"A black sheriff?!": The Official Topic of Obama and New Era American Politics

[Dickie Dee]

xkcd:



Edit: Haha at the Romney staffers. To bad nobody gives the shit anymore about the campaign and we probably won't get much follow-up about how true this is (not that it matters, but I'd like to know for the lolz)

[Joe Molotov]

Romney likes being able to fire people.

[recursivelyenumerable]

Dean Chambers finally shows his face:

http://www.examiner.com/article/do-you-still-think-the-polls-were-skewed?cid=db_articles

On predicting the election results I believed that turnout would be more even and it would result in Mitt Romney getting 275 electoral votes to Obama getting 263. I was off by four states (Colorado, Florida, Ohio, and Virginia) that are worth 69 electoral votes, which is the difference between the 263 I projected and the 332 electoral votes that President Obama won.

I was only off by four states, guys! Conveniently forgetting that he had Romney winning by 350 EVs until the day before the election, when he suddenly and for no apparently reason changed his prediction to a less wrong one, based on, you know, "it just feels right".

Eh, at least he admits that his whole "unskewed" core conceit was wrong, rather than trying to split off an entire unskewed parallel universe which was sort of what I was expecting.

[Great Rumbler]

Obama won by suppressing the vote, guys:

Karl Rove told Fox News' Megyn Kelly on Thursday that President Obama won re-election "by suppressing the vote" with negative campaign ads that "turned off" potential voters.

Rove

[Mandark]

Since we're ragging on epistemic closure:

To me, the most telling incident of the campaign season was a poll that found that among young Americans, socialism enjoys a higher favorability rating than free enterprise. How can this possibly be, given the catastrophic failure of socialism, and the corresponding success of free enterprise, throughout history? The answer is that conservatives have entirely lost control over the culture. The educational system, the entertainment industry, the news media and every cultural institution that comes to mind are all dedicated to turning out liberals. To an appalling degree, they have succeeded. Historical illiteracy is just one consequence. Unless conservatives somehow succeed in regaining parity or better in the culture, the drift toward statism will inevitably continue, even if Republicans win the occasional election.

That belief, in some form or other, is very widespread among the right.  Which makes them turn to more "trustworthy" sources like Fox News, the various talk radio hosts, rightwing blogs and news sites, etc.

Trying to pop that bubble and bring those folks back into the mainstream would be an important project, but I'm not sure it could be done.



recursive: I know, and it's really disappointing.

[drew]

Rene G. ‏@rcg99

Wow. Romney's staffers' credit cards were cancelled after his concession speech and couldn't be used to pay cab fare for ride home.

what a dick

i seriously doubt he had any direct involvement in that

[Great Rumbler]

Oklahoma :'(

[Mandark]

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2012/11/08/americans_actually_voted_for_a_democratic_house.html

The total votes cast for Democratic House candidates exceed the votes cast for Republican candidates by about half a million right now, but Republicans will have a few dozen more seats.

Gerrymandering's probably a big factor, cause the GOP won all those state legislatures in 2010 in time for redistricting.  But part of it might be that the Dems managed to field credible candidates in more districts than the Republicans.  In the Senate races it seemed like the GOP was having a hard time recruiting people to run and that might have been true in the House too.

Still, hard to see that disparity having nothing to do with the way districts were drawn.  I'd love to see the vote total/seat total split broken down by states that had Dem legislatures in 2010 and those that had GOP legislatures.

[Great Rumbler]

Fox News now has a live countdown to the "fiscal cliff."

[Mr. Gundam]

Fox News now has a live countdown to the "fiscal cliff."

Did they already give up on Benghazigate?

[Great Rumbler]

Wouldn't surprise me. Benghazi was an election "issue," so there's not really any point in talking about it now.

[Mr. Gundam]

Wouldn't surprise me. Benghazi was an election "issue," so there's not really any point in talking about it now.

Impeachment. Remember all the people who wanted Bush impeached for Iraq? They didn't have a TV network/political machine backing them.

[Barry Egan]

naa they definitely have not given up on Benghazigate.

[Joe Molotov]

My HS Spanish teacher spent an hour telling us about being Libertarian. I thought it sounded pretty cool at the time, but I was 15.

Edit: I think you should let it go.

[Mr. Gundam]

Not sure if this should go in this thread or random talk but it's election related.

I found out that my sisters Italian teacher decided to talk about politics and specifically made not of his support for Romney, his disdain for Obama and had a lengthy discussion about Obamacare and how it shouldn't cover Abortions because that's wrong. My mom wants to let it go but I'm going to talk with my father about it. I think that's highly inappropriate, although I do think teens should be more informed about politics in a non-bias format.

Is this at a public school? I'd never in a million years give an opinion on politics with anyone at work, regardless if they're a coworker, student, staff member, etc.

[Steve Youngblood]

Fox News now has a live countdown to the "fiscal cliff."

I love the speculation about the impact the election has on that issue. The fiscal cliff is terrifying. If only the electorate had selected the right man for the job, then we could have gotten Romney sworn in early and he could have fixed the issue before the new year.

[Oblivion]

I'm actually surprised the "unskewing" stuff hasn't been a meme yet.

You're thinking about Teheran? Because Tel-Aviv sure is in Israel...

 

My bad, that's what I was confusing it with.

[Great Rumbler]

You're thinking about Teheran? Because Tel-Aviv sure is in Israel...

 

My bad, that's what I was confusing it with.

Unskewed geography :'(

[Oblivion]

You're thinking about Teheran? Because Tel-Aviv sure is in Israel...

 

My bad, that's what I was confusing it with.

Unskewed geography :'(

[Phoenix Dark]

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2012/11/08/americans_actually_voted_for_a_democratic_house.html

The total votes cast for Democratic House candidates exceed the votes cast for Republican candidates by about half a million right now, but Republicans will have a few dozen more seats.

Gerrymandering's probably a big factor, cause the GOP won all those state legislatures in 2010 in time for redistricting.  But part of it might be that the Dems managed to field credible candidates in more districts than the Republicans.  In the Senate races it seemed like the GOP was having a hard time recruiting people to run and that might have been true in the House too.

Still, hard to see that disparity having nothing to do with the way districts were drawn.  I'd love to see the vote total/seat total split broken down by states that had Dem legislatures in 2010 and those that had GOP legislatures.

It's rather obvious gerrymandering is the only reason they kept the House this year. I knew the house was gone after the 2010 elections; you simply cannot lose congressional and district elections the same year as the census. I don't see the house flipping until at least 2016, and that's assuming the economy improves enough for some moderate dems to win in 2014.

edit: so far dems have picked up 8 seats (net)

[Stoney Mason]

Adviser: Romney "shellshocked" by loss


Mitt Romney's campaign got its first hint something was wrong on the afternoon of Election Day, when state campaign workers on the ground began reporting huge turnout in areas favorable to President Obama: northeastern Ohio, northern Virginia, central Florida and Miami-Dade.

Then came the early exit polls that also were favorable to the president.

But it wasn't until the polls closed that concern turned into alarm. They expected North Carolina to be called early. It wasn't. They expected Pennsylvania to be up in the air all night; it went early for the President.

After Ohio went for Mr. Obama, it was over, but senior advisers say no one could process it.

"We went into the evening confident we had a good path to victory," said one senior adviser. "I don't think there was one person who saw this coming."

They just couldn't believe they had been so wrong. And maybe they weren't: There was Karl Rove on Fox saying Ohio wasn't settled, so campaign aides decided to wait. They didn't want to have to withdraw their concession, like Al Gore did in 2000, and they thought maybe the suburbs of Columbus and Cincinnati, which hadn't been reported, could make a difference.

But then came Colorado for the president and Florida also was looking tougher than anyone had imagined.

"We just felt, 'where's our path?'" said a senior adviser. "There wasn't one."

Romney then said what they knew: it was over.

His personal assistant, Garrett Jackson, called his counterpart on Mr. Obama's staff, Marvin Nicholson. "Is your boss available?" Jackson asked.

Romney was stoic as he talked to the president, an aide said, but his wife Ann cried. Running mate Paul Ryan seemed genuinely shocked, the adviser said. Ryan's wife Janna also was shaken and cried softly.

"There's nothing worse than when you think you're going to win, and you don't," said another adviser. "It was like a sucker punch."

Their emotion was visible on their faces when they walked on stage after Romney finished his remarks, which Romney had hastily composed, knowing he had to say something.

Both wives looked stricken, and Ryan himself seemed grim. They all were thrust on that stage without understanding what had just happened.

"He was shellshocked," one adviser said of Romney.

Romney and his campaign had gone into the evening confident they had a good path to victory, for emotional and intellectual reasons. The huge and enthusiastic crowds in swing state after swing state in recent weeks - not only for Romney but also for Paul Ryan - bolstered what they believed intellectually: that Obama would not get the kind of turnout he had in 2008.

They thought intensity and enthusiasm were on their side this time - poll after poll showed Republicans were more motivated to vote than Democrats - and that would translate into votes for Romney.

As a result, they believed the public/media polls were skewed - they thought those polls oversampled Democrats and didn't reflect Republican enthusiasm. They based their own internal polls on turnout levels more favorable to Romney. That was a grave miscalculation, as they would see on election night.

Those assumptions drove their campaign strategy: their internal polling showed them leading in key states, so they decided to make a play for a broad victory: go to places like Pennsylvania while also playing it safe in the last two weeks.

Those assessments were wrong.

They made three key miscalculations, in part because this race bucked historical trends:

1. They misread turnout. They expected it to be between 2004 and 2008 levels, with a plus-2 or plus-3 Democratic electorate, instead of plus-7 as it was in 2008. Their assumptions were wrong on both sides: The president's base turned out and Romney's did not. More African-Americans voted in Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida than in 2008. And fewer Republicans did: Romney got just over 2 million fewer votes than John McCain.

2. Independents. State polls showed Romney winning big among independents. Historically, any candidate polling that well among independents wins. But as it turned out, many of those independents were former Republicans who now self-identify as independents. The state polls weren't oversampling Democrats and undersampling Republicans - there just weren't as many Republicans this time because they were calling themselves independents.

3. Undecided voters. The perception is they always break for the challenger, since people know the incumbent and would have decided already if they were backing him. Romney was counting on that trend to continue. Instead, exit polls show Mr. Obama won among people who made up their minds on Election Day and in the few days before the election. So maybe Romney, after running for six years, was in the same position as the incumbent.

The campaign before the election had expressed confidence in its calculations, and insisted the Obama campaign, with its own confidence and a completely different analysis, was wrong. In the end, it the other way around.

"They were right," a Romney campaign senior adviser said of the Obama campaign's assessments. "And if they were right, we lose."

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57547239/adviser-romney-shellshocked-by-loss/?pageNum=2&tag=page

[Rman]

Damn, dunno what happened to it.  It was a mad white woman.

The thing I keep hearing from my conservative friends is how Romney is this magic turnaround artist, who can make anything work, but then when I ask why he couldn't make a campaign work after 8 years, it's all "that's different".

So ... you're saying politics are not the same as running a business? And here I thought we all lived in America, Inc.

GWB was also praised for his Harvard MBA at first.  Look how that turned out.  Although Bush had a shitty track record in the private sector as well.

[Joe Molotov]

Damn, dunno what happened to it.  It was a mad white woman.

The thing I keep hearing from my conservative friends is how Romney is this magic turnaround artist, who can make anything work, but then when I ask why he couldn't make a campaign work after 8 years, it's all "that's different".

So ... you're saying politics are not the same as running a business? And here I thought we all lived in America, Inc.

GWB was also praised for his Harvard MBA at first.  Look how that turned out.  Although Bush had a shitty track record in the private sector as well.

[AdmiralViscen]

Adviser: Romney "shellshocked" by loss


Mitt Romney's campaign got its first hint something was wrong on the afternoon of Election Day, when state campaign workers on the ground began reporting huge turnout in areas favorable to President Obama: northeastern Ohio, northern Virginia, central Florida and Miami-Dade.

Then came the early exit polls that also were favorable to the president.

But it wasn't until the polls closed that concern turned into alarm. They expected North Carolina to be called early. It wasn't. They expected Pennsylvania to be up in the air all night; it went early for the President.

After Ohio went for Mr. Obama, it was over, but senior advisers say no one could process it.

"We went into the evening confident we had a good path to victory," said one senior adviser. "I don't think there was one person who saw this coming."

They just couldn't believe they had been so wrong. And maybe they weren't: There was Karl Rove on Fox saying Ohio wasn't settled, so campaign aides decided to wait. They didn't want to have to withdraw their concession, like Al Gore did in 2000, and they thought maybe the suburbs of Columbus and Cincinnati, which hadn't been reported, could make a difference.

But then came Colorado for the president and Florida also was looking tougher than anyone had imagined.

"We just felt, 'where's our path?'" said a senior adviser. "There wasn't one."

Romney then said what they knew: it was over.

His personal assistant, Garrett Jackson, called his counterpart on Mr. Obama's staff, Marvin Nicholson. "Is your boss available?" Jackson asked.

Romney was stoic as he talked to the president, an aide said, but his wife Ann cried. Running mate Paul Ryan seemed genuinely shocked, the adviser said. Ryan's wife Janna also was shaken and cried softly.

"There's nothing worse than when you think you're going to win, and you don't," said another adviser. "It was like a sucker punch."

Their emotion was visible on their faces when they walked on stage after Romney finished his remarks, which Romney had hastily composed, knowing he had to say something.

Both wives looked stricken, and Ryan himself seemed grim. They all were thrust on that stage without understanding what had just happened.

"He was shellshocked," one adviser said of Romney.

Romney and his campaign had gone into the evening confident they had a good path to victory, for emotional and intellectual reasons. The huge and enthusiastic crowds in swing state after swing state in recent weeks - not only for Romney but also for Paul Ryan - bolstered what they believed intellectually: that Obama would not get the kind of turnout he had in 2008.

They thought intensity and enthusiasm were on their side this time - poll after poll showed Republicans were more motivated to vote than Democrats - and that would translate into votes for Romney.

As a result, they believed the public/media polls were skewed - they thought those polls oversampled Democrats and didn't reflect Republican enthusiasm. They based their own internal polls on turnout levels more favorable to Romney. That was a grave miscalculation, as they would see on election night.

Those assumptions drove their campaign strategy: their internal polling showed them leading in key states, so they decided to make a play for a broad victory: go to places like Pennsylvania while also playing it safe in the last two weeks.

Those assessments were wrong.

They made three key miscalculations, in part because this race bucked historical trends:

1. They misread turnout. They expected it to be between 2004 and 2008 levels, with a plus-2 or plus-3 Democratic electorate, instead of plus-7 as it was in 2008. Their assumptions were wrong on both sides: The president's base turned out and Romney's did not. More African-Americans voted in Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida than in 2008. And fewer Republicans did: Romney got just over 2 million fewer votes than John McCain.

2. Independents. State polls showed Romney winning big among independents. Historically, any candidate polling that well among independents wins. But as it turned out, many of those independents were former Republicans who now self-identify as independents. The state polls weren't oversampling Democrats and undersampling Republicans - there just weren't as many Republicans this time because they were calling themselves independents.

3. Undecided voters. The perception is they always break for the challenger, since people know the incumbent and would have decided already if they were backing him. Romney was counting on that trend to continue. Instead, exit polls show Mr. Obama won among people who made up their minds on Election Day and in the few days before the election. So maybe Romney, after running for six years, was in the same position as the incumbent.

The campaign before the election had expressed confidence in its calculations, and insisted the Obama campaign, with its own confidence and a completely different analysis, was wrong. In the end, it the other way around.

"They were right," a Romney campaign senior adviser said of the Obama campaign's assessments. "And if they were right, we lose."

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57547239/adviser-romney-shellshocked-by-loss/?pageNum=2&tag=page

I think this is all bullshit, they knew what was going to happen. Unless they are really hitting the Kool Aid hard

[Phoenix Dark]

Chris Christie Called Obama To Congratulate Him, Offered Mitt Romney Condolences Over Email

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) told reporters Thursday he reached out to President Barack Obama with a personal phone call to congratulate him on his reelection. Mitt Romney, the man Christie had campaigned with and raised money for, got a conciliatory email, the governor said.

“We didn’t have a political strategy discussion," Christie said of his Wednesday phone chat with Obama, Bloomberg reports. "I said, 'Congratulations on your win last night, Mr. President,' and he said, 'Thank you.'"

Asked if he'd given Romney the same treatment, Christie said that he hadn't.

“No; we exchanged e-mails last night,” Christie said, according to Bloomberg. “We haven’t spoken on the phone yet.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/08/christ-christie-obama_n_2095210.html

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

If Christie can drop 100+ pounds, he'll probably be elected President in the 2016 election.

[Stoney Mason]

I think this is all bullshit, they knew what was going to happen. Unless they are really hitting the Kool Aid hard

Generally real articles that had access to the campaign come out later so its certainly possible although it's weird that a campaign would want this narrative which paints them as deluded rather than one that paints them in a more realistic manner.

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

I can't wait for the inevitable tell-all stories about the Romney campaign.  I still think that the campaign was very tightly controlled from the top donors who wound up causing a lot of problems down the road (NAACP speech, picking Ryan as VP) and cost him the election.

[Oblivion]

Christie is so fucked in the near future. Tea baggers will NEVER forgive his apostasy.



Btw, Romney had no concession speech planned, so it wouldn't be surprising at all if he and his campaign were deep inside the bubble as well.

[TakingBackSunday]

thats probably why it took him a fucking hour to even say to the press "I will give a concession speech"

[Phoenix Dark]

Romney's camp has conceded Florida, and will not ask for a recount

332-206. Popular vote isn't done yet Obama will finish with more than a 3 million vote lead.

[AdmiralViscen]

Christie is so fucked in the near future. Tea baggers will NEVER forgive his apostasy.



Btw, Romney had no concession speech planned, so it wouldn't be surprising at all if he and his campaign were deep inside the bubble as well.

I think that's a line of shit too

[Stoney Mason]

I can't wait for the inevitable tell-all stories about the Romney campaign.  I still think that the campaign was very tightly controlled from the top donors who wound up causing a lot of problems down the road (NAACP speech, picking Ryan as VP) and cost him the election.

The thing is there was a time where it made good political sense (and awful moral sense) for the Republican party to be this really racist xenophobic party. Especially when they were trying to switch over southerners to the Republican brand in the 70's, 80's, 90's.

They won that war. And now its time to drop that stuff and chart a different course but they are trapped by the monster they created. They don't know anything different at the moment to combat the changing demographics of America. I fully expect their short term solution will be to just nominate Rubio in 2016 and try to conquer and divide minorities on that basis rather than actually fundamentally change who they are.   

[Barry Egan]

2 Latino candidates for prez in 2016, bank on it.

[Madrun Badrun]

http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/11/08/first-on-cnn-iranian-jets-fire-on-u-s-drone/

November 1st

[Oblivion]

Oh man, this would be such delicious karma:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/09/us-usa-senate-warren-banking-idUSBRE8A804R20121109

[Human Snorenado]

2 Latino candidates for prez in 2016, bank on it.

Rubio will most likely be the GOP candidate, because that's how they think they can win the latino vote.  It might work to an extent, too.  Dems will most likely nominate a woman in my opinion.  Not Hillary.

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

I find it very hard to believe that Hillary won't make one last attempt to run for President.  A lot of women are banking on her to be the first female President.  I could see Andrew Cuomo making an attempt as well, with a couple of others yet to be determined.

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

I can't wait for the inevitable tell-all stories about the Romney campaign.  I still think that the campaign was very tightly controlled from the top donors who wound up causing a lot of problems down the road (NAACP speech, picking Ryan as VP) and cost him the election.

The thing is there was a time where it made good political sense (and awful moral sense) for the Republican party to be this really racist xenophobic party. Especially when they were trying to switch over southerners to the Republican brand in the 70's, 80's, 90's.

They won that war. And now its time to drop that stuff and chart a different course but they are trapped by the monster they created. They don't know anything different at the moment to combat the changing demographics of America. I fully expect their short term solution will be to just nominate Rubio in 2016 and try to conquer and divide minorities on that basis rather than actually fundamentally change who they are.

Yeah but they're going to have to do it anyway.  The fantasy that the Republicans are going to shrink to nothing is a masturbatory fantasy.  They're a major political party, they will adapt.  I think they probably will coast on white resentment until Texas turns uncomfortably purple though.  That could be a while though.

Or not.  I'll never vote for a Republican anyway unless by some freak occurrence they start being more liberal than Democrats.  So whether they wither away into nothing or create a new long lasting majority by successfully bringing the Hispanic vote in means nothing to me.

[ToxicAdam]

Gerrymandering's probably a big factor, cause the GOP won all those state legislatures in 2010 in time for redistricting.  But part of it might be that the Dems managed to field credible candidates in more districts than the Republicans.  In the Senate races it seemed like the GOP was having a hard time recruiting people to run and that might have been true in the House too.

I wonder how many Joe the Plumber's there were out there in the election. He lost 76% - 24% (205,091 to 66,351).

there just weren't as many Republicans this time because they were calling themselves independents.

This should be the clarion call to the party. They are leaving people behind. The party brand is such shit that people are embarrassed to self-identify as a Republican. That's the first step in losing a supporter.

[Human Snorenado]

Another good indicator that's been floating around- when you have to ask "which one?" when someone tells you "the rape guy lost".

[Stoney Mason]

I can't wait for the inevitable tell-all stories about the Romney campaign.  I still think that the campaign was very tightly controlled from the top donors who wound up causing a lot of problems down the road (NAACP speech, picking Ryan as VP) and cost him the election.

The thing is there was a time where it made good political sense (and awful moral sense) for the Republican party to be this really racist xenophobic party. Especially when they were trying to switch over southerners to the Republican brand in the 70's, 80's, 90's.

They won that war. And now its time to drop that stuff and chart a different course but they are trapped by the monster they created. They don't know anything different at the moment to combat the changing demographics of America. I fully expect their short term solution will be to just nominate Rubio in 2016 and try to conquer and divide minorities on that basis rather than actually fundamentally change who they are.

Yeah but they're going to have to do it anyway.  The fantasy that the Republicans are going to shrink to nothing is a masturbatory fantasy.  They're a major political party, they will adapt.  I think they probably will coast on white resentment until Texas turns uncomfortably purple though.  That could be a while though.

Or not.  I'll never vote for a Republican anyway unless by some freak occurrence they start being more liberal than Democrats.  So whether they wither away into nothing or create a new long lasting majority by successfully bringing the Hispanic vote in means nothing to me.

Oh they will definitely do it one day. The republican party isn't going to shrivel up and be replaced by something else. I just think they haven't lost bad enough to really have it hammer home yet. I think the easier short term solution though is to just fake it and nominate a latino guy. All of the tea leaves seem to be heading that way. The big narrative I keep seeing is how big they lost latinos and normally Republicans in the past wouldn't have given a shit about that but now you have people on their side really realizing its a problem.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/08/sean-hannity-immigration-pathway-to-citizenship_n_2096255.html

[ToxicAdam]

Alec Baldwin delivered it better ...


This past election I found it pretty humorous how obsessed with work this country is. Not quality of life, or improving our health outcomes, or new ways to encourage kindness ... but work. We need more work .. we need those shitty jobs that our grandfathers used to work to come back to America. We cheer when a company "reshores" into depressed areas of America because they are starving for 10 dollar/hr jobs. I wonder if that will ever change ... or is it too ingrained into our cultural psyches?

I also wonder if we will ever have a national conversation on how (since the mid-70's) technology/efficiency has destroyed jobs. These aren't jobs we 'lost to overseas' .. these are jobs that just don't exist. Just look at this last recent dip:




Our GDP is 2.2 percent higher than the start of the recession .. but with almost 4 million less jobs. I don't see how that is going to change in the near future. Especially as technology and efficiency marches on.

[Stoney Mason]

The other thing which Triumph sort of pointed to earlier is that the Republican nomination is such a death march for these candidates at the moment. It weeds out the guys like Huntsman who would actually do well in the general election and instead favors candidates who either have to lie their asses off to pretend they are down with the crazies like Romney had to or rewards actual genuine crazies who keep pulling the party rightward.

All that being said a lot of it comes down to the guy. And a party only needs one energetic bright face to revive its fortunes. The dems will have a very interesting time choosing a candidate for 2016. It's always a little weird when the VP of a sitting president isn't probably up to the task of actually wining the nomination and I don't believe Biden is so hopefully he steps aside early and makes it known he isn't running. I have an uncomfortable feeling though he's gonna try to get the nomination.

[ToxicAdam]

Boehner-culpa

[Phoenix Dark]

He walked it back shortly afterward. Meanwhile Cantor suggested Obamacare's repeal should be tied to any tax compromise

republican house leadership elections are on the 14th btw. I'd imagine Boehner will be re-elected as the Speaker, but clearly the crazier types still don't trust him. I'd imagine he's happy there are eight more democrats in the house for him to deal with instead of tea party extremists like Allen West and Joe fucking Walsh

[Mandark]

This past election I found it pretty humorous how obsessed with work this country is. Not quality of life, or improving our health outcomes, or new ways to encourage kindness ... but work. We need more work .. we need those shitty jobs that our grandfathers used to work to come back to America. We cheer when a company "reshores" into depressed areas of America because they are starving for 10 dollar/hr jobs. I wonder if that will ever change ... or is it too ingrained into our cultural psyches?

I also wonder if we will ever have a national conversation on how (since the mid-70's) technology/efficiency has destroyed jobs. These aren't jobs we 'lost to overseas' .. these are jobs that just don't exist. Just look at this last recent dip:

http://www.aei-ideas.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/gdpemp.jpg

Our GDP is 2.2 percent higher than the start of the recession .. but with almost 4 million less jobs. I don't see how that is going to change in the near future. Especially as technology and efficiency marches on.

If you're in a capitalist economy it makes sense.  You need to work to make money, and if there aren't enough jobs to match willing potential workers, then you've got a lot of people in dire straits.  Even if employment's already decent, more jobs (or more job openings) means competition among firms and rising wages.

The alternative is socialism, and I'd be genuinely surprised if that's what you wanted.

I don't think technology is causing structural unemployment.  We had very, very low unemployment in the late 90's and low unemployment in the mid-00's before the seams came off the financial system.  It's not like the crash happened because a bunch of occupations suddenly became obsolete.  Also, GDP recovered ahead of employment in the Great Depression as well (stats from that era are a bit fuzzier but IIRC it's a sharp enough contrast that it doesn't really matter in this case).

[Cormacaroni]

You don't need to work to make money in a capitalist economy.

[Phoenix Dark]

If republicans were smart they'd move South Carolina out of the early primary season. It has produced two of the worst examples of winning gutter primary politics in recent memory - Bush's race baiting of McCain in 2000, and Gingrich's blatantly bigoted campaign/win this year. I don't believe SC is the cause of the problem, but it's ugliness is often the worst symptom of the problem; on the democrat side let's not forget Bill Clinton's Jesse Jackson comment in 2008. It's pretty obvious the republicans will hold the south for awhile, they don't need it to determine who their nominee is. Let's not forget Iowa loves religious right loons (Huckabee 08, Santorum '12), opening the possibility that a joke character can win there and then win in SC.

Removing it could also significantly decrease the shelf life of clown candidates like Gingrich, Bachman, Cain, etc who "forced" Romney to move far right just to win the nomination. Iowa, NH, Florida, Nevada, and Colorado should be the fist states (note: that's how it would look if SC was simply removed from the current primary schedule)

[Mandark]

You don't need to work to make money in a capitalist economy.

Every time I leave out caveats and hedging to make for more readable prose...   



PD: You're probably right, but I'd imagine there'd be a high chance of southerners/evangelicals throwing a shitfit and refusing to vote for a RNC chair (or whoever could legitimize this decision) that let this happen.

[MrAngryFace]

[Human Snorenado]

I really see them doubling down on the crazy.  Maybe they give in on the dream act and nominate Rubio; it's what they do after a minority has any sort of success.  They nominated Palin after Hillary, and gave Steele the RNC after Obama. 

[Phoenix Dark]

Mandark: yea, that's true. And of course the religious wing of the party is already quite mad about the GOP abandoning Akin and Mourdock

Triumph: You're 100% right. The GOP seems to think tokenism is the solution to their demographic problems, and have for many years. The Cain stuff really crystallized this point imo, when some conservatives argued that if Cain faced Obama, black voters would be so torn that the vote could be split between the two candidates. Or a couple weeks ago when John Sununu said Colin Powell only endorsed Obama because he's black. These people simply don't get it, and I'm not sure this election will knock them to their senses.

It's worth noting that Rubio is Cuban, and thus has a rather different life experience from most Hispanics. He seems to want to move his party to the center on immigration, but I wonder if he'll sell out if it's clear he cannot get the nomination while being pro-immigration reform.

I know some folks disagree but I think John Boehner is an old school DC republican willing to cut deals to get shit done. IMO he'll be willing to work with Obama, but the problem will be that it will expose him to leadership challenges from Eric Cantor, who is willing to sell the party to the tea party (and thus national irrelevance) in exchange for a gavel. Republicans will have 7-8 fewer seats next year, and that may be enough for Boehner to create coalitions between democrats and the "regular" republicans in the House to pass some bills. We'll see...I wouldn't bet on it, but it's possible.

[Oblivion]

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

(Image removed from quote.)


Our GDP is 2.2 percent higher than the start of the recession .. but with almost 4 million less jobs. I don't see how that is going to change in the near future. Especially as technology and efficiency marches on.

I'm not sure I agree.  The work is still there, businesses just realized they can get away with doing more work with less people.  The 9-5 is effectively dead in the private workplace.  It's now 7-6 plus take your laptop home for nights and weekends and if you aren't willing to work those kinds of hours, here's a stack of 100 resumes from people who are.

Not sure how to remedy that realistically.  People are so desperate to see the unemployment numbers drop that people are happy any jobs are created, even if they are shitty McJobs.

[ToxicAdam]

If you're in a capitalist economy it makes sense.  You need to work to make money, and if there aren't enough jobs to match willing potential workers, then you've got a lot of people in dire straits.  Even if employment's already decent, more jobs (or more job openings) means competition among firms and rising wages.

The alternative is socialism, and I'd be genuinely surprised if that's what you wanted.

I don't think full-blown socialism is the answer, but more socialistic solutions can be. Identify what is most needed in our society and train/pay people to provide those services. Even if you have to do it through a third party, so you can avoid the legacy costs associated with union/goverment employment.

I don't think technology is causing structural unemployment.  We had very, very low unemployment in the late 90's and low unemployment in the mid-00's before the seams came off the financial system.  It's not like the crash happened because a bunch of occupations suddenly became obsolete.  Also, GDP recovered ahead of employment in the Great Depression as well (stats from that era are a bit fuzzier but IIRC it's a sharp enough contrast that it doesn't really matter in this case).

But both of those periods were associated with bubbles. My whole life (since the mid-70's) our economy has been in malaise/stagnation outside of 3 3-year windows of wild economic growth/low unemployment (84-87, 97-00, 04-07). But maybe that's just where I live (Ohio/Rust Belt) clouding my perception.

 

[Steve Contra]

2 Latino candidates for prez in 2016, bank on it.

Rubio will most likely be the GOP candidate, because that's how they think they can win the latino vote.

I was discussing this in regards to Herman Cain with someone when they wondered why black people wouldn't vote for Cain.  I told them that's probably because Black people vote democrat, and not based on skin color.  The same thinking applies to Rubio (although I think Rubio would be much better on immigration than the current GOP as a whole), they see appeal based only on race.

[Great Rumbler]

The data's a bit old, but still:

[Cerveza mas fina]

Are you implying the rich people actually care more for the poor then the poor for themselves?

I think it could be a case of poor people living in rich states and being confronted with wealth they would like to share in. While poor people in poor states look for loopholes and less regulation so that they can  move up by doing things that aren't social. Its a more dog eat dog society when everyones poor around you, compared to a more social society when there is wealth just around the corner.

[Steve Contra]

he's implying that liberals have cash money, conservative are filthy poors.