 Your new post is loading...
|
Scooped by
John Cashon
|
by CONOR FRIEDERSDORF, the Atlantic
Before rank-and-file conservatives ask, "What went wrong?", they should ask themselves a question every bit as important: "Why were we the last to realize that things were going wrong for us?"
Barack Obama just trounced a Republican opponent for the second time. But unlike four years ago, when most conservatives saw it coming, Tuesday's result was, for them, an unpleasant surprise. So many on the right had predicted a Mitt Romney victory, or even a blowout -- Dick Morris, George Will, and Michael Barone all predicted the GOP would break 300 electoral votes. Joe Scarborough scoffed at the notion that the election was anything other than a toss-up. Peggy Noonan insisted that those predicting an Obama victory were ignoring the world around them. Even Karl Rove, supposed political genius, missed the bulls-eye. These voices drove the coverage on Fox News, talk radio, the Drudge Report, and conservative blogs.
Those audiences were misinformed.
Outside the conservative media, the narrative was completely different. Its driving force was Nate Silver, whose performance forecasting Election '08 gave him credibility as he daily explained why his model showed that President Obama enjoyed a very good chance of being reelected. Other experts echoed his findings. Readers of The New York Times, The Atlantic, and other "mainstream media" sites besides knew the expert predictions, which have been largely borne out. The conclusions of experts are not sacrosanct. But Silver's expertise was always a better bet than relying on ideological hacks like Morris or the anecdotal impressions of Noonan.
Sure, Silver could've wound up wrong. But people who rejected the possibility of his being right? They were operating at a self-imposed information disadvantage.
Conservatives should be familiar with its contours. For years, they've been arguing that liberal control of media and academia confers one advantage: Folks on the right can't help but be familiar with the thinking of liberals, whereas leftists can operate entirely within a liberal cocoon. This analysis was offered to explain why liberal ideas were growing weaker and would be defeated.
Today?
It is easy to close oneself off inside a conservative echo chamber. And right-leaning outlets like Fox News and Rush Limbaugh's show are far more intellectually closed than CNN or public radio. If you're a rank-and-file conservative, you're probably ready to acknowledge that ideologically friendly media didn't accurately inform you about Election 2012. Some pundits engaged in wishful thinking; others feigned confidence in hopes that it would be a self-fulfilling prophecy; still others decided it was smart to keep telling right-leaning audiences what they wanted to hear. [MORE]
|
|
Scooped by
John Cashon
|
Morning Joe
Conservative columnist David Frum had some choice words on Morning Joe for the industry that has swelled to basically steal money from republican voters. Republicans have been fleeced, exploited and lied to by a conservative entertainment complex...there are too many to name. Because the followers, the donors and the activists are so mistaken about the nature of the problems the country faces...just a simple question, and I went to Tea Party rallies and asked this question, have taxes gone up or down in recent years? They can't answer this question.
Frum declined to name names but he's more forthright in his ebook, Why Romney Lost. Frum is scathing in his criticism of the usual suspects (Fox News, Rush Limbaugh & talk radio, and many many more charlatans).
|
|
Scooped by
John Cashon
|
by JOSEPH GERTH, Louisville Courier-Journal
Actress and Kentucky native Ashley Judd is being touted as a top contender to challenge U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell in the 2014 election, with supporters saying it could produce the “premier race in the country.”
“If you had an Ashley Judd-McConnell race, I think it would be as high profile a race as Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown,” said U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Louisville.
Whether Judd is seriously considering a bid remains unclear — she’s said in the past that she might one day seek public office but has said nothing about her interest in the U.S. Senate seat.
But Judd isn’t the only name being mentioned to challenge McConnell, with Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, Lt. Gov. Jerry Abramson and Matthew Barzun, President Barack Obama’s chief fundraiser, all leading the list.
Yarmuth said he expects candidates enter the Senate race soon, and he says Judd could be a formidable candidate. Judd lives in Tennessee and is not registered to vote in Kentucky but she could move back to her home state of Kentucky and qualify to run at any time.
“The money would pour in here as soon as she entered the race,” Yarmuth said. [MORE]
by MICHAEL CHARNEY
If you swivel your head hard to the left you’ll notice excited liberals batting about party balloons and wearing paper hats, glasses of champagne held high. Swivel an equal number of degrees rightward and you’ll find the conspiracists batting about crazy narratives and wearing tinfoil hats, angry signs held high. Already I’ve heard stories about Democratic-led voter fraud in Ohio (where else?), and FOX is talking about the ways the mainstream media stole this election for Obama. (Spoiler alert: one of them has to do with all that pesky fact-checking.)
Though the night didn’t turn out quite the way I’d hoped, I’m not at all bitter. Quite the contrary: as a moderate Republican, I’m cautiously optimistic.
In looking forward (and because I truly want the country—our country—to succeed and grow), I offer these three reasons for why moderate Republicans should be cautiously optimistic about last night’s results:
1-The Tea Party got spanked pretty good last night.
For all three reasons why (and one why not), click HERE.
Via Michael Charney
|
|
Scooped by
John Cashon
|
The New York Times
Nate Silver explains his poll predictions and why he has Obama projected to win by 90%.
|
|
Scooped by
John Cashon
|
Bing's 2012 Election Guide features interactive maps, deep library of candidate bios and up-to-the-minute news on all things political, from the presidential race down all the way down to statewide ballot initiatives.
|
|
Scooped by
John Cashon
|
by JANE MAYER, The New Yorker
The polls may place Obama and Romney neck and neck at the moment, but historically speaking, the mathematical odds are against Obama serving a second term. Robert Dallek, an American historian specializing in the Presidency, points out that just over a third of America’s Presidents have served out two full, consecutive four-year terms. Of the forty-four American presidents, only sixteen have succeeded at this. Four were assassinated—Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, and Kennedy. Three more died of natural causes in office—including William Henry Harrison who lasted only thirty-one days before succumbing to pneumonia, living on largely as a cautionary tale for generations of parents warning children to button up in winter. (A fourth, Franklin D. Roosevelt, died during his fourth term.) Better medicine and security have hopefully improved the chances of Presidential survival, but other forces combatting reëlections are probably no more forgiving now than in the past. “It’s very hard to have a second term,” says Dallek, in part because the public tends to be ambivalent about anything resembling royalty. “We desperately want heroes in this country,” he notes, “but we also desperately want them to have clay feet, because we’re so egalitarian.”
Dallek and other Presidential scholars suggest the past few weeks have pitted these two public impulses—for and against a regal leader—against one other. In his now infamous first debate performance, Obama appeared too detached, and went from appearing Presidential to looking like Romney’s equal or lesser. But with his dexterous handling of the Commander-in-Chief’s role in the face of Super Storm Sandy, a good deal of the lustre has been restored. The question is which image will prove more potent with voters on Tuesday. History provides evidence for both outcomes, but, Samuel Popkin, a political scientist at the University of California in San Diego who specializes in Presidential power, is betting that Obama’s hurricane performance will prevail. The first debate served as a “great leveler,” he said. “It was words versus words. The disaster is the opposite. It’s the doer versus the kibitzer. The savior versus the second guesser.”
Dallek, too, believes that the hurricane may in time bury memories of the first debate. “His response to the storm will be remembered as a demonstration of assertive and effective leadership and will stand as an example of how people in need rely on federal authority in times of crisis,” he says. “I think his well publicized coöperation with Christie will give Obama an additional edge in the election. If he wins, his performance in the debate will be all but forgotten.”
Perhaps the most telling prognostication comes from Karl Rove, the Republican political guru who, despite predicting a Romney victory earlier in the week, is quoted in the Washington Post today describing Sandy as “a subtle disadvantage” for Romney, language that signals a possible rationalization should there be a Republican defeat. “Obama has temporarily been a bipartisan figure this week. He has been the comforter-in-chief, and that helps.” For once, he said, “the October surprise was a real surprise.” [MORE]
|
|
Scooped by
John Cashon
|
FRONTLINE | PBS Video
"PBS Newshour" correspondent Hari Sreenivasan, reporting for FRONTLINE, goes deep inside the Romney and Obama campaigns to uncover how data collected from millions of Americans is being used by both camps to target their messages, get out the vote and shape the election. [WATCH]
by MITT ROMNEY, The Wall Street Journal
After more than a year of campaigning, endless political advertisements, two conventions and four debates, the presidential election is almost over. The big decision of 2012 will soon be in the hands of the voters. The choice Americans make will shape great things, historic things, and those will determine the most important and intimate aspects of every American life and every American family. All presidential elections matter. This one matters a great deal.
It matters to the senior who needs medical care but, thanks to ObamaCare, can't find a doctor who is taking new Medicare patients. It matters to the men and women who once had good-paying jobs with benefits but now work part-time with no benefits just to put food on the table. It matters to the college student graduating this spring with a heavy load of debt and few opportunities to pay it back. It matters to the single mother who lives in fear of foreclosure as her employment prospects dwindle.
This election is about them. It is about all of us.
It is about the education of our children, the value of our homes, the take-home pay from our jobs, the price of the gasoline we buy, the choices we have in our health care. It is also about broader forces—the growth of the economy, the strength of our military, our dependence on foreign oil, our leadership role in the world.
After four years of disappointments, fixing America's problems requires a new direction. The path we're on hasn't led us where we need to go. In so many ways, it seems that things have gotten even worse. We can make excuses for what has gone wrong, and many have tried. But excuses won't turn this country around. Only leadership can do that.
I know something about leadership because I have led before. I have reformed businesses that were on the verge of collapse. I have helped to save an Olympics that was plagued by scandal. I have worked with men and women on both sides of the aisle in Massachusetts to achieve real change and real reform.
I can do it again in Washington. Republicans and Democrats in Congress may seem to share very little these days, but they share responsibility for the problems we now face. Just as it took both parties to bring us to where we stand, it will take both parties to get us moving again in the right direction. [MORE]
Once again, Tea Party extremism is going to hurt Republicans in key legislative races.
by DAVID FRUM, National Post
The Obama-Romney contest will get the eyeballs, but the more important battle Tuesday night will be the battle for control of Congress.
Today, Republicans control the House of Representatives 242-193. Democrats hold the Senate, 53-47 (including two independents who caucus with the Democrats, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont).
Most House-watchers expect the Republicans to lose seats, but not enough to forfeit control. The mid-range scenario projects losses of between seven and 11 for the GOP. Losses on that scale would not jeopardize Republican control. They would, however, imply the defeat of almost all the more moderate conservatives in the Republican caucus. If Barack Obama wins re-election, he’ll meet a House even more hostile and intransigent than the House that nearly pushed the United States into default on its obligations in the summer of 2011.
The Senate outlook is even grimmer for Republicans. Earlier in the year, Republicans hoped they might win both the presidency and the Senate, restoring their post-9/11 united control of all three elected branches of government. Now it seems more probable that the Democrats will expand their Senate majority, most likely by picking up Republican held Senate seats in Massachusetts and Indiana, and holding once seemingly vulnerable Democratic seats in Virginia and Missouri.
How? Why?
The short answer is: The Tea Party struck again. [MORE]
Via Coffee Party USA
|
|
Scooped by
John Cashon
|
Electoral Dysfunction, a feature-length documentary shot in HD, uses humor and wit to take an irreverent—but nonpartisan—look at voting in America.
|
|
Scooped by
John Cashon
|
by BILL MAHER, HBO - Real Time with Bill Maher Blog
If there's one drum the right wing likes to bang it's the one about the "liberal media", which, by law, must appear in every right-wing editorial or come out of the mouths of every Fox News and radio show pundit at least four times a day or Rupert Murdoch strips you of your wingnut accreditation.
Claiming "liberal bias" is like a tick. If you make up a scandal and it doesn't get reported to your satisfaction, it's not because the whole Solyndra thing was a great big nothingburger, it's because the liberal media is protecting the president. If Sarah Palin says something stupid and it gets reported, it's not because Sarah Palin said something stupid. It's because the liberal media has it out for strong conservative women who quit their jobs and do nothing for years.
And to this end, Fox News' website now has this thing called "BIAS ALERT." And each day, in bright red letters, they post some example of what they think is "liberal bias."
Except there's only one small problem: it's almost never an example of media bias. What they seem to have uncovered is that ...grab hold of something ...not everyone is a Republican. [MORE]
|
|
Scooped by
John Cashon
|
Listen to what leading Republicans said about Governor Romney during the primaries. Does this sound familiar?
|
by EZRA KLEIN, The Washington Post
The political-science evidence is clear on this: There’s no such thing as an election mandate. There’s only what a president is able to get done with the Congress the American people gave him.
But few politicians agree. And so the days and weeks after elections are heavy with arguments about who has a mandate, and for what. The latest debate is about whether President Obama, who ran a campaign explicitly promising to raise taxes on high earners and who beat a candidate explicitly promising to refuse any and all tax increases, has a mandate to raise taxes.
Speaker John Boehner says he doesn’t. “Listen, our majority is going to get reelected,” he said the day before the election. “We’ll have as much of a mandate as he [President Obama] will … to not raise taxes.”
Boehner’s logic is, on its face, sound. House Republicans have been as clear in their opposition to new taxes on the rich as Obama has been in his support for them. And House Republicans were reelected. They have as much right to claim a popular mandate as the president does.
Or they would if they’d actually won more votes. But they didn’t. House Republicans did the equivalent of winning the electoral college while losing the popular vote. [MORE]
Via Eric Byler
The New York Times
Obama's 2012 Presidential Acceptance Speech.
|
|
Scooped by
John Cashon
|
Election night wraps up, the Best F#@king News Team Ever reports future election results, and Samantha Bee interviews undecided voters.
Here is a perfect example of a graceless concession. Ovide Lamontagne was killed at the polls--again. He's been running for something for 20 years and the people of NH keep saying "No."
He's too extreme, and we know it. But instead of gracefully congratulating his opponent, he blames negative attack ads from out-of-state-money... irony if ever I've heard it from a Tea Party extremist who had an incredible amount of SuperPAC support. I'm hoping he finally goes away. My state doesn't need him. -- Michael Charney
Via Michael Charney
|
|
Scooped by
John Cashon
|
The New York Times
Live 2012 Presidential, Senate and House Election Results...
|
|
Scooped by
John Cashon
|
Think you know how the presidential vote will go? Select states to change their vote and watch the electoral vote math change. Check the latest poll data, economic indicators, and how each state voted in the past three presidential elections. When you are done, share your results with your friends.
|
|
Scooped by
John Cashon
|
CBS This Morning
Rebecca Jarvis and Anthony Mason speak to film critics A.O. Scott and Michael Phillips about the best on-screen presidential performances. [WATCH]
|
|
Scooped by
John Cashon
|
The New Yorker
With Election Day just around the corner, the photographers Ashley Gilbertson and Ed Kashi fanned out across the third district in Ohio to look at the state’s undecided voters. Mitt Romney has made more trips to Ohio than to any other state, while President Obama has visited twenty-five times. It’s unlikely that either candidate will win without carrying Ohio.
For four days, Gilbertson embedded with the Rine-Stone family in Kettering, Ohio, on the outskirts of Dayton, while Kashi focussed on the issues most important to voters who haven’t yet made up their minds. Here’s a look. [WATCH]
by BARACK OBAMA, The Wall Street Journal
For the past few days, we've all been properly focused on one of the worst storms of our lifetimes. We mourn those who were lost. And we pledge to stand with those whose lives have been turned upside down for as long as it takes to recover and rebuild—better than before.
Because when hardship hits, America is at its best. The petty differences that consume us in normal times fade away. There are no Democrats or Republicans during a storm—only fellow Americans. That is how we get through the most trying times: together.
In 2008, we were mired in two wars and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Together, we've battled our way back. Our businesses have created over five million new jobs in the past two and a half years. Home values are on the rise. Manufacturing is growing at the fastest pace in 15 years. The American auto industry is back. Thanks to the service and sacrifice of our brave men and women in uniform, the war in Iraq is over. And Osama bin Laden is dead.
We've made real progress. But we're not done yet. On Tuesday, you get to choose between two fundamentally different visions of America—one where we return to the top-down policies that crashed our economy four years ago, and one built on a strong, growing middle class.
Our free market is the engine of America's progress, driven by risk-takers, innovators and dreamers. Our people succeed when they have the chance to get a good education and learn new skills—and so do the businesses that hire them, or the companies they start. We believe that when we support research into scientific and medical breakthroughs, new industries will start here and stay here. We grow faster when our tax code rewards hard work and companies that create jobs in America, and when quality health care and a dignified retirement aren't just achievable goals but a measure of our values as a nation. [MORE]
|
|
Scooped by
John Cashon
|
by PAUL KRUGMAN, The New York TImes
If President Obama is re-elected, health care coverage will expand dramatically, taxes on the wealthy will go up and Wall Street will face tougher regulation. If Mitt Romney wins instead, health coverage will shrink substantially, taxes on the wealthy will fall to levels not seen in 80 years and financial regulation will be rolled back.
Given the starkness of this difference, you might have expected to see people from both sides of the political divide urging voters to cast their ballots based on the issues. Lately, however, I’ve seen a growing number of Romney supporters making a quite different argument. Vote for Mr. Romney, they say, because if he loses, Republicans will destroy the economy.
O.K., they don’t quite put it that way. The argument is phrased in terms of “partisan gridlock,” as if both parties were equally extreme. But they aren’t. This is, in reality, all about appeasing the hard men of the Republican Party.
If you want an example of what I’m talking about, consider the remarkable — in a bad way — editorial in which The Des Moines Register endorsed Mr. Romney. The paper acknowledged that Mr. Obama’s signature economic policy, the 2009 stimulus, was the right thing to do. It also acknowledged that Mr. Obama tried hard to reach out across the partisan divide, but was rebuffed.
Yet it endorsed his opponent anyway, offering some half-hearted support for Romneynomics, but mainly asserting that Mr. Romney would be able to work with Democrats in a way that Mr. Obama has not been able to work with Republicans. Why? Well, the paper claims — as many of those making this argument do — that, in office, Mr. Romney would be far more centrist than anything he has said in the campaign would indicate. (And the notion that he has been lying all along is supposed to be a point in his favor?) But mostly it just takes it for granted that Democrats would be more reasonable.
Is this a good argument? [MORE]
|
|
Scooped by
John Cashon
|
An election eve appeal from Montgomery Burns. Mr. Burns puts Shamus the dog to the test of choosing between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.
|
|
Scooped by
John Cashon
|
The Federal Register just released a fun new interactive on their web site! You can use the slide rule to look at maps of how the Electoral College voted from 1964 to 2008. Check it out here.
|
