I do my best to avoid them, though I'm familiar with how they operate. This issue just seems particularly trivial to me.

If you think debating issues that might have made the difference between an Obama win and a Romney win is trivial, you have, indeed, done a fine job of avoiding BBTF's political threads. Ha ha.

***

Absolutely! Sadly, if he were an Asian-American, the GOP would spend all their time wondering if he was a Real American.

Well, you do have to wonder about highly educated, high-income Asian-Americans who generally vote for liberals, especially after the Dems' sordid history with Asians (e.g., FDR and the Japanese-Americans, LBJ and Vietnam, etc.). I guess, sometimes, the GOP just can't win.

It is when we're debating a pure hypothetical.

Actual election results are a pure hypothetical. Okay then.

Okay, the GOP can't win ever. Lets move on to the next topic.

Nintendo needed to do a better launch. Day 1 Firmware updates larger than a gig and over a hour simply should not happen for a new console.

If you think debating issues that might have made the difference between an Obama win and a Romney win is trivial, you've done a fine job of avoiding BBTF's political threads. Ha ha.

"If things that happened hadn't happened, the results might have been different," seems like a trivial statement to me.

Each gain comes with its own incumbency. As the failure of wave elections to reduce the increasing trend towards incumbent advantage has shown, it's in the aggregate that this has mattered. Which party is in the lead in a given election cycle is not the pivotal point, or else the Democrats would currently have a 60-year majority, not the 40-year one that you can't seem to shake. Oh, if only there were some way to verify this.

This sort of hand-waves the incumbents who lose. In the above scenario, incumbents who lose don't matter, while new incumbents are increasingly powerful. The elections of 2006 and 2010 seem to indicate otherwise.

***

Actual election results are a pure hypothetical. Okay then.

Who's debating the election results? Obama won. We're debating whether Sandy and/or the spurious "war on women" might have been enough to swing the election from Romney to Obama. We still don't know the exact margin of victory in terms of vote count, so focusing on that is pedantic.

A debate implies that both sides are interested in the subject. Uh, that's not true in this case.

Well, you do have to wonder about highly educated, high-income Asian-Americans who generally vote for liberals, especially after the Dems' sordid history with Asians (e.g., FDR and the Japanese-Americans, LBJ and Vietnam, etc.). I guess, sometimes, the GOP just can't win.

Highly educated Asians reject the GOP for the same reason all highly educated people do: the GOP is controlled by its base, and that base thinks the Earth is 6,000 years old, climate change is the product of a cabal of evil, scheming scientists, and that schools to the left of Bob Jones are wretched hives of scum and villainy. And since education and support for gay rights are closely tied, they probably also object to the booing of gay soldiers, candidates calling for the nullification of all extant gay marriages, and regular comparisons of gay people to those who engage in bestiality.

And why would Asians care about what FDR and LBJ did generations ago when John McCain was using the term "gooks" in this century?

A debate implies that both sides are interested in the subject. Uh, that's not true in this case.

Sorry, I'll let you get back to talking about video games.

Why would Romney need a 5-point swing? If he lost by 5 points, and we're assuming it essentially remains a zero-sum game, Romney would need half of Obama's margin of victory plus 1 vote in Florida, Virginia, Ohio, and Colorado.

Romney finished behind Obama by roughly 5 points. He actually lost by more in Colorado than in Pennsylvania, so Romney's smoothest path to victory actually is Florida, Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania. You seem to refer to "swing" in a different way than most people do. A 5 point swing typically refers to Romney gaining 5 points vs. Obama. But if you'd prefer using your own formulation, Romney would need a 2.5 point swing. The absence of Sandy made up less than half a point of Obama's swing using your formulation.

The "War on women" stuff is sort of impossible to know, since it was based on policies strongly favored by the Republican party.

And why would Asians care about what FDR and LBJ did generations ago when John McCain was using the term "gooks" in this century?

The GOP still think we can "take the country back" to 1950, so FDR references are still totally relevant.

Isreal/Palestine is a microcosm for many other conflicts. The vast lump in the middle on both sides don't hate each other. But the fringey marginal fanatics (Israeli fundamentalist settlers and Islamist fundamentalists) will fight to the death. It should be arranged. Maybe they can take all the reasonable folks and they can form a coalition government in Isreal/Palestine proper.

The wackos on both sides can have the west bank and all the guns and ammo they can carry. There's even already a convenient barrier.

Highly educated Asians reject the GOP for the same reason all highly educated people do: the GOP is controlled by its base, and that base thinks the Earth is 6,000 years old, climate change is the product of a cabal of evil, scheming scientists, and that schools to the left of Bob Jones are wretched hives of scum and villainy. And since education and support for gay rights are closely tied, they probably also object to the booing of gay soldiers, candidates calling for the nullification of all extant gay marriages, and regular comparisons of gay people to those who engage in bestiality.

Obama gave a similar answer as Rubio re: the Earth's age during the 2008 campaign, but that didn't get blown up into a big deal because ... well, I'd be tempted to call it media bias, but I don't want my old friend "formerly dp" to get all fired up again.

As for the rest of the above, I think it mentions "gay" more times than I heard during the entire campaign. The idea that huge numbers of right-wingers sit around plotting to deport or otherwise oppress gays is little more than MSNBC or Daily Kos nonsense.

The "War on women" stuff is sort of impossible to know, ...

Absolutely, which is why I'm astonished we're still talking about this almost a month later.

In the days after the election, liberal after liberal here said that the GOP would have to radically rebrand itself if it was to have any hope of ever winning the White House again. After about the fiftieth person said this, I opined that if the flawed Romney might have come within a hurricane and/or a spurious "war on women" from winning the election — as some exit polling and the biggest-ever gender gap suggest — then maybe the GOP isn't as dead as people think.

I didn't foresee a nearly 30-day debate of that idea, but I guess a lot of the open-minded liberals here object to anything that runs counter to their preferred narrative of the GOP being both hopelessly lost in the wilderness politically and doomed by demographics electorally.

Bip.

In the days after the election, liberal after liberal here said that the GOP would have to radically rebrand itself if it was to have any hope of ever winning the White House again. After about the fiftieth person said this, I opined that if the flawed Romney might have come within a hurricane and/or a spurious "war on women" from winning the election — as some exit polling and the biggest-ever gender gap suggest — then maybe the GOP isn't as dead as people think.

I didn't foresee a nearly 30-day debate of that idea, but I guess a lot of the open-minded liberals here object to anything that runs counter to their preferred narrative of the GOP being both hopelessly lost in the wilderness politically and doomed by demographics electorally.

Well, part of it is that you're just wrong about that. We know that campaigns make about 1-2 points worth of difference (each), and the economic fundamentals predicted a 2-3 point Obama win. Barring a collapse, Obama was a pretty safe bet to be re-elected. Romney actually ran a below-average campaign, and Obama ran a better than average campaign. It was probably theoretically possible that a different candidate could have won, but not anyone in the actual field. We know that the actual Republican field was weak because a flawed candidate who was not most Republican voters' first choice actually emerged.

As to your point about how close the GOP is to winning a presidential election: you, and other people on the board, are predicting that they'll have to moderate their policies. The gentle reader will notice that Joe himself is advocating changing policies: he talks about the "war on women" as something that if done differently, would have caused different electoral results. Most of the liberal commentators are suggesting immigration reform, Joe is suggesting moderating on womens' issues like birth control and abortions. This is a difference in tactics, not in strategy.

I do think that the GOP is fairly likely to win in 2016. If they do not, they will be very likely to win in 2020. That party will bear little resemblance to the 2012 GOP, similar to George Bush's platform in 2000 vs. Romney in 2012.

It didn't get "blown up" because his commitment to scientific truth has been deep and long-standing.

Yes, as opposed to Marco Rubio, who spends his weekends at meetings of the Flat Earth Society.

There's always a special reason for the free passes Obama gets.

As to your point about how close the GOP is to winning a presidential election: you, and other people on the board, are predicting that they'll have to moderate their policies. The gentle reader will notice that Joe himself is advocating changing policies: he talks about the "war on women" as something that if done differently, would have caused different electoral results. Most of the liberal commentators are suggesting immigration reform, Joe is suggesting moderating on womens' issues like birth control and abortions. This is a difference in tactics, not in strategy.

I've done no such thing.

The entire "war on women" was comprised of (1) two idiot Senate candidates engaging in performance art over an issue that theretofore hadn't remotely been a part of the national debate in 2012 and wasn't possibly going to be something they could move in the Senate had they won, and (2) Georgetown not paying for Sandra Fluke's birth control.

Since absolutely no one who's even remotely in a position of power in the GOP wants to ban birth control or is trying to ban abortion in cases of rape or incest or when the mother's life is in danger, the whole "war on women" was bogus. It was trumped up by liberals and then parroted over and over and over again by a compliant media that overwhelmingly wanted Obama to win. (This same media largely and shamelessly ignored that the Dem opponent of "war on women" warrior Richard Mourdock co-sponsored the very same "forcible rape" bill that made Mourdock a "war on women" warrior. But, hey, I'm sure it was just an innocent oversight, with no bias involved.)

I didn't foresee a nearly 30-day debate of that idea, but I guess a lot of the open-minded liberals here object to anything that runs counter to their preferred narrative of the GOP being both hopelessly lost in the wilderness politically and doomed by demographics electorally.

Isn't it possible that the liberals aren't the only ones in this discussion who dismiss out of hand anything that doesn't confirm their worldview?

Isn't it possible that the liberals aren't the only ones in this discussion who dismiss out of hand anything that doesn't confirm their worldview?

Unpossible.

The entire "war on women" was comprised of (1) two idiot Senate candidates engaging in performance art over an issue that theretofore hadn't remotely been a part of the national debate in 2012 and wasn't possibly going to be something they could move in the Senate had they won, and (2) Georgetown not paying for Sandra Fluke's birth control.

(3) The actual GOP platform.

(3) The actual GOP platform.

Such as?

Isn't it possible that the liberals aren't the only ones in this discussion who dismiss out of hand anything that doesn't confirm their worldview?

Of course not. If not for the lying media and a bad turn of the weather, we'd all be getting ready to swear fealty to President Romney.

Such as?

No exceptions for rape or incest on the anti-abortion plank, for one.

So wait, Joe, you think that Murdock/Akin were significant tailwinds on Romney? Like to what extent do you believe that senatorial candidates in Indiana and Missouri affected Virginia and Colorado?

Binders full of women.

No exceptions for rape or incest on the anti-abortion plank, for one.

So the GOP, by being anti-abortion, has declared a "war on women," but when Obama and Democrats opposed the proposed ban on sex-selective abortion — the vast majority of fetuses aborted via sex-selective abortion being, of course, female — it's not a war on women.

The endless double standards are so confusing.

So wait, Joe, you think that Murdock/Akin were significant tailwinds on Romney? Like to what extent do you believe that senatorial candidates in Indiana and Missouri affected Virginia and Colorado?

I hate to answer a question with a question, but do you believe the "war on women" would have dogged Romney throughout the entire campaign at anything close to the same level if it had remained centered on Sandra Fluke's birth control needs rather than on Akin and Mourdock's "legitimate rape" stupidity?

To whatever extent the gender gap in 2012 — the biggest-ever such gap — was because of the "war on women," I have to believe it was because of "legitimate rape" and not because women sympathized with a 30-year-old law student at Georgetown who didn't want to pay $6 per month for birth control.

Okay Joe, have fun arguing with yourself.

Okay Joe, have fun arguing with yourself.

Never gonna happen. Too many people can't pass up his trolling.

Never gonna happen. Too many people can't pass up his trolling.

Someone needs to explain to McCoy what the word "trolling" means. He's used it about a thousand times here, but never correctly — unless he's using the special BBTF definition:

trolling — verb
the act of disagreeing with a liberal or with liberal ideology

Never gonna happen. Too many people can't pass up his trolling.

Joe's not trolling. He's looking for a fight.

So the GOP, by being anti-abortion, has declared a "war on women," but when Obama and Democrats opposed the proposed ban on sex-selective abortion — the vast majority of fetuses aborted via sex-selective abortion being, of course, female — it's not a war on women.

If you can't see a difference between the two, then this is just another issue where you're not going to get why most people disagree with you WRT the GOP's abortion platform.

I hate to answer a question with a question, but do you believe the "war on women" would have dogged Romney throughout the entire campaign at anything close to the same level if it had remained centered on Sandra Fluke's birth control needs rather than on Akin and Mourdock's "legitimate rape" stupidity?

To whatever extent the gender gap in 2012 — the biggest-ever such gap — was because of the "war on women," I have to believe it was because of "legitimate rape" and not because women sympathized with a 30-year-old law student at Georgetown who didn't want to pay $6 per month for birth control.

Women voted for Obama at a high rate because his administration had policies that were favored by women. To the extent that the "war on women" mattered, it mattered because of policies like equal pay law, contraceptives inclusion and legal abortion being favored in large numbers by women. Obama promoted policies that women liked. That's why they voted for him. I'm relatively certain that Todd Akin and Joe Mourdock's comments had very little impact except on their own chances to be elected.

I mean, if you want to put it in Republican-speak: Obama gave a bunch of handouts to women that they wanted. That's why they voted for him. Romney generally opposed those policies--excuse me: handouts.

So the GOP, by being anti-abortion, has declared a "war on women," but when Obama and Democrats opposed the proposed ban on sex-selective abortion — the vast majority of fetuses aborted via sex-selective abortion being, of course, female — it's not a war on women.

So do you support the GOP party platform on abortion? If not, which parts do you disagree with and why?

So the GOP, by being anti-abortion, has declared a "war on women," but when Obama and Democrats opposed the proposed ban on sex-selective abortion — the vast majority of fetuses aborted via sex-selective abortion being, of course, female

Yes, why aren't the dames all riled up about this solution in search of a problem?

If you can't see a difference between the two, then this is just another issue where you're not going to get why most people disagree with you WRT the GOP's abortion platform.

I see the difference, but not the real-world impact that justifies the "war on women" claim. I never heard Romney claiming he would try to ban abortion even in cases of rape, incest, or life of mother.

***

Women voted for Obama at a high rate because his administration had policies that were favored by women. To the extent that the "war on women" mattered, it mattered because of policies like equal pay law, contraceptives inclusion and legal abortion being favored in large numbers by women. Obama promoted policies that women liked. That's why they voted for him. I'm relatively certain that Todd Akin and Joe Mourdock's comments had very little impact except on their own chances to be elected.

I mean, if you want to put it in Republican-speak: Obama gave a bunch of handouts to women that they wanted. That's why they voted for him. Romney generally opposed those policies--excuse me: handouts.

So after liberals spent months insisting there was a GOP "war on women," now you're saying there was a null impact, or that Sandra Fluke resonated more than "legitimate rape"? (And after screaming about the idea of Obama "handouts," you're now using it as shorthand and/or acknowledging the reality of the situation?)

Yes, why aren't the dames all riled up about this solution in search of a problem?

Solution in search of a problem? Per the last worldwide estimates I've seen, over 160,000,000 more females have been aborted than males. You want to see a "war on women," that's it.

Obama gave a similar answer as Rubio re: the Earth's age during the 2008 campaign

Similar answer to a very different question. Rubio was asked a straightforward scientific question ("How old do you think the Earth is?") and gave a theological answer. Obama was asked a distinctly theological question ("If one of your daughters asked you — and maybe they already have — “Daddy, did god really create the world in 6 days?,” what would you say?") and gave a theological answer. Rubio was asked a question suitable for adults and was expected to give an answer in that light. Obama was asked a question specifically about how he would talk to children and responded as such.

But please, y'all keep trying to act like it's the libruls who are the real Creationist science-hating snake-handlers, that'll fly like science says bumblebees can't.

Yes, why aren't the dames all riled up about this solution in search of a problem?

Solution in search of a problem? Per the last worldwide estimates I've seen, over 160,000,000 more females have been aborted than males. You want to see a "war on women," that's it.

So this was, what, a proposal for the UN? To end the worldwide civil war of women against women?

Solution in search of a problem? Per the last worldwide estimates I've seen, over 160,000,000 more females have been aborted than males. You want to see a "war on women," that's it.

So what your solution then? Strict abstinence? Force all pregnant women to give birth? Force more women who are pregnant with a potential male to commit abortion? Let me ask you this. Do you actually care Joe, or have you latched onto another argument that you think you can concern troll with?

Because really, if you want to prevent unwanted abortions, the best practical way to do it is make sure women have a safe and alternate way to make sure that unwanted pregnancies does not happen. Like say, mandate to insurance companies that coverage of birth control.

But since I know you are just trying to concern troll on this, you'll just pick another random topic to prove your point. (Whatever it is, I'm not even sure you know what it is.)

So after liberals spent months insisting there was a GOP "war on women," now you're saying there was a null impact, or that Sandra Fluke resonated more than "legitimate rape"? (And after screaming about the idea of Obama "handouts," you're now using it as shorthand and/or acknowledging the reality of the situation?)

Policy resonated more than soundbites. I think that everyone understood that Todd Akin was a jackass and something of a simpleton. But yeah, making sure that birth control is included in insurance plans was a big deal for a lot of women. Keeping abortion accessible was a big deal. Equal pay, etc.

I don't remember railing about "handouts" but I do think that it's poor terminology to describe groups voting based off policy.

Joe's not trolling. He's looking for a fight.

Not even that, really. He sees a bunch of middle aged, professional, white guys* taking positions that he identifies as the liberal half of the policy dichotomy, and so he identifies us as liberals who must be argued down. That "Huh, all these middle aged, professional, white guys are negative about Republicans might be our problem, not theirs" never crosses his mind. Fighting is what he's looking for; I'm pretty sure he's perplexed we haven't watched enough FOXNEWS to parrot the same opinions.

*With a couple of exceptions, but the underlying model is sound.

I never heard Romney claiming he would try to ban abortion even in cases of rape, incest, or life of mother.

This harkens back to the awesome Daily Show video of GOP convention goers tying themselves into knots, claiming that Romney should have the right to believe in different from the Republican official position on abortion -- it's a free country! -- but that women who want abortions should not have that same right.

Here's a take from a guy who said that he didn't plan to vote, but if he had, he would've gone back and forth between Romney and Gary Johnson. He own pre-election forecast slightly overrated Romney's likely percentage of the popular vote:

When Internal Polls Mislead, a Whole Campaign May Be to Blame

In the seven key swing states, turns out that Romney's internal polls overrated his numbers from 1.0 in Ohio to 9.1 points in New Hampshire, with an average "Romney bias" of 4.7 points. No wonder that Romney actually thought he was going to win, given that his pollsters were little more than a bunch of yes-men.

The entire "war on women" was comprised of (1) two idiot Senate candidates engaging in performance art over an issue that theretofore hadn't remotely been a part of the national debate in 2012 and wasn't possibly going to be something they could move in the Senate had they won, and (2) Georgetown not paying for Sandra Fluke's birth control.

Sandra Fluke’s testimony was about how a friend - who had ####### tumors - was unable to get important medicine covered by insurance that she paid for because it had the side effect (in this case) of preventing pregnancy. But nope, in Joe K’s world, it was just that that slutty slut whore harlot wanted him, Joe Kehoskie, personally, to pay for her to have promiscuous sex with the whole G-town basketball team. And they wonder why women are repulsed by Republicans. How can anybody be this ####### dense?

How can anybody be this ####### dense?

They get all their news from Rush Limbaugh.

While it's great that people like Phoenix's mayor are taking a week, going on food stamps, and getting a sense of how crappy that is, it's sort of a joke that his conclusion is, in part, 'it's hard to eat well'. No, it isn't. It isn't remotely ####### possible.

Two slices of cheap white bread, two slices of cheap cheese, and two slices of processed turkey is your dinner. Welcome to the surplus labor pool, folks!

Sandra Fluke’s testimony was about how a friend - who had ####### tumors - was unable to get important medicine covered by insurance that she paid for because it had the side effect (in this case) of preventing pregnancy.

And Obama never said that if you had a small business you didn't build it. But the truth is boring and filled with liberal bias, and so more creative methods of interpretation are required.

Once I finish "the Devil in White City" I will reread "Nixonland". From what I remember there aren't too many people in that book on the left or on the right that come up smelling like roses in that book. One of the chapters in there dealt with MLK going to Chicago to fight for housing rights for minorities and having stones and bottles thrown at him during the protest march.

And I graduated from SF State in '94 which explains a lot.

So what your solution then? Strict abstinence? Force all pregnant women to give birth? Force more women who are pregnant with a potential male to commit abortion? Let me ask you this. Do you actually care Joe, or have you latched onto another argument that you think you can concern troll with?

Because really, if you want to prevent unwanted abortions, the best practical way to do it is make sure women have a safe and alternate way to make sure that unwanted pregnancies does not happen. Like say, mandate to insurance companies that coverage of birth control.

But since I know you are just trying to concern troll on this, you'll just pick another random topic to prove your point. (Whatever it is, I'm not even sure you know what it is.)

Comical. The topic isn't unwanted pregnancies; the topic is unwanted females. Do you not understand the difference?

Selecting 160,000,000 females for death seems like much more of a "war on women" than refusing to give Sandra Fluke $6/mo. for birth control.

***

Sandra Fluke’s testimony was about how a friend - who had ####### tumors - was unable to get important medicine covered by insurance that she paid for because it had the side effect (in this case) of preventing pregnancy. ...

Nonsense. Sandra Fluke wasn't traveling the country talking about tumors; she was claiming that birth control that costs as little as $6 per month was really $100/mo.:

Without insurance coverage, contraception, as you know, can cost a woman over $3,000 during law school. For a lot of students who, like me, are on public interest scholarships, that's practically an entire summer's salary. Forty percent of the female students at Georgetown Law reported to us that they've struggled financially as a result of this policy. — Sandra Fluke

The closest Fluke ever came to discussing "tumors" was when she mentioned a friend — a gay friend, no less! — who had polycistic ovarian syndrome but allegedly stopped taking her medication for financial reasons (medication that costs $6/mo. on the low side and $100/mo. on the high side).

That aside, the idea that "40 percent" of the female students at Georgetown Law are struggling to come up with $6/mo. for birth control is utterly laughable, and would have been utterly laughable if the left-wing media had an ounce of credibility left.

(EDIT: Forgot about the new thread. The above will be my final reply in this one.)