Romney lost by moderate margins in Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Among Great Lakes States, he won Indiana and lost by a lot in Illinois.
Hispanics and Asians aren't all that important in this swing region: in terms of voters, it's basically pre-1965 white and black America. And Romney just didn't appeal enough on manufacturing and jobs in that part of the country. How does the 2009 Auto Bailout sound as the key to the Electoral College in 2012? Perhaps the anti-unionized government workers war in Wisconsin didn't work out so well for Republicans?
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Romney lost because he's a transparant political robot (which may be a Mormon thing) and cause George Bush was the biggest schmuck in the history of the presidency.
We're better off this way. You all know this.
Whilst I think that your demographic approach is illuminating, I still have to ask the question:
How on Earth will the GOP, or any other conservative political force, get it's message out if it doesn't capture a larger slice of the MSM?
Yes, right-thinking bloggers can comment on the news, but it is the MSM that makes the news and thus controls the conversation.
In the one instance where Romney definitely should have obfuscated and pandered, he stuck to his guns and insisted on telling the voters in the rust belt that he was in favor of the remaining major American auto manufacturers going to the wall.
He can flip-flop about everything and pander to anyone, except when it comes to his core business roundtable beliefs where he suddenly, inconveniently, decides to be true to his principals! He couldn't lie just a little in Michigan to pander to the blue collars. Unbelievable.
Pat Buchanan was our last best chance to rally what was left of the white working class. No wonder he was demonized.
well sure...but how did obama appeal enough on manufacturing and jobs?
see how it's really game over for the conservatives. obama was the worst in 50 years on those two issues and...they still voted for him.
the only thing you could count on was the auto bailout was a direct, naked appeal for votes in michigan. because from any other angle it didn't make sense. it's proven to be a big money loser, and hasn't really helped GM, exactly as many people predicted.
and michigan has continued to go downhill over the last 4 years as well. the auto bailout did not help michigan. it's one of only 2 states actually shrinking, because people are leaving. michigan continues to go downhill, votes obama anyway. like nevada. obama even directly insulted the people of las vegas...and they responded by voting for him.
the other states...how. how did obama do a better job appealing to the voters on jobs?
those states usually vote democrat in national elections. i don't think it had anything to do with jobs. if anything, romney proved it didn't. he campaigned almost exclusively on jobs, jobs, jobs.
Hugh is correct. Women are herd creatures, and being unmarried and living life of singletons for most of it (basically 18-36, or longer); well the media forms the larger girlfriends group.
Romney lost in the Great Lakes / North Central because the fraud (Blacks voting three/four times) was much larger than his margin and willingness to challenge (a Black guy).
"How on Earth will the GOP, or any other conservative political force, get it's message out if it doesn't capture a larger slice of the MSM?"
i made a big post about this on another thread earlier today.
the average person mainly reads and hears that obama is pretty good, and romney (or whoever the republican target du jour is) sucks, is terrible, awful, he's and joke and we can't take this guy seriously, and so on and so forth.
this is having a LARGE effect now, and it's mostly undiscussed.
How does getting over the false construct of the "United States" sound? Aren't we all sick of it?
"well sure...but how did obama appeal enough on manufacturing and jobs?"
I wonder this too...in the third debate, at the end, Obama basically said manufacturing was obsolete and going away so kiss it goodbye.
Even now you schmucks can't admit that having an industrial policy directed to the national interest rather than the financiers' interest is a good idea. You deserve your ass-kicking.
Even now you schmucks can't admit that having an industrial policy directed to the national interest rather than the financiers' interest
lol
I honestly believe that a Republican doesn't deserve to win if he can't convince Iowa of all states. Crying about demographic change just doesn't cut it there. So when will someone inform gentle Minnesotans that they need to play for the home team? Nobody had to tell blacks or hispanics.
I know that some here will disagree but I also think Republicans need to appeal to successful Jews/Asians/Indians.
And even bigger than that is the embarrassing fact that elite society in general is closed off to conservatives. You need fair representation in the opinion-making class (and yes, I mean Yale and the Upper West Side and West LA and Silicon Valley as opposed to Cincinnati talk radio). You may not realize this if you're older and live in a red state but I know doctors and lawyers who said they wanted Romney to win but had to avoid discussing politics or posting that on facebook because there's such intense social pressure to be liberal when you're a student or a yuppie in a coastal city. Gay marriage is a good example of why. You're just never getting that one back. Is that because gay marriage is extremely important in a policy sense? No. But it's hard to figure out if we should raise taxes by 1% or deficit spend an extra 2% of GDP. On the other hand, gays are part of every yuppie social group so the "wrongness" of being on the opposite side of that issue seems much clearer to your peers (of course it's cosmopolitan empathetic liberated single *straight women* who drive the gay marriage debate--has anyone ever mentioned that?).
I really like Steve's analysis, but I think he is jumping the gun a little bit.
About 120 million votes were cast for Obama or McCain in 2008. As of 2:14 AM EST, the CNN website is showing about 55 million votes for Obama and 54 million votes for Romney. While I wouldn't be surprised at all if turnout dropped in this election, the point is that not all the votes are in yet.
Obama's popular vote margin also seems to be growing, which was to be expected since the biggest source of uncounted votes is California.
What is really amazing going through all the data so far is how little things shifted at the presidential level in 2008. And where the Republicans are winning, in the House, even with all the redistricting and reapportionment the totals are winding up about where they were in 2010. Not many incumbents going down either, its starting to look like the only incumbent Senator to lose will be Scott Brown.
whiskey wrote, Hugh is correct. Women are herd creatures, and being unmarried and living life of singletons for most of it (basically 18-36, or longer); well the media forms the larger girlfriends group.
Among all women the split was 55-45, does that sound like a herd to you? Blacks went over 90%. Jews went 70%. Are those groups herds too, or is it just white women?
"How on Earth will the GOP, or any other conservative political force, get it's message out if it doesn't capture a larger slice of the MSM?"
This is why he lost, why any GOPer would have lost. My gawd, you actually had a host of them asking how would it look if the first black man elected to the highest office in the land was not "given" a second term.
The media has protected him in big ways and small ways ever since he gave the Democratic convention speech 4 years before he was nominated.
As just a really small example of how the media bends things (and these small things count for low-information voters, which is what 50%+ of Americans are...my Comcast homepage tonight had this headline: "Obama powers to re-election despite weak economy."
"Despite weak economy".....funny, for over a year and a half any economic news, any unemployment figures, anything focusing on the economy was spun with positive words by whoever writes the Comcast headlines. Same with AP. There hasn't been an unpositive thing said about Obama, not on the economy, not on Benghazi, not on anything by the radio newcaster who give the 5 minute news on the hour and 1/2 hour when I listen to talk radio or ballgames. If the number of jobs created falls far short of keeping up with inflation, the news was spun to say , "but there are positive factors in other segments" and then on came some ABC or AP person saying, "Housing starts weren't as bad as expected."
On the weekends I'd listen to Bob Brinker, during the weekdays Larry Kudlow and surprise, surprise, they'd tell their listeners just how bad, how stagnant or occasionally how positive an economic number actually was, and their words rarely matched that of AP, Comcast, NBC, ABC.
You just can't win against them if they decide to spin for the other guy. I suppose the only thing that could beat the one they protect is another guy with a cult of personality thing going on, which is not something I'd want to happen.....not two of them, god dammit.
Romney was becoming Reaganesque toward the end of his campaign. He worked hard, and performed well in the debates. You can't seriously blame him for this loss. His Super PACs didn't go for the jugular like Obama's did, but he can't control them anyway.
I can't think of any Republican who could have done better this time around. Dems won more than GOP lost this time.
I think you can use Romney for analytical purposes as a generic respectable Republican candidate: if you don't screw up the nomination, but don't wind up with a superstar either, this is about how you'll do.
The auto industry had nothing to do with Fla, Va, Co, etc.
It's the people--the young, unmarrieds, the people who want things, the ones who think it's still cool to have a POTUS who goes on ESPN, even if the only sport he knows anything about is basketball.
Ask yourself if the media would ever have let Romney or any Republican pose as a sports fan while claiming to love the White Sox yet proving when he opened his mouth he knew absolutely nothing about them.
Was that a crime, that he pretended? Nah, although it's a pattern with him and that IS what is disturbing, but I bring it up to tell you that no GOPer would have gotten away with it by the sports guys at ESPN or by the MSM, who would have ridiculed him.
Think Saturday Night Live could have spoofed Obama on that? Sure, but they didn't. They didn't spoof him on anything.
Nope. YOu can't really win against the media.
At one point, I thought that maybe Romney could have and should have called out the media on their blatant bias, thinking that maybe it would help him as it did with Bush 1 (when Dan Rather tried to trap him and Bush was ready for him) and with Nixon and the silent majority versus the media, but Romney is not that guy.
you can use Romney for analytical purposes as a generic respectable Republican candidate
Yup, very Tom Dewey-y...
At some point an analysis should be done of the impact on Romney of Ginsberg's incredibly mole-like advice to the RNC: Throw the Ron Paul supporters under the bus.
This can be estimated by looking at the votes for Gary Johnson.
I agree--ESPN is to blame
Romney was becoming Reaganesque toward the end of his campaign. He worked hard, and performed well in the debates. You can't seriously blame him for this loss. His Super PACs didn't go for the jugular like Obama's did, but he can't control them anyway.
I can't think of any Republican who could have done better this time around.
___________________________________
I totally agree with this, and with a kinda fair media, I do believe Romeny would have been elected.
"I honestly believe that a Republican doesn't deserve to win if he can't convince Iowa of all states"
You gotta be kidding me: Iowa voted for Mike Dukakis in '88 and Tom Harkin is their lib senator. Iowa is not at all what you think it is.
Plus, Romney opposed the ethanol subsidy....there you go, beaten.
"Even now you schmucks can't admit that having an industrial policy directed to the national interest..."
Perhaps you can eludicate what you mean by "national interest...." Seriously.
I am convinced that US presidential politics really lag. I think Romney lost because he did not say that the Bush policies got the US into its current mess. In contrast Obama looks like he deserved to win for having the courage to oppose the Iraq war. I think the public has finally figured out the Republican tricks about 10 years late. Until the GOP gives the public something more honest than the Democrats, they will lose president after president.
"Not many incumbents going down either, its starting to look like the only incumbent Senator to lose will be Scott Brown."
And that he lost to a really crazy buffoon of a college prog shows you the demo of MA.
I grieve at what's happened to the Live Free or Die state. I guess Cambridge moved to NH?
How does getting over the false construct of the "United States" sound?
+1 to you sir. It's time to push that Overton window.
How on Earth will the GOP, or any other conservative political force, get it's message out if it doesn't capture a larger slice of the MSM?
Name one key point that Romney wasn't able to make to the voting public through political ads, the debates or the internet. Everything Romney wanted to say had been said. He raised more money than God and still lost.
He lost because of minority turnout and the changing demographics in this country. Being a tin man that the base was lukewarm about didn't help either.
In speaking of the media's protection of Barry, I said that my Comcast homepage headlined, "Obama powers to re-election despite weak economy."
My point, which I made a poor attempt to explain, is that only after he had been re-elected did they couple his name with anything negative such as "weak economy."
On the other hand, gays are part of every yuppie social group....
That's really hard to believe. In fact, I don't believe you. If you mean that "yuppies" have gay co-workers, and they sometimes socialize with them, that's believable.
"Even now you schmucks can't admit that having an industrial policy directed to the national interest rather than the financiers' interest is a good idea. You deserve your ass-kicking."
Ha. Yeah, aaround here we're all fans of the fianciers...
"That's really hard to believe. In fact, I don't believe you. If you mean that "yuppies" have gay co-workers, and they sometimes socialize with them, that's believable."
Not sure what distinction youre drawing ("social group"..."socialize"). Every person my age who went to a good school knows lots of openly gay people and you have to be accepting; it's just not even a question. If you live in Manhattan then you have gay friends or your friends have gay friends. Again, it's not optional or controversial.
"I think you can use Romney for analytical purposes as a generic respectable Republican candidate: if you don't screw up the nomination, but don't wind up with a superstar either, this is about how you'll do."
Someone asked why it is that Americans elect Republicans to their governor's office but not to the Presidency.
I think it's because they want a symbol as a President, not really a worker. Oh, if pressed, of course they'd argue they want a POTUS who gets things done. But, do they?
My lib friends, retired teachers, don't seem the least concerned about the economy. They get their retirement checks and although they aren't making money on their 403bs, they probably are just happy they still exist.
What I've determined means the most to them (I've probbed this a bit) is that when they travel abroad, particularly to Europe, they feel the people like Americans better because of Obama. When they traveled there when Bush was POTUS, they were embarrassed.
They are uber concerned, for reasons I don't understand, about how the Brits, the French see them.
I think that's pretty damn stupid.
"This can be estimated by looking at the votes for Gary Johnson."
Gary Johnson had no effect on the race.
Gary really loves himself, doesn't he. Caught him on RedEye a few times this year. Likes to talk about himself a whole lot.
Nope. YOu can't really win against the media.
Sure you can -- if you're running against the incumbent who succeeded to the Presidency in a revolutionary coup d'etat. But you will be hounded out of office 6 years later for laughably trivial crimes.
Obama, Bush, Clinton are all mass murderers and war criminals like those hanged at Nuremberg, but Nixon had to resign because of his connection to a burglary!
"I think you can use Romney for analytical purposes as a generic respectable Republican candidate: if you don't screw up the nomination, but don't wind up with a superstar either, this is about how you'll do."
Are there any potential Republican superstars? I don't want to see Santorum, again. And Ryan lied about his marathon time. Newt's an obnoxious fossil. Petraeus is bloodless. I think Republicans need to look at their governor portfolio and chose for 2016 real soon: Scott Walker really leaps out as a left wing dragon slayer. I think he should start working on his autobiography about now and run a sub-3 hour marathon before 2015.
"Are there any potential Republican superstars? I don't want to see Santorum, again. And Ryan lied about his marathon time..."
Oh, and I forgot to mention that Christie is a treacherous pig. He might have the necessary Big Daddy appeal to win, but he would act like a Democrat once in office.
I believe Nate Silver got his prediction exactly right. Him and the Daily Kos guy were the only pundits to do so.
Steve,
I think you're selling Romney a little short there. As a speaker, a debater, and overall campaigner, which of the last several GOP POTUS candidates came across better? McCain? W.? G.W. Bush? Reagan? Ford? Nixon? I'd say of that bunch, going back 40 years, only Reagan. And of the Republicans who didn't run this cycle -- Jeb Bush, Mitch Daniels, Rob Portman, etc. -- I can't see how any of them would have done a better job. Romney may not have been a once-in-a-couple-of-generations political talent, but I think he was well above merely respectable.
I think one of the under-emphasized factors that helped Obama win is that, although the economy was extraordinarily bad, that was ameliorated by some extraordinary measures:
- Unprecedented 3 rounds of quantitative easing by the Fed, which kept house prices from dropping as far as they would otherwise, and inflated the stock market.
- Unprecedented extension of unemployment insurance to 99 weeks. Back in the '90s, 16 weeks were standard in NJ.
- Unprecedented expansion of food stamps.
Those Colorado/Oregon Mormon tribes (MSM translation: Branch Davidians) didn't exactly win one for the Mittster... Now they can go back to no one noticing them
Steve you should start looking at the new reality. Your marriage gap is an interesting thing, but, marriage is dying. The gay marriage thing has nothing to do with it.
Single women are acting in their enlightened self interest in voting for candidates that supporte abortion - something a very large number of them will have.
Futher - no young person wants to be the conscript in Whisky/Neo-Con wars w/o end.
I don't think most of the posters on this board have any understanding of what life is like for the under 30 crowd.
Aside from demographics, this will be the doom of the Republican coalition.
Let it rot.
Mitt was a draft dodger/chickenhawk too. I can assure you, this cost him many, many votes.
Mitt was a draft dodger/chickenhawk too. I can assure you, this cost him many, many votes
"Many, many" who then held the line & voted up highly decorated warlord B.H. Obama? Where exactly was your windbreaker-thug logic taking you there
Romney was a good candidate, and is a good man. He's the most qualified Republican candidate since HW Bush or Eisenhower: self-made billionaire, CEO, led the Olympics to profitability, won governor in a blue state, faithful to his wife, 5 kids and 18 white grandkids.
In 1980 he would have won overwhelmingly, because 45% of Obama's votes today came from NAMs. That is the story of this election. A 1980 electorate would have provided Romney with a landslide victory.
We can't blame him. And we can't save the US at this point. The left has succeeded in electing a new people.
The silver lining is that now Obama will get 100% of the blame, at least in the medium term, for destroying the currency and ending the United States as we know it. Bernanke printed $1T over 4 years, with M1 spiking in 2008. Now with QE3, that rate is set to double, such that by 2014 another $1T will be printed:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?s%5B1%5D%5Bid%5D=M1
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-13/fed-plans-to-buy-40-billion-in-mortgage-securities-each-month.html
The long awaited destruction of the EU and end of the USD is at hand. Get to the lifeboats, men, and rebuild abroad.
I don't think most of the posters on this board have any understanding of what life is like for the under 30 crowd
Oh hai Obamite troll... Since you may be too young to remember, here's a word to the new breed courtesy of a 30-year-old staid oldster hailing from Pre-Post-Competence America: What you're experiencing now is pretty close to how 2004 felt among the Bush loyalists. I urge you to keep that in mind past New Year's. Of course "correlation does not imply causation" as you with-it happenin' kids love to proclaim.
Fight fire with fire.
The Democrat Party has used a strategy of divide-an-conquer the electorate and overwhelm the system (e.g. the "housing crisis") in order to gain power. The only way to beat them is to first find ways to divide "their" "coalition" and second, find ways to overwhelm their system. For example, to help overwhelm the Democrats system, the Republican House of Representatives can give the Democrats everything they want (and then some). Four years from now Democrats should fighting amongst themselves over our limited resources and also they should be repeating to themselves "Be careful what you wish for".
When Democrat Party has descended into infighting over money and power they too will be beaten.
"Many, many" who then held the line & voted up highly decorated warlord B.H. Obama?"
1. Obama wasn't eligible for the Vietnam draft.
2. Mitt supported the war in Vietnam - and was happy to see other kids die and kill there.
If you can't see why some people despise guys like this, you are an idiot.
Obama won reelection because he didn't burn the country to the ground and that's sufficient to win as an incumbent in the modern party system.
That said, if Romney had been able to pass the prole white "Would I want to have a beer with this guy?" test of political acceptability, he might have managed it. Instead, he was just the GOP's version of 2004 John Kerry: the anti-common man with a stick up his arse.
"What you're experiencing now is pretty close to how 2004 felt among the Bush loyalists. I urge you to keep that in mind past New Year's."
Do you really deny the Democrats own the under 30 crowd? Nope. Ad hominem/snark is all you need. Fine. Go change your diapers old man.
I really can't emphasize this enough. You have to let gay marriage and abortion go. They're never coming back. You stick with those and you're completely abandoning the educated and younger population. And that's very relevant to other arguments about media bias, indoctrination in higher education, etc.
Anonymous @11:21
Black men, per Whiskey, aren't herd creatures, they are predators, albeit unwitting ones, as white female gazelles, acting on an evolutionary impulse gone nihilist wrong, masochistically throw themselves in their path.
Jews, now there's an interesting poser for Col. Booze, aren't herd creatures, wherever they may be, if they mindlessly support Jabotinskyite Zionism. Then they are acting in enlightened self-interest. American Jews, in any event, per Whiskey, particularly the rich ones, just use Israel to advance their own agendas. What those agendas are remains a mystery. But there is something probably to do with keeping guys like Whiskey from getting any. On the other hand, a guy like Netanyahu, he's got Whiskey's back.
"Name one key point that Romney wasn't able to make to the voting public through political ads, the debates or the internet."
romney hammered on the economy, but it didn't matter much, because most of the media was just countering that continually, by saying, well the economy is pretty much fine.
1) "These jobs reports are decent. Let's spin this as not bad."
when in reality, EVERY SINGLE MONTH, they were below keeping up the population growth. the economy needs to create at least 200,000 jobs PER MONTH just to stay in place. with 315 million people and 1% population growth, you're adding 3.1 million people per year. the majority of them need jobs, and creating 200,000 new ones per month gets you 2.4 million new jobs per year.
200,000 new jobs per month just means the unemployment rate is not going up or down, it's staying in place. and almost all the obama rates were 50,000 to 150,000 a month, which means the unemployment rate was steadily rising every month for literally about 40 months and is actually way over 8% or whatever the bureau of lying with statistics says.
that october number where the unemployment rate dropped from 8.1% to 7.8% in one shot was the biggest lie of all time by them. that was mathematically impossible.
2) during some months of these job reports, more people went on DISABILITY than got jobs! that's nearly unbelievable. that's spectacularly bad
3) "Obama's done an ok job, we're out of the recession. Hey look, he's at an NBA game, let's interview him."
in reality, the US is net negative about 3 million jobs during obama's first term. that is to say, there are 3 million less jobs in the US than when he took office. but population growth didn't stop. the US added it's regular 1% job growth per year. so the labor force participation rate has been dropping, from an all time high of 64% or so under GW bush, down to 57%, which is the lowest level in 35 or 40 years, taking the US back to 1982, 1978 levels.
All this talk of the role of the Left and the importation of a new people skirts discussion of the role of Chamber of Commerce, greedy sorts who are also responsible. There's a crap ton of rich Sun-belters who would raise holy cane if somebody tried to deport their peons.
There's a reason why certain counties in the South are mostly angry minority, and it ain't got nothing to do with Teddy Kennedy.
And winning in 1980, anon? The guy who won in 1980 made the problem worse, he of the amnesty.
"Are those groups herds too, or is it just white women?"
The point is, if whites voted even 70-30 for GOP, it would be for Romney in a landslide. Of course, the GOP might want to start doing something for their base instead of pandering to who they perceive the future electorate to be.
4) "Obama's out to help the middle class and is only sticking to the rich guys, who can afford to take it. Go get 'em Obama! good job!"
in reality, the income of the lower class and lower middle class wage earners actually went DOWN 1% during obama's term. so while the rich got richer, the people making wages in the $35000 a year range actually saw their incomes FALL.
and in 2013 federal income tax rates will be going up on everybody, in every tax bracket. so much for only raising taxes on the wealthy.
5) the number of people on food stamps, or SNAP as they call it now, reached record highs. somewhere in the 47 million participant range. that's preposterous. 1 in 6 americans needs financial assistance to buy FOOD?
6) obama gutted workfare. this was passed in 1994 i believe by clinton, while having his arm twisted by congress republicans. workfare was successful in reducing the welfare participation rate, all the way down to 1.5 million americans i think. but now the welfare rolls are steadily increasing again, certainly heading to over 2 million and who knows how high it will go past there. maybe the US will be adding half a million people a year to that program. today, under obama, to get welfare, you no longer have to try to prove you are looking for work. instead, now the check just shows up in the mail, like the freeloaders did back in the good old days.
7) the price of 87 octane gasoline is about double what it was when obama took office, from about 1.80 to 3.60, and the official BLS unemployment rate is actually higher, from 7.8% in january 2009, to 7.9% in november 2012.
8) "That Romney guy is just out for the rich, he's a tool of the banksters, we can't trust him. Obama is a man of the people!"
yeah, and eric holder really stuck it to all the banksters. remember how many he put away for financial fraud? jon corzine alone made 2 billion disappear! goldman sachs took it in the pants hard once the obama DOJ got a hold of them! obama was totally on the 1 percenters' side! he smashed the wall street shysters! oh wait. instead of prosecuting big time financial fraud, he actually decided to sue arizona for trying to defend itself from the mexican invasion.
i know this is a troll but that is the media's tactic. they now spin for the democrat almost every time, and if it's something particularly bad, they hide by omission. just don't report it, period.
"I think you're selling Romney a little short there."
i agree. romney was the best republican candidate since reagan. that's 32 years ago. he was decent.
especially, the liberals tried EVERYTHING to find his dirt, dig up his skeletons, character assassinate him - but he was absolutely rock solid. not the slightest blemish or even the most minor scandal. 100% super american. married young, stayed married forever, large family, successful, pro american patriot. successful olympic organizer, successful governor.
he even had better degrees than obama, and better grades. and he's essentially a WASP. so there was no AA going on there. he earned those degrees.
america rejected this guy? for barack hussein obama? the united states is lost.
Once again Sailer points out something that is fairly obvious if you don't have your head up your politically-correct heinie. So naturally nobody mentioned it on the news, they just went on and on about the Hispanics.
Here is what I was going to post before Sailer beat me to the punch:
For all the talk about Latinos and stuff in this election, you know who really won this for Obama? Pasty-white blue collar "hicks" in the Midwest. Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan), Ohio )... all those states went for Obama (I'm sure the pool of likely voters is even whiter than the population as a whole).
Kind of surprising, considering. I mean, maybe he would have let the automakers fail and was going to slash medicare in order to pay for tax cuts for the rich, but at least he was going to courageously take on mass immigration, racial preferences and whatnot...oh wait.
Even now you schmucks can't admit that having an industrial policy directed to the national interest rather than the financiers' interest is a good idea. You deserve your ass-kicking.
Fine, lets invoke the national interest, I'm all for it. Now, lets apply that to immigration policy as well, to education.
Hello?
Anyone there?
"Do you really deny the Democrats own the under 30 crowd?"
LOL. R U SRS.
when have they not.
please point to the time period when the liberal party did not have the vote of the younger, less intelligent, less experienced, less wealthy people of a nation.
that's completely normal, in any historical time period.
what's kind of strange and abnormal was how many people under 30 were turning out for those ron paul events.
Romney may not have lost the Great Lakes because of the Hispanic vote, but he did lose Colorado, New Mexico, Virginia, Nevada, and (it looks like) Florida due to the Hispanic vote. So you can give Romney Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, and he still can't win. North Carolina may also soon be out of reach.
Don't forget that single women are nearly as solid a constituency as blacks and Hispanics, and also growing in numbers, so the Sailer strategy might not even be able to pick up the Great Lakes states in the future, especially since Hispanic numbers are growing there too.
Sorry, the game is up - it was a Grand Old Party but it's done for - at least in its present state. Republican operatives are going to draw the conclusion they have to appeal to Hispanics if they want to keep in play for all the cool goodies, and the results will be predictable.
Honestly you're substantially ahead in line to get the most exquisite sensation of the royal screwing from benevolent Uncle Bam, deservedly if I do say so, Mr. anon MyDD fight-club progressive. I was lucky to get a decade or so of a head's-up on Social Security being a mirage, probably well before the age when you arrived at your apogee of Gen-Z confidence. Enjoy that "emerging majority" over there while the market for professional employment skews the other way.
...and lost by a lot in Illinois.
News From Obama’s Home State
Three states form the base of Democratic political power in the United States: California, New York and Illinois. All three states are locked in an accelerating economic, demographic and social decline; all three hope that they can stave off looming disaster at home by exporting the policies that have ruined them to the rest of the country...
1. Obama wasn't eligible for the Vietnam draft.
Is this Markos posting here? It's an interesting theory, Wisc. windbreaker guys reviling Romney over the draft, so they stay at home or maybe are inspired to back the community grievance lawyer... Are you so sure they weren't mad about his stance on bimetallism? How about the revocation of the 2nd Bank charter
I hear the electorate is 72% White, but is that non-Hispanic White? Because I see elsewhere that non-Hispanic Whites are 63% of America.
When I see that 60% of Whites voted for Romney, is that 60% of the bigger number? If so, that means that more than 60% of actual Whites voted for Romney - especially if you exclude Jews and Arabs.
So, what percentage of White (non-Hispanic, non-Jewish, non-Arab) voted for Romney?
Keep peddling your free-market scheisse and see where it gets you. The Republican willing to attack the financiers will clean up. But that will never happen.
"Do you really deny the Democrats own the under 30 crowd? Nope. Ad hominem/snark is all you need. Fine. Go change your diapers old man."
is this the sole reason Romney lost the states that mattered
half-serious, maybe I overestimate the amount of people in the Midwest who could still reasonably be considered Reagan Democrats
It's interesting you bring up the Walker recall, Steve, but America's whitening Northeast quadrant still sets the agenda for the rest of the country (yeah yeah, 236th year in a row). D.C. doesn't count because it's all New York/lower New Englanders who moved in and took it over.
Even now you schmucks can't admit that having an industrial policy directed to the national interest rather than the financiers' interest is a good idea. You deserve your ass-kicking.
In fairness, the Democrats haven't been exactly stellar on this issue either. Clinton may have been all empathic around those white working class types but he really threw under the bus with all his free trade and financial deregulation (ie repealing Glass-Steagal), plus not doing anything to stop China from gutting our manufacturing sector.
Taking about Califonia it shown only La and the bay area going for the Obama with some other counties, Mitt Romney took back all the inland counties which are growing faster than La and the bay areas and San Diego and Orange. Orange is down to 57 percent versus 67 when Reagan won and San Diego is down to 49 percent versus 60 percent in 1980. Its Reagan's legalization of hispanics and geowth of asians that caused the changes and high housing prices.
Fun said…
How on Earth will the GOP, or any other conservative political force, get it's message out if it doesn't capture a larger slice of the MSM?
Name one key point that Romney wasn't able to make to the voting public through political ads, the debates or the internet. Everything Romney wanted to say had been said. He raised more money than God and still lost.
He lost because of minority turnout and the changing demographics in this country. Being a tin man that the base was lukewarm about didn't help either.
11/6/12 11:45 PM
Well , that’s pretty much exactly my point: Romney spent a lot of money in September and October, but meantime the media had been working him over since early 2011.
It’s not the substance of what Romney did or did not say that matters, it’s the mood music that the media were able to generate.
It’s true, conservatives have Fox, but that just one lone trumpeter playing out of synch with the rest of the orchestra.
Anonydroid at 1:57 said: The left has succeeded in electing a new people.
Hunsdon replied: My good sir, your comment includes a necessary yet insufficient truth. It is, of course, true that "the left" took Brecht's satire as a playbook. However, to blame solely "the left" is to ignore that faction of the right which also seeks a Brechtian change in our demographics: the Chamber of Commerce, big ag, the housing industry and the Bushes.
I'm not sure I get it...
He lost by small margins.
Isn't that because of the minority vote?
No minority vote and he would have won if he's carrying 60% of whites.
What I've determined means the most to them (I've probbed this a bit) is that when they travel abroad, particularly to Europe, they feel the people like Americans better because of Obama. When they traveled there when Bush was POTUS, they were embarrassed.
Yes, people hated Bush, but why?
Anyway, subconsciously people feel superior to us when our leader is a loser like Obama. People always did stuff for Obama out of pity and elected him president to show that even the losers want one of their own on top, Gov't employees by definition are losers and Obama is one of them. For the elites who control Obama, it is easy to control him and because he doesn't understand math.
The irony is the black unemployment rate. That has to be miserable. Maybe it will lower their birthrate. Being poor and black in Chicago must be hell.
Oh hai Obamite troll... Since you may be too young to remember, here's a word to the new breed courtesy of a 30-year-old staid oldster hailing from Pre-Post-Competence America: What you're experiencing now is pretty close to how 2004 felt among the Bush loyalists.
The youngster has a point. Ron Paul galvanized young, politically-active white men. (And substantial numbers of military.) The GOP has made it clear it doesn't want them around. My God, they'd put them in camps if they could.
Wealthier, suburban, dying Boomers and kooky Evangelicals control the GOP. They deserve what's coming.
Are there any potential Republican superstars?... I think Republicans need to look at their governor portfolio and chose for 2016 real soon:...
There is no hope for the Republican Party as a national party.
I'm starting to seriously think that the USA may not hold together.
The South and the Mountain Time zone states may split off from the Washington government, as Ukraine seceded from Moscow's Russian Federation.
The Republican Party nominated a Yankee Mormon who couldn't win a single Yankee state besides Indiana. The sooner the GOP dies, the better.
Obama was carried by hordes of iSteve readers hungry for more Obama jokes.
Michael Kimmelman on Twitter:
@kimmelman: The election having affirmed changing demographics, here's hoping that more focus now turns to cities, infrastructure and climate effects.
"Affirmed changing demographics," I love it. We've elected a new people, see, and now we want to reap the rewards.
Dave in N. Calif. said...
I don't think most of the posters on this board have any understanding of what life is like for the under 30 crowd
Oh hai Obamite troll... Since you may be too young to remember, here's a word to the new breed courtesy of a 30-year-old staid oldster hailing from Pre-Post-Competence America: What you're experiencing now is pretty close to how 2004 felt among the Bush loyalists. I urge you to keep that in mind past New Year's. Of course "correlation does not imply causation" as you with-it happenin' kids love to proclaim.
If he's a troll, here's some more trolling. Given minority populations, a Republican has to get near 60% of the white vote to win the election. It seems to me that's getting harder and harder to do. Marriage rates are declining. If 65-70% of white single women and 50-55% of white single men are voting Democratic, how do you get the white vote to 60% Republican? Explicit racial appeals? Something tells me that's not going to work. It's a serious question, and I'd love to hear our host address it.
Chicago is about 1/3 Mexican and every small town and city in Illinois and Wisconsin has a sizable hispanic population. So I disagree that the hispanic vote should be written off. At least where Wisconsin and Illinois are concerned.
Hugh is correct. Women are herd creatures, and being unmarried and living life of singletons for most of it (basically 18-36, or longer); well the media forms the larger girlfriends group.
Lovely. Women=cattle.
In my experience, one of the most common ways to be single is to have kids and then get dumped by the father. But heaven forfend that such a single mom should look to the state for assistance in getting her kids raised and educated. She's just obeying the TV and her herd instinct.
And suppose you are a single woman, for whatever reason. Who is looking out for you? Who is pushing to get funding for contraception and abortion? Who is pushing pay equality (however misguided)? Unless you're fundamentally opposed to abortion, why wouldn't you be a Democrat?
I don't think the anti-union effort in Wisconsin, where I live, hurt Romney. The white people who vote based on their union are going to vote what the union says so they can be no help to Republicans anyway. I think he lost because of what he is: a rich guy who made his living doing a kind of financial engineering that normal people can not understand. People in the upper midwest have a class-consciousness against fatcats which I think worked against him.
Also, there is more trust in familiar institutions like the establishment media than we like to think.
I wouldn't discount the Hispanic vote either. There are lots of hispanics here (I was shocked at the number when I moved out here. People who don't actually visit here don't know) and the Dem margins of victory are not that great.
"Get to the lifeboats, men, and rebuild abroad."
To where? Unless you have a space ship, we're stuck. Europe is far worse, Russians will see you as a rich sucker to be fleeced, a white guy in Asia will never be more than a politely tolerated guest. I know some of the Zero Hedge guys like to tout Argentina or Chile, and that seems a good as bet as any. But given the history of that region, I have a hard time believing in those countries as the future. Maybe Australia or NZ? Also increasingly dominated by PC feminists...
Iowa in particular was mentioned. When the GOP started off by saying are you better off now then you were 4 years ago, that was probably not going to work to well in Iowa. Iowa hasn't had a depression or even much of a recession in the last 5 years. Farm land is like 10,000 dollars an acre. They are many wealthy(but not high income) older Iowans out there that just don't see the economy as badly as Karl Rove does. Also, there isn't as much NAM animus in rural areas as there is in this comment section. I don't know, an 8 year penalty for GWB might be about right.
"Steve you should start looking at the new reality. Your marriage gap is an interesting thing, but, marriage is dying. The gay marriage thing has nothing to do with it."
I used to say that too, when I was under 30. But before I turned 30, I got married. Priorities changed. I grew up. Might happen to you, too.
I don't think Romney was the generic OK Repub candidate at this time.
Romney can be identified with 'big financial business'. These are the outsourcers and banksters who many people associate with the current recession.
As Dan Carlin said - most people would not vote for the captain of the Titanic, unless he was running against the Captain of the iceberg.
That and demographics.
Romney committed political suicide when he penned the "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" editorial. Completely idiotic for him to have done that. And as a native Michigander, he should have known better. It played very poorly in both Ohio and Michigan.
gasp! did a paleo actually utter a sentence that was not anti-union!?
"We can't blame him. And we can't save the US at this point. The left has succeeded in electing a new people."
I don't buy that. 72% of the votes are votes from white people, with only a 58-40 split. If we had even the racial solidarity of latinos, the GOP would have won. If the GOP had fielded a candidate who actually threw their base (i.e. white people) a bone, perhaps white people would vote for them.
Maybe we are sick of eating shit sandwiches? The whole thing, the political parties, the media, disgusts me.
Although the auto bailout stuff did not help, what hurt Romney was the non-stop negative ads about Bain, to which Romney did not respond to for at least 2 months here in Ohio, and even after was still significantly outspent until after the conventions. The primary opposition depleted Romney of cash all summer long, and the Obama campaign took fulll advantage by carpet bombing the airwaves with the old time Democratic class warfare religion. That stuff still works in the Cleveland-Akron, Toledo, and Youngstown areas like a charm. Romney would have needed to win the rest of the state overwhelmingly to overcome that, and he just couldn't. Frank Lutz has already pointed this out this morning, a lone voice of sanity amidst the chorus of voices calling for more illegal immigration to "help" the GOP win in 2016.
Heard it somewhere:
"Turnout among whites in Ohio is on pace to possibly be its lowest on record, 79% in preliminary results"
"The Democrat Party has used a strategy of divide-an-conquer the electorate and overwhelm the system (e.g. the "housing crisis") in order to gain power. The only way to beat them is to first find ways to divide "their" "coalition" and second, find ways to overwhelm their system."
The ONLY way to do this is to get rid of the GOP. And then, to spread the word about Jewish/gay power and privilege.
"Anonymous said...
Even now you schmucks can't admit that having an industrial policy directed to the national interest rather than the financiers' interest is a good idea. You deserve your ass-kicking."
I'd be all for it, if it was run by smart people, not by the nitwits that an Obama administration would get to do the job. So would, I imagine, many people who post here. You are mistaking this site for Town Hall or some other establishment Republican venue. Obviously you haven't been here long.
But this goes to a bigger question: are white Americans desperate to commit suicide?
Mark Steyn is not everyone's cup of tea, but he hit the nail on the head when he noted that for all the talk about the browning of America, Obama was defeating Romney in lilly-white states like New Hampshire and Iowa.
I figured Romney would squeak this one out because the white vote would give him states like Pennsylvania.
Fact is, if white Americans vote for people who seek to dispossess them of their country, they will be dispossessed. It's that simple.
Romney's economic platform was what George Bush senior called voodoo economics. Cut taxes, raise defense spending and somehow reduce the deficit.
"DaveinHackensack said...
You can't seriously blame him for this loss."
He was the candidate, and he lost. Whom else would I blame?
The Wall St. Journal editorial page is more to blame than the Marxists for the destruction of our country. They made it impossible to restrict immigration and gushed over the de-industrialization of the U.S. that so enriched Big wall street.
Young people reading this, Republicans used to win Ca.,NJ.,Il.,Pa., without a sweat. Wait until we lose Texas, then Florida.
Among all women the split was 55-45, does that sound like a herd to you? Blacks went over 90%. Jews went 70%. Are those groups herds too, or is it just white women?
You don't understand. White women form a herd in that none of them are romantically interested in Whiskey.
"Obama won reelection because he didn't burn the country to the ground and that's sufficient to win as an incumbent in the modern party system."
He sure tried, and he singed it a lot worse than Bush Sr. did, and he managed to get ousted. The truth is that the country just won't burn that easily; there's still a large core of productive people who make it possible for an Obama (or a Bush) to take an axe to it and have it still stand. For now.
Obama won because the Democrats have succeeded in their goal of electing a new people, both by mass immigration and by moving as many natives as possible into that 47% Romney spoke of. End of story.
"Fact is, if white Americans vote for people who seek to dispossess them of their country, they will be dispossessed. It's that simple."
Whites in predominantly white states don't feel dispossessed. And the media hides stories about the full cost of 'diversity'. Paradoxically, a state needs more 'diversity' for whites to finally wake up.
"Romney committed political suicide when he penned the "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" editorial."
You mean Detroit isn't bankrupt already?
I say let Democrats overspend and bomb out the economy. Only then will there be hope for a 'radical' movement. Look at Greece.
Maybe Romney should have doubled down. When he was confronted about the statement he made regarding "the 47%", shouldn't his campaign have made a commercial with the "Obama phone" woman?
Say what you want about the Willie Horton ad, it worked.
I live in the Midwest, and I think most people here saw the stuff in Wisconsin for what it was: well-paid government workers squealing because they were being asked to share a little of the pain the rest of us have been feeling. I don't think that cost the GOP votes on balance.
However, I do think Romney's background as a Big Corporate guy who sent jobs overseas worked against him here, especially when the media turned that up to 11. Democrats are at least as enthusiastic about exporting jobs and importing cheap labor as Republicans are, but they were able to stake out the protectionist side without ever saying a word or going against their corporate backers, just by letting the press say "Bain Capital" a lot.
We're just not big on Easterners here in general; Obama actually did better in my white-bread town than Kerry did (even though he's as much a Harvard snob as anyone). Romney won me over pretty well, but I know a lot of people who never got past the "big city snob" image, exaggerated as it was.
"If the GOP had fielded a candidate who actually threw their base (i.e. white people) a bone, perhaps white people would vote for them."
The GOP is just as PC as the Dems. Been to any corporation lately with their big diversity kicks.
The GOP brags about passing the Civil Rights ACt.
Both the GOP and Dems have done nothing about immigration, outsourcing or insourcing.
What was needed years ago was a pro-white, anti-immigrant, anti-diversity, but more old time left economic policies instead of the magic of the market place stuff that really even the corporations don't believe in when the get their govt handouts and favors.
Steve,
Interesting rhetorical question on the mid-West. Did those states jog to the right from where they were in '08? White counties in Florida did, but it wasn't enough to overcome the increased registration of marginal minorities and getting them to the polls. Our GOP office didn't do a single registration drive.
My faith in intrade.com and what the overall picture painted by the polls was correct.
I was wrong in predicting a Romney win based on a belief that a combination of being the superior candidate in a reductionist sense with a poor economy guaranteed his win.
I believe my error was that it ran into one of the undeniable truths of life and fell:
In all times, and in all places, the people have the government they deserve. While it could have easily gone the other way, Romney is a better fit for the America of the Space Age, not today.
Romney lost in these Midwestern states because the average Whites there have minimal exposure to the black under tow and illegal alien populations.
Are there any potential Republican superstars? Senator Ted Cruz.
The Wall St. Journal editorial page is more to blame than the Marxists for the destruction of our country.
Worse WSJ has opposed tax policies which favor families with children.
"I don't think most of the posters on this board have any understanding of what life is like for the under 30 crowd.
Aside from demographics, this will be the doom of the Republican coalition."
As a member of the under 30 crowd, let me provide some illumination:
Most of my peers (judging by their facebook posts), male or female, who voted for Obama were voting solely based on "civil liberties" issues. The women were voting for Obama because of gay marriage and the goofy thought that Republicans wanted to take away birth control/abortion. The men were split evenly between not voting on purpose, voting for Gary Johnson, and voting for Obama despite "not being pleased with him." Their primary concerns were basically the legalization of marijuana and ending the wars/Patriot Act. So there you go. Despite the fact that they are mostly underemployed college graduates, not a word about the economy or immigration. I think it will take things getting really bad before the young people of both sexes snap out of their "civil liberties are the only political issues" bubble. Of course you can only blame them so much, because unless they have studied history or politics in depth that is pretty much all they have been exposed to in school.
Need to chime in here and agree with jody and Doug in Hackensack.
Romney was not a generic candidate, he was a great candidate. Really about as good as we can hope to do in terms of a combination of charisma, intelligence, and personal character. The only thing I can imagine better is being a war hero on top of being a successful entrepreneur/businessman.
Yeah, I know our country is lost on an intellectual level, but dammit, on an emotional level America really needed a bonafide turnaround CEO. Of course Obama demagogued actual business experience as "heartless firing" and "outsourcing", while he put people out of work and forces jobs overseas with taxes and regulations.
Re: "flip-flopping", he was basically as far right as political circumstances allowed in a deep blue state. No sin in my book.
Basically, in Steve's awesome graph from a few days back, Romney personifies the core and Obama is almost the periphery.
https://www.vdare.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/fullsize/images/James_Fulford/image002.png
Not quite a black single mother or a Muslim, but a black son of a single mother with a Muslim name. It's like they decided to go as in your face as possible. I'm not sure if the next president will be a flamboyant gay or a Hispanic or a what.
But it won't be a married straight white man. The left won, they've flooded the country with NAMs and Republicans can't win presidential elections anymore. WASPs are already done, whites in general are next. And there won't be any comeback after this, even after the coming collapse. Brazil isn't coming back anytime soon. As Michael Moore wrote:
88% of Bush's support came from white voters. In 50 years, America will no longer have a white majority. Hey, 50 years isn't such a long time! If you're ten years old and reading this, your golden years will be truly golden and you will be well cared for in your old age.
Yeah. Well, that defeats parody.
The only option now is escape. Leaving the country with your money is still legal. You'll only pay a 50% exit tax now if you leave today. It'll be more later, and you won't be able to get out as easily, or get into another country.
I'm starting to seriously think that the USA may not hold together. The South and the Mountain Time zone states may split off from the Washington government, as Ukraine seceded from Moscow's Russian Federation.
Correct. Timeline is uncertain, but what will happen is that after Bernanke monetizes the debt, there will be huge incentives for one of the 50 states with a good credit rating (maybe a northern state with a harbor like New Hampshire or Maine) to defect and say "oh, that debt thing belongs to the USA, we're Vermont, you can see that our credit rating is A-OK".
And then the floodgates will open.
Secession from the former USSR was for nationalistic reasons. Secession from the former USSA will be for fiscal reasons.
>How on Earth will the GOP, or any other conservative political force, get it's message out if it doesn't capture a larger slice of the MSM?<
Larger than Fox and Limbaugh? Wow! You want the whole enchilada.
I think the problem was that the GOP, anyway, DID get its message out. Screw the working class, a living wage and decent hours is "laziness," there are legitimate rapes, 47% of America is garbage, Israel uber alles forever, declare more wars starting with bombing Iran, and let the auto industry (and any other industry) go bankrupt in the name of Ayn Rand...or else the billionaires will see to it that you (not they) go broke.
Not a winning message in a popular election, apparently. Who woulda thunk?
To where? Unless you have a space ship, we're stuck. Europe is far worse, Russians will see you as a rich sucker to be fleeced, a white guy in Asia will never be more than a politely tolerated guest. I know some of the Zero Hedge guys like to tout Argentina or Chile, and that seems a good as bet as any. But given the history of that region, I have a hard time believing in those countries as the future. Maybe Australia or NZ? Also increasingly dominated by PC feminists...
Extremely good question. Being a politely treated guest in Singapore, Hong Kong, or Taiwan is not a bad option. China is going to need a little Western creativity if they are going to make a bid for world domination, and they know it.
Longer term, you might think it radical, but I think a big part of the answer will be something like seasteading:
www.seasteading.org
Cruise ships are a proof of concept that you can live indefinitely on the high seas in comfort for about $4000/month. With some effort to turn cruise ship rooms into permanent dwellings rather than hotels, you could probably bring that down further.
It's not that hard to raise money to buy a boat with 100 berths, equip it with satellite dishes, and maybe have it be under a Singaporean flag for a while till the community hits critical mass.
For the most part while technically governed by the law of whatever country whose flag you're flying, you'll be out at sea with relatively well behaved and likeminded people. Over time you build up a critical mass and get a lot of ex-Navy guys from the US to help with new vessel designs.
Now, this might sound fantastic but it's no more fantastic than our ancestors who proposed sailing thousands of miles away from home for freedom. Not everyone has the pioneer blood or the appetite for the frontier, but some still do, and international waters are the place for it.
Moreover, this idea (moving out East and then getting involved in seasteading) is something an individual can do on their own.
If instead you think it's more likely that the NAM percentage in the US will be substantially decreased by some method, such as working with FAIR or writing for VDARE or trying to find an even better candidate than Romney in the next election or what have you, ok, no problem. Try that path. But this is an alternate model and worth considering.
"Ron Paul galvanized young, politically-active white men. (And substantial numbers of military.) The GOP has made it clear it doesn't want them around."
This. The GOP went out of its way to insult and marginalize a large bloc of potential ovters and activits.
The Ron Paul platform in its entirety is not the future of a wining right wing majority, but kicking enthusiatic and well organized new voters in the teeth is just foolish.
Collecting money from various rich donors is much easier for the Republican political class than trying to find and work with new voting blocs, but it isn't any way to run a political party for the long run.
Cut taxes, raise defense spending and somehow reduce the deficit.
Absolutely possible. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and other welfare is 54% of the $3.6T annual budget:
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1258
Those are pure transfer payments. Defense is a collective good and arguably the only legitimate function of government.
If you could wave a pen and completely eliminate that 54%, we go from $2.5T in revenue and $3.6T in spending to $2.5T in revenue and $1.7T in spending.
No new taxes required. And you can increase the defense budget if you want to (but we don't need to). Now, you might say it's "politically impossible" to end these vote buying schemes, but then you're saying this is "voodoo politics" rather than "voodoo economics".
"{whiskey wrote, Hugh is correct. Women are herd creatures, and being unmarried and living life of singletons for most of it (basically 18-36, or longer); well the media forms the larger girlfriends group."
There must always be a huge white liberal contingent, because there are so many white whiskeys.
-Lao Tzu
"But this goes to a bigger question: are white Americans desperate to commit suicide?"
No it does not. There is not a more venal, self-loving race of men and women than whites. Ask the owl, the dolphin, the eagle in the sky, how much whites love whites!
- Sitting Bull
jody said...
Romney hammered on the economy, but it didn't matter much, because most of the media was just countering that continually, by saying, well the economy is pretty much fine.
Everyone with room temperature IQ knows job growth isn't great. The media can do a lot, but it can't change the weather. Romney got his points out and lost. Why? Changing demographics and minority turnout. It was a semi-close race, but face it, Romney was a more electable candidate on paper than he was in reality.
"How does getting over the false construct of the "United States" sound?"
Pretty good. If you fence of Chicago and sell it to Wisconsin, the rest of Illinois leans right. Colorado isn't beyond hope yet, so you can carve out a nice big block of right-leaning states. The coasts could decide whether they want to keep calling themselves a single country or split into two.
The government union battle is not necessarily pleasant in the short term but it has to be fought. The unions are bankrupting states and aiding Republican opponents.
Steve,
Besides the mechanics of finding and getting voters to the polls, which won the Dems the election, I endorse your overall point. Turnout was way down this election, so, even though the parties are very good at finding the center, too many are left out because both parties have taken issues off the table.
I did door knocking this year and found the response by the working class and poor whites to be pretty much the same as in '04: the Republicans offer them nothing. Worse, we were treated with contempt in a way that wasn't the case in '04.
Contrast with minorities and their ethnic solidarity. They are usually happy to see GOTVers. I watched one at a supermarket greeting everyone who came and went and the comraderie was remarkable. They're so happy to be contacted, included, etc. and they feel kinship with the campaign worker. In contrast, I came upon a grizzled middle-aged man at home who made me guess if the person I was asking about was a man or woman and when I told him I wasn't sure, shook his head with contempt and said not another word as I was too beneath him for that, glaring all the while. The worst I encountered, but most were similar.
We have to have issues, ethnicity and similarity mean nothing, which is a good thing.
We need more white people and it seems the ones left on the table are downscale ones and German-mid-western ones who dislike war and hegemony. The downscale people suck lemons, unfortunately, but we need them. I can only envision a Pat Buchanan type reaching both groups.
He has the so-con bonafides to keep the south and others, the anti-imperialism for the mid-west, and the pro-union/protectionism cred for all downscale whites.
Romney was becoming Reaganesque toward the end of his campaign.
___________________________________
I totally agree with this, and with a kinda fair media, I do believe Romeny would have been elected.
--
You mean, as fair as they were towards Reagan ?
Obama won reelection because he didn't burn the country to the ground and that's sufficient to win as an incumbent in the modern party system.
Obama in his first term was a significantly worse President than Carter in his first term. Yet Carter got canned, Obama got reelected. Why the difference? A different electorate.
Everything Romney wanted to say had been said. He raised more money than God and still lost.
More money than God, perhaps, but a lot less money than Obama.
I think you can use Romney for analytical purposes as a generic respectable Republican candidate: if you don't screw up the nomination, but don't wind up with a superstar either, this is about how you'll do.
I think that's nuts. Who is the putative "superstar" of your imagination? Feel free to draft anyone from any point in history to try to fill the bill. Reagan would have lost worse than Romney did.
In the one instance where Romney definitely should have obfuscated and pandered, he stuck to his guns and insisted on telling the voters in the rust belt that he was in favor of the remaining major American auto manufacturers going to the wall.
Of course, he didn't actually say anything like that. But this nonsense being repeated by people who imagine themselves to be on the right didn't help.
"In my experience, one of the most common ways to be single is to have kids and then get dumped by the father. But heaven forfend that such a single mom should look to the state for assistance in getting her kids raised and educated."
This is a good insight into how female Obama supporters think. If you're a female with bad judgment and make a bad choice on who you have children with, then some other guy you didn't pick to have kids with has to work hard and pay taxes to support you and the child or children. He has to pay for your bad choices, not you. And, of course, responsible men will be willing to keep right on working hard to support the ever increasing numbers of irresponsible single moms. What could go wrong with a plan like this?
One more thing about solidarity.
Republicans actually did have that in '04 with Bush. It was centered not on race, but religion.
I worked both campaigns, meeting voters, etc. There was something magical, it was palpable in the air that made everyone so giddy (except for the working poor who were 50-50, but mostly friendly).
People didn't just like Bush, he was one of "us". Obama has this kinship based on race with many of his supporters.
I remember one old man plastering his old Buick with religious sayings and pictures, rolling down his windows, and blaring old-timey gospel and driving around the precincts in support of Bush.
There was none of that this time. I drove around yesterday looking for it. I finally came across three people sign-waving and I knew them. He shook his head a little defeatedly and replied, "Homeschoolers, it's always just us."
In fact, this election looks like the inverse of '04; the black supporters I witnessed, and their behavior, even mirrored the religious cons and looked like they were the only ones who loved their guy, but boy did they ever love him. Close elections, but the one with a passionate support based on kinship, whether religious or ethnic, put the winner over the top.
Remember how libs were so depressed that exit polls showed conservative values made so much difference to everyone's surprise?
I think one of the under-emphasized factors that helped Obama win is that, although the economy was extraordinarily bad, that was ameliorated by some extraordinary measures:
- Unprecedented 3 rounds of quantitative easing by the Fed, which kept house prices from dropping as far as they would otherwise, and inflated the stock market.
- Unprecedented extension of unemployment insurance to 99 weeks. Back in the '90s, 16 weeks were standard in NJ.
- Unprecedented expansion of food stamps
Don't forget "Unprecedented refusal of the media to ever mention the fact that the economy is dire".
I remember when, in October 2004, the unemployment rate ticked up from 4.1 to 4.2 percent. According to the press, we were all living through the Great Depression!
To the extent the economy was an issue this year it's because Romney was able to make it one in the debates. If the election had been held right after the debates things might have been different.
Republican operatives are going to draw the conclusion they have to appeal to Hispanics if they want to keep in play for all the cool goodies
Are going to? What's with the future tense? "Republican operatives" have been pandering as hard as they can to Hispanics for a long time now: certainly they were doing it hard by 2000.
The problem for the GOP is that what appeals to Hispanics is more free stuff from the government, and in that game the Dems are the masters.
In my experience, one of the most common ways to be single is to have kids and then get dumped by the father. But heaven forfend that such a single mom should look to the state for assistance in getting her kids raised and educated.
Sounds like an argument for marriage and an end to no-fault divorce.
What do you think, are those single women going to be on board with that?
"Romney lost because he's a transparant political robot (which may be a Mormon thing) and cause George Bush was the biggest schmuck in the history of the presidency.
We're better off this way. You all know this."
Yeah, but admit it, it would have been fun to watch the Uppity One take a well deserved twenty lashes.
"half-serious, maybe I overestimate the amount of people in the Midwest who could still reasonably be considered Reagan Democrats"
Maybe so. Alot of these people got scorched under Bush the lesser. If they have to guess who hates them more Romney and his gang vs Barack and his, I can see why they might vote against Romney.
"please point to the time period when the liberal party did not have the vote of the younger...."
I see your point, however, the youth of today is different - more likely to be unemployed, less likely to be married. And the age when people do get married is going up. It's not just kids going through a socialist phase anymore.
Also, I'd bet Reagan did pretty well with the younger crowd, vs Carter and Mondale.
Anyway, Romney admitted that 47% of the country isn't gonna be for him. You can't argue with the facts.
Futher - no young person wants to be the conscript in Whisky/Neo-Con wars w/o end.
Ah yes, I'd noticed there had been no wars for the last four years.
If the GOP is fated to lose all future elections, the one good thing is it can lose nasty than lose nice.
If GOP can't win, why hold it back? Why not say as much controversial and racy things as possible?
At the very least, forbidden/taboo subjects will become part of the mainstream debate. Suppose Sailer were to run in 2016 and has no chance of winning. So what? At least he'll be free to say whatever he wants about HBD.
I say Sailer in 2016. Lose the election but win the discourse by bringing banned ideas into the spotlight.
Gary Johnson had no effect on the race.
He may have had an effect on the race.
The vote total in Florida is:
Obama: 4,129,502
Romney: 4,083,441
Gary Johnson: 43,480
Obama - Romney votes = 46,061
I cannot find the write in totals statewide, but my county alone had 674 write-in votes.
Also in my county Gary Johnson received 1,676 votes, while in the primary Ron Paul received over 3,000. So I assume most of those write-ins are for Ron Paul.
"Yet Carter got canned, Obama got reelected. Why the difference? A different electorate."
I remember 1980. Media turned on Carter, and Carter looked weak and ineffective. Obama remained 'cool' and media helped him all along.
Also, this is a nation that now thinks gays are the new saints.
And there is no wasp power. Wasps like Romney take their orders from neocons.
And there is no cold war, and so there is no moral issue for conservatives.
Morally, cons are on the defensive on issues of race, immigration, sexes, 'homophobia', and etc, trying to show that they are so 'compassionate'. Lowry weeps over MLK to show that he cares.
Even on illegal immigration, there is no moral courage or conviction on conservatives. It only tries to prove 'we love latinos'.
There is bad Muzzies and China, but 9/11 is history, and while most Americans dislike Chinese, it's not exactly a cold war vs the 'evil empire'.
Actually, the Reagan era was a time when new liberalism laid the grounds for future dominance. Reagan won two times and Bush won in 1988, but the new economy was being created and owned by liberal boomers. Boomers were rowdy in the 60s in their youth, but as they aged and entered the institutions, they wanted control over the nation. And Reaganite stability gave them time and space to hatch their new formula, and that came to fruition with Clinton.
"Reagan would have lost worse than Romney did."
Reagan would have probably won this race.
Romney... the guy just doesn't have what it takes to get people to vote for him. Maybe in Massachusetts if they like to vote for Romulans. It's kind of odd the two worst candidates I've seen run on a national stage were both elected as governor of Massachusetts.
Didn't you guys pay attention to the primaries? That was undoubtedly the worst selection of candidates for any party I've seen throw their hats in the ring since I started to pay attention in 1980. And it took Romney, his blessing by the establishment, and all his money that long to lock it down?
Sarah Palin would have run a better race despite the Intercontinental Ballistic Ridicule she would have been bombarded with.
Come on, if you had put Romney next to John Major, you would have been stunned by the sudden glow of inner charisma from John Major you never noticed before.
There is not a more venal, self-loving race of men and women than whites. Ask the owl, the dolphin, the eagle in the sky, how much whites love whites!
- Sitting Bull
In his understandable bitterness, Sitting Bull apparently failed to notice the war of 1861-65 and the Reconstruction. Philip Roth had the same kind of failing-lumping together philo-Semitic rural Protestants anxious to kill the Krauts and the urban Catholic Christian Front.
Gary Johnson had no effect on the race.
"Gary Johnson runs most successful Libertarian campaign in party’s history"
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/gary-johnson-ran-most-successful-libertarian-campaign-party-193500973--politics.html
"I remember when, in October 2004, the unemployment rate ticked up from 4.1 to 4.2 percent. According to the press, we were all living through the Great Depression!"
That must have been a neat trick when the unemployment rate fluctuated between 5.5 and 5.4 for the latter half of 2004.
With analysis and "facts" like this, you guys are going to be in the wilderness a looong time.
"Reagan would have probably won this race."
Without the Cold War, he might have lost even to Carter.
If you're a female with bad judgment and make a bad choice on who you have children with, then some other guy you didn't pick to have kids with has to work hard and pay taxes to support you and the child or children. He has to pay for your bad choices, not you. And, of course, responsible men will be willing to keep right on working hard to support the ever increasing numbers of irresponsible single moms. What could go wrong with a plan like this?
Mark, the responsible men are also paying for the feckless, irresponsible men who left their progeny in the first place, not just the "women with bad judgement" who stay with their kids. I know it's not as much fun to criticize them as it is to criticize women, but they are equally culpable.
"Most of my peers (judging by their facebook posts), male or female, who voted for Obama were voting solely based on "civil liberties" issues. The women were voting for Obama because of gay marriage and the goofy thought that Republicans wanted to take away birth control/abortion. The men were split evenly between not voting on purpose, voting for Gary Johnson, and voting for Obama despite "not being pleased with him." Their primary concerns were basically the legalization of marijuana and ending the wars/Patriot Act."
Nietzsche spoke of the reevaluation of values. What we have is the trivialization of values. Too funny. I see the same shit among youngsters on facebook.
"I think the problem was that the GOP, anyway, DID get its message out. Screw the working class, a living wage and decent hours is "laziness," there are legitimate rapes, 47% of America is garbage, Israel uber alles forever, declare more wars starting with bombing Iran, and let the auto industry (and any other industry) go bankrupt in the name of Ayn Rand...or else the billionaires will see to it that you (not they) go broke."
Right, the GOP is as anti-white as the Dems, but they are also anti worker and pro rich.
I don't want my whole life controlled by a corporation, while the executives live in fairy tale land with all their wealth and protection from NAMS.
Contrast with minorities and their ethnic solidarity.
In the end, this is the crucial difference. As a minority in a previously hostile country, blacks learned a long time ago to stick together for a common cause, no matter what, or else they'll be crushed in divide and conquer tactics. Regardless of how many blacks off each other for a perceived slight or a leather jacket, in the public eye, they're all soul brothers. Anyone who dares to stray from the script (Bill Cosby, Condoleeza Rice) is publicly ostracized.
Whites are not anywhere near this mentality, yet. They don't regard their fellow whites as brothers in arms. Whites are separated by dozens of cultural and socio-economic differences. They have divided themselves. They are far from "finished," as some here have suggested, but they haven't yet had a loud enough wake up call to change their outlook, either.
There is not a more venal, self-loving race of men and women than whites. Ask the owl, the dolphin, the eagle in the sky, how much whites love whites!
That is as may be, but the fact remains that, wherever whites go in this world, the rest follow, and not the other way round.
The auto bailout, and the perception of Romney created by the Bain Capital ads, certainly played a major role in preventing him from winning more votes among working class whites in Ohio: http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2012/11/06/why-romney-lost-ohio/
There is not a more venal, self-loving race of men and women than whites. Ask the owl, the dolphin, the eagle in the sky, how much whites love whites!
- Sitting Bull
Is that an actual quote from Sitting Bull? How would he have known what a dolphin was since he was from the plains? Did he really use the word venal? I can't imagine he was that fluent in English to have come up with that word.
The last time the Republicans nominated someone from Big 10 country (besides Gerald Ford, who is a special case): Warren Harding!
"Is that an actual quote from Sitting Bull?"
No it is not. Felt punchy from the great victory last night. Mormon history is the history scoundrels and curs. Romney is far worse than he appeared. He barely beat a criminal and astonishingly weak Republican field.
Black poverty is much preferable to a prosperity based on lies and illusions. Sitting Bull would agree with that.
Felt punchy from the great victory last night
Lol!
That was a joke right?
According to the latest numbers Romney's share of the popular was just over 95% of Obama's. If thats what a great victory looks like Id be fascinated to see a close one.
I grieve at what's happened to the Live Free or Die state. I guess Cambridge moved to NH?
Not quite, but southern NH has become a suburb of Boston.
"I think it will take things getting really bad before the young people of both sexes snap out of their "civil liberties are the only political issues" bubble."
Civil liberties are extremely important, but unfortunately the Obama administration had a terrible first term record with:
Implementing naked body scanners & invasive pat downs in airports
Expanding the TSA to man highway checkpoints and random large gatherings
The NDAA
Reupping and expansion of the Patriot Act
Citizen kill lists (Executions without trials)
Stranding political dissidents by placing them on no fly lists
Appointing Cass Sunstein to the post of Anti-First Amendment Czar
Fast and Furious false flag to use as a pretext to chip away at the 2nd Amendment
Abuse of executive orders
and I could go on and on...
Most of the smarter leftists actually understand that "as in almost every presidential election for decades the biggest block of swing voters has been white working-class voters."
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/obamas-victory-never-much-in-doubt-based-on-populist-appeal-to-swing-voters
The GOP leadership hasn't lifted a finger to help this group, and the upcoming sellout on amnesty is probably a case in point.
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