Elections 2012: BFP Watch Party

[princessbelle]

Originally Posted by Okiebug61

I think she was just worn out. I'll take her coverage over the other two boring anchors anyday.

I like her too.

It was a long day for everyone!!!

[Greyson]

"The poll finds that racial prejudice is not limited to one group of partisans. Although Republicans were more likely than Democrats to express racial prejudice in the questions measuring explicit racism (79 percent among Republicans compared with 32 percent among Democrats), the implicit test found little difference between the two parties. That test showed a majority of both Democrats and Republicans held anti-black feelings (55 percent of Democrats and 64 percent of Republicans), as did about half of political independents (49 percent)."




http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...10-27-11-47-18

[Greyson]

Roseanne Barr Finished Sixth in the Presidential Race

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/...hed_fifth.html

[The_Lady_Snow]

Adviser: Romney "shellshocked" by loss

Mitt Romney's campaign got its first hint something was wrong on the afternoon of Election Day, when state campaign workers on the ground began reporting huge turnout in areas favorable to President Obama: northeastern Ohio, northern Virginia, central Florida and Miami-Dade.

Then came the early exit polls that also were favorable to the president.

But it wasn't until the polls closed that concern turned into alarm. They expected North Carolina to be called early. It wasn't. They expected Pennsylvania to be up in the air all night; it went early for the President.

LINKYLOO

[girl_dee]

*It was like a sucker punch*


Really?

the arrogance of this man didn't allow him to even REMOTELY feel that Barack Obama would win, so sure of himself.

A'ishah i believe said he hadn't even considered a concession speech.

My sister and i today chatted and are in awe that SO many people are shocked.

[UofMfan]

Mitt Romney Campaign: We Lost Florida To Obama In Presidential Election

[ruffryder]

Originally Posted by Miss Scarlett

When things like this happen I can't help but wonder exactly how many of the folks that voted for these two candidates knew they had died...

A shame. Some people go to the polls to basically vote for the President of their choice. Is that bad? Maybe, maybe not. At least they are voting for their choice and it's counting. On the other hand, What about all the other candidates or referendums, amendments that they are voting for and perhaps have no clue about. Alot of people just tend to go with their party and vote that way.

Did ya'll hear that Puerto Rico voted and opts for statehood and Congress will have to approve that. What do you think about that? More latino/P.R. voters for sure. How does all this fare for the election of 2016 and if Republican Sen. Marco Rubio should run for the Presidency.

A lot of latinos, women, and gays voted for Obama for the various reasons Romney didn't appeal to them. However I know some latinos, women, and gay people that voted for Romney. I guess it all comes down to what your interests are in the United States and what appeals to you. Perhaps some of their social issues took a back seat to other issues such as economic, foreign, and environmental. I wonder if the Republicans will look at this coming into 2016 and try to appeal to a broader audience.

This is an interesting article World Reacts To Obama Win and The Issues He Faces Globally Looks like he not only has his hands full at home but abroad for his next term.

[Allison W]

Originally Posted by ruffryder

I wonder if the Republicans will look at this coming into 2016 and try to appeal to a broader audience.

Considering Paul Ryan is on the short list for the GOP presidential nominee in 2016, I'm pretty sure the current misunderstanding is "WE LOST BECAUSE WE DIDN'T ALIENATE THE NOT-OLD-RICH-WHITE-CHRISTIAN-MALE DEMOGRAPHIC ENOUGH."

[Martina]

The pundits and tea party folks are saying that Romney wasn't really a conservative, was not far enough to the right. And some folks, I am sure, still blame the liberal media.

But if those were the only reasons Romney and others lost -- not far enough to the right and liberal media bias -- they would have seen it coming. They would not have been shocked.

Republicans have been fear mongers for generations. Appealing to racism and homophobia is clearly not going to work as the electorate becomes less white and and as older voters are replaced by younger ones.

And Obama's ground game has now been shown to have been more effective than expensive ads. All over the press today is Karl Rove's PAC's failure -- that the $100 million raised got them nothing, not a single win.

Plus Republicans have to note the wins for gay marriage.

Republicans will have to move to the center. They will have to find a message that is not about the fear of gays and POC. They will learn the great data driven ground game. They invented it after all.

Think of it. They thought they had won. Not only did they lose, it wasn't really that close. They lost seats in the Senate when they expected to gain them. They can see they are losing the cultural issues -- gay marriage, pot, etc.

In the future, they will have to SOUNDLY repudiate any future Todd Akins. They won't be able to appear on stage with Donald Trump. MOST OF ALL, they have to find a way to get moderate Republicans engaged in the primary process.

Think of what happened in Indiana. Dick Lugar, a senior Senator, lost BIG in the primary to tea party maniac Richard Mourdock, who made his rape comment and lost Republicans that seat. Think of it. The Republicans went from having one of the most senior and influential Senators on the Hill to losing the seat to a Democrat. *Thump*

The primary process pushed Romney so far to the right that he couldn't come back. If he had campaigned as Moderate Mitt, he might have won the general election. But if he had, he would never have gotten the nomination. Catch-22.

Maybe someone with the charisma of Chris Christie can get the nomination next time, especially after this disaster. But they will still lose down ticket races if they don't change their message re gays and POC and if they don't find a way to involve more moderates in the political process.

The Republicans are embarrassed, and they should be.

[BullDog]

It really is amazing that most of the Republicans don't really seem to get why they lost and didn't even see it coming. Meanwhile, Team Obama got just the results they were expecting. It really doesn't help the Republicans to produce data that shows them winning if it isn't based in reality.

The Republicans with at least half a brain realize they have a demographic problem, but they don't seem to get they have a policy problem as well. The electorate recognizes there is a deficit. They think Obama's approach of asking the wealthiest Americans to pay a bit more and cutting military spending makes a lot more sense than tax cuts, "closing loopholes" and severely slashing social programs. Apparently Speaker Boehner and friends didn't get the memo that it was President Obama and his policies that won. Not only did they win the election but there is plenty of polling that shows the electorate prefers Obama's approach. I think President Obama should sell his proposal for dealing with the "fiscal cliff" directly to the people because the Republicans don't appear to be ready to compromise. I really hope the Democrats stand firm.

Oh yeah and the Republican's demographic problem isn't going away if they keep referring to African Americans and others as takers and Latinos as illegals and all the rape talk, not even supporting equal pay for women and trying to suppress the vote. On top of that they have warring factions between the Tea Party and Establishment Republicans.

They have a lot of problems and I am skeptical they can really turn this around. America is changing and changing fast. It has been for quite some time.

[Martina]

from Michael Moore

We have to have Obama's back. As he is blocked and attacked by the Right, we need to be there with him. We are the majority. Let's act like it.

And please Mr. President, make the banks and Wall Street pay. You're the boss, not them. Lead the fight to get money out of politics – the spending on this election is shameful and dangerous. Don't wait til 2014 to bring the troops home – bring 'em home now. Stop the drone strikes on civilians. End the senseless war on drugs. Act like a pit bull when it comes to climate change – ignore the nuts, and fix this now. Take the profit motive out of things that any civilized country would say, "this is for the common good." Make higher education affordable for everyone and don't send 22-year-olds out into the world already in massive debt. Order a moratorium on home foreclosures and evictions. Enact economic policy that will create good-paying jobs and spend the money that's needed to do that. Make your second term one for the history books.

Finally, thanks must be given to the Occupy movement who, a year ago, set the tone of this election year by getting everyone to talk about the 1% vs. 99%. It inspired Obama and his campaign to realize that there was a huge popular sentiment against what the wealthy have done to the country and there was something wrong if just 400 rich guys owned more than 160 million Americans combined (all those moochers and bums). This led to Romney's "47%" remarks and THAT was the beginning of the end of his campaign. Thank you Mother Jones for releasing that secret tape , and thank you to the minimum wage worker who placed a camera on the serving buffet next to the candle. This morning's headline in the Washington Post says it all: "At Romney headquarters, the defeat of the 1 percent." Thank you Sandra Fluke for enduring the insults hurled at you and then becoming an important grassroots leader against the war on women. Thank you Todd Akin for...well, for just being you. Thank you CEOs of Chrysler and GM for coming out forcefully against the Republican(!) candidate, saying he lived in "some parallel universe" when he lied about Jeep. Thank you Governor Christie for your new bromance with Obama. You know, you really didn't have to!

[Martina]

Video of obama thanking chicago staff

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...ampaign-staff/

[The_Lady_Snow]

[*Anya*]

This just about makes me cry! When I first came out in '78, the thought that there would now be states where we could marry was so out of my frame of reference, it was unthinkable.

It is a moving train and will not be stopped, though I cannot believe it îs stil not legal in California of all places!

Washington same-sex marriage opponents concede
By Natalie Jennings, Published: NOVEMBER 08, 4:43 PM ET

Washington state is on track to become the ninth state to approve gay marriage as opponents of a referendum there conceded Thursday afternoon:

“With added results showing that we have not closed the gap, it now appears clear that Referendum 74 will be narrowly approved,” said Joseph Backholm, chairman of Preserve Marriage Washington, which worked to defeat the measure.

Voters in Maryland and Maine also approved same-sex marriage measures on Tuesday, while Minnesota voters rejected a constitutional ban on it.

With the news from WA, means 49+ million Americans (16% of pop) will live in states where same-sex couples can get a marriage license!

[Greyson]

LGBT Voters Crucial to Obama Popular Vote Victory: LGBT Voters Vital to Outcome in Florida



http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.ed...-vote-victory/

[Martina]

They're back-peddling on immigration policy. Latinos got out and voted, and it will pay off for them. That is not always the case. We lgbt folks voted Democratic for decades before we started getting crumbs from the table.

It's a good day for my students.

It was fun this morning to hear the clip of Hannity saying he had "evolved" on the issue.

Gawd.

But who cares. This is how politics works. I am just glad that there will be reform.

[Martina]

I meant the Republicans are backpeddaling on their anti-immigration policies. It's a joy to behold. It's another "I never thought I'd see the day."

Originally Posted by Martina

They're back-peddling on immigration policy. Latinos got out and voted, and it will pay off for them. That is not always the case. We lgbt folks voted Democratic for decades before we started getting crumbs from the table.

It's a good day for my students.

It was fun this morning to hear the clip of Hannity saying he had "evolved" on the issue.

Gawd.

But who cares. This is how politics works. I am just glad that there will be reform.

[Linus]

First elected Transwoman in NH State Legislature: http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/news/...tes-first.html

Also of note is that NH is the first all-woman delegation (Governor, Congresswomen and Senators)! http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2...-and-governor/

[Kobi]

Much of what I see going on is the typical morning after a disappointing evening with sudden tranformations, "new" pronouncements, and generalized bargaining that goes along with licking ones wounds. As a result, I try not to overinvest in what looks like fundamental changes of heart.

The cynic in me gives this euphoric peroid a couple of weeks to a month before reality sets back in.

Remember, it was just Monday when we were all on pins and needles, worried about what could happen, worried about the polls, worried that we could lose, worried about the impact of losing, worried about where we would be moving to and if our passports were up to date. We were worried with good reason.

Come Tuesday, with victory at hand, that worry turns into euphoria. Almost like you can feel the strutting of the peacock amass in its glory at having dodged utter disaster. Relief for sure.

So were we worried for nothing? Victims of our own misgivings? Or were we reacting to something very real, almost palatable?

Is a huge electoral win a pronouncement of a country undivided when in reality, the margin of victory over all was .4% of all voters. Not exactly an overwhelming stamp of approval or is it?

I am thrilled voters went against those who still have mental processes that include things like legitimate rape. Yet, I am very mindful that the most damage to womens reproductive rights was not done on the federal level. It was done by state legislatures who enacted weird shit under the guise of protecting womens health.

It is great more states are going to allow gay marriage or at least not define marriage as between a woman and a man. If memory serves, with the exception of Iowa, the approvals would overlap as expected on the maps of the election/pre-civil war maps Linus shared. Fundamental change or following the typical course of division?

Im not sure what to think about the marijuana stuff. I dont drink or do drugs so it is of no importance to me except as a driver who has to share the road with another group of individuals with substance induced impaired judgement. As a cultural change I do see some issues tho not necessarily in a positive direction. To me, this just opens the system up to more and more dui cases clogging up the court system, more avoidable deaths, more revamping of the educational system and their just say no to drugs or whatever the current programming is, more confusion for kids about whether and/or which drugs are good for them or bad for them, more escapist coping. Just my opinion tho.

I do see much more stuff taking shape as to the states defying and challenging the federal government, and the feds challenging the states. Not sure if this is a good thing or not. Conflict does beget change eventually albeit sometimes ugly change with unpredictable and unexpected results.

Interesting times to be sure.

[Sun]

This is one BAD ASS straight white male. Tell it.

Letter to a future Republican strategist regarding white people

November 9, 2012

To whom it may concern regarding the United States federal elections of 2014, 2016 and beyond:

Allow me to introduce myself to you, the existing (or aspiring!) strategist for the Republican Party. My name is Eric Arnold Garland and I am a White Man. Boy, am I ever – you need sunglasses just to look at my photo!

If I read the news correctly, I fit a profile that is of extreme importance to the GOP, as I embody the archetype that fits your narrative of Real Americans. Just how much should my profile interest you? Are you sitting down?

My family lineage goes back to the MAYFLOWER, BOAT ONE!!! (Garland family of New England-> John Adams -> Howard Alden -> Plymouth colony ->KINGS OF MUTHAF***IN’ ENGLAND)
I am a heterosexual, married to the super Caucasian mother of my two beautiful children who are, inexplicably, EVEN WHITER THAN I AM.
I am college educated (Master’s degree!) and affluent.
I am a job creator and small businessman.
We pay a lot of taxes! Every year!
I grew up in a rural area and despise laziness!
Having started my own business, I have complained at length about the insanity of federal, state and local bureaucracy – and its deleterious impact on the innovative small businessman.
I currently live in the suburbs in a historically Red state.

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.

May I explain why not, purely for your education, such that you might be interested in winning an election on the national level at some point in the future? It bears pointing out that I should be your Low Hanging Fruit, the easy vote to get as opposed to, say, African-Americans, Latinos, or Asians – and you’re not even speaking well to me. The reasons why ought to concern you deeply.

As a Card-Carrying White Male I love expressing my opinion irrespective of whether people care to hear it, so let’s get started.

>>>>>>

Science - One of the reasons my family is affluent is that my wife and I have a collective fifteen years of university education between us. I have a Masters degree in Science and Technology Policy, and my wife is a physician who holds degrees in medicine as well as cell and molecular biology. We are really quite unimpressed with Congressional representatives such as Todd Akin and Paul Broun who actually serve on the House science committee and who believe, respectively, that rape does not cause pregnancy and that evolution and astrophysics are lies straight from Satan’s butt cheeks. These are, sadly, only two of innumerable assaults that the Republican Party has made against hard science – with nothing to say of logic in general. Please understand the unbearable tension this might create between us and your candidates.

Climate - Within just the past 18 months the following events have come to our attention: a record-breaking drought that sent temperatures over 100 degrees for weeks, killing half the corn in the Midwest and half the TREES on our suburban property – AND – a hurricane that drowned not New Orleans or Tampa or North Carolina but my native state of VERMONT. As an encore, a second hurricane drowned lower Manhattan, New Jersey and Long Island. The shouted views of decrepit mental fossil Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma that this is a fraud perpetrated on the American people by evil, conspiring climate scientists is belied by such events and is looking irresponsible to even the most skeptical.

Healthcare - My wife and I are quite familiar with America’s healthcare system due to our professions, and having lived abroad extensively, also very aware of comparable systems. Your party’s insistence on declaring the private U.S. healthcare system “the best in the world” fails nearly every factual measure available to any curious mind. We watch our country piss away 60% more expenditures than the next most expensive system (Switzerland) for health outcomes that rival former Soviet bloc nations. On a personal scale, my wife watches poor WORKING people show up in emergency rooms with fourth-stage cancer because they were unable to afford primary care visits. I have watched countless small businesses unable to attract talented workers because of the outrageous and climbing cost of private insurance. And I watch European and Asian businesses outpace American companies because they can attract that talent without asking people to risk bankruptcy and death. That you think this state of affairs is somehow preferable to “Obamacare,” which you compared ludicrously to Trotskyite Russian communism, is a sign of deficient minds unfit to guide health policy in America.

War - Nations do have to go to war sometimes, but that Iraq thing was pretty bad, to put it mildly. Somebody should have been, I dunno – FIRED for bad performance. Aren’t you the party of good corporate managers or something? This topic could get 10,000 words on its own. Let’s just leave it at: You guys suck at running wars.

Deficits and debt - Whenever the GOP is out of power, it immediately appeals to the imagination of voters who remember the Lyndon Baines Johnson (!) administration and claim that the Republican alternative is the party of “cutting spending” and “reducing the deficit.” The only problem with your claim is that Republican governments throughout my entire 38 year life (Reagan, Bush 41, Bush 43) have failed to cut spending and deficit and debt EVEN ONCE. I hope you understand that your credibility suffers every time you promise one thing for three decades and do the EXACT OPPOSITE. Egads – if you actually were the party of fiscal responsibility – you might win our votes despite your 13th century view of science!

Gay marriage - As the child of Baby Boomers who got divorced (as was the fashion!) in the 80s and 90s, and for whom 50% of my friends had their homes broken by divorce in the critical years before age 18, I sure am unsympathetic to your caterwauling bullshit that “gays will destroy the sanctity of marriage.” Perhaps if everyone in your generation didn’t take the period of 1978 – 1995 to start surreptitiously banging their neighbors and coworkers, only to abandon their kids because “they just weren’t happy,” I would take your defense of marriage more seriously. The institution of Middle Class suburban marriage was broken by the generation of aging white Baby Boomers who populate what is left of the Republican Party, so your defense is wrongheaded and disingenuous. And moreover, as someone who got called “faggot” about 127 times a day from the years 1985 through 1991 – guess what – I grew up to be pretty good friends with actual homosexuals, whose sexual orientation is usually the least significant thing about them. The Republican perseveration on homosexuals as any sort of threat consigns them to history’s trough of intellectual pig dung.

>>>>>>

That’s quite enough for one essay, wouldn’t you say? Now, given my initial description as a wealthy, hard-working, job creating, heterosexual, married suburban White Male – doesn’t your current platform look woefully insufficient to the task of gaining my vote? This doesn’t even get into the demographic tensions that show that people of my exact profile are going away permanently in America. You can’t even win on what you perceive to be “home field advantage.”

Uh oh, wait, I can already hear you through the web browser, dismissing all of my above points because THAT GUY WAS NEVER GONNA BE A REPUBLICAN ANYHOW, CUZ HE’S A LIBRUL WHO HATES AMERICA AND…

All right, let’s do one last point:

Meanness- Your party is really mean, mocking and demonizing everyone who does not follow you into the pits of hell. You constantly imply – as Mitt Romney did in his “47% speech” – that anybody who disagrees with you does so not by logic or moral conviction, but because they are shiftless, lazy parasites who want “free stuff” from “traditional Americans.” Wow, you guys managed to follow up a stunning electoral defeat with insulting the very people you wish to attract for a majority in the political system! Brilliant! You are losing elections because being angry and defensive and just-plain-mean is more important than being smart and winning elections – and thus you deserve everything happening to you.

If you want to know exactly where you failed in 2012, and will continue to fail, here it is. Look you assholes, I’m as traditional an American as it gets, and I do not “want free stuff.” I am a taxpayer, and ALWAYS HAVE BEEN. I got my first job – dragging bags of cow manure, horse feed and fertilizer around a farm store – when I was 12. I started my first company when I was 28. I have followed the vast majority of the rules set out for middle class white males (for good and for ill.) And if it weren’t bad enough that your policy positions are a complete clusterfuck for the reasons I lay out in great detail, you manage to follow up the whole exercise with insulting me, my wife, and my friends of every stripe who didn’t vote for your political party – all of whom are hard-working, taxpaying, job creating, law abiding, great AMERICANS of EVERY COLOR AND CREED.

From this white, Mayflower-descended strategic analyst, allow me to offer you the three strategic options you have before you:

1. You drastically moderate your platform to harmonize with the policy positions I present above

2. You disband the party and reorganize it to reflect current realities

3. You kick and scream and stamp your feet and call me and my friends names – and submit to several decades of one party rule

While I do not want a one-party system, I also don’t particularly care which of these options you choose. If you look carefully at the numbers on Tuesday, nobody else cares, either.

Just a word to the wise from one White Man to (presumably) another.