Election Day Jukebox And Open Thread
"Handlebars" by the Flobots
Tell your voting stories here. Was it a touch screen? Was it a punch ballot? Was it a scan-tron kinda ballot? Tell the rumors you heard about other people’s voting stories here. Heck, everybody knows that the person who comes in first will be this guy or that guy and the guy who comes in second will be the other. Who is going to come in fifth? Seventh?
Will pot pass in zero, one, two, or even more than that states? Has gay marriage finally turned the corner? Good god, does *MATH* still work the way it used to?
And, on top of everything else, forget the Washington Redskins losing at home, how in the heck did the Jets lose to the Dolphins?
We still have the inkblot. I expect my voting experience to be pretty unremarkable.
My music selection for the day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBf1e6WWWA0&feature=shareReport
One of my discarded ideas for a weekend jukebox involved the songs, boom boom boom boom, boom boom boom, boom boom, and then boom.Report
In all honesty, I don’t thin it makes a lick of difference
who wins today’s establishment Dog & Pony showReport
I was planning to do early voting Friday before I flew out but I got stuck at work too long and couldn’t make it – so I’m watching from afar.Report
I am predicting that same-sex marriage will not pass in any state.Report
Yeesh, expect the worst so all your surprises are pleasant no? I agree SSM underperforms its polling but some of these voting states have really really good numbers for SSM (not mine, MN I fear could pass this loathsome ammendment).Report
Sucks, too. Haven’t really done my part here, either, other than voting of course…Report
Took a half day from work canvassing. Spirits were high but I’m in Minneapolis proper so of course SSM is popular here. So far looks like the Mainers at least are poised to bust Maggie’s unbroken winning streak on popular SSM referenda. That’ll gall her a lot I imagine.Report
The Equality Maine volunteers in Maine have been amazing this year.
I want to dance at my brother’s wedding.
North, if it passes, and I believe it will, we’d welcome you here in ME. Got a lot in common with MN, but the shore’s salt water, the hills are bigger, and the farmland’s more affordable. (Husband’s from MN.)Report
I got married across the Fundy in Nova Scotia a couple years back now Zic. Maybe I’ll try and sell the husband on a little Maine American wedding outing. Hmm maybe around lobster season…. mmmm yes… that sounds pretty good *tents fingers*.Report
I hope you’re wrong. I think it has a decent shot at passing in Washington and Maine.Report
I hope you’re wrong; I’m visiting Seattle right now. Hoping for some jubilation in the gay bars this evening!Report
You are quite incorrect about both your home state and Doc’s. I’m very happy for both of you and your Better Halfs.Report
I will happily admit that I was wrong. The case for pessimism seemed strong, particularly after California, and I’ve been pessimistic for a reason that no one else seems to accept as a factor, namely that existing laws are self-normalizing. When something’s on the books, it’s the law, and “being a law” generates a constituency all by itself.
That seems to be holding less and less, at least in this case.Report
Liberty actually didn’t do *TOO* bad last night. Marriage Equality, first and foremost indicates a tipping point… for example, I don’t think that Prop 8 would have passed in California had it been on the ballot yesterday.
Not to trivialize that big achievement by comparing it to something as silly as recreational MJ, but two out of three states legalized recreational MJ as well which is a huge blow to the WOD.
There were advancements made by the states and they’re pointed in a good direction. There’s reason to believe that the Feds won’t get in the way on Marriage. Which ain’t nothin’.Report
Recreational MJ is huge. It may prove to be the biggest single development from last night.
Same-sex marriage is great, of course, but not too many people are getting killed or imprisoned over it. If you want to work for liberty, work for legalizing pot. The time is clearly right, and the abuses in the name of the Drug War have been atrocious.Report
I’m happy to say it looks like this was an excellent libertarian election. SSM won, Pot won, Garry Johnson got a share of the vote bigger than the margin of victory between the D’s and R’s in Florida and the dominant meme’s on the right just got kicked in the balls.
Surely now either the Dems who’ve been dealt a real solid by libertarian and liberaltarian minded voters or the GOP who’re desperately in need of an ideology overhaul will give libertarianism another look?Report
Here’s hoping they say “they didn’t vote for Romney” rather than “they didn’t vote for Obama” but I think that the Libertarians Should Be Considered Republicans In Spirit meme was shaken a little last night… maybe it’ll go away eventually.Report
I voted early a couple weeks ago. My wife discovered that she wasn’t registered, or to be more precise, her registration reflected an address from several years ago, so all she could do was a provisional that is unlikely to be counted at all. This was despite voting in 2008, so there’s that.
Overall a disappointing process. I had exactly zero down-ballot choices, as in everyone on the ballot was a Republican running un-opposed. US Rep, State Senator and Rep, County Commissioners–the whole lot of them. A Constitutional Amendment to alter the property tax treatment of watercraft, like I give a flying-F one way or the other. And a measure to basically continue a local sales tax that was originally for some other purpose and now is to go for a new municipal pool (voted yes, basically for the missus since she couldn’t vote. See Above.)
A more or less pointless endeavor, but hey! I exercised my franchise as a citizen! Woo-Hoo!Report
An election juke:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTCRwi71_ns&w=560&h=315%5DReport
I like this version (and video) of “Handlebars” better:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLUX0y4EptA
The difference is subtle, I know, but the intensity is different.
Also, “Why?”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXhbSmL3Liw
Seems appropriate given a subthread on one of the other election posts yesterday.Report
I like that version of the song better too… but when this album first came out, I was monumentally irritated with it because they’re wearing bandanas Sandinista-style on the front of the album and it’s obviously intended as a shotgun blast against the Bush Administration. “WE’RE EMULATING SANDINISTAS NOW!”, I’m sure you can imagine me yelling in the car.
Then, you know, I listened to the song a handful of times and, seriously, it’s a good song.
I kinda like this video, though, because the shotgun blast was a hair broad in scope and, in modern circumstances, one notices aesthetic choices that the artists now probably regret having made.
And that sort of thing always tickles me pink.Report
We voted just after 7am, when the pols opened. Line out the door, but only half as long as I recall from 2008 when it wrapped around the parking lot.
Electronic machine, same we’ve had since I moved here 15 years ago. We always take the kids. My son went into the booth with me and got to press the lit up ‘cast my ballot’ button for me. That is, after carefully checking to be sure I really had voted for Obama and Casey – DS currently wants to be a field biologist for the WWF when he grows up and is less than impressed with GOP attitudes toward endangered species and climate change. 😉Report
Wait, you’re in PA?
3% unsecured loan — http://www.keystonehelp.com/
Me, I voted for free jobs. (yes, airsealing is “nearly” free, as it does cost some amount of a job for the natural gas folks, of course…)
Can you convince your son to head up north and shoot some deer? They’re eating the entire forest up there…Report
Yep. We didn’t get those loans to do it, but we upgraded our furnace for more efficiency a couple years ago, added good windows, etc. DS still wants to add solar, but I’ve been buying him little wind project kits to prove that that makes more sense for where we live. (Hubby and I are both engineers – our kids will either be geeks or become art history majors to rebel).
DS is 8 and just learning to use a bow, so he wouldn’t be much help with deer. Our greyhounds, otoh, have kept our garden and foliage pretty safe. 😉Report
Have you had an energy auditor by? Our house has zero insulation in the walls. Absolutely none. This work is gonna be EASY! (doesn’t mean we’re doing it ourselves, of course).
Where in PA you at? (I’m in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh)Report
We’re in a ~50 yr old house – well insulated to begin with, but we added in the attic.
I’m at the opposite end of PA, midway between Philly and Allentown. But I was born in Pittsburgh – both of my parents grew up in Carrick.Report
Forgot to add: now I understand the deer problem. Whenever I visit the graves I have to look for flowers that deer don’t like!Report
The lady that works the graveyard shift on monday nights requested the day off for some reason. Which means I got off work at 6am. Killed an hour shopping and listening to NPR, and showed up just in time for the polls to open at 7. Filled out my ballot (optical scan paper) and went to drop it in the box, when I got to see something really cool.
Because I was casting the very first ballot of the day, the poll worker opened up the box and demonstrated to my satisfaction that it was empty, before closing and sealing it.Report
That is awesome. I am surprised by how pleased I am to know that that has been done in at least one place.Report
Voted by mail a couple of weeks ago. About 70% of active registered voters in Colorado are now on the permanent mail-in ballot list, so exit polling is probably meaningless. I walked by the early voting station at the local library a couple of times while it was open last week; it was nearly deserted.Report
Those of you who are familiar with the Redskins Rule should hunker down. (Those of you who are not familiar with it should know that there is a surprisingly high correlation between the winner of the last Redskins home game before the election and the winner of the election.)
Kazzy just pointed this article out to me… and here’s the first paragraph:
The NFL said Monday that a 30-yard touchdown run by Carolina Panthers running back DeAngelo Williams against the Washington Redskins should not have counted because of an inadvertent whistle.Report
So now we get to listen to conspiracy theories about how the NFL referees stole the election?Report
WE WERE BETTER OFF WITH THE REPLACEMENT REFSReport
As I recall, the Redskins lost at home, which means the incumbent (Obama) will lose. That they lost because of a wrong call should therefore mean that Obama will lose due to Republican voter suppression/changes to the election law to prevent people’s ballots from being cancelled.
Either that, or this is the year the Redskins Rule falls.Report
a wrong call should therefore mean that Obama will lose due to Republican voter suppression/changes to the election law to prevent people’s ballots from being cancelled.
I think a better analogy would be that mistakes made by the officials rather than by members of one of the two teams would result in the game going this way rather than that.Report
Arrived at my Maryland polling place a bit after 8am with 3-year-old Alice in tow. At first she was super excited to vote. We talked about the literature we were handed; how the green paper with the “7” on it means “Go 7” and the red paper with a “7” means “Stop 7.” An hour later the line allowed us to enter the building, and we had already experienced our first “I don’t wanna vote, Papa.” I explained that we needed to vote for a certain thing (I’m on my break at work, so I can make this comment but can’t even kinda endorse a stance.) She had thought briefly about that, and then was on board again. (“On board” is appropriate, because Alice often thought we were going to “boat,” not “vote.”)
The hour and a half wait inside with no food or water might have destroyed her, but she managed to hold it more or less together by running around my legs and making-believe with the pamphlets. She even was asking to go to the booths, so there wasn’t ever any dragging her in the opposite direction of where she’s decided to go. What did destroy her, though, was when we actually got to the voting booth, it was in view of the church’s kitchen. “Restaurant! I wanna go to the restaurant! I’m HUNGRY!!” So, as I cast my votes, she began to scream and cry. At one point she began swatting the power cord hanging up along the side of the machines. A headline about some idiot who brought his 3-year-old to a voting center crashing the entire system flashed before my eyes, and I used The Voice to put a stop to that. (This is why parents of screaming children don’t always respond with The Voice–sometimes it is needed to avert actual disaster.)
I had looked forward to Alice helping in some way, but we were beyond that. We were all the way down to “Papa’s leaving now” and walking away from the screaming tot in a room full of annoyed people, because had I grabbed her, she still could have grabbed the power cord. (I actually physically shuddered just now thinking about it.) Alice eventually perceived the rest of her life spent “voting” and came running after me, screaming even louder. I would have felt thoroughly awful about the whole thing if Alice hadn’t been mostly a source of amusement for my fellow voters in the 2 hours leading up to the end. As I left with my sobbing daughter, an elderly lady said “She really did do well.” She knew just what I needed to hear.Report
“I thought you said we were going to boat.”
Man. That’s one of those things that when you find out that we’re just going to be standing in line at a grownup place for grownup stuff and there aren’t even any toys or games?
For what it’s worth, it sounds like you did a great job wrangling. I can totally see why Alice saw that as a letdown, though.Report
That’s funny, my 3-yr old asked me where my wife was when he got up (she went right before polls opened) and I had a devil of a time getting him to grasp that she went to ‘Vote’, not ‘Boat’ (“but *I* want to go to the water too!”). We also tried to explain what a “President” is.
There were only 6 ahead of her when the poll opened. I went when she got home, and walked right in, no wait.Report
I wanted to go boat, too, but somehow found myself in the cow barn at the fairgrounds to vote. I understand how disappointed your poor kids are.
FWIW, the advantage of living in small town America is that it took me less than ten minutes to vote, and that includes having to do it twice because I messed up my first ballot. Suck it, city slickers!Report
A 2-hour wait to vote? That’s horrifying. The only time I’ve ever spent more than 15 minutes in a polling place is when I volunteered to work there the whole day.Report
I voted (same polling place of course) and had a similar wait time. We were apparently in line simultaneously for part of that.
I attribute the long wait to lots of recent residential construction around our precinct. They really ought to enlarge the facilities or break it into two.Report
And the poll-closing was delayed at least 2 hours in Virginia to let people already in line vote. There’s no excuse for that, and it has to get fixed. (Me? In and out in five minutes, and that long only because I stopped to chat with the poll workers.)Report
there speaks a woman who’s been there before.
(one does ask why people dont’ have some sort of disorganized daycare going on…)Report
Alice sounds enormously precious. I can see the headlines now: “toddler crashes federal election.Cato’s Jason Kuznicki, Libertarian parent is quoted “I couldn’t be more proud!”Report
Voted this morning (ink blot) at the Catholic Church up in the Forest. I was right in and out after dropping the boys off at school. No personhood or marriage items on the agenda this time around, but the ubiquitous marijuana measure was there, along with the sheriff and the transit authority asking for more money (“no” to the sheriff, “yes” to the rta. A few years ago we said “no” to the new criminal justice building but the county “found” the money to build it anyway, so screw those guys). Sixteen candidates for president on the ballot!Report
Not an American, but I have a collection of ballot measures I’ll be watching very closely. Fingers crossed for “yes” on California Prop 34 (abolish death penalty) and Prop 36 (scale back three-strikes law), “no” on Prop. 37 (label GMOs; shows that conservatives aren’t the only ones who can prefer superstition above science), “yes” on at least one recreational marijuana use referendum (on the ballot in Washington, Oregon and Colorado), “yes” on Florida Amendment 6 (restricting abortion) and “no” on Massachusetts Question 2 (euthanasia). And, on Russell and North’s behalfs, “yes” on Maine, Maryland and Washington allowing same-sex marriage and “no” on Minnesota passing an amendment against it.
Why yes, I do refuse to be put in a neat ideological box.Report
Back when I was considering (and abandoned) writing a post similar to Ethan’s for the front page, I made two macros of Romney and Obama, both saying “smoke weed every day”.
I wanted to make some of Ryan and Biden as well and I figured that all four in a grid could make the picture that accompanied the post… but lost my taste for it halfway through looking at pictures of Biden.
I suppose I should dig up the Romney/Obama ones, though…Report
but lost my taste for it halfway through looking at pictures of Biden.
And we honour your sacrifice. 😛Report
Here’s a pic of Biden.Report
You are a cruel and unusual person. Why did I click on that?!Report
Hey, I warned you! It’s not like I said, “here’s a kitten”!
Although if I could have somehow paired that pic with a Rick Astley soundtrack, I would’ve, I admit.Report
Heh, Katherine. I voted correctly on CA Props 34, 36, 37. Mebbe someday you’ll stop saying lousy things about me. Not that you should anyway. I have feelings too.Report
I voted that way too, but no on 37 only because it was badly written. In principle, I think disclosure is a good thing.Report
About zero wait, courtesy of going in after 9am. Cost: $20 or so (vacation time).
Remember, I live in one of the few states with no early voting. Voting during the day is a very nice thing to do. (nearly running over a physics prof while doing so, however, is not).Report
Foreign monitors amazed US doesn’t require ID to vote
Wow and all this time dems keep bleating about voter suppression.
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/11/06/foreign_election_officials_amazed_by_trust_based_us_voting_systemReport
Scott. Dude. @ 9:43, the time of your post, a clean Obama win is shaping up, although that might change. But either way, don’t be a Sore Loserman in advance. Let it play out.Report
Sincere thanks for that, Tom. I was just having supper, eating dessert, in a truck stop and (of course) Fox News was on and the guy next to me was glued to the early results. He made some comment about Obama and I turned to him and said, “Hey, I lived through eight years of Bush, you can handle another four of Obama.” Shit, he got all pissed; I thought he was going to hit me. I was like, “Whoa! I just want to finish my ice cream and get out of here.”
You’re not my enemy. We just disagree about some stuff, you know?
Anyway, I’m following NPR online and right now they’re at Romney 160, Obama 148 but that doesn’t include the west coast with Cali’s 55, so I think you’re right. It’s probably going to be O with about 300 E.C.; pretty much what the oddsmaker’s expected.Report
Cheers, Rod. My quiet prediction [friends] has been that the economy will grow under either man. Time of uncertainty is over, time for all of us to get off our hands and do our American thing instead of trying to outsmart the government and the market.
Let’s surprise ourselves! 😉Report
Good on ya Tom.Report
Well, along those lines I’m seriously considering making the jump to Owner-Operator vs. company driver. That would make me a small business. Woo-Hoo. A bit more money in exchange for a bit more risk (fuel prices, freight rates, repair costs, etc.). The upswing out of a recession seems like the right time to do that. I just worry about the damn “fiscal cliff”. Tell me the clowns in Washington aren’t that stupid? Pretty please??Report
Depends on this election and what message the clowns on each side take away from it.Report
I can’t assure you about that, Rod. My very left boss, Clinton-Obama kool-aid drinker and fundraiser, and a friend for a decade, axed me about the ‘fiscal cliff’ on Monday. I shrugged. What??? This is news to you? I barely could tell what he was even talking about.
This is California. Between the San Andreas Fault and our Dem government, we live on the cliff, one tremblor away from disaster at all times.Report
Oh I know that. It’s like asking when’s the right time to commit to starting a family or buying your first house. Sometimes you just have to go for it.Report
Do it, man. If all else fails, you can drive out of here, and go work in Canada/Mexico.Report
Props for that sentiment., Mr. TVD. Democracy depends upon the losing side buying in to the legitimacy of the process sufficiently to live with the result. Roughly half of us will have to find a way to accept a President we didn’t vote for. Crying “Cheaters!” before the results are even in won’t help that happen.Report
Aye, friend Likko. At some point in all our lives, we will be outvoted. Welcome to civilization.Report
It’s a shame I’m a few hundred miles away from being able to buy you guys a beer.Report
Burt:
I’m not saying Barry and his ilk are cheaters. No, I’m just pointing out that even foreigners are amazed the US doesn’t require voters to have ID. If they think it is necessary I really wonder why Dems keep bleating about it?Report
Well if you want to imitate the foreigners you’d have to have a national ID card too Scott, oh and universal healthcare.Report
North:
So you are saying if we do this one thing we have to do everything that foreigners do? We can pick and choose what we adopt from others, so I fail to see the logic in your statement but I’m sure it makes sense to you.Report
Scott, the healthcare bit was a dig but the national ID wasn’t. All the nations you’re citing, every single one, has a national ID card of some sort and their electoral systems are built on those. I’d note also that the vast majority of those nations you’re pointing to as en example also have their federal elections managed by non-politician bureaucrats or independent agencies.
Those things, which I presume you’d not be very in favor of, are the basis for those countries ID laws.Report
Do you really wonder? Incredible. Maybe you might want to go back through various threads and read all the reasons people laid out against the idea. There was a lot of debate on this site, I remember that.Report
Scott. Voter ID is a good point. Perhaps some other time, not tonight.
BTW—while I waited in line to vote at my precinct, I observed Election Official Mrs. TVD patiently explain to a young gal who spoke in a delightfully accented English that the records showed that she had been mailed an absentee ballot.
Unless you surrender that physical absentee ballot to your kind election official right here right now, you cannot vote via the regular ballot right now, although you may cast a “provisional” [subject to future examination] ballot right now.
I didn’t hear the rest, but youngblood gal just shrugged, and bailed.
Whatever.Report
What North said. Plus it depends a lot on implementation. Kansas has a “strict” voter ID law, but the list of items that counts as ID is fairly liberal, including things like a college ID, CCW card, and half-dozen other items so there is much less of an issue wrt disparate impact on minorities and other folks likely to vote Dem. Maybe it’s because we’re so damn Red at the moment that they don’t care if the loyal opposition casts their cute little ballots in token protest.Report
Given in-person ballot fraud has got to be the stupidest method of attempting to steal an election (as well as the most pointless), I’ve never really understood why anyone was seriously upset about it.
Well, I understand how it would work as casual and pervasive voter suppression. I mean the people who get all upset thinking there’s nefarious schemes to steal elections that can be stopped by requiring a specific photo ID.
You want to steal an election, you have to rig the count or the machines. Having a bunch of people voting more than once, or voting as other people? It’s like trying to steal enough money to buy a private jet by lurking around the bank tellers and trying to scoop up dropped change.Report
Given how easy it is to get a FAKE id???Report
We had a decent voter Id — had to prove residency, but as little as a utility bill would do it. Now, the nursing homes can issue anyone an id, but the local government can’t issue anyone one.Report
Well we have our first Lesbian US Senator. I’m chuffed with that and it doesn’t look like Ryan is going to carry his home state. That’s going to be a bitter pill, and a potentially fatal one if Ohio goes blue. Then again Mitt is fighting for his life in Virginia and Florida right now to which I can only say ouch.Report
Where are you hearing Baldwin won? I saw she led the exits but I’ve not seen anyone call it for her yet, this is the race I’m trying to watch the most closely after POTUS.Report
Oh sorry, Sully called it and I wasn’t paying attention. Still it’s looking good for her.Report
And it’s looking good for SSM in Maine, which I believe is the state Russell lives in (?).Report
It truly is *knocks on wood* and yes he does. If only one of the four states pass it Maine would be the one I’d pick. I don’t have kids and the Doc could use it more.
The one consolation in this is that we only need to win one of the four contests and the entire “SSM has never won the popular vote” meme dies in screaming agony. That digging sound you’ll hear will be the SSM opponents frantically moving the goalposts back again.Report
Agreed. That’s one of the reasons it really matters. But there aren’t any good goalposts to fall back to. With the demographics, it’s all a matter of time.Report
I would assume the new goalpost will be something like “SSM has lost in the overwhelming majority of popular votes.” It’s pretty cobbled and hackney, I agree, but they either have to work with that or fold up NOM and lay Maggie off.
But yeah, from Civil unions have never passed in court to civil unions have never passed in the legislature to SSM has never succeeded in court to SSM has never succeeded in the legislature to SSM has never won the popular vote all the way down to the feeble “SSM hasn’t won the majority of the popular votes”. That’s one heck of a slide in a decade and change.Report
I’m with you 100%.Report
The good guys are ahead in all 4 states. Politico has called it in both Maine and Maryland. Yay, Doc!
If all four win, NOM will have to dry up and blow away.Report
Colorado’s mj initiative passed as well I understand. All in all a good night for team blue.Report
We won in Minnesota! I’m so hung over right now, you can’t imagine the dancing last night. The Doc and I are having an awsome evening.Report
Cheers!Report
And now the perfect hangover cure:
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/332853/mistakes-and-losses-maggie-gallagher
Ohh… the tears of ultimate sorrow! They’re so delicious!*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owzhYNcd4OM
*Cruel, I know, but she’s been dancing on my life and the life of my friends with spiky heels for a decade. Just gimmie this one.Report
I am more than a little bemused by Maggie’s claim that Romney’s problem- and the GOP’s- is that they aren’t pushing social conservatism hard enough. Cuz, y’know, Akin and Mourdock did sooooooo well in fishing Missouri and Indiana (not exactly bastions of social libertinism) last night.
Given the way all the ballot measures went last night, I think it’s probably more fair to say that Romney lost in no small part because of social conservatism, not in spite of it.
Conservatives’ insistence on marrying national politics to the culture wars is killing them. There is no other reason, in a shitty economy, for a Generic Republican (which is what Romney is and was) to lose to an incumbent Democrat. But instead, Maggie is blaming a “truce” on the culture wars that her own actions helped ensure was never actually offered.Report
But most importantly, congratulations to you, Doc, Jason, and Boegiboe. Enjoy what must surely be a wonderful day!Report
And Maggie’s claim that pushing the social issues will help conservative appeal to Latinos is undermined by exit polling showing that a majority of Latino voters now support SSM. I find that pretty damned surprising, but even if it’s not truly a majority, it’s clearly close enough to one that there’s just not lots of room for soc cons to gain traction there.Report
Thanks Mark, between this and the legalized pot (oh and Obama winning all the marbles isn’t bad) I’m over the moon.Report
Good point, James. I wonder the extent to which that is influenced by the fact that anti-immigration hysteria is an integral part of the suite of social conservative pet issues. Being anti-everyone who isn’t a WEC presumably has a tendency to provide cause for everyone you’re against to find common cause against you on everything.
I seem to remember someone writing about this four years ago.
I wonder who that could have been…….oh yeah:
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/schwenkler/try-a-little-tenderness/Report
Mark,
That was one smart dude. Any relation? 😉
I’ll offer a caveat to my former comment, though. Latinos are still only 10% of the electorate, which means there’s still less than a majority of Latinos voting. It’s theoretically possible that the more liberal ones have gotten involved and the more conservative ones are yet to be mobilized. Seems pretty doubtful, though.Report
And the first two comments to that, both insisting that Mark is wrong about conservatism needing to be less mean, are Bob Cheeks and some dude who quotes Stonewall Jackson’s chief of staff approvingly. Don’t ever change, guys.Report
I smell a Freudian slip or something in Maggie’s comments.
The Obama electorate defeated marriage. I’m guessing we lose at least three of tonight’s four races, and maybe four of the four. We were outspent eight-to-one — and no one was willing to speak for marriage, while the whole Democratic establishment and Hollywood campaigned for marriage.
First she says the Obama camp “defeated” marriage and her side spoke “for” it – but then that the Dems and Hollywood campaigned FOR marriage.
The change in the public view of what constitutes ‘support for marriage’ is getting to her.Report
Still waiting for the final results in Washington, but it looks like it’s going to be four for four. Hooray!!Report
I think Allen-Kaine in Virginia is going to go into overtime a la Coleman Franken in Minnesota.Report
*groan*Report
eh, maybe not. It’s now over a 1% / 40,000 vote lead for Kaine.Report
Historic moment: Mitt Romney becomes first presidential candidate to lose two of his three home states.Report
Following the historic moment of Mitt Romney becoming the first presidential candidate to even have three home states.Report
You been downright funny lately, DRS.Report
MI and MA… what’s the third one?Report
UtahReport
No, seriously? I had no idea he lived there.Report
Well, he’s a Mormon and he ran the SLC Olympics. It was a bit tongue in cheek. But if we don’t give him the benefit of counting it then he’s lost both his home states, which ought to make Al Gore feel a litte better.Report
He actually does have a house there. Give him a break i bet he would have won the Cayman Island vote.Report
His true home, if we go by the Biblical “where your treasure is, there your heart shall be also”.Report
+1,000Report
CA.Report
He also lost the state where he has one of his vacation homes. New Hampshire. That he’d lose California, where he has another vacation home was a no-brainer.Report
George Allen concedes in Virginia; Akin loses in Missouri.Report
Mitch is having a very bad night.Report
I predict there’s going to be a lot of wailing and gnashing of Republican teeth over Florida: Romney and Obama are about 40,000 votes apart – and Johnson got 42,000 votes. That’s going to leave a mark somewhere, I think.Report
Projected: Obama Wins Ohio. Game Over.Report
Yeah CNN is projecting Obama in Iowa and Fox is projecting Obama in Ohio. That’s it for Romney. Now it’s just a question of degrees of agony, if Obama takes Florida and Colorado (and he looks like he has a shot at Virginia of all places) then we’re getting into serious GOP agony territory.Report
NPR is being cautious (one might even say, conservative) and they have him at 265 with VA, FL, CO, WI, and NV still to be called. It looks to me like he’s likely to win with enough that even a recount in FL wouldn’t matter. NO REPLAY OF 2000!!! Thank Atheist Gods!Report
And an Agnostic Amen to that brother Rod! The way the numbers are falling in it looks like he’ll have a popular vote victory too once the West Coast numbers are added! No split vote! Thanks be!Report
Update NPR has called CO, WI, and NV for Obama. That makes 290. So even a reversal of Ohio at this point doesn’t matter. Woo Hoo!!Report
Yep. Obama won and Florida is irrelevant, even though it still hasn’t been called.Report
Fox has called the election for Obama.
I am now laughing my ass off at everyone who either predicted a big win for Romney (Michael Barone, Unskewed Polls, and our very own MFarmer) or who planted their flag on the territory of mathematical ignorance to attack Nate Silver’s models (including our very own TVD and George Turner).
Unfortunately, there is effectively zero chance that any of those folks will reflect on this moment and choose to renounce ignorance. A redoubling of their commitment to their bliss is far more likely.Report
Well admissibly Dick Morris is having a very bad night.Report
Whenever Dick Morris has a bad night an angel gets its wings.Report
Let them fully adjust to the Enlightenment and then they will get right with math.Report
I had to stop holding my breath a long time ago.Report
I’ve been thinking about this all evening.
I’m toying with they idea of having us choose, say, 10 high-profile pundits, 5 Dems and 5 Repubs. (Not hosts, like Hannity or O’Donnell, but the “experts” that regularly appear on those show.) What we’d do is keep track of ll of their predictions over some period of time (say, Nov. 5 – the end of the first 100 days) and report on their success regularly here.
We’d see after a period of time how bad (or well) they actually performed.
I think it could become a thing.Report
The pundit scorecards were one of my favorite parts of Brill’s Content.Report
That’s somewhat unfair, insofar as most pundits aren’t generally required to be accurate. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.
They don’t even have incentives to be right! They have incentives to buck conventional wisdom (the wisdom of crowds, so to speak) because nobody remembers you if you’re right on something everyone else was right on, but they remember that one time you were the lone voice — even though it was a total fluke.
Although I did enjoy — what was it, Friedman units? That was a fun decade.Report
Dude. Nate’s friends attack his models, cause they’re fairly pedestrian and conservative.
(who polls the skype voters??). His model was not the best predictor, as far as I’ve heard (I’ll check again tonight).
But I leave it to the modelers to argue over which model is better — because they actually use facts to arrive at conclusions, rather than just wishful thinking.Report
Dick Morris prediction = kiss of death
I’d hire him as an NFL prognosticator and make beaucoup bucks betting the other way. King Midas in reverse.Report
There are a fair amount of liberals who, correctly feel that way about Morris.Report
FWIW…Tammy Baldwin, wins and is the first openly gay Senator.Report
She graduated from the cross-town rival high school to mine about 16 ears before I did. Represented the district I’ve lived in for most of my life for 13 years. I think she might be the first Madison-native U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, I’ll have to check. Keeps the GOP from owning every statewide office in a four-peat of major pick-up GOP victories (including the recall, which to be fair wasn’t a GOP pick-up, but preserved one). Singlehandedly resurrects an ailing Wisconsin Democratic Party candidate bench and proves a Madison liberal (lesbian!?) can win statewide in a more-or-less standard if not Democratic-unfriendly environment (pending further analysis of the electorate) (a proposition whose plausibility even many Democrats in the state openly questioned up to and through Tuesday evening). Thus perhaps significantly altered the future of Wisconsin politics from what had begun to look suddenly quite dim for Democrats with a nascent GOP political machine headed by two national superstars to being likely very competitive at the statewide level for the time being. And to do all that, she had to beat Tommy Thompson himself. (Though who knows perhaps she’ll suck in office and be tossed in 2018. I kinda doubt it though.)
In other words, beyond the national ID-politics history being made tonight (which I don’t characterize that way to be dismissive, only for shorthand – in fact, I think a prime consequence of the last four years in my political thinking is a significant shift in favor of identity politics, but that’s a discussion for a different time), this is quite a big deal for just plain old Wisconsin politics, given where the trend lines were pointing in the state over the last three years. (Though perhaps it would have been well to just not forget what its behavior was in 2008 and let that be our guide. My gob is nevertheless a bit smacked right at the moment. The hits keep coming for this state it seems. Wish I was home tonight.)Report
I wish I were there, too, MD, today more than I have in a while.
I was in college at Madison when she first ran for the House and I remember the chatter at the time that she was too far out to win the district, even with most of Madison behind her.
Now she’s won a Senate seat.
Perhaps most remarkable to me is, not long after all these gut punches from state politics over the last few years, not only did she win, but her sexuality was barely a campaign issue at all. I have to tip my hat former Gov. Thompson for taking a higher road than many on his side would have in the past.Report
Truely great news, I’m glad for ya Michael. Heck, I’m glad for us all.Report
Oddly enough, I also know someone who knew Tammy way back when.
(that wasn’t so unexpected: the shock was that he hadn’t had sex with her 😉 ).Report
Senate results are interesting. Moralist right-wingers go done in Indiana and Missouri, inadvertently making a statement about where the future of the Republican Pary does mot lie, and in Nebraska Dem. Bob Kerry once again demonstrates Fitzgeralds truism that there are no second acts in America. Like a once respected athlete coming out of retirement to humiliate himself, it’s kind of sad to see, but he’s got no one to blame but himself.Report
The other day, I said the GOP always chooses the worst guy on their slate. Had they chosen anyone but Romney we wouldn’t be looking at four more years of Obama. Anyone else could have attacked Obamacare with conviction.
While the movers and shakers of the GOP continue to cling to wishful thinking about a return to a past which never was, it’s actually somewhat worse than the un-retired athlete. If we set the Wayback Machine to 2002, we see how Romney actually won his only election. He played competent and moderate. Those movers and shakers forced Romney far to the right, beyond his natural stance as a moderate technocrat.
Romney became whatever those movers and shakers told him to be. Romney should have hung up on them and gone with his gut, as he did in Massachusetts. Those movers and shakers alienated too many natural conservatives: thing nobody seems to understand about Hispanos, they are what these Family Values types want the rest of us to be. If ever there was a Natural Conservative, it’s these new Hispanic voters. It’s shocking, how Obama ignored that constituency and still got their votes: they would have peeled off for Romney if the GOP wasn’t so rabidly paranoid about Brown People.Report
I’m particularly bitter about Mourdock knocking off Lugar in the Indiana Republican primaries. Lugar’s a goddam American hero. He did as much as any man alive to secure loose nuclear materials after the collapse of the Soviet Union, to keep them out of the hands of terrorists. And half the time he had to fight an uphill battle against public and congressional apathy because”the Cold War is over, hooray, we didn’t need to think about that stuff anymore.” Right.
But as my mom said when she voted for Mourdock, “What’s Lugar done for us lately?” So they booted him out in favor of a right-wing moralist. And they threw away a Republican Senate seat. Serves them right.
Oh, Thanksgiving with my fundamentalist cousins going to be fun this year. They’d better not ask me to carve the turkey or I’ll be stuck trying to figure out which one to start with.Report
Well, it’s likely they won’t win the hispanic vote for a generation or more now. Unless hispanics stand out from other demographics, they’ve been voting heavily Democratic for several election cycles now — more and more heavily each cycle.
Yanking them Republican would require not just a sea change in Republican views on immigration, but time as well. Overnight changes in the Hispanic vote are just…unlikely at this point.Report