Election 2012- Post Mortem

[Heisenberg]

David Frum also made quite a few good points in this opinion piece:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/12/opinio...html?hpt=hp_t2

My favorite probably being:

On Fox News election night, BIll O'Reilly explained the meaning of the election: the "white establishment" was now outnumbered by minorities. "The demographic are changing. It's not a traditional America anymore." And these untraditional Americans "want stuff. They want things. And who is going to give them things? President Obama. He knows it, and he ran on it."

O'Reilly's analysis is echoed across the conservative blogosphere. The (non-white) takers now outnumber the (white) makers. They will use their majority to pillage the makers and redistribute to the takers. In the process, they will destroy the sources of the country's wealth and end the American experiment forever.

You'll hear O'Reilly's view echoed wherever conservatives express themselves.

Happily, the view is wrong, and in every respect.

America is not a society divided between "makers" and "takers." Instead, almost all of us proceed through a life cycle where we sometimes make and sometimes take as we pass from schooling to employment to retirement.

The line between "making" and "taking" is not a racial line. The biggest government program we have, Medicare, benefits a population that is 85% white.

President Barack Obama was not re-elected by people who want to "take." The president was re-elected by people who want to work -- and who were convinced, rightly or wrongly, that the president's policies were more likely to create work than were the policies advocated by my party.

The United States did not vote for socialism. It could not do so, because neither party offers socialism.

[RedskinsFan44]

Grover Norquist thinks Romney lost because the Dems convinced the voters Romney is a "poopy head"

http://www.politico.com/news/stories...709.html?hp=r1

[Larry]

Grover Norquist thinks Romney lost because the Dems convinced the voters Romney is a "poopy head"

Well, it is true.

[AsburySkinsFan]

O'Reilly's analysis is echoed across the conservative blogosphere. The (non-white) takers now outnumber the (white) makers. They will use their majority to pillage the makers and redistribute to the takers. In the process, they will destroy the sources of the country's wealth and end the American experiment forever.

Gee what could possibly go wrong with whites framing themselves as the providers and minorities as the takers.

[bird_1972]

Maddow is brilliant.

It's kind of a shame that she's seen as a liberal hack, although I guess it's to be expected.

I just forwarded that to a couple of my friends. That was really dead-on.

---------- Post added November-12th-2012 at 03:34 PM ----------

David Frum also made quite a few good points in this opinion piece:

Not a huge Frum fan, but I have to commend him for analyzing this as an adult and not a petulant child (see: O'Reilly, Trump, Victoria Jackson). Hopefully, he represents a more sensible incarnation of a new GOP.

---------- Post added November-12th-2012 at 03:34 PM ----------

David Frum also made quite a few good points in this opinion piece:

Not a huge Frum fan, but I have to commend him for analyzing this as an adult and not a petulant child (see: O'Reilly, Trump, Victoria Jackson). Hopefully, he represents a more sensible incarnation of a new GOP.

[SkinsHokieFan]

what are the statistical odds of this?

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20...ero_votes.html

In 59 Philadelphia voting divisions, Mitt Romney got zero votes

It's one thing for a Democratic presidential candidate to dominate a Democratic city like Philadelphia, but check out this head-spinning figure: In 59 voting divisions in the city, Mitt Romney received not one vote. Zero. Zilch.

These are the kind of numbers that send Republicans into paroxysms of voter-fraud angst, but such results may not be so startling after all.

"We have always had these dense urban corridors that are extremely Democratic," said Jonathan Rodden, a political science professor at Stanford University. "It's kind of an urban fact, and you are looking at the extreme end of it in Philadelphia."

Most big cities are politically homogeneous, with 75 percent to 80 percent of voters identifying as Democrats.

Cities are not only bursting with Democrats: They are easier to organize than rural areas where people live far apart from one another, said Sasha Issenberg, author of The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns.

"One reason Democrats can maximize votes in Philadelphia is that it's very easy to knock on every door," Issenberg said.

Link for rest

[DjTj]

what are the statistical odds of this?

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20...ero_votes.html

Link for rest

It seems like the odds are relatively high, since almost the same thing happened four years ago:

In 2008, McCain got zero votes in 57 Philadelphia voting divisions. That was a big increase from 2004, when George W. Bush was blanked in just five divisions.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20...ero_votes.html

[bird_1972]

what are the statistical odds of this?

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20...ero_votes.html

Link for rest

Aren't voting regions and congressional districts becoming increasingly polarized based on demographic trends and increased gerrymandering?

If so, I would assume this is a natural by-product.

[RedskinsFan44]

what are the statistical odds of this?

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20...ero_votes.html



Link for rest

Would not surprise me if you found a similar result in areas of rural Utah the other way around. It is accepted that 90 - 95% of blacks voted for Obama, is it surprising that in poor areas of a city that are probably about 100% black and quite poor they would go 100% Democrat? I mean it is odd but how many votes do you think they would gain perpetrating fraud in those districts?

As to the statistical odds we should probably contact Nate Silver

[Predicto]

I would presume that you could find something similar in a few precincts in rural Oklahoma or Utah, if someone bothered to look.

[BRAVEONAWARPATH]

Click on the link to read the rest.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/us...pagewanted=all

Boehner Tells House G.O.P. to Fall in Line


WASHINGTON — On a conference call with House Republicans a day after the party’s electoral battering last week, Speaker John A. Boehner dished out some bitter medicine, and for the first time in the 112th Congress, most members took their dose.

Their party lost, badly, Mr. Boehner said, and while Republicans would still control the House and would continue to staunchly oppose tax rate increases as Congress grapples with the impending fiscal battle, they had to avoid the nasty showdowns that marked so much of the last two years.

Members on the call, subdued and dark, murmured words of support — even a few who had been a thorn in the speaker’s side for much of this Congress.

It was a striking contrast to a similar call last year, when Mr. Boehner tried to persuade members to compromise with Democrats on a deal to extend a temporary cut in payroll taxes, only to have them loudly revolt.

[skinsfan_1215]

I would presume that you could find something similar in a few precincts in rural Oklahoma or Utah, if someone bothered to look.

I doubt it. Rural precincts are quite large geographically compared to urban ones. More of a chance of a random liberal slipping in discretely.

Also, from a demographic perspective, I don't think there is anything that Romney won as handily as Obama won black votes (which I presume the 59 precincts are predominately made up of).

[Larry]

Aren't voting regions and congressional districts becoming increasingly polarized based on demographic trends and increased gerrymandering?

If so, I would assume this is a natural by-product.

Actually, I suspect that gerrymandering often tries for the opposite effect.

My city, Gainesville, votes blue. But we're surrounded by rural counties that vote red. And the districts are drawn by majority-red Tallahassee.

Result: My city, which votes like 70% Dem, was (in 2000. In 2010, a Constitutional Amendment supposedly required non-partisan congressional districts. Which doesn't seem to have prevented some really goofball-looking districts. Like one that goes from part of Tampa, to like Daytona.), divided into four Congressional districts. Each district takes 1/4 of Blue Gainesville, and large pieces of multiple, rural, red countryside. So that 70% Dem-voting Gainesville is divided among 4 districts that are 60% R, each.

At least, the way it seems to me, if you assume that congressional districts are intentionally drawn in the most partisan manner possible (which is the method I assume all politicians use), then I assume that the Rules of Effective Gerrymandering are:

1) If there's a bunch of people you want to disenfranchise (because they vote for The Wrong Party), then the preferred method is to split them up into multiple districts, each of which has just enough people who vote for The Right Party, so that your Party wins all of the districts.

2) If the bunch of people you want to disenfranchise can't be split up enough to be effective (if there's just too many of them, and you can't split them up into 12 districts), then the next best thing is to create one district that's 99% 'The Wrong Party, and then take the rest of the people you don;t like, and use "divide and dilute" on what's left.

So, in short, I would assume that the result of gerrymandering would be that districts would intentionally be drawn to be less polarized. (The objective is to divide up "my" voters so that they make up 60% of the voters in every single district), except in cases where that can't be done, and then you want to create one district that's as polarized as possible (cause any of "my" voters that I put in that district, are going to be disenfranchised).

But, that's just Larry's Theory.

---------- Post added November-12th-2012 at 05:50 PM ----------

I would presume that you could find something similar in a few precincts in rural Oklahoma or Utah, if someone bothered to look.

For a long time, Oklahoma was one of those states where the real election was the Democratic Primary.

When I lived there, most of the state was the opposite. But a few places were still that way. Places where the Republicans just run a token, who everybody knows doesn't have a chance.

they had an election, while I was there. The D primary picked the soon-to-be-King. Rs nominate a token.

The D candidate died, before the election.

The R candidate got 8% of the vote, running against a dead man.

(The Ds could have taken the dead man off the ballot, but by law, they couldn't put somebody else in his place. They observed that if Dead Guy wins, then the Governor appoints his replacement. And the Governor promised that, if dead guy won, then he would appoint the guy who finished second in the primary.)

(I've always wondered how that must look, on some politician's resume: "Once got 8% of the vote, running against a dead man.")

---------- Post added November-12th-2012 at 05:51 PM ----------

I doubt it. Rural precincts are quite large geographically compared to urban ones. More of a chance of a random liberal slipping in discretely.

Also, from a demographic perspective, I don't think there is anything that Romney won as handily as Obama won black votes (which I presume the 59 precincts are predominately made up of).

Yeah, frankly, I find it stunning that it happened at all.

Granted, I assume that these precincts are really small. Like, here where I am, I'm within a mile or so of two of them. (Maybe more.)

I wouldn't be surprised if some of these "political divisions" are only a few square blocks.

But still, it surprises me.

Zero seems, to me, to be a really hard number to achieve.

[Stadium-Armory]

This is NOT an Onion piece:

George Bush Accidentally Votes For Obama
Former U.S. president George W. Bush accidentally voted for Barack Obama today at a polling place near his Crawford, TX home.
According to local reports, the two-term Republican was confused by the instructions on his electronic voting machine and mistakenly cast a ballot he intended to discard.
Witnesses say Bush argued with poll workers for several minutes afterwards in a effort to redo his vote, but in accordance with state law they ultimately denied his request.

Highlights:

• mismaladjusted
• Bush then explained that after marking the wrong candidate, he sought to correct his error by clicking the red "Cast Ballot" button, thinking that it was designed to 'cast away' the ballot and bring up a fresh one:

http://dailycurrant.com/2012/11/06/g...y-votes-obama/

[FanboyOf91]

The Daily Currant gets another one.