Yeah, what's frustrating to me, just as a citizen, is that the discussion of this all revolves around the "message," and who said which utterly crazy misogynistic thing that doomed their campaign. The actuality is that the comments from Akin and Mourdoch are just illustrations of the very damaging policy positions taken by the GOP. But even in this article at the NYTimes, where the subject is the ostensible troubles the GOP has with women and minorities," the actual policy positions are totally glossed (at least on the side of women), while the crazy comments are once again repeated. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad the comments help to highlight the crazy, but opposition to things like the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act are really what carry the message.
posted by OmieWise at 11:08 AM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

Ok who is this magical Republican who would have a) won the primary and then b) beat Obama? Who?
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 11:08 AM on November 8, 2012 [7 favorites]

Right-wing fundamentalists sure do love waiting for things. Black UN helicopters, communist revolutions, the rapture...
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:11 AM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

"If the Republicans had run a good candidate, they could easily have won this thing."

They did run a good candidate. Seriously. Romney was a decent candidate. When your party forces you to change from "business-oriented moderate who can revive our failing economy" to "dog whistling anti-government flip flopper" what chance do you have?

Obama's charisma - and his abilities as an orator for that matter - are overrated. He's a blank slate, which is not a bad thing. As a first time candidate for President it means you can play the everyman card more easily with policy and it was part of why reality didn't meet expectations from 2008.

Romney was the guy who could take on Obama on the one thing that the GOP could credibly convince swing voters on - the economy - but in order to keep the rabid dogs happy he changed from moderate red to loony tunes and shed ethnic minorities and women in droves. Such is the fate of the GOP.

If they were to actually get their act together their next candidate will be a Latino Obamalike from New Mexico or Texas with little political baggage to haul and enough charisma to not have to go loony tunes when he or she outlined their policy positions.
posted by MuffinMan at 11:11 AM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Also consider that this is money that people are willing to spend so that they do not have their taxes raised by scary kenyan muslim commies. They were willing to spend that much fucking money in order to not have to give it to the government to be used for public services that might potentially benefit the scary poors and coloreds and queers and hairy wimmins.

I could save a lot of time if I wrote a greasemonkey extension that would automatically favorite all elizardbits' posts in this thread.
posted by KathrynT at 11:11 AM on November 8, 2012 [7 favorites]

Romney had the background of a good candidate. Prior experience turning around fiscal failure, governor of a blue state with a major bipartisan achievement to his name. The man just didn't measure up to the resume. He's a political draft bust.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:22 AM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

When you compare raw vote totals between 2012 and 1976, you lose whatever argument you're trying to make.

1) probobly referring to Nixons tight 0.7% win in 1968, much closer than Obama's win

2) I never realized how badly McGovern got whipped. He lost by 23.15%. Holy crap.
posted by shothotbot at 11:26 AM on November 8, 2012

> See...This is what weirds me out about a lot people on the right today...These folks honestly believe that Obama is about to unleash some kind of socialist UN takeover or something, and they're seeing themselves as the kids in Red Dawn. How do you come to that point in your life where such scenarios make more sense than actual reality?

I know, scary. Australia changed its national anthem back in 1972 so we've been spared.
posted by de at 11:27 AM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

If Romney had run as a moderate in the primaries, and won, he would be president today. I have no doubt of that. He couldn't do that. That's why you can't just nominate a good candidate in this party as it is. Something needs to change, and that is probably going to take them decades.

I think immigration is the easiest thing for them to turn around on, though. Hispanics are extremely socially conservative, and I think recent immigrants at least are economically conservative, so i think they'd be open to voting republican. The problem is the racist base of the GOP. They won't vote for the democrats if the GOP goes pro immigration, but they certainly can primary senators and congressmen.
posted by empath at 11:27 AM on November 8, 2012

1976 was Carter. The author says Obama had a bigger win because Ford only lost by 1.5 million votes.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:28 AM on November 8, 2012

Well... it's going to be an entertaining schadenfreude buffet with my family this Thanksgiving, I tell you what.

What really baffles me isn't that my dad and other family members are conservative. What baffles me is how my dad, who I don't think of as being stupid by any means, will blindly click FWD on an email that is downright ludicrous with conspiracy theories about "Obummer". He doesn't pause for even a moment to google it. And he describes himself as an "independent", but only gets his news from Fox.

That's how deep in the Fox News reality distortion field these people are. They. Don't. Question. Anything.
posted by Fleebnork at 11:31 AM on November 8, 2012 [6 favorites]

Carter won by 2%, Obama by 2.4% right?
posted by shothotbot at 11:33 AM on November 8, 2012

Ok who is this magical Republican who would have a) won the primary and then b) beat Obama? Who?

Ronald "Jesus" Reagan.
posted by elizardbits at 11:33 AM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Karl Rove acted as one of those fabled Galt-like Entrepreneurs in this election, offering businessmen a simple proposition: invest your millions in me, and I in turn will deliver lower taxes for you.

He delivered Jack Shit.

EVERY SINGLE CANDIDATE supported by Crossroads and Crossroads GPS: Electric Boogaloo lost.

A good day for humanity.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 11:34 AM on November 8, 2012 [33 favorites]

So the republicans are against the “right to slut”, and would rather keep it as a straight male privilege? Got it.
posted by acb at 11:39 AM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

They did run a good candidate. Seriously. Romney was a decent candidate. When your party forces you to change from "business-oriented moderate who can revive our failing economy" to "dog whistling anti-government flip flopper" what chance do you have?

I would counter that with the idea that a person who cannot stand up for their beliefs and allows their party to force them to promote ideals they do not agree with, it disqualifies that person as a "decent candidate". Yes, the party forces were strong and all that but Mitt is his own person and a grown man. He could have stood up for himself and resisted. (What is that old parents admonishment about "if your friends were all jumping off a bridge, would you too"?)

There is a point when a person has to own up to their part in whatever failure is being pegged to them. Romney had plenty of chances to stand up for himself, but repeatedly capitulated unless he had a perfect arrangement that he totally controlled. He sold out at every turn and then stood up with another schmoopy stump speech and deflected attention from his real intentions. Basically, he lied...again and again and again. And those lies were only punctuated with flamebait misstatements and half truths, maybe to keep people from noticing...who knows.

Bottom Line: The suckage factor with Mitt Romney was strong with him as a candidate and that factor could very well have multiplied had he been elected. And with his behavior over the primary season and into the actual campaign, there was no indication it would have been different had he been elected. In fact, it was looking like it would have been far worse.

The country made the right choice. Mitt Romney is a stupid, evil, arrogant and presumptuous wolf in sheep's clothing. I hope whatever little bit of his aura fades out like a sputtering candle in a drenching rainstorm. And the sooner the better. A Wikipedia page devoted to his campaign will be a more than generous shrine for all the stupidity he has subjected people to over the years in his near sociopathic quest for political renown in the sandbox of governance.
posted by lampshade at 11:39 AM on November 8, 2012 [4 favorites]

If Romney had run as a moderate in the primaries, and won, he would be president today. I have no doubt of that.

I actually tend to agree that Romney was a pretty good candidate if he was the candidate of his record rather than his rhetoric, but I disagree with this. He is a man who had so much shit hidden in his tax returns that he refused to release them, and presumably could not because of the damage they would have done.* I think there were lots of ways to undercut "moderate" Romney that were not fully played.

*Think about the fact that he'd been running for President for 6 years, but had only managed to clean up his returns enough to release the last two years worth. That's kind of mind boggling when you think about it.
posted by OmieWise at 11:40 AM on November 8, 2012 [6 favorites]

Yes, the party forces were strong and all that but Mitt is his own person and a grown man. He could have stood up for himself and resisted

Then he wouldn't have been the nominee. I'm not sure why this is hard to understand. It's impossible or the GOP as its currently constituted to win a national election. They cannot nominate a candidate who can win.
posted by empath at 11:42 AM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

My favorite post-election line so far:

TPMDC:

You can tell that neither party has fully grappled with the outcome of the election yet by observing how closely Republicans and Democrats resemble dogs sniffing each others’ backsides.

posted by cavalier at 11:44 AM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Brian Beutler is awesome lately. He's the guy who got the Romney campaign to fact-check their own candidate in the spin room.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 11:47 AM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

I'm not sure why this is hard to understand. It's impossible or the GOP as its currently constituted to win a national election. They cannot nominate a candidate who can win.

Yeah, I think you're too assured by about 25%.
posted by OmieWise at 11:49 AM on November 8, 2012

They did run a good candidate. Seriously. Romney was a decent candidate.

He was not a good candidate to run against Obama in this economy, pure and simple. He was a rich businessman who got rich by firing and laying off people and was proud of that. He made 10k bets during the primaries as many people dealt with being fired, downsized and laid off. He couldn't release his tax returns for who knows what reason. He came off as an arrogant and rich SOB, because he was arrogant and rich SOB and thank god someone release that video that showed it.

He had six years of chances to get in and become known to every demographic that handed the election to Obama, repeatedly chose not to and made a point of demonstrating that he would make it worst for all of them.

He was a terrible candidate to run against Obama in this economy.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:50 AM on November 8, 2012 [12 favorites]

The demise of the Republicans' social conservatism could be Obama's legacy; and from this far out the Democrats need to showcase a couple of up-and-comings likely to step into Obama's shoes. From here, it looks like the Democrats are in for at least a 12 years run in the oval office, four down, eight to go. That's a lot of social reform.

The Republicans will emerge as austere economic rationalists still talking lean government, and probably highly electable.

Obamacare will have taken hold and it'd be political suicide to plan tearing it down. That's now a given.
posted by de at 11:52 AM on November 8, 2012

Republicans could easily nominate someone who could win. They just didn't have any good ones this particular year. Romney was the best of a very sorry bunch this time, but they could plausibly field someone better next time.

Hell, Dubya himself might have been good enough to win this one if he hadn't already, you know, been a terrible president. All they need to do is sell the compassionate conservatism thing and put forward a guy who doesn't give people the heebie-jeebies when they see him. It's more than possible to rally the base and still appeal to low-information swing voters in the same year. Dubya did it even after America saw what he did with his first term.

We had a great candidate and they had a terrible one this time. If next time we have a bad/mediocre one (both Kerry and Gore were bad/mediocre candidates, so it is not just plausible but likely) and they have a decent/good one, it's up for grabs.

For all the talk of the extremists on the right, they nominated McCain and Romney in successive elections because they thought those men had the best shot at winning. Romney did not have to tack so far to the right and another politician would flip-flop much more subtly.

Let's not get cocky.
posted by callmejay at 11:54 AM on November 8, 2012 [6 favorites]

Think about the fact that he'd been running for President for 6 years, but had only managed to clean up his returns enough to release the last two years worth. That's kind of mind boggling when you think about it.

Yes. Also, tragically, we will now never know his magic tax plan. Why do the losers never mention their excellent but secret plans to the winners? Why do they HATE AMERICA?
posted by jaduncan at 11:55 AM on November 8, 2012 [9 favorites]

All they need to do is sell the compassionate conservatism thing and put forward a guy who doesn't give people the heebie-jeebies when they see him. It's more than possible to rally the base and still appeal to low-information swing voters in the same year.

Jeb
posted by OmieWise at 11:56 AM on November 8, 2012

Ok who is this magical Republican who would have a) won the primary and then b) beat Obama? Who?
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 2:08 PM on November 8

Chris Christie
Jeb Bush
posted by liza at 11:57 AM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

All they need to do is sell the compassionate conservatism thing

But I don't think a "compassionate conservative" would be seen as sufficiently conservative in the current G.O.P. Bush would have had to move right to win the 2012 primary, the same as Romney did.
posted by chrchr at 11:58 AM on November 8, 2012

Jeb

You don't think the Bush brand is a little too fire-damaged? He'd be having to win independents while either chucking his own brother under the bus or owning the legacy.
posted by jaduncan at 11:59 AM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yeah I will have to say Jeb Bush also. He will totally be at the table in 2016. He actually has a political Brain in his head, and somehow manages not to piss off the hipsters.
posted by seanmpuckett at 12:00 PM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yeah, the "Bush" name is mud for at least a generation.
posted by leotrotsky at 12:01 PM on November 8, 2012

They did run a good candidate. Seriously. Romney was a decent candidate. When your party forces you to change from "business-oriented moderate who can revive our failing economy" to "dog whistling anti-government flip flopper" what chance do you have?

"Business-oriented moderate who can revive our failing economy" Romney showed up well in the first debate, I thought, especially when he pointed to specific things in Obama's stimulus, healthcare, clean energy, and regulatory policies that were damaging to the economy. He was convincing that he actually had a better plan to work with congress to fix the economy. But much of the rest of the time he came off as mean and dismissive, consistently throwing out "severely conservative" dog whistles - including his VP selection, if not openly offering conservative positions to conservative audiences. His refusal to release tax records cast doubt on his integrity, big time. His record at Bain casts doubt on his ability to create jobs. The lack of detail he provided on what he'd actually do if elected was not very comforting for a moderate, in lieu of all of this.

The election was actually quite close. Obama won because of the incredible OFA ground game. The Dems must use this to fight the GOP in local elections.

It seems to me the obvious thing for the GOP to do is focus on their economic message, fix their position on immigration, and just pay lip service to social conservatism. But I guess they can't do this because they've been taken over by crazies. And they don't have a very good economic argument, anyway: Bush was an economic disaster, and you can't blame today's global economy on Obama - who's economic policies have obviously been better than Europe's over the last few years.
posted by Golden Eternity at 12:02 PM on November 8, 2012

No Robots: ""Leftists need to be careful. If push comes to shove, and shove to shoot, the Red-Staters will clean your clock. After all, they have the guns."--Bill Vallicella, the Maverick Philosopher, speculates about civil war."

I would "like" (as in I don't really want to see this but it would be almost funny in a way if it didn't involve actual people dying) to see them try to go up against the US military. Despite their rightward lean, most soldiers I know would shoot a motherfucker in the face if he or she was part of an organized violent resistance against their country. They are no more interested in watching part of the country secede than Lincoln was.
posted by wierdo at 12:03 PM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

One thing that surprised me a bit about those charts is that in no age bracket did a majority of white voters go for Obama. The strongest support was in 18-29 year old bracket, at 44%. Every other age bracket for white voters was either 38% or 39%.

I think I'm also a bit surprised that only 42% of white women supported Obama, given the outright misogyny that was on display this election cycle.

The Republican Party is often characterized as the party of old white men, but looking at these charts, it seems like you can strike out both "old" and "men" from that characterization.
posted by treepour at 12:04 PM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

When your party forces you to change from "business-oriented moderate who can revive our failing economy" to "dog whistling anti-government flip flopper" what chance do you have?

But there was a primary candidate that ran as a business-oriented moderate in the primaries: Jon Huntsman
posted by FJT at 12:04 PM on November 8, 2012 [7 favorites]

Let's not get too carried away. If the Republicans had run a good candidate, they could easily have won this thing. We (Democrats, nation, world) just got lucky that the best they could come up with is Romney.

Until this election I was a pretty solid republican voter, based mostly on fiscal conservatism and my own lack of empathy for people who weren't part of the dominant culture. This is exactly how I felt about Kerry vs Bush in 2004. I really, really wanted to vote for Bill Richardson and really wanted some republican challengers to the president during the primaries. Kerry seemed to be such an awful far too radical left wing candidate for me to support, even if I didn't like how bush was running the country too much.

I have since grown so disillusioned with what the republican party has become since Sarah Palin and the tea party wing nuts that I am now voting against republicans even if I don't care for the democrat or just vote third party. And will continue to do so until they drop their gay/brown cootie obsession and show some actual arithmetically valid fiscal conservatism.
posted by bartonlong at 12:04 PM on November 8, 2012 [12 favorites]

I think by 2016 Jeb will be a candidate and a lot of people will vote for him. He will appeal to the base, and craft a message that allows him to subtly disown the worst of Bush II without totally throwing W under the bus. I don't think as many moderates think Bush stunk as I would like. I think he will get a lot of moderate votes. I am quite worried about it.
posted by OmieWise at 12:05 PM on November 8, 2012

Jeb Bush wasnt a half bad governor (as far as right wingers go). Add the fact he's married to a Mexican woman, has mestizo looking kids and may count white-skinned Cuban Marco Rubio as his running mate and you have a serious threat to the party --yes, even though both are from Florida. Rubio is the "hispanic" darling right now of the GOP so you know they're gonna run him in some capacity on 2016.

oh! and Jeb's "brand" really hasnt been tarnished by his brother. at least within the GOP is hasnt. he's rather popular.
posted by liza at 12:07 PM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

If Rubio is so great why didn't they run him in 2012?
posted by leopard at 12:09 PM on November 8, 2012

If Rubio is so great why didn't they run him in 2012?
posted by leopard at 3:09 PM on November 8

he's too green, no name recognition/brand, yadda yadda.
posted by liza at 12:10 PM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Plus Rubio has the same batch number as Ryan. They have too few peers. Very few identify with them.
posted by de at 12:12 PM on November 8, 2012

Plus Rubio has the same batch number as Ryan. They have too few peers. Very few identify with them.
posted by de at 3:12 PM on November 8

i honestly wouldnt be shocked if the GOP tried to run Ryan/Rubio in 2016: one to appease teatards and the white Cuban to try to bait Latinos
posted by liza at 12:16 PM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

He was a terrible candidate to run against Obama in this economy.

And part of the problem with him, I think, is that for people who knew him when he was Governor of Massachusetts or who were smart/adept enough to look up his record, they could see that back then he was pro-choice and helped get Romneycare going. He wasn't a True Believer and for a party that seems to place a premium on True Believership, he was not even a good example of that. I think a lot of people mind the SOB stuff or the rich businessman stuff less than the "He maybe doesn't believe in anything" issue which did not improve over the course of the debates. I sort of feel he was the not-totally-stoked "I will do it if no one else will because of Dad and Country" guy and his race reflected both the Republican machine (haha Rove, you suck at getting people elected!) and also his and his family's not-entirely-thereness.
posted by jessamyn at 12:16 PM on November 8, 2012 [5 favorites]

Haha, this is still going. Backstory, a Hillary supporter in 2008 decided that Obama was basically Satan, and proceeded to create a blog to that effect, continuing long after Hillary had joined Obama's team as a highly effective Secretary of State, and now even after her husband spent months schlepping around the country trying to secure Obama's re-election. The logic is that the Clintons are only co-operating because Obama is somehow nefariously forcing them, and what Hillary and the nation really needed was a Romney victory, because reasons
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 12:18 PM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

But Huntsman never stood a chance against Cain, Newt, and Bachmann

I think he started his organizing and fundraising way too late. He should have finished up his ambassadorship and started organizing now or next year for 2016.

But, now that he's pretty much persona non grata in the Republican Party, he has no chance in 2016.
posted by FJT at 12:18 PM on November 8, 2012

> i honestly wouldnt be shocked if the GOP tried to run Ryan/Rubio in 2016: one to appease teatards and the white Cuban to try to bait Latinos

The thing is a mature electorate is not likely to give 'the boys' the keys to the oval office.
posted by de at 12:21 PM on November 8, 2012

If Rubio is so great why didn't they run him in 2012?

As well as the need to gain more experience, maybe he thought he'd do better against a non-incumbent
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 12:23 PM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Chris Christie: Don’t Blame Me for Mitt Romney’s Loss
posted by homunculus at 12:25 PM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yeah, it is entirely possible that the GOP figured it would be easier to win in 2016 than 2012, even with the recession, and is saving its good candidates for then.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 12:27 PM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

In the first sign of Republicans already looking beyond this election to 2016, senator Marco Rubio, already touted as the front-runner, announced he is to hold a meeting next week in Iowa, whose caucus normally marks the start of the nomination process.
posted by liza at 12:29 PM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

I really, really hope that Karl Rove started and ended his angry donor conference call by saying "You're tangling with the Turdblossom. That means that sometimes you get the turd and sometimse you get the blossom. You got the turd this time, gentlemen. Rove OUT."
posted by Kiablokirk at 12:30 PM on November 8, 2012 [9 favorites]

"...saddled with enormous advantages in life which become disadvantages in the world of politics."

How many Cadillacs does it take to lose an election?

Just two apparently.

However, with houses, it's probably more important to remember how many you own*.

*Even if they do belong to your wife

posted by mmrtnt at 12:32 PM on November 8, 2012

Someone already linked to whitepeoplemourningromney, but even better than that is minoritiesmourningromney.tumblr.com
posted by dinty_moore at 12:32 PM on November 8, 2012 [11 favorites]

Chris Christie: Don’t Blame Me for Mitt Romney’s Loss

I don't support many of Christie's policies at all. In fact, I'd vote against him. That said, seeing him and Obama work together last month was such a rare moment of bipartisan cooperation that I wrote him an actual fan letter.

I might disagree with him on a ton of things, but when push came to shove, he put aside a decade of bullshit to do what was right for his state. Everyone should be celebrating that. That the right is not suggests they care more about partisan bullshit than about governance.

But, of course, we knew that.
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:33 PM on November 8, 2012 [6 favorites]

Yeah, it is entirely possible that the GOP figured it would be easier to win in 2016 than 2012, even with the recession, and is saving its good candidates for then.

So, four more years of obstructionism and holding-back recovery? Great...
posted by Thorzdad at 12:33 PM on November 8, 2012

I can't believe a man with Romney's money would own a Cadillac for anything but political reasons.
posted by entropicamericana at 12:34 PM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

Wow, that Hillary is 44 website is seriously crackpot!
posted by OmieWise at 12:35 PM on November 8, 2012

They did run a good candidate. Seriously. Romney was a decent candidate.

It was a given from the very beginning that Romney would not carry Massachusetts. Romney, whose entire political career consisted of being governor of that state, that and only that. And no one ever entertained the notion that he would carry the votes from the people who knew him best.

I never understood why that wasn't more of a red flag.

Don't tell me it's because Massachusetts is wackadoo-liberal. Massachusetts elects Republican governors all the time. If he had experienced greater success at governing Massachusetts, he might have been a good candidate.
posted by ambrosia at 12:37 PM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

I really, really hope that Karl Rove started and ended his angry donor conference call by saying "You're tangling with the Turdblossom.

heh heh....

That and on a more serious note, I just hope that Karl Rove is really out and finished mucking with the process in a real sense. Either by his own choice or political banishment, that man needs to go very far away and stop the pollution he spews. This includes not only what has been reported on, but all those actions he performed that are not known in the public domain.
posted by lampshade at 12:38 PM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

Shadin' Freud

posted by mmrtnt at 12:41 PM on November 8, 2012

Karl Rove: Obama Succeeded ‘By Suppressing The Vote’

Let us all pause to savor this precious moment. Who knew that Karl Rove could provide such bountiful gifts, as a turd provides blossom
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 12:41 PM on November 8, 2012 [5 favorites]

Legalized marijuana in Washington and Colorado: Not if Obama can help it
posted by homunculus at 12:42 PM on November 8, 2012

> Karl Rove: Obama Succeeded ‘By Suppressing The Vote’

I agree. All that "don't boo, vote" stuff and the GOTV drive wasn't fooling me.
posted by de at 12:45 PM on November 8, 2012

I am so fascinated by this thread, but at work so I can't stick around.

I just want to repeat, when Bush was reelected in 2004 with a majority in both houses, I said, "Things are going to get MUCH better, or it's going to be the end of the GOP as we know it"

posted by mmrtnt at 12:45 PM on November 8, 2012

Guys, the GOP is a world joke. You're America. Destroy the GOP.
posted by de at 12:47 PM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

or it's going to be the end of the GOP as we know it"

and i feeeeel fiiiiiiiiiine
posted by entropicamericana at 12:47 PM on November 8, 2012 [6 favorites]

re: Karl Rove's suppressing the vote thing.

I expressed this same idea over in the comments at TPM, but I want to share it here, too.

Basically, what Rove is saying is that Obama's negative ads discouraged Republican voters from turning up. By using the word suppress, he suggests that Obama was engaging in something akin to voter IDs or changing polling hours. So, this is a typical Rovian attempt to create a "both sides do it" narrative about vote suppression.

"Republican Secretary of State tried to make sure minority voters didn't get to vote? That's the same as when Obama ran that ad saying Romney was a plutocrat."

Never mind that Romney (and Rove's Crossroads Super-PAC) was "suppressing" votes through their ads, albeit less effectively.

Ladies and gentlemen, running negative ads is not suppression. Obama was not suppressing votes. Ohio's Husted was suppressing votes.

My god, the only reasonable response to Mr. Rove from now until the end of time is to take a poop in his hat.
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:49 PM on November 8, 2012 [17 favorites]

By Karl's logic, Romney too suppressed the vote, by being rubbish
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 12:52 PM on November 8, 2012 [7 favorites]

Yeah, the Obama campaign may want to take a look into a slander suit over that little tidbit.
posted by Slap*Happy at 12:52 PM on November 8, 2012

Yeah, the Obama campaign may want to take a look into a slander suit over that little tidbit.

I would settle for them sending Rove a memo that reads 'David Axelrod would like to borrow your hat."
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:54 PM on November 8, 2012 [7 favorites]

My god, the only reasonable response to Mr. Rove from now until the end of time is to take a poop in his hat.

My wife and I met Karl Rove at an airport once, flying home for Christmas. She had met him previously under weird circumstances at work, and so we chatted very briefly with him. We didn't poop in his hat, but she did make a point of saying "holidays" instead of Christmas as many times as possible.

Despite trying to provoke Karl Rove, it probably went better than the time I met Dick Gephardt in a bar and began the conversation by saying "I'm pretty drunk, are you Dick Gephardt?"
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 12:55 PM on November 8, 2012 [10 favorites]

Victoria Jackson's twitter is beautiful

Here she unknowingly links some satire as news
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 12:59 PM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Nobody can convince me that Victoria Jackson is not pulling an Andy Kaufman-esque long-con prank.
posted by entropicamericana at 1:04 PM on November 8, 2012 [5 favorites]

If the Republicans had run a good candidate, they could easily have won this thing.

That's the point, they believed they did and actually turned away any sort of candidate who could have won.

Umm? Who? Huntsman and Pawlenty would be able to make credible cases but failed to get their campaigns off the ground and the rest of the field was full of nutballs. The Republican primary voters picked their best option out of what was presented to them. He was the most moderate and centrist of the credible choices. It was obvious he was going to win after Iowa even though the primary voters hated him. (when a lot of liberals insisted they would go for one of the nuts. Liberals don't really understand conservative voters that well sometimes)

There will be a more diverse, credible, and organized group of primary candidates in 2016 and they are a real threat to win the general.

I don't think Romney's turn right in the primary was the real nail in the coffin for the general, it was his turn right in the general. Paul Ryan? Are you kidding me? You're trying to convince us you want to save Medicare as much as Obama and you go with Paul Ryan? You want to convince us you aren't a partisan hack and you try and score political points on Benghazi before the bodies are even cold? Look dude, the audience for that shit was already voting for you. Voters can forgive flip flopping from the primary, but don't try and talk out of both sides of your mouth in the general. Pivot, and stay there.
posted by Drinky Die at 1:04 PM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Meaning this
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 1:05 PM on November 8, 2012

Read this before the election, but think it holds up even better after...

Why I Will Not Be Voting Republican For The Foreseeable Future
posted by pupdog at 1:08 PM on November 8, 2012 [9 favorites]

I find it very strange conservatives spend years hurling any kind of invective possible at Obama, dems and anyone in general who is not them then they lose and get all emo, like dems are meanies "Romney 5ever lik dis if u crye evry tiem".
posted by Ad hominem at 1:08 PM on November 8, 2012 [4 favorites]

Your Mefite Token Conservative Republican here:

My analysis is this: Very many African American Christians who are social conservatives did vote for Obama. They told me. I asked one why and she said she thought Obama cared more than Romney did. I know other (white) social and fiscal conservatives that wrote in their own name or did not vote at all because they considered it a sin to vote for, and I quote, "the lesser of two evils." Romney did not get the full backing of conservative Christianity, and many regular Republicans did not like him because they did consider him too liberal. That, and Romney is just not your down to earth likeable fellow (politically speaking. I have never met the man.)

Add to that Obama has the hands down best organized political machine I have ever seen in my entire life. I had canvassers at MY door, even.

If there really was a Zombie Reagan and he was on the ballot, there might have been a chance. But Romney did better than he really honestly had a right doing. Most votes for him were more an Antiobama vote than anything else, and since as I said before some antiobama votes were channeled in other directions, or cast by NOT being cast, there you go.

Now, looking ahead, it is very hard for me to see the Republican Party staying together as is. Those who don't give a rip about social conservatism and those that care very much to the exclusion of just everything else are going to get along about as well as you would imagine, that is to say, not. I have heard rumblings of a third party-I forget what it is called but there are people I know out there pushing it forth.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 1:08 PM on November 8, 2012 [14 favorites]

If the Republicans had run a good candidate, they could easily have won this thing.

For months I have wondered if the Karl Rove et al believed that the candidate didn't really matter, they would have so much money thanks to Citizens United that they could just basically buy the damn thing. I suspected that is why people were willing to grudgingly go along with Romney after every other remotely electable Republican decided to sit out 2012. Their choices were Snow White, one of the other seven dwarves, or Mittens.
posted by ambrosia at 1:09 PM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Legalized marijuana in Washington and Colorado: Not if Obama can help it

They said the federal government could sue to block parts of the measures or send threatening letters to marijuana shops, followed up by street-level clampdowns similar to those targeting medical marijuana dispensaries the government suspects are fronts for drug traffickers.

“This is a symbolic victory for (legalization) advocates, but it will be short-lived,” Kevin Sabet, a former adviser to the Obama administration’s drug czar, told reporters.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. I think we are at "fight" now, and with the majority of Americans behind legalization it's pretty clear who is going to win in the long term.
posted by Drinky Die at 1:10 PM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Nobody can convince me that Victoria Jackson is not pulling an Andy Kaufman-esque long-con prank.

I think She, Dennis Miller and recently Trump realized you have a ready made audience if you are a "conservative" entertainer. Yes, I called Trump and entertainer. He is such a phony I don't understand why Republicans haven't called him on it.
posted by Ad hominem at 1:10 PM on November 8, 2012

I think with Victoria Jackson what you see is what you get. She's not that complicated. OTOH Trump, you are absolutely 100 percent right.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 1:12 PM on November 8, 2012

Yes, I called Trump and entertainer.

I dispute this. In order for Trump to be an entertainer he'd need to be entertaining.

His hair, on the other hand, is an entertainer.
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:12 PM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

I don't know how you tell your donors that we spent $390 million and got nothing.

How about: Americans are not for sale.

And here they thought the Supreme Court it took them 30 years to put together had handed them the keys to perpetual wins.
posted by Twang at 1:18 PM on November 8, 2012

I predict Trump will have a very public conversion and get gay married to marijuana soon. There is no way he can push his current act any further.
posted by Ad hominem at 1:19 PM on November 8, 2012

For months I have wondered if the Karl Rove et al believed that the candidate didn't really matter

It was pretty much the theme of their campaign. I imagine the "minds" behind the Republicans this cycle brainstorming and it's something like, "When the economy is weak and unemployment is high, Americans usually vote out the incumbent. So all we have to do is remind people that the economy is weak and unemployment is high, and they'll automatically vote for us!" It's like they expected 270 electoral votes to fall out of the sky and hit them in their empty heads just for showing up and not being the incumbent.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 1:19 PM on November 8, 2012

Romney campaign: We lost Florida
With Florida’s 29 Electoral College votes, Obama will have 332 votes to Romney’s 206.
posted by liza at 1:20 PM on November 8, 2012 [4 favorites]

I searched the web once for a shopped picture of Trump with a buzz cut, found one and he looked great. You know how a good hair-do can change your outlook ... ?

Someone needs to tell him.
posted by de at 1:24 PM on November 8, 2012

Romney campaign: We lost Florida

Rove: "Not so fast!"
posted by found missing at 1:25 PM on November 8, 2012

"Karl Rove: Obama Succeeded ‘By Suppressing The Vote’"

I spent a few moments stewing over this, thinking back on ol' Karl's extremely long resume of dirty electoral tricks like John McCain's out-of-wedlock black baby and John Kerry's cowardice during Vietnam, but then a sense of calm washed over me as I realized that Karl Rove is such a god damned laughing stock right now that Donald Trump -- Donald Trump! -- is making fun of him on Twitter for blowing several hundred million dollars and having bupkis to show for it. That's the same Donald Trump who has about as many bankruptcies to his name as he does hotels/casinos, telling Karl Rove he doesn't know how to spend his money.

So yeah, Karl Rove? Fuck that guy.
posted by tonycpsu at 1:25 PM on November 8, 2012 [14 favorites]

Post-Election, Silver Reigns Supreme -- "Not only did Nate Silver pick all 50 state winners in the presidential race, he also beat his polling aggregator rivals for sheer accuracy."

Roger Simon | Politico: "The next sound you hear will be Nate Silver negotiating a new contract."
posted by ericb at 1:31 PM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Blindsided because they didn't believe in math? These organizations are too large to not have superb analysts on staff that could have fully prepped them on the outcome that was overwhelmingly likely, even without doing any analysis themselves

Don't be so sure. As Fox's Megyn Kelly said to Rove as he threw a hissy fit on-air on Election night insisting that Romney was going to win Ohio, "Is this just math that you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better, or is this real?" An amazing moment, that she would say this out loud with a national audience.
posted by aught at 1:32 PM on November 8, 2012 [7 favorites]

East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94: "Haha, this is still going."

That site looks very much like unskewedpolls.com. Coincidence?

homunculus: "Legalized marijuana in Washington and Colorado: Not if Obama can help it"

Two "former drug control officers" speak for Obama? (Not that I would be surprised to see more raids, this just isn't evidence of anything except that drug warriors like the war on drugs)
posted by wierdo at 1:33 PM on November 8, 2012

Anti-Obama Teen Kristen Neel's Tweet About Moving To Australia Triggers Heated Twitter Backlash.
posted by ericb at 1:35 PM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

My god, the only reasonable response to Mr. Rove from now until the end of time is to take a poop in his hat.

I would volunteer my poop, my time and my effort for that job.

Pro Bono Pooping if you will. For the good of the planet and humankind in general.
posted by lampshade at 1:35 PM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

I have heard rumblings of a third party-I forget what it is called but there are people I know out there pushing it forth.

Which would probably be the best news Democrats could hope for. A divided GOP would be a "parting of the waters" moment for the Democrats, I think.

Unless, of course, this new third party comprised of "social conservatives" was such a minuscule portion of the original GOP that they'd have no political clout whatsoever, amounting to conservative chaff from Republican wheat, making the party seem a helluva lot more reasonable and fair-minded. As the AP poll linked in the OP shows, the "government is too large" message resonates with a lot of Americans. Cut the racist, sexist elitists loose from the GOP and they may have a chance after all, who knows?
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 1:37 PM on November 8, 2012

As Fox's Megyn Kelly said to Rove as he threw a hissy fit on-air on Election night insisting that Romney was going to win Ohio, "Is this just math that you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better, or is this real?" An amazing moment, that she would say this out loud with a national audience.

I find myself wondering if FOX, for whatever reason, was setting-up Rove that night. What got me wondering was an offhand comment Kelly made as she was negotiating the hallways back to the election room. She was talking about the microphone reception and she said "When we rehearsed this earlier today..."

Now...Why would you rehearse scrambling back to the number-crunching room? It's almost as if they knew Rove was going to have a melt-down.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:38 PM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

Huntsman and Pawlenty would be able to make credible cases but failed to get their campaigns off the ground and the rest of the field was full of nutballs.

I maintain that putting Perry, Bachmann, and Cain up on stage was some kind of performance art piece. Or possibly a prank that gave someone at GOP headquarters months worth of lulz.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 1:39 PM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

wierdo: " Two "former drug control officers" speak for Obama? (Not that I would be surprised to see more raids, this just isn't evidence of anything except that drug warriors like the war on drugs)"

Well, if the feds don't bollocks it up, the local cops will.

Decriminalization at the federal level is the only way this happens. Way too many entities have an interest in the status quo.
posted by tonycpsu at 1:41 PM on November 8, 2012

Now...Why would you rehearse scrambling back to the number-crunching room?

Moreover, there's the camera crew that was already in the number-crunching room, filming her approach. The whole thing was very Bear Grylls, minus the pee-drinking.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 1:42 PM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

The whole thing was very Bear Grylls, minus the pee-drinking.

I'm pretty sure that's the fox news kool-aid
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 1:43 PM on November 8, 2012

After Obama’s Re-Election, Religious Right Demands Repentance and Resistance.
posted by ericb at 1:44 PM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

ericb: "Post-Election, Silver Reigns Supreme -- "Not only did Nate Silver pick all 50 state winners in the presidential race, he also beat his polling aggregator rivals for sheer accuracy."

He forgot Drew Linzer over at Votamatic. His model has been stuck on 332-206 for months. I have to admit I was not a believer in his model's accuracy during Romney's surge.
posted by wierdo at 1:44 PM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

Well, if the feds don't bollocks it up, the local cops will.

The issue in Flint is that it remained criminalized at the state level. Local cops enforce state laws, so that's a law they're still free to enforce. Local cops don't enforce federal laws; local prosecutors don't prosecute them. For the federal drug laws to be enforced, a federal police agency (like the DEA or FBI) would have to investigate and arrest people and the local US Attorney's office would have to prosecute them in federal court.

I don't see that happening on any kind of large scale for possession.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 1:47 PM on November 8, 2012

A lot of people took the election in 2008 for the death of the Republican Party. Two years later, the Republicans swept the House. I'm not dancing on any unmarked graves.

That said, the completeness of Crossroads's failure cheers me.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 1:47 PM on November 8, 2012 [6 favorites]

How Gay Marriage Broke Through the Voting Booth Barrier.
posted by ericb at 1:48 PM on November 8, 2012

Reason's Jesse Walker makes the argument that the entire election cycle, not just Obama's win, shows the futility of the Tea Party in presidential politics.

tldr: Romney made far-right noises during the primary, but the "base" knew it was an act, hated him for it, and was powerless to stop him from getting the nomination anyway.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 1:51 PM on November 8, 2012

I actually think the Republican party will do fine for itself if it adopts immigration reform. Yes, much of its base will scream and cry and rage with its racism and xenophobia -- and then get right back in line for 2016. They will suck up the immigration hit as a necessary sacrifice, and hate the liberals who forced them into that corner all the more for it. The Republicans can shift on immigration with short-term costs, but in the long term this won't be a huge problem.

As for the Bush name being mud? Just wait 'til 2016 and ohmygoodness how could you judge a man by the actions of someone else in his family and hasn't he been good for Florida and look how blinded you liberals are by your liberal hate!
posted by scaryblackdeath at 1:51 PM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

re the Australia thing, I'm surprised HuffPo didn't post this, it's already viral.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 1:56 PM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

From the last link: Mitt Romney's approach to Hispanic voters was "atrocious."

But he even put on brown face, what more do they want?
posted by ActingTheGoat at 1:58 PM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

> ericb: Anti-Obama Teen Kristen Neel's Tweet About Moving To Australia Triggers Heated Twitter Backlash.

Kristen Neel closed her Twitter account after contracting an Australian viral response and no-one had to mention a thing about our socialist leanings.

One guy kindly suggested " ... Antarctica. Move there."
posted by de at 1:59 PM on November 8, 2012

After Obama’s Re-Election, Religious Right Demands Repentance and Resistance.

When does the flagellation start? Or the dancing mania?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:59 PM on November 8, 2012

My bold prediction: the GOP reads this post-game analysis from living legend Nate Silver and, rather than realizing that they need to moderate their policies or at least their message, decides to initiate a massive Republican relocation program to move their base voters from states with surplus wingnuts (WV, AK, TN, MO) into swing states. They have all those buses lying around from their many bus tours, so start-up costs for a program of this size should be minimal.

After seeing jilted Romney voters talking about moving to Canada to flee creeping U.S. socialism, (pause for that to sink in), it can't be that hard to convince them to cross the WV/PA or KY/OH borders, can it?
posted by tonycpsu at 2:00 PM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

move their base voters from states with surplus wingnuts (WV, AK, TN, MO)

Take our wingnuts, please!
posted by jferg at 2:03 PM on November 8, 2012 [4 favorites]

Also- I, for one, am absolutely thrilled to see the triumph of Socialism in America.

Dare to Think, Dare to Act! Achieve the Four Modernizations! Criticize Lin Biao!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 2:03 PM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

As Fox's Megyn Kelly said to Rove as he threw a hissy fit on-air on Election night insisting that Romney was going to win Ohio, "Is this just math that you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better, or is this real?" An amazing moment, that she would say this out loud with a national audience.

Oh, Megyn. So lovely to look at, so confident, so poised and intelligent-seeming... I would almost swoon, but then I hear the things she actually says, and I shriek and scramble to change the channel and the remote falls out of my reach and then she keeps talking! It's like that dream where someone's chasing me and I get to my door but I'm fumbling too much for my keys and then they get me and whydoesthemurdererhavetobesopretty?!
posted by scaryblackdeath at 2:07 PM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

Let’s Play ‘Drunk Nate Silver,’ the Hilarious New Twitter Game
posted by homunculus at 2:10 PM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Very many African American Christians who are social conservatives did vote for Obama. They told me.

The plural of anecdote is not data.

Just ask Nate Silver.
posted by ericb at 2:13 PM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

Very many African American Christians who are social conservatives did vote for Obama. They told me.

The plural of anecdote is not data.

Just ask Nate Silver.

That's kind of a harsh dismissal. I thought the anecdote was worth sharing, and I certainly didn't take the comment as a claim of it being reflective of the feelings of all social conservative blacks across America.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 2:15 PM on November 8, 2012 [5 favorites]

Just ask Nate Silver.

I tried, but apparently he's drunk.
posted by found missing at 2:16 PM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

His hair, on the other hand, is an entertainer.

It's actually a squirrel.

The squirrel is the entertainer on the otherwise bald pate*.

* -- 'Pate, not Pâté"
posted by ericb at 2:18 PM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

I've been doing the happy dance since Tuesday and lovin' the weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth here in the 'red' potato state.

Quote:

The Democrats do voter registration like a factory, like a business, and Republicans tend to leave it to the blue hairs."

You stupid sumbitches, that's EXACTLY why you lost. Way to disrespect the older women that worked so hard for you. Sure hope those 'blue hairs' hear this and realize how little you value their efforts.

Fuck Republicans.
posted by BlueHorse at 2:19 PM on November 8, 2012 [13 favorites]

"Like my books, every box of Ayn Bran is unnecessarily long."
posted by tonycpsu at 2:25 PM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

a massive Republican relocation program to move their base voters from states with surplus wingnuts (WV, AK, TN, MO) into swing states

Isn't that socialism?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:29 PM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

I certainly didn't take the comment as a claim of it being reflective of the feelings of all social conservative blacks across America.

Just "very many", i.e., "most" or "nearly all" in the English language.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:30 PM on November 8, 2012

they're seeing themselves as the kids in Red Dawn. How do you come to that point in your life where such scenarios make more sense than actual reality?

Yep, the guy and his six-year-old are gonna have a shootout with the Feds.

And how awful to be reading such rhetoric on the day Jared Loughner - of Tea-Party crazy Arizona, “beneficiary” of Old West gun laws and poor mental health care - faced his victims in court. Including Mark Kelly speaking on behalf of Gabrielle Giffords.
posted by NorthernLite at 2:30 PM on November 8, 2012

I read "very many" as a lot. I think it's pretty accurate. Practically all of the African American population voted for Obama, and among that population there are social conservatives. Those social conservatives voting for the Democrat is not really new though.
posted by Drinky Die at 2:54 PM on November 8, 2012

Charlie Pierce: The Real Problem with the Demented Republican Party

The Republican party is a cascade of symptoms right now. And it's very hard to see a way out of it. It has managed to construct an almost perfect Newtonian hall of mirrors — for each solution, there is within the party an equal, but opposite problem. There is almost no way to function within the party structure as it has been redefined by the various elements of the conservative "movement" without rounding a corner and colliding with the image of itself coming in the other direction.

posted by tonycpsu at 2:57 PM on November 8, 2012 [4 favorites]

I find myself wondering if FOX, for whatever reason, was setting-up Rove that night. What got me wondering was an offhand comment Kelly made as she was negotiating the hallways back to the election room. She was talking about the microphone reception and she said "When we rehearsed this earlier today..."

Now...Why would you rehearse scrambling back to the number-crunching room? It's almost as if they knew Rove was going to have a melt-down.

They could have planned for the possibility of having some sort of check-in with the numbers people at some point. It seems pretty unlikely that the plan beforehand was for Rove to dispute the numbers.
posted by dfan at 2:57 PM on November 8, 2012 [4 favorites]

That's what I figured it was. After the process of "calling" a state became so contentious in 2000, I have no doubt that every network prepared to have to explain it on-air during future elections.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 2:59 PM on November 8, 2012

House Speaker John Boehner told ABC News today that the House won’t hold any more votes to repeal the entire health care law. When “World News” anchor Diane Sawyer asked if there would be any more attempts to wipe away the whole law, Boehner said “the election changes that” and “Obamacare is the law of the land.”

Can I just say how delighted I am that the supposedly negative name the Republicans came up with for the ACA is now basically its real name (in the colloquial sense)?
posted by rtha at 3:01 PM on November 8, 2012 [16 favorites]

Boehner then added, "We will now vote to repeal 20 percent of the law, five times a day," and mooned the camera.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 3:02 PM on November 8, 2012 [4 favorites]

and mooned the camera.

"Sawyer reports his as is as orange as his face - maybe even orange-er."
posted by Joey Michaels at 3:05 PM on November 8, 2012

Matt Taibbi on Republicans who still don't get it:

There's been a lot of hand-wringing among conservatives of the Rush/Hannity school in the last few days, a lot of concern about this outreach question, and honestly, the tone of the discussion is beginning to sound like the last days of a failed 1950s marriage. The husband who's gone all day at work comes home and throws his hands up in the air in mock frustration: what do you want from me, another Cadillac? Another fur coat? I just got you new shoes last week!

And the wife, who's loved this man for 20 years despite his abject stupidity, just sighs. All she wants her husband to do is listen to her, or take a day off work sometime and take her for a drive in the country, or make some spontaneous show of affection, maybe popping home for lunch like in the old days – just some evidence that he's even faintly aware of what's going on in her head. But when they try to talk it out, things just get worse, because in his very manner of asking her what's wrong, all hubby does is reveal that he thinks of his wife entirely as a nagging, financial parasite who's always on his ass about something.

Similarly, the fact that so many Republicans this week think that all Hispanics care about is amnesty, all women want is abortions (and lots of them) and all teenagers want is to sit on their couches and smoke tons of weed legally, that tells you everything you need to know about the hopeless, anachronistic cluelessness of the modern Republican Party. A lot of these people, believe it or not, would respond positively, or at least with genuine curiosity, to the traditional conservative message of self-reliance and fiscal responsibility.

But modern Republicans will never be able to spread that message effectively, because they have so much of their own collective identity wrapped up in the belief that they're surrounded by free-loading, job-averse parasites who not only want to smoke weed and have recreational abortions all day long, but want hardworking white Christians like them to pay the tab. Their whole belief system, which is really an endless effort at congratulating themselves for how hard they work compared to everyone else (by the way, the average "illegal," as Rush calls them, does more real work in 24 hours than people like Rush and me do in a year), is inherently insulting to everyone outside the tent – and you can't win votes when you're calling people lazy, stoned moochers.

posted by tonycpsu at 3:05 PM on November 8, 2012 [34 favorites]

Can I just say how delighted I am that the supposedly negative name the Republicans came up with for the ACA is now basically its real name (in the colloquial sense)?

Historically, a lot of names for music and art movements (e.g., "Impressionism") originated as derisive terms from detractors and were eventually embraced by the artists themselves.
posted by dfan at 3:07 PM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

This is the question I keep asking and had been asking even during the primaries when it was becoming clear Romney would pull it out.
posted by lampshade

Let's not get cocky.
posted by callmejay
posted by futz at 3:38 PM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Democrats, including Obama, will only become 'Leftists' once military spending is slashed. Until then, they don't have any right at all to consider themselves part of the Left.
posted by KokuRyu at 3:56 PM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

Wow, does that mean that Obama has to stop calling himself a leftist?
posted by found missing at 4:07 PM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

I don't see how you can really put military spending in America on a left-right scale. Both parties love it, and our interventions are usually justified on humanitarian terms designed to appeal to leftists. I could be perfectly leftist economically and still want to spend a ton to protect our boarders but not to intervene internationally. I just don't think "leftist" is the right word here.
posted by Drinky Die at 4:11 PM on November 8, 2012

traditional conservative message of self-reliance and fiscal responsibility

You know, this really is a message the dems should co-opt. It's sort of an American thing, and (obviously) all sorts of people in every party appreciate and practice self-reliance and fiscal responsibility.

At this point dems have a record of governing in a far more fiscally responsible way than the republicans.

At this point, these are words only for the Rs, so the concept is ripe for the grabbing.

You just need to re-brand it a bit. Real self-reliance and real fiscal responsibility or something like that.
posted by flug at 4:11 PM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

*shrug* I'm a lefty and I'm a total fan of having a huge and awesome military. I just wish we'd use it for more genuinely humanitarian stuff. We should absolutely intervene in genocides, for instance -- and not just when intervening might coincidentally leave us with better access to oil.

But then I'm one of those silly people who thinks you can wear a uniform and carry a gun and still call yourself a good guy if you actually walk the walk.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 4:14 PM on November 8, 2012 [11 favorites]

Democrats, including Obama, will only become 'Leftists' once military spending is slashed.

Who says that leftists cannot be militarists? I have a few decades of Soviet sphere of influence expansion and adventurism looking perplexed at your assertion.
posted by chimaera at 4:22 PM on November 8, 2012 [7 favorites]

> I just wish we'd use it for more genuinely humanitarian stuff. We should absolutely intervene in genocides, for instance -- and not just when intervening might coincidentally leave us with better access to oil.

Never unilaterally unless you're on home turf.
posted by de at 4:23 PM on November 8, 2012

Wow, does that mean that Obama has to stop calling himself a leftist?

Does he call himself a leftist? He looks like a reasonably moderate conservative from where I sit. That probably makes him a pretty good choice for President, given just how ferociously right-wing America is, but it's a pretty big stretch to look at what he's all about and see much reflection of the left in it.
posted by Mars Saxman at 4:26 PM on November 8, 2012

> Does he call himself a leftist?

He wouldn't dare. He'd probably answer to pragmatist, which (IMO) amounts to compromised leftist in Obama's case.
posted by de at 4:30 PM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Surplus wingnuts.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 4:31 PM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

Bush was an economic disaster, and you can't blame today's global economy on Obama - who's economic policies have obviously been better than Europe's over the last few years.

Europe is not a country. But it should be. A lot of what is going on now would never have happened if Europe was a single nation, and this exactly demonstrates what Republican ideologues have gotten wrong. Greece, Italy, Ireland and Spain are failing dramatically because the North had no way of regulating the rampant corruption and spending there, and now the North refuses to bail them out and insists on austerity, in spite of every economist's advice. Look at the Red/Blue maps of the US, and you will consistently see people voting against their own interest. Those who get most federal aid vote for more state rights. The same thing is going on in Europe, except, Europe is not a country, and the consequences are worse. And already now, we see fascists gaining support in Greece and Italy - fascists are always the evil populist coalition of disenfranchised whites and the 1%
At least in the US, the rich coast populations are willing to pay taxes to help the south and the rust-belt. In Europe, the rich North has no sympathy for the south, and no understanding that we will all go to hell together, if we don't get everyone on board.
posted by mumimor at 4:33 PM on November 8, 2012 [5 favorites]

Yeah, the "Bush" name is mud for at least a generation.

I'm not sure about this. I love the Clintons but do you remember how absolutely hated they were when he left office? I mean hated. Now they both enjoy record personal approval ratings across party lines. People just seem to forget anything beyond last week's speech.
posted by triggerfinger at 5:00 PM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Im typing this from one of Obama's FEMA concentration camps. Aside from not being allowed to leave and having to swear hourly allegiance to one of the many many portraits of Obama that are like EVERYWHERE in here, it's really not all that bad. We've got free wi-fi obviously and tonite is Salisbury Steak Night (which is awesome.)
The cons: they have suspended democracy indefinitely and the mandatory abortions are a bit much (Im like "Um helllooo Im a dude") but I did get to meet Kathy Griffin and I gotta tell ya these blue jumpsuits are pretty badass. Also there's a rumor going around over by the moat that we might get Will.I.Am to perform at Obamadan (Christmas is against the law now which sucks cuz I cant get refunds on layaway gifts) so that's nice. So yeah, in short: No Elections ever ever again but free Salisbury Steak and a Make-Your-Own-Sundae bar with all the fixins.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 5:03 PM on November 8, 2012 [15 favorites]

A lot of what is going on now would never have happened if Europe was a single nation..

...or a bunch of single nations that didn't pretend they were one by adopting a common currency.
posted by Drinky Die at 5:07 PM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Democrats, including Obama, will only become 'Leftists' once military spending is slashed.

And NASA's budget is tripled, at least!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:17 PM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

Wait, who said that?!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:18 PM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

I'm not sure about this. I love the Clintons but do you remember how absolutely hated they were when he left office? I mean hated.

Huh?

Clinton's job approval rating ranged from 36% in mid-1993 to 64% in late 1993 and early 1994.[1] In his second term, his rating was consistently ranged from the high-50s to the high-60s.[1][2] After his impeachment proceedings in 1998 and 1999, Clinton's rating reached its highest point at 73% approval.[3] He finished with a Gallup poll approval rating of 68%,[4] higher than that of every other departing president measured since Harry Truman.[4]

As he was leaving office, a CNN/USA TODAY/Gallup poll revealed 45% said they'd miss him. While 55% thought he "would have something worthwhile to contribute and should remain active in public life", 68% thought he'd be remembered for his "involvement in personal scandal", and 58% answered "No" to the question "Do you generally think Bill Clinton is honest and trustworthy?". 47% of the respondents identified themselves as being Clinton supporters. 47% said he would be remembered as either "outstanding" or "above average" as a president while 22% said he would be remembered as "below average" or "poor".[5]

(There goes that magical 47% again -- twice.)

Really?

Sure, Hillary's ratings weren't as high as her husband's when they left the White House, but they certainly weren't universally hated.
posted by maudlin at 5:19 PM on November 8, 2012 [6 favorites]

oh man, I am totally celebrating Obamadan this year. Maybe for the *rest* of this year.
posted by hap_hazard at 5:20 PM on November 8, 2012 [9 favorites]

Sure, Hillary's ratings weren't as high as her husband's when they left the White House, but they certainly weren't universally hated.

No, but the ascendent right wing media sure tried. Clinton death lists, "Not MY president" bumperstickers, daily "Chelsea is fat" jokes.

Hell, when I enlisted, they didn't call you a worthless faggot, it was "Clinton Recruit".

And then there was Timothy McVeigh and the Montana Freemen....

I dunno what it was about Clinton, but I was unprepared for that level of crazy.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 5:26 PM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

Yeah, the right wing media loathed and carried on into histrionics about Clinton, but not anyone else. Seems a familiar refrain.
posted by absalom at 5:29 PM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yeah, the Republicans hated Clinton, but the country didn't. It was Al Gore buying into beltway thinking about Clinton that led Gore to not ask Clinton to campaign on his behalf. Which was a mistake. Clinton loves the stump and would have explained in his Clintonian fashion just how different Gore was from Bush.
posted by ambrosia at 5:33 PM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

538: Based on a preliminary analysis of the returns, Mitt Romney may have had to win the national popular vote by three percentage points on Tuesday to be assured of winning the Electoral College.

Sam Wang final meta-margin prediction: O +2.46% i.e. had Romney won the PV by 2.46% the election, would have been in dead heat.
posted by ersatz at 5:35 PM on November 8, 2012

you know what i'm trying to figure out? - how a guy who's possibly a little to the right of richard nixon gets labeled a socialist by the republican party
posted by pyramid termite at 5:38 PM on November 8, 2012 [10 favorites]

(I mean, I remember the generally fond reaction to this, but I Googled anyway to avoid Kaeling myself.)
posted by maudlin at 5:39 PM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

Sam Wang final meta-margin prediction: O +2.46% i.e. had Romney won the PV by 2.46% the election, would have been in dead heat.

The meta-margin is the amount the polls would have had to have been wrong by, on average, for the election to have been a dead heat, not the amount Romney would have to win the popular vote by for the election to be a dead heat.
posted by dfan at 5:40 PM on November 8, 2012

Jeb has his own baggage though. Starting with Terri Schiavo.
posted by ambrosia at 6:12 PM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

...they hated the Clintons then almost as much as they hate Obama now.

No, the hate for Obama is a bit...darker in nature.

Some of the stuff being spewed is absolutely vitriolic. Take care, President Obama. There are some real nut jobs out there with vengeance on their minds.
posted by BlueHorse at 6:25 PM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

I'm kind of surprised there haven't been publicized assassination attempts yet. I mean, it's been four years.
posted by rmd1023 at 6:35 PM on November 8, 2012

Also, Rachel Maddow speaks truth.

"And evolution is a thing! ... And the moon landing was real!"
posted by rmd1023 at 6:36 PM on November 8, 2012 [8 favorites]

rdr: "Why did Romney turn so hard to the right during the primaries? It's not as if the republicans had another viable candidate. He could have kept his mouth shut and waited for the Bachmans, Cains, and Perrys to blow over."

Ask Tim Pawlenty or Jon Huntsman. Tacking hard right during GOP primaries is not optional nowadays.
posted by tonycpsu at 6:48 PM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

On Sirius tonight on the drive home, the usual idiots were on Fox demonstrating without question that as far as changing any part of their ideology, they are likely doubling down more than re-examining their positions. The logic, if I can use that term, is that becoming more moderate will only make them harder to distinguish from Democrats. Thus, if anything, there needs to be some way to discover some hidden motherlode of nutjobs, Creationists, and rabid bigots in the gay, female, and hispanic populations in order to simply increase their numbers. They're like the kid on Christmas that finds a pile of horseshit under the tree and starts looking for a pony.
posted by docpops at 6:52 PM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

Charles Darwin gets nearly 4,000 write-in votes in Athens against Rep. Broun
posted by homunculus at 7:09 PM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

The thing that burns my ass the most is that by and large socially progressive policies are far more financially conservative than the alternative private sector (or non-existent) approaches.

When you insure the entire population for health, net spend on healthcare goes DOWN and productivity goes UP. When you make sure everyone has food to eat and a place to sleep, crime goes down, emergency service spend goes DOWN and people become happier. When you give the population a free, rigorous science based education, crime goes DOWN and GDP goes UP. When you treat people equally and make sure women have full reproductive rights, unwanted childbirths (and associated social issues) goes WAY DOWN and you enable half of the population to enter the workforce confidently and both productivity and GDP go WAY UP. And when you invest heavily in science and energy innovations, you build a foundation for a sustainable nation that can meet its own needs without destroying our natal ecosystem while continuing to drive forward humanity's technological growth. And then you tax the benefits in your society you've created reasonably and all the programs more than pay for themselves.

This is true conservative policy: you insure your people, thus insuring your future. You provide safety nets for health, welfare and education and you enable personal choice growth and it all locks together like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle of happy citizens ringing in a golden age of peace and prosperity.

And the only reason we don't get these policies right away is because the Republicans don't want financial conservativsm, they want fucking JIHAD.

They fucking lie about what they want, they don't care about taxes or crime or anything except being the Rich White Male Alpha Dogs who Are the Boss of YOU. And everything else can just go to hell. [rude gesture]

Thankfully the constant lying is starting to ring hollow to more and more people.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:12 PM on November 8, 2012 [37 favorites]

I'm a lefty and I'm a total fan of having a huge and awesome military.

I'm a lefty, and we should cut our military by 25% at least. We could cut it by 50% and still spend more than anyone else, and we could still have nice things.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . . This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Chance for Peace speech, April 16, 1953
posted by kirkaracha at 7:15 PM on November 8, 2012 [24 favorites]

Why did Romney turn so hard to the right during the primaries?

For years -- decades -- we have heard utterly insane ideas discussed seriously in the media and by political leaders. The very fact that *contraception* was even mentioned as an issue this campaign show how very, very far this country has drifted. I can't even begin to understand how Climate Change became the Unmentionable Topic ... not just in the campaign, but in every day life. And then there is race ...

I have been saying for years - they are like locusts, these fearful-angry extremists, they live underground for years and then break out from the mud and extinguish all light.

In a way it was good to see them clearly in this campaign -- to get them to actually voice their insanities openly. Now we know what we are dealing with. Social media helps - we can refute, fact check and call them out on every 'swift boat' campaign they launch.

And yes, we should even do it in line at the grocery store if necessary.

--> Memorizing Rachel Maddow's Truth Facts
posted by Surfurrus at 7:22 PM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

seanmpuckett: "And the only reason we don't get these policies right away is because the Republicans don't want financial conservativsm, they want fucking JIHAD. "

The culture wars were originally a means to an end. Unfortunately, they've been coopted by the movement they made a deal with and the culture wars have become the end.
posted by wierdo at 7:35 PM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

Mittens lost because he was a douche. Seriously, as someone who suffered under GWB policies, I still think I'd rather have him again that Mr. Magic Panties.*

*That said, I was raised LDS in a family generations into the church and have nothing against Mormons (as most are family) or their magic panties.
posted by _paegan_ at 7:38 PM on November 8, 2012

What Occupy Did to 2012, What It Will Do to 2013

Here's a word that hasn't popped up in the various post-mortems of the election so far: Occupy.

From the start, it's been my opinion that the very least you could say about the movement was that people were yelling at the correct buildings. And, I agree with Todd Gitlin in that the first iteration of the movement pushed things about as far as it possibly could. But its effect on the election just passed could not be more profound, and it should not be ignored — though it likely will be — by the rest of the people trying to make sense of What It All Means. Occupy changed the national dialogue. Willard Romney's surreptitiously taped comments about "the 47 percent" would not have had the resonance they did had the Occupy movement not gotten the country talking about the 99 percent and the one percent. It created a new rhetorical paradigm that simply would not have been there had it not been originally shouted at the correct buildings. And it was that new paradigm that triumphed Tuesday night.

posted by homunculus at 7:57 PM on November 8, 2012 [10 favorites]

Okay, maybe the Bush comparison to the Clintons wasn't a great one. I didn't follow politics so obsessively when I was younger, but I remember how horrible and nasty the GOP talking heads were about the Clintons and this seemed to spill over into the mainstream somewhat. The impeachment, the Clinton body count, Billary, nasty jokes about a very young Chelsea......they hated the Clintons then almost as much as they hate Obama now. [ . . .] So I think people just forget.

Well, I think the context is a little too different to make a Bush/Clinton comparison super-apt, y'know?

I mean, an awful lot of liberals & moderates were unhappy with Bill about the whole Monica Lewinsky thing and his lies about it, for a variety of reasons, but the horrorshow of Shrub's terms in office made that seem like small potatoes. So now we like Bill again.

Whereas the Republican Noise Machine constantly needs a Dastardly Foe to battle against, so once Clinton was out, they had to move on to someone or something else. And of course now they've got the Scary Keynan Socialist Muslim to rail against, so that's what leaks into the more mainstream press. Lots and lots and lots of right-wingers still hate Bill & Hilary with a passion, they're just making so much more noise about Obama that not much of their hate for the Clintons makes it out of the echo chamber.

And for a depressingly large number of people, the simple fact that Bill is white makes him seem so much better in comparison, regardless of what they may have thought or said or wrote at the time he was in office.

GWB has kept a super low profile and will continue to do so and by the time four years go by, I think lots of people will have forgotten how bad he was. ESPECIALLY if they GOP continues down the path of crazy and makes him look ever more moderate.

Unfortunately, I do think you have a point there. Plus I'd bet an awful lot of the people making loud anti-Obama noises STILL think Shrub was a good president. So 2016 or even 2020 could see a surge of "Remember how good it was under W?"

My point is, I don't think the Bush name is as tainted as we think.

But I think a large part of the reason Jeb Bush is seen as a viable contender is that he (arguably) seems to be more moderate and more willing to compromise than his brother (also smarter.) So I'd say a lot depends on where the Republicans go over the next couple of years - if they double down on the crazypants I doubt he'd even consider running.
posted by soundguy99 at 8:04 PM on November 8, 2012

you know what i'm trying to figure out? - how a guy who's possibly a little to the right of richard nixon gets labeled a socialist by the republican party

Because they are just name callers who understand Overton's Window. Either implicitly or explicitly.
posted by gjc at 8:08 PM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Why did Romney turn so hard to the right during the primaries? It's not as if the republicans had another viable candidate. He could have kept his mouth shut and waited for the Bachmans, Cains, and Perrys to blow over.

Money. All the biggest donors are wingnut conservatives. It's why he waited so long to swing back toward the center, too. The conservative base was always going to vote against Obama so they were in the bag; Romney need hard-right donors and moderate voters. He got one of those things, mostly.
posted by oneirodynia at 8:10 PM on November 8, 2012

"What Occupy Did to 2012, What It Will Do to 2013"

Y'know I've been struggling to try and put this thought, which I'm sure many have had, into well-ordered words and then - bam! - Pierce does it for me.
posted by jeffen at 8:19 PM on November 8, 2012

Joseph Smith what an asshole.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 8:30 PM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

I'm a lefty and I'm a total fan of having a huge and awesome military.

They call lefties like you Stalinists or Maoists. Take your pick.
posted by KokuRyu at 8:35 PM on November 8, 2012

"If there really was a Zombie Reagan and he was on the ballot"

In 2012, Reagan would be a moderate Democrat.

No way he works his way up through the California political machine as a ca. 2012 Teabagger Republican. He started out as an FDR Dem, lest we forget.

So even in your contrition you manage to sound stupid. The Republican party has no place for anyone who doesn't want a) to give Paris Hilton further tax cuts b) start another un-winnable war against a Middle Eastern nation or c) to cut social programs for the poor and the elderly.

But I agree, your party is doomed.
posted by bardic at 8:41 PM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

Maybe there's a phenomenon at work here. When billionaires get involved to buy an election, it distorts the message enough to satisfy the prime donors, but misses the mark with the voters, ultimately failing the candidate. The Romney effect.
posted by Brian B. at 8:46 PM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

"Karl Rove: Obama Succeeded ‘By Suppressing The Vote’"

Big Liar just keeps Big Lying.
posted by srboisvert at 8:47 PM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

So even in your contrition you manage to sound stupid. The Republican party has no place for anyone who doesn't want a) to give Paris Hilton further tax cuts b) start another un-winnable war against a Middle Eastern nation or c) to cut social programs for the poor and the elderly.

That seems a bit harsh, doncha think? And a lot of hyperbole there. I guarantee you I know a heckufa lot more registered Republicans than you do, and your characterization is not all that accurate.

This isn't Bloods versus Crips. We are all in the same nation and we sink or rise together. Just maybe we can start by talking to each other like grownups.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 9:07 PM on November 8, 2012 [10 favorites]

Listening to John Nichols (The Nation) talking about the vote -- that Obama won with a greater margin than Kennedy had, more than Nixon's, more than Carter's and more than Bush's in either '04 or '08. Obama has a MANDATE.

We should not grovel for compromise from belligerent obstructionists. The voters have said they expect more. We need to demand more.

And, we must not ignore any of the obstructionists' insults to this president -- that is an insult to all of us. This -- After his speech, Mr. Obama tried to call both Mr. Boehner and the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, but was told they were asleep (NYT 11/7)
posted by Surfurrus at 9:20 PM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

I'm a lefty and I'm a total fan of having a huge and awesome military.

I'm a lefty, and we should cut our military by 25% at least. We could cut it by 50% and still spend more than anyone else, and we could still have nice things.

I do not disagree at all. But we could still have a huge and awesome military even after all those spending cuts. Hell, if we just fixed the horrible mess that is military procurement ($5 billion wasted camouflage uniform dollars, anyone?), we could have the cuts and never even notice them. That's about the only arena in which the Republican refrain of cutting "waste, fraud and abuse" really would add up to dollars significant in the Federal budget.

...that, and for the record, we should pour buckets of money into taking care of vets. That would be defense dollars well-spent. But oh, no, let's just keep buying the military equipment that it doesn't even want.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 9:28 PM on November 8, 2012 [4 favorites]

Red and Blue maps with purple -- making use of a cartogram, a map in which the sizes of states are rescaled according to their population
posted by Surfurrus at 9:34 PM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

I can't see Mitch McConnell as anything but the cute little bugger in this comic anymore.
posted by Drinky Die at 9:53 PM on November 8, 2012

be cool and don't make this rapey, thanks!
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:54 PM on November 8, 2012

Quit trying to tar them all with the same brush.

No. The Republican party has managed to produce a number of racist and misogynistic assholes. It has a history of doing that, so there's nothing wrong with calling them it.

It's the 21st century, enough of that crap.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:55 PM on November 8, 2012 [7 favorites]

No. The Republican party has managed to produce a number of racist and misogynistic assholes. It has a history of doing that, so there's nothing wrong with calling them it.

It's the 21st century, enough of that crap.
posted by Brandon Blatcher

Ssssooo... you're so modern and evolved, that you are going to defend the stereotyping of a whole group of people because some folks who bear the same political label also stereotype others?

There's nothing wrong with calling out bigots and misogynists. I agree with that. There's a LOT wrong with assuming everyone who votes Republican is a bigot and a misogynist, because that's just plain too easy.

(Aaaand now the previous few comments have been deleted, so suddenly mine is lacking in context. :P )
posted by scaryblackdeath at 10:00 PM on November 8, 2012

Ssssooo... you're so modern and evolved, that you are going to defend the stereotyping of a whole group of people because some folks who bear the same political label also stereotype others?

Yes, I'm ok with calling out an political party that has a very recent history of producing racist and misogynistic assholes who think it's normal to racist and misogynistic.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:05 PM on November 8, 2012 [7 favorites]

David Brooks: The Party of Work

I'm no historian, but what a mythical "protestant" history of America painted by Mr. Brooks. He completely leaves out slavery in the first part. What about the Homestead Act? Was this not a government hand-out? It ignores labor movements and the New Deal entirely. As Taibbi mentioned in his recent article, many "illegal" immigrants probably do more work in a day than many of us do in a week or a month.

Don’t get hung up on whether the federal government is 20 percent or 22 percent of G.D.P. Let Democrats be the party of security, defending the 20th-century welfare state. Be the party that celebrates work and inflames enterprise. Use any tool, public or private, to help people transform their lives.
posted by Golden Eternity at 10:07 PM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Very recent is an understatement, it's present history. Present history of racism in the Republican party, yeah. Obama ran the Colin Powell endorsement video in every commercial break for the past two weeks in PA.

My Republican dad ranted about how it was only cause Obama is black (nah, couldn't be the extremely competent foreign policy that clearly kept the Powell doctrine in mind at all times).

I think pretty much every "Republican Dad" accepted that as the common wisdom around here, in a blue state, stupid and racist as it was. I'm not trying to stereotype, this stuff is just obviously there. When white men stop being outlier Republican supporters, we can talk about this being an outdated view, but we aren't there yet.
posted by Drinky Die at 10:16 PM on November 8, 2012

I'm under no obligation to "be respectful" of a party that believes in outlandish, radical things such as women being forced to carry rape-abortions to term (and this wasn't just Akin, this is in the GOP platform ca. 2012). I don't have to "listen" to people who spent the last four years trying to insinuate that our president was somehow a Kenyan Socialist. I don't have to treat as adults a party that, if Romney had been elected, would have been pushing for a third unwinnable war in the Middle East.

So please spare us your pearl clutching about civility. Until you purge the fringe and radical elements from your party (good luck with that, because you'll have to start with Limbaugh) nobody else is under any obligation to take you seriously, ever.
posted by bardic at 10:27 PM on November 8, 2012 [15 favorites]

WTF. Romney planned an 8 minute fireworks display over Boston Harbor to celebrate his victory. Which was instead dismantled and shipped back to New Hampshire. This is just the height of too-muchery.
posted by 2bucksplus at 10:27 PM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

The American colonies were first settled by Protestant dissenters.

St. Augustine - 1565

Maybe you should go back to telling us about global warming and evolution.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 10:28 PM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

btw Jessamyn, my question was totally legitimate. I was quoting what a supposedly mainstream GOP candidate said about the issue.

The larger point is, yes it's uncomfortable and disturbing. But what Republicans say is uncomfortable and disturbing. They are radical weirdos and it kind of sucks that we aren't allowed to quote them as such.
posted by bardic at 10:30 PM on November 8, 2012

That would have been some pretty cool fireworks, doused in tea party metaphor. Would have signaled the doom of our nation, but yeah, would have been great on TV.
posted by Drinky Die at 10:32 PM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

"Romney planned an 8 minute fireworks display over Boston Harbor to celebrate his victory."

Of all my wishful fly-on-the-wall moments of the past few days, watching the staffer who had to take the call that Willard was cancelling the fireworks over Boston -- a city that hates him already -- (apparently Ann was crying in the background) would be in my top five.

Fucking losers.
posted by bardic at 10:32 PM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Obama should plan a 47 minute fireworks display outside whichever one of Mitt's houses he's in now. You know, as a way of thanking Mitt for his spirited campaign.
posted by tonycpsu at 10:33 PM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

Pierce (Esquire) via Humonculous:

Occupy changed the national dialogue. Willard Romney's surreptitiously taped comments about "the 47 percent" would not have had the resonance they did had the Occupy movement not gotten the country talking about the 99 percent and the one percent.

Abso-effin-lutely 100% on the mark.

(Pierce's keen perception is pretty amazing.)
posted by Skygazer at 10:36 PM on November 8, 2012 [7 favorites]

Occupy changed the national dialogue. Willard Romney's surreptitiously taped comments about "the 47 percent" would not have had the resonance they did had the Occupy movement not gotten the country talking about the 99 percent and the one percent.

This is very true and very often missed. It was the single biggest mistake Romney made, and OWS was pretty directly responsible.

OTOH, OWS never hit home with the message that the 47% was full of seniors, vets, soldiers, and workers as well as the Democratic machine did once the video was out there.
posted by Drinky Die at 10:40 PM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

I'm not buying this assertion that OWS 'changed the dialogue'. As far as I see it, what OWS represented was an opportunity to turn an existing dialogue into significant changes in policy. But what they did was ridicule the notion of actually deciding what changes to put their weight behind, and then they fizzled out.

I will warn you against getting invested in a wrongfully self-congratulatory narrative; if you succeed in getting that accepted, you'll have new generations repeating your errors. Like OWS did with the errors of the French 1968 student protests and others.
posted by Anything at 10:58 PM on November 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

Romney was talking about percentages because OWS forced percentages into the conversation. Not a perfect movement, but they made that thing happen.
posted by Drinky Die at 11:01 PM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

I'm not buying this assertion that OWS 'changed the dialogue'. As far as I see it, what OWS represented was an opportunity to turn an existing dialogue into significant changes in policy. But what they did was ridicule the notion of actually deciding what changes to put their weight behind, and then they fizzled out.

Would not affecting the perception of a central election theme and thereby affect the election not count as a dialogue that had changed? Without OWS, the 47% comment would have just been another comment. Not a nice one, but still just a comment. While OWS did not anticipate Romney saying what he did in the exact manner he did and in the exact place that he did, at the same time OWS did create a new thought pattern of consideration as to where one stand in the economic strata in the US in particular. The dialogue of wealth distribution was fundamentally changed and by extension, any attempts to define policy were also compared to that more relevant standard.

Or this is all spitting hairs here.
posted by lampshade at 11:21 PM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

Romney was talking about percentages because OWS forced percentages into the conversation. Not a perfect movement, but they made that thing happen.

Maybe there is something to this, but the 47% remark was referring to Obama's support in the polls at the time:

Romney: "There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. And I mean, the president starts off with 48, 49, 48—he starts off with a huge number. These are people who pay no income tax. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes doesn't connect. And he'll be out there talking about tax cuts for the rich. I mean that's what they sell every four years. And so my job is not to worry about those people—I'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives. What I have to do is convince the 5 to 10 percent in the center that are independents that are thoughtful, that look at voting one way or the other depending upon in some cases emotion, whether they like the guy or not, what it looks like. I mean, when you ask those people…we do all these polls—I find it amazing—we poll all these people, see where you stand on the polls, but 45 percent of the people will go with a Republican, and 48 or 4…"

Wow! you look back at this comment and it is exactly what conservatives are still saying now: the 47% has gone up to 51% and that means the US has crossed a threshold, where now the majority of Americans want to be dependent on the government, and therefore conservatism is doomed, and therefore the United States is doomed.

"People are suffering. The country is in disarray. If Mitt Romney cannot win in this economy, then the tipping point has been reached. We have more takers than makers and it's over. There is no hope," Coulter said.

And, David Brooks "The Party of Work" article out today is probably more of a response to this, then anything. Laura Ingraham went on to talk about the American Conservative Union that was formed after Goldwater was demolished in 1964, and is credited with marketing/selling conservatism to the American people, eventually discovering and developing Ronald Reagan.

It is really short sighted of the GOP to not see that nurturing racism and bigotry would get in the way of selling conservatism to women, Latinos, and Asians, etc. I guess their strategy to deal with growing diversity was gerrymandering and voter suppression.
posted by Golden Eternity at 11:28 PM on November 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

a meme created by the right wing talking heads as those who were taxpayers

Income tax payers, that is.
posted by tonycpsu at 11:36 PM on November 8, 2012

If you don't remember this, here's google search, to refresh your memory. "The 53%" was used as a justification for why we need to tax poor people.
posted by amuseDetachment at 11:37 PM on November 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

"People are suffering. The country is in disarray. If Mitt Romney cannot win in this economy, then the tipping point has been reached. We have more takers than makers and it's over. There is no hope," Coulter said [continuing her stance that a) nothing can be subject to too much hyperbole and b) if you call her agent she'll continue to apply hyperbole to whatever the client pays her to].
posted by jaduncan at 12:16 AM on November 9, 2012

Golden Eternity: I guess their strategy to deal with growing diversity was gerrymandering and voter suppression.

Well, that and a certain strain of magical thinking and a creating of a certain environment that would lead to some ineffable power in the universe of Americanism, naturally and righteousness, delivering unto them a new golden moment of ascendant conservative Republicanism informed by the all-perfect deity known as Ronald Reagan who would somehow possess the physical form of Mitt Romney (HIS LAST NAME BEGAN WITH AN 'R" and ROMNEY SOUNDS LIKE RONNY!!) to begin anew another 30 year cycle of Supply-side, trickle-down, Wall Street led uber-prosperity, and all those strange demographics and whatnot would be seduced by this and be quelled into mutual all enveloping love for the second coming of the Reagan via the Romney humonculous vessel.

And all this would play itself out as that perfect moment in 1980, with Obama playing the part of Jimmy Carter and Beghazi playing the part of Tehran and the hostages...

TL;DR: The GOtP's strategy for growing diversity was pretty solidly based in magical thinking, fed by a reality distortion bubble and deep deep denial and a certain dark-tinged mob hysteria stoked by the emotional and intellectual cripples and media personalities venerated as the leaders of the present day GOtP and receiving paychecks mostly from Rupert Murdoch infotainment entities.
posted by Skygazer at 12:17 AM on November 9, 2012 [3 favorites]

Yeah, what amuseDetachment said. Republicans focused on the income tax payers as a response to the 99%. It had jack squat to do with poll numbers.
posted by Drinky Die at 12:20 AM on November 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

WTF. Romney planned an 8 minute fireworks display over Boston Harbor to celebrate his victory.

"Because fuck you Boston voters, I won without your support anyway."
posted by jaduncan at 12:20 AM on November 9, 2012

"The 53%" was a meme created by the right wing talking heads as those who were taxpayers and relevant (100-53 = 47). Romney was merely parroting what has been said from Limbaugh and his ilk as a response to "The 99%".

Yes, good point. But I think his main purpose in bringing this up was to convince his donors how he was going to win the election, not just for spitefulness.

This was the question he was answering:

Audience member: "For the last three years, all everybody's been told is, "Don't worry, we'll take care of you." How are you going to do it, in two months before the elections, to convince everybody you've got to take care of yourself?"

So, basically: How are you going to get people who aren't conservatives to vote for you? How are you going to win the election? (especially if your plan is to cut social benefits that so many people like).

And the gist of his answer is that "47%" of the people will never vote for him because blah, blah, blah, hate, hate, Limbaugh, Limbaugh, but he has an ingenious strategy to win the election by attaining just the 5%-10% he needs with perfectly engineered negative advertising.
posted by Golden Eternity at 12:41 AM on November 9, 2012

Yes, that's the other bit that bothered me extremely about those remarks, apart from the absolutely plutocratic notion that you can glide into power by disregarding a huge portion of the population. Basically, Romney was confusing between two sets of statistics here, the first this apparent set who don't pay taxes and second, the set who wouldn't vote Republican at any given cost.

It was quite a glib point to make, and in my view, heavily undercut Romney's own case for being president, that he can be an effective leader because he makes decisions by analzying realms of data. (At another level, such muddled thinking was expected; most of these smart-suit consultant-types love to mix metaphors and confuse concepts in creating 'narratives')

But yes, the reason these right-wingers started talking about those 53%-ers in the first place was because they were trying to fight back on the 1% messaging that OWS generated and were, indeed, trying to portray the protesters as unemployable riff-raff.
posted by the cydonian at 1:24 AM on November 9, 2012

Can I just say how delighted I am that the supposedly negative name the Republicans came up with for the ACA is now basically its real name (in the colloquial sense)?

Plouffe: GOP will "regret" branding health care "Obamacare"

See also: free marketing for Obamaphones.
posted by dhartung at 2:20 AM on November 9, 2012

While President Obama pulled out a nice strategic victory and won nearly all of the battleground states, what he really should have considered doing, even if his resources and time were largely going to be concentrated on those states, is having at least the appearance of a more national focus.

Something like a 50-state tour would've been nice, and given the length of the campaign, would've been quite doable. He already went into or across most fifty states anyway, while fundraising. It would've offset some of the obvious narrowcasting of this election, and helped to create the kind of grassroots effort that Democrats will need to take back the House.

In retrospect, it seems hard for me to believe that anyone thinks Howard Dean shouldn't have stayed in charge of the DNC. In truth, at this point, they should seriously look at getting Bill Clinton to do the job, if possible, with the goal of strengthening both the grassroots and the fundraising aspect of the Democratic Party.

It was an unnecessarily close race, at least at the national level. In the long run, Democrats can't afford to leave so many of their people out on the sidelines.
posted by markkraft at 5:02 AM on November 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

If the Democrats can tap into Team Obama's methodology and talent pool, then they have a very potent set of tools against gerrymandering - in short, they understand the constituency better than the GOP, and understand how to crunch the data and distribute their resources better than the GOP. If they're going to make a play to regain the house, I think the Obama game plan - use the Republican extremism against them and rely on a great ground game to energize voters and get them to the polls - may bring the house back to the Blue or at least narrow the gap between minority and majority where it would be in the best interest of Gooper reps from moderate districts to work with the Dems.
posted by Slap*Happy at 5:23 AM on November 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

If the Democrats can tap into Team Obama's methodology and talent pool, then they have a very potent set of tools against gerrymandering...

This touches on one of my biggest disappointments about Obama: his administration seems to be mostly about his administration. I don't get the sense that he sticks his neck out for the actual party or campaigns a lot for other Democrats. So I worry that this great ground game that his team has put together will sort of wither and die once he leaves office.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:45 AM on November 9, 2012 [5 favorites]

Obama's team went to work immediately after the 2008 election with the goal of getting Obama re-elected. I don't begrudge them for that one bit. Now that they no longer have that goal in mind, I imagine they will spread their wings a bit. It would be great if the DNC hired Plouffe to work on a national Congressional plan.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 5:50 AM on November 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

WTF. Romney planned an 8 minute fireworks display over Boston Harbor to celebrate his victory.

This points to a bigger issue within the Republican Party. The Presidency is a job, and it's a fucking difficult job. Romney thinks it's a prize, a gold medal awarded to the person who convinces enough people to pick him in a popularity contest.

Given what it seems to do to your life, I question the sanity of anybody that wants the job.
posted by COD at 5:56 AM on November 9, 2012 [5 favorites]

You know, in all seriousness, I bet he truly believed the Mormon White Horse prophecy.

Now that the election is over that might actually make a really cool FPP if someone were so inclined.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 6:35 AM on November 9, 2012 [3 favorites]

Something like a 50-state tour would've been nice

I've been wondering if the sudden shift in MO, IN and MT might not have been due to the focus on the swing states because I haven't read any article about demographic shifts there. In all probability he would have still lost there, but expanding the map in 2008 paid dividends this year when Obama had more paths to the white house due to NV, CO, VA and secondarily FL and NC. I'd be interested in reading more about this change in strategy.

The meta-margin is the amount the polls would have had to have been wrong by, on average, for the election to have been a dead heat, not the amount Romney would have to win the popular vote by for the election to be a dead heat.

It is also the amount the vote would have to swing (but not the PV margin - I was wrong there). From your link: The Popular Meta-Margin is the amount of opinion swing that is needed to bring the Median Electoral Vote Estimator to a tie. If you think that between now and Election Day, 1% of voters will switch from the other candidate to your dude, this is a swing of 2% and can compensate for a Meta-Margin of 2%.
posted by ersatz at 6:39 AM on November 9, 2012

If you have the time, check out this clip of David Frum (he's a Republican, yo) diagnosing the problem of the GOP. His theory: conservative donors and followers have been fleeced by the "Conservative Entertainment Complex." Not an original theory but great to hear it from a Republican. Hopefully others follow suit.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 6:41 AM on November 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

Obama's team went to work immediately after the 2008 election with the goal of getting Obama re-elected. I don't begrudge them for that one bit.

When thinking of the 2010 elections and Republicans getting control of redrawing districts, I begrudge them a bit.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:43 AM on November 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

Hoo boy. You think Obama campaigning with/for people would have helped in 2010? Do you remember 2010?
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 6:46 AM on November 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

And Republicans redrawing districts happens at the state legislature level. Really have a hard time seeing how Plouffe, Axelrod, and Messina were supposed to change that.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 6:49 AM on November 9, 2012

Hoo boy. You think Obama campaigning with/for people would have helped in 2010? Do you remember 2010?

Yes, it was prime time on the 24 hour batshitcrazy channel. When the stakes are so high that Republicans get to redraw districts, I'd expect a President to put in effort to prevent that. Especially if the election is being spun as referendum on his policies.

Really have a hard time seeing how Plouffe, Axelrod, and Messina were supposed to change that

Some sort of team effort would be nice, instead of "Hey, you guys are on your own."
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:03 AM on November 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

So I worry that this great ground game that his team has put together will sort of wither and die once he leaves office.

Not if they stay focused on second base and run with a woman next time. The gift that keeps on giving here is the perception by wannabe whites that everyone else is voting for a safety net because they don't like to work. In reality, that is their psychological projection of themselves. It's a handy white delusion that is now dead politically, because there are no numbers to support any significant mobility among the deluded, and the middle class is shrinking (hence the need for a pacifying denial).

What distinguishes Romney's so-called takers from the fed-up givers is that those takers actually know from experience they're being marginalized, exploited, under-payed, screwed-over, so they don't delude themselves about the CEO job. It allows them to effectively work to progressively target healthcare instead and level the field.

Romney's white legion of "givers" are brainwashed under the American myth, and typically can't fathom what it means to have limited options until they are much older, while most young women, disabled, and minorities already get it. I suggest the liberal party keep the focus on family and personal issues that everyone secretly worries about. Let the deluded respond by blathering about business and costs and shooting themselves in the foot each time by pretending there is something to educate the rest of us about about their moronic fundamentalist branded conservative economics. The economy and stock market do better under Democrats and that should give political dividends long-term under most conditions, like it did post war.
posted by Brian B. at 7:07 AM on November 9, 2012 [5 favorites]

Now that the election is over that might actually make a really cool FPP if someone were so inclined.

I have to agree with you. I have seen people flirt with this in postings elsewhere, but I never wanted to touch it as there was nothing really concrete to suggest Romney had it in his mind that he was the equestrian rider.

Instead I would jokingly dismiss it as the White Castle Prophesy and the the White House was what he craved. With it all over now, it may be something worth looking at.

Here are the links I assembled a while ago but did not make a MeFi post about it. I did not want to wade into that puddle at the time nor am I really up to putting together a coherent FPP now. However, if someone wants to make sense of this, feel free to use these links.

White Horse Prophesy
Wikipedia
wikipedia.com

LDS Church Statement on "White Horse Prophecy" and Political Neutrality
by Lyman Kirkland
The Mormon Newsroom
January 6, 2010
mormonnewsroom.org

Romney and the White Horse Prophecy
by Sally Denton
Salon
January 29, 2012
salon.com

Former Mormon Explains Why Mitt Romney Should Never Be President
By Sarah Wood
Addicting Info
May 13, 2012
addictingInfo.org

Romney's Mormon Faith in Spotlight
By Edward Isaac Dovere
Politico
May 28, 2012
politio.com

Where is Mitt Romney’s Faith?
By John Dickerson
Slate
June 19, 2012
slate.com

When the Constitution “Hangs by a Thread” – The White Horse Prophecy in Modern Mormonism
By Bill McKeever
Mormonism Research Ministry
(no publishing date given)
mrm.org

Mitt Romney’s White Horse
by Drew Gowing
Charlatan Magazine
May 2012
charlatanmagazine.com
posted by lampshade at 7:11 AM on November 9, 2012 [10 favorites]

Imagine if Romney had held a press conference and called out voter surpression tactics as unAmerican. Imagine if he had done something similar about the weird rape statements that kept coming.

But he didn't and now we'll never get to see that fireworks display.

He would have severely alienated his base if he called out party members on misogyny and vote suppression. Attacking women's rights and denying the Americaness of non-whites is a key part of pushing a 'traditional' America. These were not really isolated aberrant acts. They were the absolute peaks of Conservative ideological mountains which startled by standing out so starkly but that are supported by tonnes and tonnes of less obvious foundation that runs deep and wide and cannot be easily removed.
posted by srboisvert at 7:13 AM on November 9, 2012

I've already posted this in another thread, but Nate Silver's chart that shows the popular vote margins by state also doesn't support the notion of a sharply-divided electorate.

As shown on that chart, the American political spectrum is smooth and continuous. We might be ideologically split, but that chart shows no gaps or discontinuities. Just a lot of purple states (which we'd expect from the close-ish national popular vote result), and then a smooth tapering-off into the more solid red and blue states. There's no sharp split between red states and blue states, and almost the entire spectrum is represented.

On the other hand, you can't say the same thing about Congress... The first-past-the-post system in the House skews things drastically in the direction of local majorities, and seems to encourage extremism as a result. If every district in Ohio voted 51% republican, all 18 of Ohio's representatives would be Republican, rather than a more logical 7/9 split that would more accurately reflect the electorate's intent. This also makes the system extremely susceptible to gerrymandering, which the Republicans took full advantage of in 2010.
posted by schmod at 7:46 AM on November 9, 2012

> Nate Silver's chart that shows the popular vote margins by state also doesn't support the notion of a sharply-divided electorate.

Interesting. Pity Silver didn't do a colour graphic across the US map: fifty shades of grey, starting with Utah as white. I'd love to see if there's a progressive pattern.
posted by de at 9:30 AM on November 9, 2012

I wonder if gerrymandering may have actually hurt them in some ways. Specifically, did it play a role in creating districts where Tea Party-type candidates were able to win? If so, even though they get more seats, perhaps it backfires in some ways. It factionalizes their party, which would decrease their ability to maneuver. It also ties them to unsavory remarks made by these people that are a real turn-off to most Americans.

Not too long ago, party discipline was seen as a big Republican strength. Now, they are still united against Obama, but I don't think the party is able to control ideology and messaging the way it was.
posted by snofoam at 9:32 AM on November 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

Mitt Romney 'Shellshocked' After Lost Election, Adviser Says.

Boo-hoo-hoo. Bwa-ha-ha!
posted by ericb at 9:58 AM on November 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

Conservatives Struggle To Explain How Mitt Romney Lost 2012 Presidential Election.
posted by ericb at 9:59 AM on November 9, 2012

de, Silver isn't a cartographic nerd, but similar maps can be found. On WaPo's results if you click "County results" and "County margin" you get information in the same dataspace displayed on a US map. Here is a heatmap-style US map.

Romney was merely parroting what has been said from Limbaugh and his ilk as a response to "The 99%".

Actually, this is a line of discussion that traces back (in modern political terms) to the WSJ's dubbing of people who are too poor (or disabled/elderly/blind/whatever) to pay taxes as "lucky duckies", and often glossed as the (oft misattributed, true origin unknown) quotation "A democracy ... can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury", or Paul Ryan's more recent formulation that the country has too many "takers" feeding off the product of the "makers". The use of a % number may be slightly more popular due to the Occupy/99% movement, but the line of reasoning is definitely pre-existing and has deep conservative roots.
posted by dhartung at 10:09 AM on November 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

Conservatives Struggle To Explain How Mitt Romney Lost 2012 Presidential Election.

I especially like the idea that Christie "refused to appear at campaign events" for Romney after Hurricane Sandy. What a dick, right?
posted by snofoam at 10:12 AM on November 9, 2012

That picture of Clint and the empty chair will live forever. This is why you lost: you campaigned against something that didn't exist.
posted by Big_B at 10:26 AM on November 9, 2012 [9 favorites]

The American colonies were first settled by Protestant dissenters..

Many forget that only half of those who first landed in Provincetown, MA were 'Pilgrims.' They paid to board the Mayflower, a merchant ship funded to cross the Atlantic and set-up a commercial enterprise here.
posted by ericb at 10:28 AM on November 9, 2012

markkraft: " It was an unnecessarily close race, at least at the national level. In the long run, Democrats can't afford to leave so many of their people out on the sidelines."

I agree with you in principle, but the election being so close cuts both ways -- you can't assume that the resources he used to show up in those states for photo-op / making red state liberals feel good purposes weren't crucial in getting him over the top. Yes, the campaign is long, but Obama still has a country to run. The machinery of the executive branch has an auto-pilot button, but you occasionally have to check the gauges and grab the stick.

A 50-state strategy from the DNC/DSCC/DCCC perspective makes sense to me, but as long as we have the electoral college, I don't think keeping up appearances justifies the possibility of resources that could have been used to win. He can show his love for California and Texas by pushing for legislation that helps California and Texas.
posted by tonycpsu at 10:43 AM on November 9, 2012

I'm a white guy who voted for Obama because he got Bin Laden. Obama would have to have screwed up in some major way to have lost that vote. By "major way" I mean something like declare-war-on-a-flimsy-pretext-while-letting-the-perps-of-a-major-crime-slide kind of screw-up. I find it a little jarring that this election was even close.
posted by wobh at 10:45 AM on November 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

The American colonies were first settled by Protestant dissenters

Last time I checked, the American colonies were first settled by some people coming over the Bering Landbridge tens of thousands of years ago. They may or may not have been Protestant, history does not relate.
posted by jb at 10:56 AM on November 9, 2012 [7 favorites]

We might be ideologically split, but that chart shows no gaps or discontinuities

If you zoom in further, political orientation seems to have a lot to do with population density, and the county-by-county map shows a very clear urban/rural discontinuity. In this cartogram, for example, where each county is colored blue/red to its Democratic/Republican voting preference and scaled according to its population, you see very large, very blue counties suspended in web of tiny, squashed red counties. Deepest blue, in this map, means 70% or more Democratic, while deepest red means 70% or more Republican.

The division actually goes deeper than that. Up here in Washington, voter affinity maps usually show an east-west divide along the Cascades: counties east of the mountains vote Republican, while counties west of the mountains vote Democratic. But if you look closer, this is just an artifact of the county lines. King County, for example, runs from Elliot Bay up to Snoqualmie Pass: but its "deep blue" character comes entirely from the city of Seattle. The joke is that Eastern Washington begins when you cross Lake Washington - there are just so many people in Seattle that they overwhelm all the conservative voters in the rest of the county. Curiously, this has been changing in recent years: the eastside districts were formerly safe Republican seats, but as population density has grown they have swung more Democratic. The eastern boundary of the blue zone has spread with growing population density, and this does not seem to be an accident.

So there is a gap, there is a discontinuity: people who live in big cities are substantially more likely to vote Democratic, people who live in the countryside are substantially more likely to vote Republican, and the boundary between the two populations can be very, very sharp indeed.
posted by Mars Saxman at 11:32 AM on November 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

There’s A Culture War, And Democrats Are Winning
posted by tonycpsu at 11:52 AM on November 9, 2012

Interesting tidbit reported by WCVB:

[Massachusetts Governor] Deval Patrick and his wife will be in Washington to have dinner with the Obamas tonight. He says it's just a dinner "among friends," but rumors have been swirling that he could be in line for a Cabinet position.

posted by ericb at 12:30 PM on November 9, 2012

Rachel Maddow On 'Colbert Report': Election Was Day 'When The Facts Have A Liberal Bias' (VIDEO).
posted by ericb at 1:25 PM on November 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

Chris Christie Bigger Man, Not Scapegoat, For Reaching Across Aisle.
posted by ericb at 1:26 PM on November 9, 2012

Ad Hominem: Thanks for posting that link and phrasing it like that.

I'm gonna go Truther on this and say that I believe that pic of moot to be the signature of someone at anonymous that there is an epic troll operating in the Republican party.

I am keeping in mind that it turned out that Bert did not support Osama bin Laden.
posted by frecklefaerie at 1:54 PM on November 9, 2012

If we're going there (full truther), let's go with the Romney campaign being a massive troll run by 4Chan and Lulsec.
posted by klangklangston at 2:11 PM on November 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

I written some words for a MetaFilter comment on the (lack of) awareness of the Republicans that they weren't going to win, and then it turned into something about America, and change, and how change possibly defines America and Americans and instead of a MetaFilter comment it's ended up as a bit of a rambling post and love letter to America from this Englishman.
posted by Wordshore at 3:23 PM on November 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

Has there been anymore information on the person responsible for the 47% video? Because I was thinking about that today and I have a question. Did the taper just get really, really lucky or was this something Romney said to all of his rich supporters? It seems implausible that someone, possibly a restaurant staff member, decided for some reason to set up a secret recording and just happened to catch Romney saying something particularly damaging.

Strange how Rove has been accusing the President of "suppressing the vote." The Republicans, and Rove himself, have a history of accusing the opposition of something they are doing themselves. Rove seemed very surprised about the Ohio results, refusing to believe the Fox News team announcement that Ohio had fallen to the enemy. Did something go wrong with a Rove Plan?

Personally this has been a strange time and I can't seem to stop thinking about it or reading about it. My emotions have gone from fear, profound relief, jubilation, schadenfreude, right through to curiosity and fear again. I'm afraid that Obama will compromise too much. I'm afraid that the 2014 elections will bring big rewards to the Republicans when all the Democrats stay home. I'm afraid that the Far Right Party is going to go Farther Right and pull us along with them. Yes, we have made some progress but I truly think there is some festering illness in America that is below the surface and no matter what happens or who we vote for or what demands we make there is always going to be this ominous threat hanging over us.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:35 PM on November 9, 2012

I'm afraid that Obama will compromise too much. I'm afraid that the 2014 elections will bring big rewards to the Republicans when all the Democrats stay home. I'm afraid that the Far Right Party is going to go Farther Right and pull us along with them. Yes, we have made some progress but I truly think there is some festering illness in America that is below the surface and no matter what happens or who we vote for or what demands we make there is always going to be this ominous threat hanging over us.

I think the dems can force the GOP into a corner, where they will either lose further ground or have to start doing their job. But fighting over the fiscal "cliff" is not the way to do it. The way to do it is to force the GOP's hand on immigration reform.

The Republicans control the house and can filibuster in the Senate. They can still obstruct any new legislation and try to put it on Obama's "poor leadership." They could still create gridlock and hope for a big downturn in the economy that would allow them to pick up the Senate in 2014. Then it becomes a media perception game. Woodward and others have already put the gridlock of the last two years mostly on Obama's shoulders, and this could continue that perception.

Boehner said he was against any tax "rate" increases, but was open to "revenue" increase. This seems to leave a lot of room to negotiate. I like the idea of capping or taking away deductions from very high income earners, but to truly increase taxes on the "1%" means increasing capital gains taxes, somehow. Maybe there are tax shelters to go after. Romney/Ryan may have other good ideas in their plan that could be cherry picked. Anyway, it seems to me it might be possible to raise taxes on high incomes without necessarily increasing a "rate." Shutting down government over the fiscal "cliff" is a Republican win. A shouting match between Krugman and Boehner while taxes go up on the middle class and the country possibly falls back into recession is not what we need.

Obama should try to move past the fiscal cliff and then push the Republican house to put forward an immigration reform bill. The country appears ready for this now, when maybe it wasn't four years ago, and the Republican party is on shaky ground. If the Republicans refuse to do it, it will be suicide for them as they're already perceived as the Party of rich old white guys. If they take the initiative on immigration instead - maybe behind Rubio, which would seem to be the best move for them to take, it might tear them free from the Far Right. Or the Far Right will have to move to the center on immigration, and just the racists will be left out in the cold. Either way they end up having to work with the President, which takes away the "bad leader" card, and hopefully helps preserve a Democratic Senate in 2014. At which time Obama can move to the left, if the Republicans have moved to the center, and fight for something much bigger on entitlements and tax reform.
posted by Golden Eternity at 8:24 PM on November 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

I honestly think that the problem is faith. I'm not going to argue about it further tonight, but I'll throw it out there and hope for the best from my favorite strangers on the planet, right here.

I'm not saying that it's terrible to be religious or spiritual or whatever, but to have real and true "capital-F Faith" in things that one can never prove is very alien to me. I am very much (while trying to be as non-obnoxious about it as I can, until someone gets in my face about it) of the "your blue sky pilot, really?" camp, mostly because I took tons of science growing up and was trained to always look out for ways to be wrong, and that being wrong isn't tragic or whatever (altho learning your years of research was based on someone else's falsified data is pretty fucking tragic. I digress...), it's part of questioning, which is part of everything.

And the opposite of this, Evangelicalism and lots of their ilk, is the GOP base. I was always taught that there are schools of Christian thought which constantly question and work with logic and rigor, and I'm not including them. But I keep feeling it ties in perfectly with the whole "reality-based community" thing too, like we were fools for looking at facts and saying "I'm sorry, what exactly are you selling?"

There is a core of people here who can be shown all the maps, charts, studies and everything else you can come up with and will still just not believe it because they have Faith in something else. And that Faith requires all the other Faiths to stand, so they all must stand. And the loss of Faith for these right-wingers must be almost as devastating and world re-casting as the loss of Faith has been portrayed for people who have had their religious faith suddenly dissolve out from under them. But honestly, until it happens, there are simply a very large number of people who you will never be able to talk Sense to, period, because it interferes directly with all these other Faiths that their Faith-sellers sell them every Sunday.
posted by nevercalm at 10:28 PM on November 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

Including Mark Kelly speaking on behalf of Gabrielle Giffords.

‘Our Leaders Don’t Have the Courage to Act’: Gabby Giffords’ Husband Rips Gun Laws at Loughner Sentencing
posted by homunculus at 12:31 AM on November 10, 2012

Christian Right Failed to Sway Voters on Issues.
posted by ericb at 9:28 AM on November 10, 2012

Frank Rich: Fantasyland -- "Denial has poisoned the GOP and threatens the rest of the country too."
posted by ericb at 9:38 AM on November 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

Twitter Racists React to ‘That Nigger’ Getting Reelected.

Racist Teens Forced to Answer for Tweets About the ‘Nigger’ President.
posted by ericb at 9:42 AM on November 10, 2012

ericb: I'm not sure why I went and read those. I feel sick.
posted by bardophile at 9:55 AM on November 10, 2012

Rubio is the "hispanic" darling right now of the GOP so you know they're gonna run him in some capacity on 2016.

Dear Republicans, Marco Rubio will not save you
posted by ambrosia at 10:47 AM on November 10, 2012

Karl Rove under fire and felling the heat.
posted by ericb at 11:11 AM on November 10, 2012

ambrosia: "Dear Republicans, Marco Rubio will not save you"

Ta-Nehisi was on Up today, and expanded on this point in a very interesting and sometimes heated panel discussion on the GOP's problems around racial politics. One of the more enlightening segments was where they talked about Rubio's attempts to placate Latinos with some sort of immigration plan, only to have Obama come out with his prosecutorial discretion memo which kneecapped Rubio's plan (or at least kept him from getting the political payoff for the plan, which is probably what he was really looking for.)

The interesting part was when one of the panelists representing DREAMers mentioned that she met with Rubio during those discussions, and that Rubio wasn't putting a path to citizenship on the table. Despite the political win this would have created in an election year, he wasn't able to put that on the table, probably because he knew it would be DOA when he took it back to his GOP peers. Fascinating.

Chris Hayes also made a great point that it was the competition between the Republicans (led by Rubio) and the Democrats (led by Obama) that created the environment for something to happen on immigration. This is why we really do need (at least) two viable parties in our system, and why I hope the Republicans can get their shit together in the near future.
posted by tonycpsu at 11:12 AM on November 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

This is why we really do need (at least) two viable parties in our system, and why I hope the Republicans can get their shit together in the near future.

This is so fundamental. We need two parties, at least. We need a Loyal Opposition that is competent. Currently we have an opposition taken over by zealots and ideologues. Whether they call themselves "Republicans" or call themselves something else, the country, and the Democrats, very much need a viable second party, one led by people who aren't trying to return privilege to white rural Christian males.
posted by ambrosia at 11:49 AM on November 10, 2012 [5 favorites]

‘Our Leaders Don’t Have the Courage to Act’: Gabby Giffords’ Husband Rips Gun Laws at Loughner Sentencing

one of the sure ways to revitalize the republican base and lose the gains from people like me who are really sick of the take over of the republican party by the evangelicals is to start up again with proposing laws that will interfere with peaceful, law abiding gun owners. It was one of the reasons for Kerry's loss, gore's loss and definitely Clinton's historic loss of congress in 94.

The loughner shooting was a real tragedy and more of call for improved mental health system than demonstrating a need for gun control.
posted by bartonlong at 12:26 PM on November 10, 2012

If you have the time, check out this clip of David Frum (he's a Republican, yo) diagnosing the problem of the GOP.

Frum on Morning Joe: a remarkable 15 minutes of television
posted by homunculus at 12:27 PM on November 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

Romney’s Final Full-Of-Shit Moment Of The Campaign.
posted by ericb at 1:26 PM on November 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

Nate Silver: As Nation and Parties Change, Republicans Are at an Electoral College Disadvantage.
posted by ericb at 1:32 PM on November 10, 2012

Twitter Racists React to ‘That Nigger’ Getting Reelected.

Racist Teens Forced to Answer for Tweets About the ‘Nigger’ President.

They sure shamed those high school students, but good. I await Jezebel's next article about how bad cyberbullying is.
posted by Tanizaki at 1:53 PM on November 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

Joey Michaels: " Ladies and gentlemen, running negative ads is not suppression. Obama was not suppressing votes. Ohio's Husted was suppressing votes. "

Melissa Harris-Perry has some words for Mr. Husted.
posted by tonycpsu at 2:12 PM on November 10, 2012

If someone broadcasts racist douchebaggery to a public audience under their real names, I don't think it's bullying — cyber or otherwise — to point out that they did exactly that.
posted by KathrynT at 2:20 PM on November 10, 2012 [4 favorites]

Dear Republicans, Marco Rubio will not save you

Pretty much. Groups remember the other groups that try to keep them down and don't easily forget. Add in the fact that the GOP has a history there (black people) and it's doubtful Hispanics will come rushing over to the party.

You want to know why Mitt Romney lost? It's because Barack Obama received more votes than him. It's that simple, but it'll take the GOP a while to figure out that you shouldn't mess with people who could potentially vote for you.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:26 PM on November 10, 2012

Hey, liberals: You haven’t won the culture war. Bill O'Reilly may have surrendered, but America's dangerous divisions go deeper than party, race or religion
posted by homunculus at 4:04 PM on November 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

Ugh, that was a annoying article. That guy props up as many stereotypes as the people he seems to think he should be lecturing. Apparently in his world, the only people who voted for Obama are smug, chardonnay-sipping liberals who make fun of the poor white people of the heartland.
posted by oneirodynia at 7:38 PM on November 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

If someone broadcasts racist douchebaggery to a public audience under their real names, I don't think it's bullying — cyber or otherwise — to point out that they did exactly that.

Precisely. The right has been using the "bullying" argument to defend racism (and other isms) for years, with retorts suggesting that liberals should be more "tolerant" of their hatred. It's pretty stupid solipsism, of course, and barely worth the analysis or debate, but I don't think we as a society need to apologize for making racism something you can get shouted down for expressing. Given the, you know, actual historical consequences of racism.
posted by dhartung at 7:48 PM on November 10, 2012 [5 favorites]

Racist Teens Forced to Answer for Tweets About the ‘Nigger’ President.

I was doing a little math in my head. Someone born in 1990 would have been 10 when the internet took off and 15 when My Space was popular. If you have to be 45 yo in order to be elected President that means the 2036 elections could involve embarrassing tweets, Facebook, and Live Journal revelations. Of course it could happen before than but I'm thinking of the generation that has grown up comfortable with putting their every thought on line. 15 year olds don't usually stop to think about how they will feel when they are 45.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 5:57 AM on November 11, 2012

If you have to be 45 yo in order to be elected President that means the 2036 elections could involve embarrassing tweets,

It could happen much sooner than that, what with Congressional or state elections. I suspect that all of a sudden there will be a rash of such candidates, with many breathless articles looking at the phenomena.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:11 AM on November 11, 2012

If you have to be 45 yo in order to be elected President

35
posted by krinklyfig at 8:52 AM on November 11, 2012

Ooops. you are right. The minimum age is 35. That surprises me. Well I doubt anyone is going to take a serious stab at getting the nomination before 45.

It could happen much sooner than that, what with Congressional or state elections. I suspect that all of a sudden there will be a rash of such candidates, with many breathless articles looking at the phenomena.

Yes, you are probably right. Right now with Instagram I'm seeing all sorts of stuff that people might not want to be reminded of in 20 years or so.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 10:16 AM on November 11, 2012

Ooops. you are right. The minimum age is 35. That surprises me. Well I doubt anyone is going to take a serious stab at getting the nomination before 45.

JFK was 43 when he was elected. It could happen again. Obama was 47.
posted by krinklyfig at 11:20 AM on November 11, 2012

Frank Bruni: Karl Rove, The Oracle's Debacle.
posted by ericb at 11:33 AM on November 11, 2012

Nate Silver: Which Polls Fared Best (and Worst) in the 2012 Presidential Race

Among the more prolific polling firms, the most accurate by this measure was TIPP, which conducted a national tracking poll for Investors’ Business Daily. Relative to other national polls, their results seemed to be Democratic-leaning at the time they were published. However, it turned out that most polling firms underestimated Mr. Obama’s performance, so those that had what had seemed to be Democratic-leaning results were often closest to the final outcome.

Conversely, polls that were Republican-leaning relative to the consensus did especially poorly.

posted by ericb at 11:40 AM on November 11, 2012

"Shops at Dulles Airport outside Washington have knocked prices on their Romney gear down 75% - a better bargain than at Reagan Airport, where the discount is only 60%."*

posted by ericb at 12:58 PM on November 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

Electoral Maps, Antebellum Maps: Or, How Liberal Self-Satisfaction Dissolves History into a Racist Mess
posted by the man of twists and turns at 3:05 PM on November 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

Republicans Spar Over Future Of The Party
posted by the man of twists and turns at 4:21 AM on November 12, 2012

Yeah, it's gonna be a knock-down, drag-out cudgel duel - in one corner, you have the plutocrats and their henchmen insisting on immigration reform as the way to save the party. In the other are the white-supremacists and their theocrat friends, and their mouthpieces are advocating working with the democrats on tax reform and compromise on the budget. The result will be they will try to save the coalition by changing the party platform not one whit, concentrating on locating polished and charismatic minorities to "sell it."
posted by Slap*Happy at 4:58 AM on November 12, 2012

Filibuster Cartoons sums up the reaction to the election and the two main schools forming the the Republican party.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:18 AM on November 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Jonathan Chait: We Just Had a Class War -- "And one side won."
posted by ericb at 10:30 AM on November 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Youth Vote Gap Suggests Republicans Risk Losing An 'Entire Generation' To Democrats.
posted by ericb at 10:32 AM on November 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Joe Trippi: What I saw with Karl Rove on election night
posted by Golden Eternity at 11:11 AM on November 12, 2012

"It's only been a few days, but I'm starting to forget everything I knew about Mitch Romley"
posted by growabrain at 12:14 PM on November 12, 2012 [5 favorites]

'The Simpsons' Karl Rove Blackboard Gag Mocks Fox News Meltdown.
posted by ericb at 2:33 PM on November 12, 2012

Youth Vote Gap Suggests Republicans Risk Losing An 'Entire Generation' To Democrats. Romney: "And I would've gotten away with it too if it hadn't been for those meddling kids!"
posted by Daddy-O at 3:50 PM on November 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Letter to a future Republican strategist regarding white people

HOLY WHITE PEOPLE, BATMAN!!! Wow, you’re thinking – this is not some Mexirican in the Sun Belt we need to attract via harsh anti-Castro policies or appeals to “valores de familia” - this is the BREAD AND BUTTER OF THE GRAND OLD PARTY, a Mayflower-descended small business owner, burdened by taxation, looking out for his beautiful White family in the suburbs of a city (St Louis) surrounded by racial tension and urban blight!

How can I put this gently? My wife and I are not sensitive to your messaging, nor did we vote for the candidates you proposed for us this past Tuesday.

B-b-but, what? Aren’t we investors, hard-workin’ white folk surrounded by same in a manicured cul-de-sac, scared by a vision of economic collapse amidst the takers in a land of fewer givers? Didn’t Mitt Romney’s strong family, wealth, leadership history and chiseled chin give us the uncontrollable urge to high-five him into the White House?

No.

posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:50 PM on November 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Sounds like Mr. Garland legitimately voted for Claire McCaskill too.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 10:52 PM on November 12, 2012

Dog whistle alert: Paul Ryan Blames 'Urban' Areas For Obama Win.
posted by ericb at 9:06 AM on November 13, 2012

Paul Ryan's Hometown of Janesville, Wisconsin Approves Domestic Partnership Benefits.
posted by ericb at 9:18 AM on November 13, 2012

"Goodby Mitt, good game..."
posted by growabrain at 11:56 AM on November 13, 2012

Paul Ryan's Hometown of Janesville, Wisconsin Approves Domestic Partnership Benefits.

Yup. (Co-sponsored by a guy on my friends list, yay.) This was also the first election in which Paul did not win Janesville, even in his winning Congressional re-election race.

As to the minority voters, there are very few in Janesville (the co-sponsor of that bill actually being the first black (biracial) member of the city council), although he does have the urban cities of Racine and Kenosha in his district. I wouldn't call him someone who ever plays the race card (although he votes as a strict social conservative, you practically never hear him bring those issues up, one reason he has always done well in the district once held by Les Aspin). I think he really does believe deep down that his economic message should, in a just universe, appeal to minority voters. But he's also the guy who's done the most to promote the "takers"/"makers" meme and I expect something like that to remain a part of his political philosophy going into a putative 2016 campaign. It will be interesting to see if he modulates that message for a broader appeal.
posted by dhartung at 12:45 PM on November 13, 2012

Dog whistle alert: Paul Ryan Blames 'Urban' Areas For Obama Win.

That may be a dog whistle but it is also the truth. The exit polling had Obama 69%, Romney 29% in big cities. Obama won in mid-sized cities by 18 points. Romney won small cities by 14 points and he won the suburbs by 2 points. There's another 13% of the electorate which I assume is rural voters. Whether or not "urban" is code for minorities those are not good numbers for the republican party.
posted by rdr at 8:29 AM on November 14, 2012

Top Georgia GOP Lawmakers Host Briefing on Secret Obama Mind-Control Plot
posted by homunculus at 3:31 PM on November 14, 2012

The Dubya List - "I’m not being snarky when I say that the best thing George W. Bush has done for conservatism has been to withdraw almost completely from the national stage, and to devote himself to private life and doing low-key good works. He has nothing else useful to say or to do in American politics. So, bless him, he’s saying nothing."

The Liberty Swing Vote - "After losing the presidential election and several winnable Senate races, there has been no shortage of stories about the votes Republicans need if they are to turn their fortunes around: young people, single women, Hispanics. But if GOP is truly the party of limited government, libertarian-leaning voters should be low-hanging fruit."

Truly.

At Republican Confab, Romney Gets The Blame
posted by the man of twists and turns at 2:25 AM on November 15, 2012

I'm Betting On Grover, with analysis of that XKCD chart.

But the key thing to note is what happened when the conservatives lost, notably in 2006 and 2008. One possible response would have been to realize that the party had become too extreme and tack back toward the center. We know that didn’t happen, as illustrated by the dark red influx of 2010. Between principle and pragmatism, Republicans chose principle.

Why do Republicans behave this way? There are many reasons. The funding that they need to win elections comes largely from a small number of extremely conservative power brokers such as the Koch brothers. Widespread gerrymandering means that elections are settled at the primary stage, where the power of far-right groups (Club for Growth, Americans for Prosperity, FreedomWorks, etc.) places a premium on ideological purity. (For whatever reason, the trend toward the extreme has been much weaker among Democrats.)

posted by the man of twists and turns at 2:59 AM on November 15, 2012

Forbes: Conservatives' Reality Problem

Two decades ago, conservatives liked to argue that the ivory tower had put academics out of touch with reality, and that conservatism had reason and science on its side. The recent collapse of communism seemed to confirm this view. Today the tables have turned. While academia certainly still has pockets of out-of-touch leftists, there has been a much more dramatic decline in intellectual standards on the political right.

TPM: Ryan: It ‘Looked Like We Stood A Pretty Good Chance Of Winning’ On Election Day

NRO(!): GOP's Cold Comfort - "Denial is a natural stage of grief. It’s a psychological mechanism that is of no use to a political party, though. Republican clarity must begin with a frank assessment of the Debacle of 2012."

TNR: The GOP Has Problems With White Voters, Too
posted by the man of twists and turns at 6:51 AM on November 15, 2012 [1 favorite]

It's so weird to see Kerry Bentivolio being cited as part of a "liberty" caucus — it's a goddamn shame he won at all. The man's a loon and a white supremacist who only won because outside money ran incredibly fear mongering ads against his Muslim opponent.

He's the kind of candidate that Republicans should lock in the closet, not let sit at the table.
posted by klangklangston at 7:41 AM on November 15, 2012 [1 favorite]

This sentence is from this article in Wonkette: ...herding, where pollsters start adjusting their methods because they’re afraid they’re wildly wrong

And it points to this article, about the phenomenon used by certain polling orgs (most notably the partisan and biased GOP-Operative run: Rasmussen...) known as HERDING.

Herding begins to show itself being applied most transparently, in a daily poll during the final week, or two or three days before an Election Day.

To me, it proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Rasmussen is a faulty poll. The incredible thing is that this Presidential election, Gallup seemed to be using the shady technique as well...
posted by Skygazer at 12:42 PM on November 15, 2012

Resignation, Retirement, and Reelection: How the 112th Congress Compares With the 111th

The Politics of Polarization and Obstructionism - "Obstructionism is the Republican stratagem of choice. Allow me to start with some general observations and then, in successive columns here on Justia’s Verdict, to explain not only how Republicans are working to make government divisive and dysfunctional, but also what has been, and can be, done to deal with that."
posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:26 PM on November 15, 2012

The Party Of Big Business

National Review‘s Ramesh Ponnuru has one of the better election post-mortems out there, and I think it ties into some of the themes running through my piece earlier this week on how to understand Patrick J. Buchanan’s political thinking and career.

After running through a compendium of indicators that the GOP has become a weak party (lost popular vote in five of six presidential elections, never achieves a hold on the Senate, etc), Ponnuru comes to the point that the upheaval of the late ’60s that tilted so many Southerners and ethnic Catholics into the GOP’s presidential coalition never resulted in these middle-class and working-class white voters trusting the GOP with their economic interests.

posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:48 AM on November 16, 2012 [1 favorite]

Voters Purge The Mad Men Of The GOP
Is Mitch McConnell The Worst Senate Party Leader Ever?
posted by the man of twists and turns at 1:36 AM on November 17, 2012

President Obama, McKayla Maroney strike 'not impressed' pose
posted by found missing at 1:55 PM on November 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

Thoughtful piece from National Journal: Gallup Blew Its Presidential Polls, but Why?
posted by mediareport at 7:59 AM on November 18, 2012

There Are Entire Media Operations That Exist Solely To Promote Ideology - from the horse's mouth.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:02 AM on November 18, 2012

A GOP Cure

The Republican Party has been doing a lot of hand-wringing and finger-pointing since the presidential election. Half the conservative columnists and bloggers say the GOP lost because it overemphasized social issues such as abortion and gay marriage. The other half says the party didn't emphasize them enough. And everyone denounces Project ORCA, the campaign's attempt to turn out voters via technology.

But I've got a suggestion for cutting short the GOP angst: Sarah Palin for president in 2016.

posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:14 PM on November 18, 2012

Obama: Low numbers with southern whites
posted by Golden Eternity at 8:30 AM on November 19, 2012

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