So I can't call elections. So sue me, I'll find another line of work.
Interestingly Obama drew nearly 10M fewer votes this time than he did in '08. Romney however managed to draw about 2M fewer votes than McCain did, 57M v 59M. This big a falloff in turnout suggests that a lot of people wanted "none of the above". When offered a choice between big government nannyism and big government nannyism, the voters chose big government nannyism. Like there was an alternative.
So it's time for the Republican party to go the way of the Whigs, or maybe it's time for the Whigs to point out that the Republicans have outlived their usefulness and stage a comeback. Or maybe it's time for the Tea Party to come out of the closet as it were.
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7 comments:
Yeah, the problem is that the plutocrats aren't conservative enough. Keep telling yourself that.
What? The P-crats mostly went for the Socialist.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/obama-wins-8-10-wealthiest-154837437.html
I think I called Ryan's VP nomination correctly, that it was a "Sarah Palin moment". Nothing about Ryan or Mrs. Palin, this was a damning statement about the Republican Party.
I had high hopes for the Republicans when Sarah Palin was nominated. As a symbol, nominating Palin seemed to signal a sea change at the highest levels of the GOP: An acknowledgement of the dynamics and sharing of power needed to reasonably represent Republicans.
Palin's nomination, like Ryan's, turned out to be a mere publicity stunt, with no substantial change in the GOP. A big fluffy bun, but where's the beef?
The GOP hasn't followed through. Obama wasn't held to account by mid-term Congressmen, wasn't blocked, even got the debt ceiling (which will max out next month!) put off until after the election cycle, with the acquiescence of the GOP-led House. Where is the beef, indeed?
@ The Troll, Maybe we could all agree on a theme song for President Obama, something like, "You're So Vain". If Romney had hummed that every time President Obama spoke, it might have changed the whole election.
The GOP failed in GOTV operations, not in ideology.
For years, [conservatives have] 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.
But guess what?
You haven't just been misinformed about the horse race.
Since the very beginning of the election cycle, conservative
media has been failing you. With a few exceptions, they
haven't tried to rigorously tell you the truth, or even to
bring you intellectually honest opinion. What they've done
instead helps to explain why the right failed to triumph in
a very winnable election.
Why do you keep putting up with it?
Conservatives were at a disadvantage because Romney
supporters like Jennifer Rubin and Hugh Hewitt saw it as
their duty to spin constantly for their favored candidate
rather than being frank about his strengths and weaknesses.
"How Conservative Media Lost to the MSM and Failed the Rank and File"
The Atlantic. November 07, 2012
Think about how many electrons this blog wasted claiming that Republicans were doing better than the opinion surveys suggested. And putting forth the ridiculous notion that the problem was that plutocrat Romney wasn't conservative enough.
The past 4 - 10 years have shown that Republican ideas are demonstrably wrong -- this does not mean that 0bamunism is the answer -- and that Republican policies intended to benefit plutocrats like Romney did not trickle down to benefit the middle class. The transfer of wealth from the middle class to the rich began long before the Zero became president.
Keep producing those echoes for this chamber, billll....
Troll:
You speak of wealth transfer from the middle class to the rich, without noting that the disappearance of the middle class and division of society into the rich and the poor is a standard characteristic of socialist kleptocracies. Yes, the middle class is disappearing, but it's far more likely because wealth creation is disappearing. I note that the wealthy are disappearing as well.
One supposes that the end game will be an impoverished populace ruled over by a very wealthy oligarchy. See also large parts of South America and Africa.
You don't like my approach. So what? Got a better one or is it sufficient to bash mine? As the song goes "We'd all love to hear your plan."
As to the polling, the MSM polls calling for a huge Obama sweep were wrong at the popular vote level, just as the adjusted polls showing a narrow Romney win were off. Post election and pre election the people favored lower taxes and less government interference, but the turnout somehow wasn't there. That one baffles me. If the right hated Obama so much, why didn't they turn out? Romney certainly wasn't my first choice, but he was the army we had.
@ Troll,
"The past 4 - 10 years have shown that Republican ideas are demonstrably wrong "
Funny. As I recall, it was the Democratic Congresses behind most of the "wrong" ideas that got done.
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