[Archived] US Presidential Election 2012

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

http://melaniephilli...to-the-darkness

She hasn't taken it well

She's a well known nut job, what do you expect.

[philipl]

Steve, congratulations on your election. Anyone involved in civic duty is to be applauded.

The GOP well and truly disappeared up its own exhaust pipe this election cycle. It appears that not only the base was consuming the Fox keans but the leadership was believing its own conservative press vs mainstream press rubbish as well.

It appears Romney and Ryan were genuinely shocked by their defeat which pretty well everybody else could see was coming.

I had it at 300- 240 so the actual 332-206 is a bit of an over-shoot.

Two things are of lasting importance. One is that the Democrats used cloud-based open-sourced IT working with social media to devastating effect. Open sourced IT thrashed the expensively assembled commercial stuff the GOP was using.

The other is that America has changed to the extent that the GOP current platform is all but unelectable. The lower house result was purely a result of gerrymandered re-districting and nothing to do with public sentiment.

This David Brooks article probably shows a direction in which the GOP could go to overcome its demographic difficulties. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/09/opinion/brooks-the-party-of-work.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20121109&_r=0

Probably "all Government is bad" is the least difficult meme to drop compared with promoting a new DREAM act or flushing the anti-women religious nut jobs down the loo.

[jim mk2]

I hope you are right. The pessimist in me sees a lot of money sitting on the sideline and I don't think things will get better anytime soon. In election years things always improve a bit (as the government primes the pump to ensure better odds) but then they go south within a few months afterwards. So I suspect we've not seen the worse, yet.

Then again my prediction on the national election was way off base, so my track record is not good and it may be simply sour grapes coloring my perception (as I obviously don't have my biases under control to the extent that I believed). So we'll see.

Do you think the Republicans will take on board why it was defeated so badly and make fundamental changes to its thinking to appeal to more voters ? To judge from your pronouncements on here before the election I would say that if you are typical of the people in your party then its future is decidedly bleak.

[LeChuck]

Do you think the Republicans will take on board why it was defeated so badly and make fundamental changes to its thinking to appeal to more voters ? To judge from your pronouncements on here before the election I would say that if you are typical of the people in your party then its future is decidedly bleak.

I'm not sure how a party fronted by a man with policies against abortion, against climate change measures, against gay rights whilst being pro war can expect to be elected in 2012. Those beliefs don't even belong in this century, never mind this year.

[DE.]

http://melaniephilli...to-the-darkness

She hasn't taken it well

What an awful article. Journalist, really? She's quite literally written an entire article there smearing people using nothing but speculation without any concrete facts to back anything she says up. It's the kind of thing I'd expect to see from a Sixth Former. And she writes in the Daily Mail... what a shock.

[Amo]

What an awful article. Journalist, really? She's quite literally written an entire article there smearing people using nothing but speculation without any concrete facts to back anything she says up. It's the kind of thing I'd expect to see from a Sixth Former. And she writes in the Daily Mail... what a shock.

With four more years of Obama in the White House, Iran can now be sure that it will be able to complete its infernal construction of a genocide bomb to use against the Jews and the west. World War Three has now come a lot closer.

Almost choked on my panini.

[jim mk2]

What an awful article. Journalist, really? She's quite literally written an entire article there smearing people using nothing but speculation without any concrete facts to back anything she says up. It's the kind of thing I'd expect to see from a Sixth Former. And she writes in the Daily Mail... what a shock.

Says everything about the Mail that they actually employ her.

[philipl]

Melanie Philips is Britain's equivalent of Glen Beck/Rush Limbaugh- a creature of the dark which inhabits its own fantasies.

This profile of Nate Silver who projected the actual outcomes with stunning accuracy is very interesting: http://readwrite.com/2012/11/07/why-nate-silver-won-and-why-it-matters?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+readwriteweb+(ReadWriteWeb)

Silver cut his teeth working on baseball.

As the article points out, it was the pundits of the right who were the wishful thinking wishy washy ideologues.

The right created an informational disadvantage for itself in the election. Can it wean itself off the Fox fantasy world and get real again? Could be very hard to do.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/print/2012/11/how-conservative-media-lost-to-the-msm-and-failed-the-rank-and-file/264855/#.UJqSwlJ-XZI.twitter

[thenodrog]

http://melaniephilli...to-the-darkness

She hasn't taken it well

You don't appear to have taken my earlier question well either bucky.

[Baz]

Fair play to you Steve, both for winning your own election and for facing the music on here.

I'm really interested to know on your views on the whole system in the US. From what I can see, as an American citizen, you are only really being listened to and targeted if you live in a 'swing' state. Live in one of the vastly red or vastly blue states, and your effectively sidelined. There are lots of these in Britain too, but there are plenty enough for the elections to be IMO fairer. Is there a better way in your opinion for this to be organised state-side?

[Rovermatt]

If the delusional Melanie Phillips is upset then someone, somewhere, is doing something right.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

If the delusional Melanie Phillips is upset then someone, somewhere, is doing something right.

Too right, she's a horrible woman. The Daily Mail is welcome to her.

[Steve Moss]

I'm not sure how a party fronted by a man with policies against abortion, against climate change measures, against gay rights whilst being pro war can expect to be elected in 2012. Those beliefs don't even belong in this century, never mind this year.

What's amusing is that Romney is considered a moderate or, at least, unreliable on all of those issues.

In MA as governor he was very much pro-choice and pro-gun control.

When he decided to run for president he went to the right, but waffled here and there. Many Republican primary voters opposed him as he was viewed as weak on these issues or lacked credibility.

In the general election he largely down played his social conservative credentials, leading me to believe he's actually a pragmatist on these issues. He's not going to fight to the last metaphorical bullet for conservative social principles.

Most the Republican faithful understood that. They didn't vote for him because they thought he was a culture warrior, they voted for him because as a businessman it was believed he'd have a better understanding as to what is needed to get people back to work, dealing with the deficits and other fiscal issues we're facing as compared to President Obama.

Fair play to you Steve, both for winning your own election and for facing the music on here.

I'm really interested to know on your views on the whole system in the US. From what I can see, as an American citizen, you are only really being listened to and targeted if you live in a 'swing' state. Live in one of the vastly red or vastly blue states, and your effectively sidelined. There are lots of these in Britain too, but there are plenty enough for the elections to be IMO fairer. Is there a better way in your opinion for this to be organised state-side?

I really don't have a in depth understanding of UK election processes so I'm not sure that my views on a compare-contrast area all that valuable.

As a voter from red Arizona, I felt I was bombarded with advertisements and telephone polls on a near continous basis so I certainly did feel that I was neglected during the general election.

In my portion of the state, however, the real election is currently the Republican primary. I think other portions of the state are opposite in that the real battle is the Democratic primary. All in all, I think it balances out.

What I do have a problem with is not the election process, but the governing situation. Some of the districts created are an absolute mess, geographically drawn to favor one party or the other but which results in the citizenry sometimes feeling very little connection to their representative due to long distances, etc. By way of example, until this last census Mohave County was tied to Glendale as a congressional district. Trent Franks was a decent Republican, and so there was no heartache there, but he viewed his support base as being Glendale so we rarely saw him despite being about a 1/3 of his district. We were too far away (and in the sticks) and he really didn't need us anyway. We were lucky if we saw one of his representatives on an every quarter or so basis.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

I saw the end of poll parties on T.V. here. You only had to look at the Republican supporters to see why they lost. White , affluent , middle aged by and large, middle class certainly, naked self interest to the fore. If that's your supporter base, you'll be out of power for ever. Rightfully so in my opinion.

I saw the end of poll parties on T.V. here. You only had to look at the Republican supporters to see why they lost. White , affluent , middle aged by and large, middle class certainly, naked self interest to the fore. If that's your supporter base, you'll be out of power for ever. Rightfully so in my opinion.

Sorry about that double post, there's an echo in here.

[Steve Moss]

I saw the end of poll parties on T.V. here. You only had to look at the Republican supporters to see why they lost. White , affluent , middle aged by and large, middle class certainly, naked self interest to the fore. If that's your supporter base, you'll be out of power for ever. Rightfully so in my opinion.

You may be right, but I suspect these articles are closer to the mark:

http://nationaljourn...lew-it-20121108

http://www.realclear...ers_116106.html, which states:

"Put another way: The increased share of the minority vote as a percent of the total vote is not the result of a large increase in minorities in the numerator, it is a function of many fewer whites in the denominator.

So who were these whites and why did they stay home? My first instinct was that they might be conservative evangelicals turned off by Romney’s Mormonism or moderate past. But the decline didn’t seem to be concentrated in Southern states with high evangelical populations.

. . .

My sense is these voters were unhappy with Obama. But his negative ad campaign relentlessly emphasizing Romney’s wealth and tenure at Bain Capital may have turned them off to the Republican nominee as well. The Romney campaign exacerbated this through the challenger’s failure to articulate a clear, positive agenda to address these voters’ fears, and self-inflicted wounds like the “47 percent” gaffe. Given a choice between two unpalatable options, these voters simply stayed home."

[Baz]

I really don't have a in depth understanding of UK election processes so I'm not sure that my views on a compare-contrast area all that valuable.

As a voter from red Arizona, I felt I was bombarded with advertisements and telephone polls on a near continous basis so I certainly did feel that I was neglected during the general election.

In my portion of the state, however, the real election is currently the Republican primary. I think other portions of the state are opposite in that the real battle is the Democratic primary. All in all, I think it balances out.

What I do have a problem with is not the election process, but the governing situation. Some of the districts created are an absolute mess, geographically drawn to favor one party or the other but which results in the citizenry sometimes feeling very little connection to their representative due to long distances, etc. By way of example, until this last census Mohave County was tied to Glendale as a congressional district. Trent Franks was a decent Republican, and so there was no heartache there, but he viewed his support base as being Glendale so we rarely saw him despite being about a 1/3 of his district. We were too far away (and in the sticks) and he really didn't need us anyway. We were lucky if we saw one of his representatives on an every quarter or so basis.

In the UK the districts are similarly not always drawn for geographical reasons, however, due to the relative land mass of the uk they are quite as easy to manipulate.

There are some areas of the country though where at uk election time, the opposition is fighting for a distant 2nd place. In many cases turn out is low, as in simple terms most people don't feel their vote counts.

My impression looking from the UK is that the US Election campaigns have been 90% concentrated on the swing seats leaving the core voters in states known to definitely be red or blue with very little attention at all. Ohio seemed to be the crucial state, and the one both parties basically inundated. Does that not make the process as a whole a little devalued to the rest of the country? Why should such a tiny fraction of the US have such a big influence on the whole election? Does that influence spending, such as the car manufacturing bailout? If so, there must be a better way of organising things. At least it appears you can end up with a democratic president and republican congress (unlike the UK), not in many ways that it's particularly helpful to give 2 differents sets of representatives a completely different mandate. I'm not in anyway saying the UK is better, as we presently have a coalition of the Tories and the lib deems who appear to have discarded every part of their mandate they won votes for in exchange for a once in a lifetime chance of power, but there must be a more effective way of doing things, like breaking some of the states into smaller areas for election purposes as an example? (probably better suggestions than that too)

[philipl]

The turnout will be comparable with 2008 overall when all the votes are counted which means more people were voting in many States excluding the north east where the turnout was well down because of Sandy aftermath and therefore suppressed Obama's size of win in the popular vote.

Well over half the people voting for Obama are white.

With the shifting demographics, Arizona will be lost to the GOP by 2020 if the GOP continues as the angry old ill-educated white man's party.

[BuckyRover]

You don't appear to have taken my earlier question well either bucky.

I'm not feeding the troll.

You started a discussion about gay marriage and now have moved onto semantics.

[Jeru tha Damaja]

You may be right, but I suspect these articles are closer to the mark:

http://nationaljourn...lew-it-20121108

http://www.realclear...ers_116106.html, which states:

"Put another way: The increased share of the minority vote as a percent of the total vote is not the result of a large increase in minorities in the numerator, it is a function of many fewer whites in the denominator.

So who were these whites and why did they stay home? My first instinct was that they might be conservative evangelicals turned off by Romney’s Mormonism or moderate past. But the decline didn’t seem to be concentrated in Southern states with high evangelical populations.

. . .

My sense is these voters were unhappy with Obama. But his negative ad campaign relentlessly emphasizing Romney’s wealth and tenure at Bain Capital may have turned them off to the Republican nominee as well. The Romney campaign exacerbated this through the challenger’s failure to articulate a clear, positive agenda to address these voters’ fears, and self-inflicted wounds like the “47 percent” gaffe. Given a choice between two unpalatable options, these voters simply stayed home."

Romney's campaign wasn't exactly a clean one, either. For years we've had calls for birth certificates and then college records, even "Obama didn't say 'God' in his speech", one campaign ad I saw depicted America as a post-apocalyptic wasteland in the wake of an Obama victory, then there's the attempt to paint Benghazi as something that it never was.

Plus, if you want to talk about who damaged Romney's reputation then let's look a little closer to home. The Republican primary seemed to drag on forever, and what were the likes of Gingrich, Cain and Perry saying about good ol' Mitt? Obama could have just borrowed those ads and saved his campaign a whole lot of money. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Sheldon Adelson first fund Gingrich's campaign that demonised Romney and then say he was willing to spend $100m to make sure Romney beat Obama?

In the end, it's easy to point the finger at the other side but both campaigns were probably more concerned with smearing the opposition's character than winning by principles. Once again America has fallen into the trap of Western 'democracy' and picked the least bad option, which is all the less meaningful since it's only ever a two-horse race.

I'm not feeding the troll.

You started a discussion about gay marriage and now have moved onto semantics.

I'm not usually one to defend theno, but it wasn't him who started picking about the choice of words.

[BuckyRover]

Edit.

Cba

[philipl]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/11/12/why-did-paula-broadwell-think-the-cia-had-taken-prisoners-in-benghazi/

Looks like Paula Broadwell's mouth was as unreliable as her vagina.

[dave birch]

http://www.washingto...rs-in-benghazi/

Looks like Paula Broadwell's mouth was as unreliable as her vagina.

Change the name, or even the gender, and you can have as much unreliability as you want (or can take).

Throw stones as much as you want, but just be sure your side is as pure as the driven snow.

(that's not a dig at philipl, just at those that criticise)

[philipl]

The top brass appear to have stirring the porridge with Ms Kelley. Ms Kelley was born in Lebanon...

Either Petraeus is going to look unlucky in being caught first and some new code of honor is rapidly produced for the other starred philanderers or the US military is going to need a new A team at this rate.

Having said that, what commercial attorneys in Washington consider to be normal unremarkable behaviour left me aghast... and I am no prude. Then there is what the Russian new money gets up to- no wonder Berlusconi loves Putin so much.

[philipl]

From Political America:

Benghazi gate is not going as Republicans planned, and in fact, the failure to gain traction on their narrative is further compelling Republicans to hysterics. Since they drew so much attention to this issue, courtesy of the need to defend Romney’s Libya debacle just hours after the attack, the media is now paying attention just in time to catch the GOP crazy in full bloom.

It was impossible to miss John McCain’s growing desperation yesterday, as his plans to bring down Obama backfired and the narrative of the day became him skipping the very briefing that would have answered his questions. Trending on Yahoo all day was “John McCain Missed Briefing While Slamming Obama Over Benghazi Attack”. Alexa treated him no better.

Embarrassed and humiliated, the Senator screamed at a CNN for pointing out that while he appeared on TV to talk about how he needed more information about Benghazi, he missed his own committee briefing on Benghazi.

Asked to comment, he said, “I have the right as a senator to have no comment and who the hell are you to tell me I can or not?” Followed up by, “I’m upset that you keep badgering me.”

Then, Republicans in a House Foreign Affairs hearing ratcheted up their accusations to full scale crazy, likening what the Obama administration has done on Benghazi to being worse than Watergate and repeatedly accusing him of lying.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) bordered on hysteria about how “this” was not just some cover up of a third-rate Watergate burglary, “What is clear is that this administration, including the president himself, has intentionally misinformed, read that LIED, to the American people in the aftermath of this tragedy… This is not simply a cover up of a third-rate burglary.”

The ranting continued with other Republicans chiming in.

The problem is that as Republicans have escalated the charges, the facts aren’t backing them up. Suggesting that this “cover up” (not proven, there is not even any factual reason to suggest this other than political dreams of a deeply embarrassed party) is worse than a Watergate demonstrates how far Republicans have gone off the rails in their attempt to get one good smear on this President.

Not only is the intelligence community backing up that their assessment changed as new information came in, but the video of the attacks showed pretty much what the intelligence community has been saying and demonstrated why it was so confusing to determine what happened, given that there appear to be two attacks possibly driven by different motives.

Also, Petraeus killed their conspiracy meme yesterday. That’s dead in the water.

Soledad O’Brien humiliated GOP Rep. Joe Heck of Nevada on CNN yesterday just by letting him talk. She pointed out that his argument that Ambassador Rice should be blocked from nomination because she repeated the intelligence given to her but was not in a position to know better, whereas Condi Rice knew better when she misled the public into war with Iraq, was actually more of a defense of Ambassador Rice. This has been John McCain’s basic argument as well.

O’BRIEN: Let’s walk through that more slowly — let me walk through that more slowly so you don’t lose me. You’re saying the issue in both cases, weapons of mass destruction and information intelligence coming to the U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice, both cases the information was wrong. What you take exception with is what the White House did later?

HECK: Exactly.

…

O’BRIEN: I feel like you’re saying, from your own comments, that Susan Rice had nothing to do with either of those things. She didn’t have something to do with the intelligence failures, which I believe you just said. And it looks as if she had no knowledge at the time. Why would you possibly blame her then?

HECK: I’m not blaming Ambassador Rice.

But he was sent to CNN to blame Ambassador Rice. Fail.

Why is Benghazi Gate backfiring so badly on Republicans? While it’s true that the facts don’t support their outrageous accusations, that never stopped Republicans before. Remember the last tinfoil hat conspiracy theory that was all the rage in right wing circles – the Fast and Fail scandal of a decade!11!!

Epistemic closure is biting the Republicans hard, just as it destroyed Mitt Romney in the foreign policy debate. Republicans believe Fox News narratives, and they don’t realize how crazy they sound to the rest of the world. Because they believe it, they get more and more hysterical as time goes on.

They are also not used to being called out by the media, or President Obama, or Democrats. All three of those things are changing.

The media is challenging their claims and calling them on hypocrisies, President Obama has a new don’t mess with me attitude, and Democrats are telling Republicans if they want to know what went wrong, look in a mirror.

The President no longer has to run for any office and is emboldened by the mandate, Democrats are similarly emboldened and the media also got the message that the Democrats in really and truly in power and in favor with the people more than the Republicans. These facts drove Republicans over the edge until they showed their hands yesterday. They now have to back up charges of deliberate lying and a cover up bigger than Watergate, and they have to prove that this was not only a lie, but a bigger and more damaging lie than lying us into a war that killed thousands. Good luck with that.

Expect more hysteria from Republicans as their attempts to get everyone else on board with their trumped up charges and flimsy arguments fail. No one is talking about the scandal of Benghazi, they are talking about how John McCain was screaming on TV about not knowing what was revealed in the hearing he missed because he was screaming on TV.