**2012 Election Day thread**

[StrangeSox]

Who gives any s*** at all who the "favorites" are for 2016? Remember how wrong all of those predictions were in 2004 for 2008? In 2008 for 2012 (Sarah Palin was considered the frontrunner. Palin!)

[Y2HH]

Who gives any s*** at all who the "favorites" are for 2016? Remember how wrong all of those predictions were in 2004 for 2008? In 2008 for 2012 (Sarah Palin was considered the frontrunner. Palin!)

 

Exactly. These types of things change so rapidly there is no point in even discussing it.

 

One wrong move or scandal, and the entire landscape changes within minutes.

[caulfield12]

I'm sure they knew and that it was simply "any Democrat is better than Mourdock" as well as being aware that you're not going to be able to get a progressive Senator from Indiana.

 

 

The Tea Party is near dead. Allen West. Scott Brown, although he has a chance to run again if John Kerry becomes Secretary of State.

 

Sharron Angle and McDonnell in DE gave away two sure GOP wins (one to an "on the ropes" Harry Reid) and took the spot away from moderate Mike Castle.

 

Same thing this cycle, McCaskill was the most vulnerable Senate candidate on the Dem side and Akin self-imploded. The super PAC's killed Brunner, who would have defeated Claire handily. Then Lugar getting pushed out in Indiana for another bad candidate, who couldn't even win despite Indiana handily flipping back to the GOP side presidentially when it had barely gone Obama in 2008.

 

Most importantly, their idiotic comments (Akin and Mourdock) were used to hang Romney by association (you can also ding Mitt for not coming out more strongly with condemning words too) and further solidified the Dems with women (overall....he still lost white women quite handily).

Edited November 8, 2012 by caulfield12

[Reddy]

Exactly. These types of things change so rapidly there is no point in even discussing it.

 

One wrong move or scandal, and the entire landscape changes within minutes.

Anthony Wiener anyone?

 

I was so excited about his prospects... then he lived up to his name...

[caulfield12]

Um, yes they did. The people in power, which were very few, made such decisions on behalf of everyone else -- for better or worse -- whether they, the people, were even aware of it. Especially back then when news took months to travel around. Many of these types of decisions were probably made without foreseeing population booms or busts in the future. As a matter of fact, I doubt many of such decisions were made looking that far in the future at all.

 

 

Have you ever seen anyone use the "I moved with my family to South Dakota to have a stronger impact with my vote on the presidential race" excuse?

 

Maybe they would mention lower or no property taxes, haha.

 

But seriously, the Constitution didn't anticipate the primary or caucus system either. And yet how many people are moving to Iowa, New Hampshire or South Carolina, for example?

 

Will people leave Florida since their state didn't count at all this year, essentially?

[caulfield12]

Exactly. These types of things change so rapidly there is no point in even discussing it.

 

One wrong move or scandal, and the entire landscape changes within minutes.

 

True enough.

 

Look at the GOP primary.

 

Bachmann, Cain, Perry, Gingrich and Santorum all were up at different times in that cycle.

[Y2HH]

Have you ever seen anyone use the "I moved with my family to South Dakota to have a stronger impact with my vote on the presidential race" excuse?

 

Maybe they would mention lower or no property taxes, haha.

 

But seriously, the Constitution didn't anticipate the primary or caucus system either. And yet how many people are moving to Iowa, New Hampshire or South Carolina, for example?

 

Will people leave Florida since their state didn't count at all this year, essentially?

 

If hurricanes and other natural disasters cannot get people to leave Florida or other areas where this sort of thing happen...I HIGHLY doubt their vote meaning more would be the thing that does it.

[caulfield12]

from politico.com/arena

 

Charles Sanders Pierce, the greatest of American philosophers, wrote a brief essay, "The Fixation of Belief," that holds some lessons as to what is wrong with the GOP and how, most likely, it will not solve its problem in the immediate future.

 

Pierce showed that humans are not fundamentally seekers of truth; we mainly want to avoid doubt. And when events occur, like the 2012 presidential election landslide by Barack Obama when most Republican analysts predicted a Republican victory, doubt emerges. But as Pierce shows, people hold to their beliefs tenaciously long after it has become plain they no longer accord with reality.

 

Notice how Karl Rowe refused to believe the conclusions of Fox News's own statisticians that Ohio had been won by the president. Or Donald Trump's rant that "We can't let this happen. We need to march on Washington and stop this travesty." These comical reactions are merely extreme versions of the looks on the faces of those assembled at Romney headquarters in Boston who could not believe that their beliefs were so out of step with most of America's voters; and the paid Republican prognosticators - George Will, Dick Morris, etc., etc. all failed to anticipate the 100 electoral vote thumping that Barack laid on Mitt Romney.

 

Pierce states that what happens when we change our opinions is that once faced with overwhelming evidence that they no longer accord with reality, we scurry around testing new hypotheses until we find one - this he calls inquiry - that seems to explain the facts and - most importantly - is a belief we are comfortable with. In the coming weeks, we will see this scurrying around among Republicans, with the desire not to seek the truth but to remove the feeling of doubt, and to find an explanation for what happened that will protect the core beliefs that Republicans remain fixated on. Explanations like it was Mitt's fault, that he wasn't a good candidate, that we need a real conservative to run, etc, etc., all beliefs that will ignore the fundamental fact that a Copernican revolution has occurred in the American electorate, that the Republican Party cannot face.

 

A majority of the historically oppressed in this country have reached the stage in their political development where they are able to vote their self- and collective - self interest. The people have spoken, and are no longer subaltern. We now realize why the disfranchisement of blacks after the Civil War and the refusal to allow women to vote for much of American history were such crucial ingredients to American political culture. It allowed white male elites to craft policies that served their self-interest and crushed those of other American citizens. But the revolutions of the 1950s and 1960s have changed all that. The Reagan counter-revolution merely slowed what was inevitable - that white male voting can no longer trump, to use a rich term, the interests of all the rest. And this election also shows that the working and middle class white male voter in many cases no longer wants that old racially charged baggage anymore. The American people have woken up - at least more than half of them. And when they listen to policies that are inimical to their self-interest, they reject them at the polls. The attacks on women's bodies by Republican candidates were heard. And also heard was Romney's refusal to repudiate or reject those who made outrageous comments about rape. That refusal to reject outlandish comments about rape is the party's representation, and it was heard, and absorbed, and rejected. Constant attacks on immigrants as if they were inhuman were heard. Insane inquiries about Obama's birth certificate were heard. And well heard was the argument that the only way to advance America economically is to give more tax cuts to the rich, thereby shifting the inevitable tax burden to come to the middle class.

 

Large swaths of middle and working class Americans voted against those whose policies served the elite, and not themselves. The Republican Party has become the party of the elite, hence the precipitous drop on Wall Street the day after the election. The people spoke, and they said, "we didn't like what we heard from you." Notice that every one of the battleground states Barack won - Florida, Ohio, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin, Iowa, - were states where repeatedly Romney and the Koch brothers concentrated the Republicans message. And they lost all of them. Why? Because enough of the people realized the policies articulated were not in their long term interest. It is the policies, stupid, that were reject on November 6.

 

Republicans are caught in a Ronald Reagan mindset. When Barack chided Romney in the last debate that the 1980s wanted its foreign policy back, he could have said the 1980s also wanted its domestic immigration policy, its economic recovery policy, its climate policy, its energy policy, its regulatory policy, its gender and sexuality policies--back. The world that Reagan dominated does not exist any more. Prejudice and institutional racism remain, but many whites saw Barack, the black candidate, as the more rational subject, and viewed Republican candidates, including "blowing in the wind" Mitt Romney, as irrational, unreliable,and untrustworthy. Jefferson must be turning over in his grave. The Republican Party failed to beat a black candidate many in the electorate did not like, in a stalled economy. Wow! But unlike the Republicans, Barack listened - and adjusted to reality - and refined his beliefs in reaction to his negative experiences in the White House, especially the failure of his attempts at bipartisanship, and changed.

 

Who is the most rational, the most nimble Republican thinker today, who has seen the rise of the New Populism and adjusted his thinking in accord to it? Start with Supreme Court Chief Justice, John Roberts. His decision to vote to uphold the Health Care Reform Act flowed from a realization that the people wanted it, despite the Republican brainwashing machine that convinced so many they didn't. Roberts was not so fixated in his beliefs that he couldn't change them - or act in such a way that he did not make the Supreme Court irrelevant because of them. There is something for the national Republican Party to learn from this. But they probably won't anytime soon. They will persist in their fixation on their beliefs for a while longer, to the delight of Democrats looking forward to 2016.

 

Jeffrey C. Stewart UC Santa Barbara

 

 

 

Former State Sen. Jeff Smith (D-Mo.)

New School professor :

 

 

1) Remove all platform planks involving gay people. Quit worrying about people's sex lives in general.

 

2) While we're talking about sex, strike the words "contraception" or "rape" from your political lexicon. I understand that many of you equate abortion with murder. But the political facts of life are these: just 20 percent of the country opposes abortion in all cases. That number hasn't really moved in four decades and it isn't going to. So continue calling yourselves pro-life and appoint judges who are pro-life, but understand that if you don't allow reasonable exceptions for incest, life of the mother, etc., you're always going to struggle with women in their child-bearing years.

 

Sure, some of them are pro-life. But more are pro-life in their OWN life w/o wanting to see the option eliminated from others - which for many (like me) is the essence of the pro-choice position. Your policies and rhetoric don't make that distinction. Most people in this country just don't want to criminalize women who make that choice and as long as the candidates who get the most attention are people like Akin and Mourdock, your party's screwed. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

 

3) Stop opposing the DREAM act. Obviously the writing is on the wall. These approximately 15 million folks aren't going anywhere; they're not self-deporting and government lacks the will and the money to deport them, other than criminals who are apprehended. These 15 million mostly consider themselves Americans. Almost all work hard and play by the rules. Quit appeasing your eroding base of old white people and get with the program.

 

4) Return to your fiscal conservative roots. Adhere to your rhetoric about not crippling the next generation with debt by supporting policies that would actually balance budgets, as opposed to Ryan-esque chimera and other supply-side garbage. Look, every Republican legislator voted against Clinton's tax hike in '93 and you asserted it would kill the economy. We all know what happened next. Did a Republican Congress that limited spending help balance budgets and satisfy bond traders, keeping interest rates low and powering growth? Sure. But the public associates that growth with Clinton. Your doomsday rhetoric about his bill eroded your credibility. And a decade of feeble growth following the Bush tax cuts didn't restore it. So, stop it. A return to your roots as the true budget hawk party would be good for your party and even better for the country. And like most Democrats, I'd be happy if your party were more successful if you were ALSO more responsible and helped govern sensibly.

 

5) As part of your fiscal conservatism, take the lead in two areas where the nation could save billions: military spending (we spend more than the next 10 highest spending nations combined) and prison reform. Want to win the votes of young people and minorities? Bingo.

 

As a conservative Republican friend in the Missouri state senate told me last night, "We're a Mad Men party in a Modern Family world." That pretty much sums it up

 

 

 

.Steve Murphy

Democratic consultant; Managing Partner at Murphy Vogel Askew Reilly :

 

 

Sixty percent of Republican voters believe the government should offer no assistance to the poor.

 

The Republican Party is actively working to make it more difficult for poor people to vote, with blacks as the obvious target. Rank and file Republicans are totally opposed to legalization of illegal immigrants who have been in the country for an extensive period. Republicans favor elimination of the income tax in favor of consumption taxes which would shift the burden overwhelmingly to the 50 percent of Americans who live from paycheck to paycheck, (or relief check to relief check).

 

Neo-conservative Republicans promote aggressive American military intervention whenever it is in our strategic interest. Republicans are seeking to privatize both Social Security and Medicare, as well as eviscerating federal discretionary spending, aside from Defense funding. They are opposed to gay marriage - their base firmly believes gays are innate sinners, and Republicans want to ban gays from serving in the military.

 

Republicans deny the obvious fact that our climate is warming at a calamitous rate. They are anti-science in other ways, too, with a majority believing the universe was created as it exists today 6,000 years ago. Many Republicans want a "personhood" constitutional amendment which not only would prohibit abortion in all cases but also ban many common forms of birth control. A majority of Republicans support overturning Roe v. Wade.

 

How can they change all that?

 

 

[Soxbadger]

Abortion isn't about what happens in your bedroom.

 

Sure it is. Abortion impacts sex choices. With a safety net, you can do a lot more things with a lot less worry. Without one, well its back to belts and suspenders, because condoms can break and I dont think Trojan is going to pay for my kids life.

 

 

About picking 2016, its nothing more than saying who you think will win the World Series next year. Its just for fun.

[cabiness42]

Sure it is. Abortion impacts sex choices. With a safety net, you can do a lot more things with a lot less worry. Without one, well its back to belts and suspenders, because condoms can break and I dont think Trojan is going to pay for my kids life.

 

 

About picking 2016, its nothing more than saying who you think will win the World Series next year. Its just for fun.

 

I haven't seen any evidence that people make choices about sex based on whether or not abortion is legal, and even if so, worry-free sex is a terrible reason to legalize the killing of human beings.

[Soxbadger]

I haven't seen any evidence that people make choices about sex based on whether or not abortion is legal, and even if so, worry-free sex is a terrible reason to legalize the killing of human beings.

 

Fetuses arent humans, just like my sperm isnt a human and just like the potential baby that I am thinking of maybe having in the future isnt a human.

 

And you dont need to think any reason is a good reason for killing humans because sex is a perfectly good reason for killing sperm and eggs, which is what we are talking about here.

[cabiness42]

Fetuses arent humans, just like my sperm isnt a human and just like the potential baby that I am thinking of maybe having in the future isnt a human.

 

And you dont need to think any reason is a good reason for killing humans because sex is a perfectly good reason for killing sperm and eggs, which is what we are talking about here.

 

If the fetuses are human fetuses then they are humans.

 

[Brian]

Who gives any s*** at all who the "favorites" are for 2016? Remember how wrong all of those predictions were in 2004 for 2008? In 2008 for 2012 (Sarah Palin was considered the frontrunner. Palin!)

 

Giuliani in 08!!

[Reddy]

If the fetuses are human fetuses then they are humans.

no, they are fetuses. as you pointed out.

[Reddy]

however i'm not sure this is one of those arguments that should be taking place here... lol

[Soxbadger]

If the fetuses are human fetuses then they are humans.

 

No they arent.

 

If a fetus dies due to miscarriage before 3 months, does it have a birth certificate? Does it have a social security number? Has it taken a breathe? Has it lived?

 

The answer is no. If you want to extend protection to unborn life, argue away. But at what point do we stop protecting something that isnt real? If you protect a fetus, why not sperm? Its the same theory, you are killing potential life. If we go down that road, shouldnt birth control be illegal, as it kills eggs, which could have been life?

 

But please spare me the "fetus are humans", because they arent. They are not deserving of the same rights as an actual living breathing person. Its insulting to those of us who actually are alive.

[Jenksismyhero]

Fetuses arent humans, just like my sperm isnt a human and just like the potential baby that I am thinking of maybe having in the future isnt a human.

 

And you dont need to think any reason is a good reason for killing humans because sex is a perfectly good reason for killing sperm and eggs, which is what we are talking about here.

 

I'm very interested to see if your opinion on this changes once you actually have a kid. After hearing/seeing a heartbeat of the "non-human" you created at 4-6 weeks, and then watching the development of that "non-human" for the weeks thereafter, it's very difficult to definitely state that there's no life there just because it can't live on it's own without the mother.

 

 

[Jenksismyhero]

No they arent.

 

If a fetus dies due to miscarriage before 3 months, does it have a birth certificate? Does it have a social security number? Has it taken a breathe? Has it lived?

 

The answer is no. If you want to extend protection to unborn life, argue away. But at what point do we stop protecting something that isnt real? If you protect a fetus, why not sperm? Its the same theory, you are killing potential life. If we go down that road, shouldnt birth control be illegal, as it kills eggs, which could have been life?

 

But please spare me the "fetus are humans", because they arent. They are not deserving of the same rights as an actual living breathing person. Its insulting to those of us who actually are alive.

 

Lol, this is just an abhorrent view. I really hope your wife doesn't have a miscarriage. I'm sure the "Oh honey, stop crying. You're being ridiculous. It's not like that was a human you just lost. Just a bag of cells!" response would work well.

Edited November 8, 2012 by Jenksismybitch

[Soxbadger]

I'm very interested to see if your opinion on this changes once you actually have a kid. After hearing/seeing a heartbeat of the "non-human" you created at 4-6 weeks, and then watching the development of that "non-human" for the weeks thereafter, it's very difficult to definitely state that there's no life there just because it can't live on it's own without the mother.

 

Im not saying there is "no life." I am saying that there is a balance.

 

And it wont change my opinion. Its not my choice what other people do with their lives. If they want to recklessly kill fetuses, it doesnt change my day. I dont believe in the govt telling people how to live their life, regardless of what I personally believe, it just doesnt matter.

 

This is about punishing people for controlling their own body. As soon as the fetus is out of the body, it has its own rights. But it doesnt just magically get rights the instant of conception, because otherwise we are going down a terrible terrible big govt logic.

 

For example, if a fetus is equal to a human, and if its true that alcohol damages fetuses, then why not allow the govt to arrest mothers who drink? Or mothers who smoke? Or mothers who dont eat the right food?

 

At what point do we say no more?

 

 

[Soxbadger]

Lol, this is just an abhorrent view. I really hope your wife doesn't have a miscarriage. I'm sure the "Oh honey, stop crying. You're being ridiculous. It's not like that was a human you just lost. Just a bag of cells!" response would work well.

 

My mother almost died due a miscarriage, we dont refer to the fetus as my dead brother/sister. In fact we NEVER refer to it at all, why because it wasnt a human.

 

So you can call me abhorrent or the worst human in the world, that wont change anything, its not about what people think about me, its about not expanding govt power.

[NorthSideSox72]

The reactions to the election from the far-right, such as the Tea Party groups and Christian Coalition hardliners, are hilarious. They actually think Romney lost because he wasn't conservative enough. Complete denial of reality. It is almost sad to watch.

 

I can fully understand people's policy positions, even if they are further right than mine (by a little or a lot). But at some point, if the GOP wants to make changes, they need to deal with the obvious schism occurring in their party. They need to deal with the fact that the Tea Party types - who initially started as libertarian-like but quickly became just extra-angry right wingers - is falling back from being a party base to being an interest group. They can't have that be their platform keys anymore.

 

[Jenksismyhero]

Im not saying there is "no life." I am saying that there is a balance.

 

And it wont change my opinion. Its not my choice what other people do with their lives. If they want to recklessly kill fetuses, it doesnt change my day. I dont believe in the govt telling people how to live their life, regardless of what I personally believe, it just doesnt matter.

 

This is about punishing people for controlling their own body. As soon as the fetus is out of the body, it has its own rights. But it doesnt just magically get rights the instant of conception, because otherwise we are going down a terrible terrible big govt logic.

 

For example, if a fetus is equal to a human, and if its true that alcohol damages fetuses, then why not allow the govt to arrest mothers who drink? Or mothers who smoke? Or mothers who dont eat the right food?

 

At what point do we say no more?

 

First off, they don't know what alcohol does, if anything. They think it causes harm with severe drinking but studies aren't conclusive on the issue. Either way, none of those examples are the same as aborting them.

 

But whatever, this argument we've had before so i'm not about to waste a day on it.

[Jenksismyhero]

The reactions to the election from the far-right, such as the Tea Party groups and Christian Coalition hardliners, are hilarious. They actually think Romney lost because he wasn't conservative enough. Complete denial of reality. It is almost sad to watch.

 

I can fully understand people's policy positions, even if they are further right than mine (by a little or a lot). But at some point, if the GOP wants to make changes, they need to deal with the obvious schism occurring in their party. They need to deal with the fact that the Tea Party types - who initially started as libertarian-like but quickly became just extra-angry right wingers - is falling back from being a party base to being an interest group. They can't have that be their platform keys anymore.

 

This is why the primary needs to be rigged so that the stupid extremists will have no choice but to vote for a more moderate (socially) candidate.

[CrimsonWeltall]

First off, they don't know what alcohol does, if anything. They think it causes harm with severe drinking but studies aren't conclusive on the issue.

 

They're not conclusive on light drinking, but heavy drinking is known to lead to FAS.

[mr_genius]

The reactions to the election from the far-right, such as the Tea Party groups and Christian Coalition hardliners, are hilarious. They actually think Romney lost because he wasn't conservative enough. Complete denial of reality. It is almost sad to watch.

 

I can fully understand people's policy positions, even if they are further right than mine (by a little or a lot). But at some point, if the GOP wants to make changes, they need to deal with the obvious schism occurring in their party. They need to deal with the fact that the Tea Party types - who initially started as libertarian-like but quickly became just extra-angry right wingers - is falling back from being a party base to being an interest group. They can't have that be their platform keys anymore.

 

You don't get it. At all.