Well, the election came and went. Overall it was a huge win for "liberals" (I hate that term, but don't have a better one); Romney/Ryan, Richard Mourdouck, and Todd Akin all lost, Tammy Baldwin and Elizabeth Warren won, gay marriage passed in Maine, Maryland, and Washington, and marijuana decriminalization passed in Washington and Colorado. For me personally, it was a very satisfying Tuesday night. And perhaps the best part of it all is that the math-savvy analysts called the election almost exactly. Nate Silver called all 50 states, Sam Wang called 49 out of 50*. This is nice because it hammers home the point that the Republicans really are divorced from reality. It's not liberal bias.
It's one thing to want your guy to win, it's quite another to believe your guy is going to win when all logic points to this being a very unlikely event. It's not everyday we see a political experiment that has a definitive outcome -- most of the things we argue about in this country, the economy, immigration, regulation, etc. don't often lend themselves to resolutions that people (without advanced degrees in these areas) can easily and objectively assess. The election is an exception -- no one can argue that Obama didn't win handily. The people saying that the election would be close were resoundingly wrong, end of story.**
The good news is that now millions of Republicans are going to start questioning the critical thinking skills of their party leaders, questioning their stances on supply-side economics, climate change, and the deficit -- after all if the Reps showed themselves to be so inept at objectively recognizing the clear signs of this election, what else might they be getting wrong? Oh wait, that's probably not going to happen. I'm guessing very little is going to change with the Reps, at least not yet. But we shall see. Perhaps the most distressing part for the GOP is how the electoral college broke down this election. Romney could have carried Florida, Ohio, and Viriginia, and he still would've lost. The "tipping point" state was Colorado which went to Obama by nearly 5 points. And keep in mind, Obama is the incumbent in the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. What would the results have been if everything was going swimmingly? Obviously a lot can change quickly, I don't believe anybody can predict with any accuracy the sentiment of our country years in advance, but if, in 2016, it's anything close to what it's been the past four or five years, the Republicans are going to find themselves steep underdogs again.
A question that's been on many people's mind since Tuesday is: What can the Republicans do to turn things around? Certainly not mocking climate change a few weeks before a series of devastating storms is one thing, toning down the rape-children-are-God's-will rhetoric and the fight against contraception are others, taking a more progressive (and realistic) path on immigration is yet another. But the main thing, in my mind, is to quit treating people who are struggling to find work and make ends meet as if they're inferior beings. It's one thing to promote personal responsibility and hard work (values that just about everybody can get behind regardless of politics). It's quite another to make people who were laid-off during a terrible economic crash -- people who were good at their jobs and did nothing wrong, and now can't find work because they're just isn't enough work to be found -- feel like trash. Many unemployed people aren't moochers trying to sponge off the John Galts of society, they're people who got hit in 2007, and have since been crowded out of the slow recovery. If you disagree with my assessment ask yourself this: What were all the "moochers" doing pre-2007? If Mitt's "47%" just want free rides, then why were they working before the crash, why weren't they living off the government's dime then? The obvious answer: they want to work, but can't, because our economy currently isn't allowing it.***
Here's an excerpt from writer Matt Taibbi's blog expressing a similar sentiment. I actually don't really like Taibbi's style. Something about it rubs me the wrong way, but I think the general message he's delivering below is spot-on.
OK, that's all I have time for. I have to hit up a quick run (to work off all that candy I've been munching on from our seemingly endless Halloween variety pack) and then get ready to see the movie Argo. I guess, this election recap wasn't so brief, and I didn't really get to any "other stuff". Oh well.
Until next time...
*And he wasn't even really wrong on the one he didn't call. He said Florida was a "coin toss", which it basically was, but guessed it would go to Romney, which it didn't. That's the thing about setting odds, if you say something is 50-50, your odds aren't right if you can pick the winner every time. Your odds are right if you can pick the winner half the time. On a similar note, the past two presidential elections Silver called 101 out of 102 states (plus D.C.). It makes me wonder if he's underselling the odds of a state going the way he favors it to go. Of course the number of swing states in that sample is much, much smaller than 102, it's probably less than 20, and it's hard to say anything definitive based on that size sample. I'd have to study it more, which I'm probably not going to do, so I'll just leave it as something I'm curious about.
**The popular vote was kind of close, but the electoral college wasn't, and obviously it's the latter that determines the president.
***By the way, the Reps have a very strange message concerning jobs. On the one hand they say "don't blame the government blame yourself", on the other hand they attack Obama for stifling job growth. Which is it?
It's one thing to want your guy to win, it's quite another to believe your guy is going to win when all logic points to this being a very unlikely event. It's not everyday we see a political experiment that has a definitive outcome -- most of the things we argue about in this country, the economy, immigration, regulation, etc. don't often lend themselves to resolutions that people (without advanced degrees in these areas) can easily and objectively assess. The election is an exception -- no one can argue that Obama didn't win handily. The people saying that the election would be close were resoundingly wrong, end of story.**
[I was very happy about Elizabeth Warren's win over Scott Brown in the race for Ted Kennedy's old seat in Massachusetts. I think on the "Daily Show" Jon Stewart told Warren that he wanted to kiss her which is pretty funny.]
The good news is that now millions of Republicans are going to start questioning the critical thinking skills of their party leaders, questioning their stances on supply-side economics, climate change, and the deficit -- after all if the Reps showed themselves to be so inept at objectively recognizing the clear signs of this election, what else might they be getting wrong? Oh wait, that's probably not going to happen. I'm guessing very little is going to change with the Reps, at least not yet. But we shall see. Perhaps the most distressing part for the GOP is how the electoral college broke down this election. Romney could have carried Florida, Ohio, and Viriginia, and he still would've lost. The "tipping point" state was Colorado which went to Obama by nearly 5 points. And keep in mind, Obama is the incumbent in the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. What would the results have been if everything was going swimmingly? Obviously a lot can change quickly, I don't believe anybody can predict with any accuracy the sentiment of our country years in advance, but if, in 2016, it's anything close to what it's been the past four or five years, the Republicans are going to find themselves steep underdogs again.
[From Nate Silver's blog.]
A question that's been on many people's mind since Tuesday is: What can the Republicans do to turn things around? Certainly not mocking climate change a few weeks before a series of devastating storms is one thing, toning down the rape-children-are-God's-will rhetoric and the fight against contraception are others, taking a more progressive (and realistic) path on immigration is yet another. But the main thing, in my mind, is to quit treating people who are struggling to find work and make ends meet as if they're inferior beings. It's one thing to promote personal responsibility and hard work (values that just about everybody can get behind regardless of politics). It's quite another to make people who were laid-off during a terrible economic crash -- people who were good at their jobs and did nothing wrong, and now can't find work because they're just isn't enough work to be found -- feel like trash. Many unemployed people aren't moochers trying to sponge off the John Galts of society, they're people who got hit in 2007, and have since been crowded out of the slow recovery. If you disagree with my assessment ask yourself this: What were all the "moochers" doing pre-2007? If Mitt's "47%" just want free rides, then why were they working before the crash, why weren't they living off the government's dime then? The obvious answer: they want to work, but can't, because our economy currently isn't allowing it.***
[Also very happy gay marriage passed in my home state. The first time it has even been approved by vote (along with Maryland and Maine).]
Here's an excerpt from writer Matt Taibbi's blog expressing a similar sentiment. I actually don't really like Taibbi's style. Something about it rubs me the wrong way, but I think the general message he's delivering below is spot-on.
Similarly, the fact that so many Republicans this week
think that all Hispanics care about is amnesty, all women want is
abortions (and lots of them) and all teenagers want is to sit on their
couches and smoke tons of weed legally, that tells you everything you
need to know about the hopeless, anachronistic cluelessness of the
modern Republican Party. A lot of these people, believe it or not, would
respond positively, or at least with genuine curiosity, to the
traditional conservative message of self-reliance and fiscal
responsibility.
But modern Republicans will never be able to spread
that message effectively, because they have so much of their own
collective identity wrapped up in the belief that they're surrounded by
free-loading, job-averse parasites who not only want to smoke weed and
have recreational abortions all day long, but want hardworking white
Christians like them to pay the tab. Their whole belief system, which is
really an endless effort at congratulating themselves for how hard they
work compared to everyone else (by the way, the average "illegal," as
Rush calls them, does more real work in 24 hours than people like Rush
and me do in a year), is inherently insulting to everyone outside the
tent – and you can't win votes when you're calling people lazy, stoned
moochers.
OK, that's all I have time for. I have to hit up a quick run (to work off all that candy I've been munching on from our seemingly endless Halloween variety pack) and then get ready to see the movie Argo. I guess, this election recap wasn't so brief, and I didn't really get to any "other stuff". Oh well.
Until next time...
*And he wasn't even really wrong on the one he didn't call. He said Florida was a "coin toss", which it basically was, but guessed it would go to Romney, which it didn't. That's the thing about setting odds, if you say something is 50-50, your odds aren't right if you can pick the winner every time. Your odds are right if you can pick the winner half the time. On a similar note, the past two presidential elections Silver called 101 out of 102 states (plus D.C.). It makes me wonder if he's underselling the odds of a state going the way he favors it to go. Of course the number of swing states in that sample is much, much smaller than 102, it's probably less than 20, and it's hard to say anything definitive based on that size sample. I'd have to study it more, which I'm probably not going to do, so I'll just leave it as something I'm curious about.
**The popular vote was kind of close, but the electoral college wasn't, and obviously it's the latter that determines the president.
***By the way, the Reps have a very strange message concerning jobs. On the one hand they say "don't blame the government blame yourself", on the other hand they attack Obama for stifling job growth. Which is it?
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