Not very, barring a landslide. But it could be defanged, have the mandate killed...

On a per capita basis, welfare dollars in the United States are spent on a roughly 3:2:1 ratio among blacks, Latinos, and whites. In yesterday's presidential election, the Dem candidate secured votes on a roughly 3:2:1 basis among those same demographics. Sure, some people — mostly higher-income whites — voted against their economic interests because of drone strikes or abortion or whatnot, but people generally vote their wallets. The Dems like to expand the welfare state, blacks and Latinos disproportionately benefit from those expansions, and blacks and Latinos disproportionately vote for Dems. It's not that hard to connect the dots.

Statehood requires congressional approval... but this might be an interesting topic to follow in the next year or so.

I do think that bringing them in will require some sort of compromise with the Rs. I don't know what it would take, but they'd have to be paid off to allow PR in. DC wouldn't really be much of a stretch as their EVs already count.

New Hampshire goes all in on "the end of men."

Senate: Kelly Ayotte, Jean Shaheen
House: Ann Kuster, Carol Shea-Porter
Gov - Maggie Hassan

Nobody was saying that Obama stole the election or won via voter fraud or anything.

Hopefully, two elections in a row where Ohio goes to the Democrats will stop the lefty wingnuts from posting how the Ohio machines were bought/rigged/reprogrammed.

...the Rockefellers, a brand of Gooper that just doesn't exist anymore outside of petting zoos and David Brooks' porn folders

No, it's not. Conspiratorial thinking and paranoid reasoning is always quite the easy path of dots.

For a good take on what happens next, I highly recommend looking up Jon Chait's recent piece on what happens now.

All I've done is acknowledge the obvious, and point out that the GOP will continue to lose elections so long as people can go to the ballot box and vote themselves benefits.

If the Dems want to make hay, a simple pro-statehood stance should do it. Point out R intransigence, reap votes, repeat.

That's the GOP's problem - I don't see any obstacles to Democrats picking up further chunks of the white male vote... at least not structurally. I do think there are obstacles for the GOP on the flipside.

Because vote suppression occurs only when it wins elections? That makes sense.

All I've done is acknowledge the obvious, and point out that the GOP will continue to lose elections so long as people can go to the ballot box and vote themselves benefits.

How does this Dem coalition of blacks, Latinos, and a growing number of whites survive the inevitable budget and/or service cutbacks that are coming?

Woodward DOES think there is something rotten in the state of Benghazi, though.

Using your logic, why are Republicans ever elected?

Perfect example of the media being in the bag for Obama.

As I said upthread-- you can keep peddling this idea if you want. You can even believe it's the truth. But don't expect to win the votes of the people you're insulting in doing so. And you can insist on claiming you're not being insulting, but you're wrong-- at least, according to the people who feel insulted. That seems to be the thing you don't want to accept.

If people are "insulted" by an accurate description of a situation, then there's not much one can do.

Oh, we're back to this brand of nutters. That didn't take long.

It's a prime example of media bias.

Benghazi has been a story for two months

You can stop insulting them. That's a start. You can stop claiming that white people understand the reasons for their actions better than they do. There's a long history of European paternalism that your rhetoric conjures, and it's not all that far in the rear-view mirror. That you just don't care to stop conjuring it is telling.

Whatever. It's impossible to refute a religious belief, so I'm not going to keep trying.

There are a number of reports floating around that Romney himself didn't want to go after Obama on Benghazi.

All I've done is acknowledge the obvious, and point out that the GOP will continue to lose elections so long as people can go to the ballot box and vote themselves benefits.

Using your logic, why are Republicans ever elected?

Yes, this last is correct. How many poor are there?

See, YC probably didn't catch it moons and moons ago (nor should he have); but as a callback, listening to Joe on Benghazi really makes me appreciate Yankee Clapper.

Personally, I think who someone votes for is a pretty complicated question that goes beyond simple economic interest. If people truly voted simply in terms of their economic interest, the US would probably be further to the left than it is now.

Six hours later, American Crossroads co-founder and Fox News contributor Karl Rove was on-camera seeming to ignore his boss’s orders. Shortly after 11 p.m., Bret Baier went on-camera to read a script written by Fox’s Washington managing editor Bill Sammon, based on an analysis by the network's decision desk, announcing Ohio for Obama. “That’s the presidency, essentially," Baier said.

Instantly, Fox phones lit up with angry phone calls and e-mails from the Romney campaign, who believed that the call was premature, since tallies in several Republican-leaning Southern counties hadn't been been fully tabulated. "The Romney people were totally screaming that we’re totally wrong," one Fox source said.

Just out of curiosity, what's the plan once the Dems control the government with big majorities? I assume raising taxes on the rich is at the top of the list, but doing so barely puts a dent in the deficit or debt. How does this Dem coalition of blacks, Latinos, and a growing number of whites survive the inevitable budget and/or service cutbacks that are coming?

The inability to marshal facts, and the idea that facts are only talking points appears infectious. If the Romney campaign's internal polling really did show them winning Ohio in the days leading up to the vote, that portends real trouble for the GOP. It's one thing to bluster and lie and KNOW that you're blustering and lying. But when you simply can't do the math, you're in real trouble in any close election, and real trouble in deciding how to reach voters.

...

Great news for the Dems, obviously. If even Rove, the ultimate insider, can't do the math, it bodes ill for the GOP.

I'll even toss out a bone and say it doesn't even necessarily need to be 50/50 - but I'm not going to start negotiating from 50/50 either. If it's to be a proper negotiation, then I get to start at 0/100 too, but make it clear that for the right deal with the right specifics - I'm even willing to go somewhere in the neighborhood of 40/60.

Are we at a place where we can count on a GOP house and Senate minority agreeing to increased revenue specifically through some manner of tax hikes - be they rate driven or a combination of targeted tax reform - are now on the table?

Any deal that includes more tax hikes than spending cuts will assuredly be a non-starter, and it also fails basic long-term budget math. It's simply not possible for the U.S. to tax its way out of the deficit, let alone the debt. Aside from plunging the country into recession again, there simply isn't enough income or wealth to tax.

Pointing out that both rich people and poor people tend to vote their economic interests isn't "European paternalism." If the GOP could win some black and/or Latino votes from the Dems simply by talking nicer, they would have tried it. That sort of thing is Frank Luntz's reason for existing. The simple fact is, there was nothing that Mitt Romney could have said that would have had a real-world chance of reducing Obama's share of the black vote below 95 percent, and the main source of pandering toward Latinos — immigration — was tried by the GOP in the '80s and failed miserably.

Are we at a place where we can count on a GOP house and Senate minority agreeing to increased revenue specifically through some manner of tax hikes - be they rate driven or a combination of targeted tax reform - are now on the table?

Are we at a place where we can count on a GOP house and Senate minority agreeing to increased revenue specifically through some manner of tax hikes - be they rate driven or a combination of targeted tax reform - are now on the table?



It's already been agreed to. The Bush tax cuts expire on January 1. The GOP can do nothing about that.

Pete Abraham ?@PeteAbe
Let me try this again: Clinton-Bush-Obama are three consecutive two-term presidents for the first time since Jefferson-Madison-Monroe
Expand

Another thing: I don't know if I'd express it like Slate does: the magazine says we've re-elected a Republican president. But why anyone would thing Obama is this wild-eyed out-of-control leftist is beyond me. The rabid rhetoric by tea-partiers and Republicans in general is just bananas.

So what's your explanation for that video just sitting on the shelf for almost two months? CBS forgot they had it? Nobody from CBS watched the second presidential debate and noticed that Obama claimed something that CBS had proof wasn't true?

The inability to marshal facts, and the idea that facts are only talking points appears infectious. If the Romney campaign's internal polling really did show them winning Ohio in the days leading up to the vote, that portends real trouble for the GOP. It's one thing to bluster and lie and KNOW that you're blustering and lying. But when you simply can't do the math, you're in real trouble in any close election, and real trouble in deciding how to reach voters.

...
Great news for the Dems, obviously. If even Rove, the ultimate insider, can't do the math, it bodes ill for the GOP.

This is ridiculous. A one-point swing — ~50,000 votes out of over 5,000,000 votes cast, with another million or two potential voters who stayed home — was all that separated Romney and Obama in Ohio.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The California man behind an anti-Muslim film that led to violence in many parts of the Middle East was sentenced Wednesday to a year in federal prison for probation violations in an unrelated matter, then issued a provocative statement through his attorney.
The sentence was the result of a plea bargain between lawyers for Mark Bassely Youssef and federal prosecutors. Youssef admitted in open court that he had used several false names in violation of his probation order and obtained a driver's license under a false name. He was on probation for a bank fraud case.
Shortly after Youssef left the courtroom, his lawyer, Steven Seiden, came to the front steps of the courthouse and told reporters his client wanted to send a message.
"The one thing he wanted me to tell all of you is President Obama may have gotten Osama bin Laden, but he didn't kill the ideology," Seiden said.

I'm not saying it needs to be more spending cuts than tax hikes -- in fact, I'm saying the opposite...

Now... what 35 billion in revenue increases will be acceptable to Boehner and McConnell... or heck, I'll even start the compromise - gimme 25-30 billion in revenue.

Here's the thing, Joe. 95% of African Americans aren't poor, or on public assistance. 70% of Latinos aren't poor, or on public assistance. Asserting that that's the case is an excellent example of the GOP's inability to even operate in the same mental universe as minorities.

Sure, Latinos are part of the Dem fold, but that doesn't mean there's nothing that Republicans can do about it. They actually made a lot of progress through 2004, when Bush won 44% of the Latino vote.

So what's your explanation for that video just sitting on the shelf for almost two months? CBS forgot they had it? Nobody from CBS watched the second presidential debate and noticed that Obama claimed something that CBS had proof wasn't true?

Now... what 35 billion in revenue increases will be acceptable to Boehner and McConnell... or heck, I'll even start the compromise - gimme 25-30 billion in revenue.


You've run into the problem already. If you try to do tax hikes and spending cuts on a 1:1 basis, you run out of tax-hiking ability quite early in the discussion.

Anyway, I'm all for simplifying the tax code, eliminating subsidies and loopholes, etc., etc., and I hope it happens.

237 14 "Obama Wins!"[15] Trey Parker Trey Parker November 7, 2012 1614
Eric Cartman is hiding something in his bedroom that could change the entire outcome of the Presidential election. While Americans innocently plan to go to sleep Tuesday night with the election results counted and a winner announced, Cartman has secretly wrestled control of the Presidential election from the voters.

The inability to marshal facts, and the idea that facts are only talking points appears infectious.

"We wanted someone who would fight for us. What we got was a weak, moderate candidate, hand-picked by the Beltway elites and country club establishment wing of the Republican Party," Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, said in a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington.

"The presidential loss is unequivocally on them," she added.

Brent Bozell, president of the conservative Media Research Center, argued that Romney failed to pass the ideological test, saying he ran as a "Democrat-light" and adjusted his positions to campaign as a moderate during the general election.

"At the end of the day, conservatives were left out in the cold. It should have been a landslide for Romney, had he embraced a truly conservative agenda,"

n social issues, Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-abortion rights group Susan B. Anthony List, blasted the candidate for not making abortion a central part of the 2012 dialogue.

No, but they're..., they've..., and, in Latinos' case, they...

Given this week's results, they said, conservatives will be even more motivated to reform the party. Richard A. Viguerie, chairman of ConservatieHQ.com, ended the press conference with one final prediction.

"Tea partiers will take over the Republican Party within four years," he said

Also, what do you think explains the fact that Obama did better this time around with Latinos despite doing worse overall?

His what? Sister, maybe? That is, Jerry Brown has no (known) children.

A nice lady explains the real reason why Mitt Romney didn't win.
(warning: language and soothing background music)

That's gold, Jerry-----GOLD!!!!

East Texas is very much like West Louisiana. The twang is even similar, and just as Cajuns invaded southwest Louisiana (the Lake Charles area), that invasion encroaches into southeast Texas, such as Orange, Beaumont, Port Arthur. And in the north part of both states, well, just remember that Joe Bob Briggs was just as at home in the Shreveport-Bossier City movie drive-ins as he was in the Dallas-Fort Worth ones.

They simply are not a conservative party.

holy christ, I'm tearing up.

What he needed and didn't get were moderates so these winguts need to look in the mirror and understand that they can't get all the looney things they want and have to occasionally compromise.

Alfred Regnery, president of the Paul Revere Project, issued a stark warning for the GOP.

"If Republicans don't start to listen to (what minorities are looking for in a candidate), it's going to be a long time before they can win," he said.

His comments echoed those made my former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who earlier Wednesday said on CNN that the party now faces a "very serious moment" and argued the GOP should work on becoming more inclusive–a major challenge, he said, for House Republicans.

Yep. You are speaking of My People, as it happens. Not for nothing is that general area known as the ArkLaTex. I grew up in extreme SW Arkansas, about 40 miles from the Texas state line & 20 from Louisiana, & at least until widespead cable brought the Little Rock stations into people's living rooms, I guess sometime around the mid-'80s (by which time I was elsewhere, blessedly), Shreveport was the capital of the area, terrifyingly enough. (And where will I be headed in a month to see relatives? Shreveport!)

A whopping 75 percent of Latinos in the Pew Hispanic poll this summer said they want a bigger government with more services. And, alas, over 75 percent of Latinos voted for Obama yesterday.

They want free stuff! Free phones! Free housing! Uh, frijoles!

No, but they're disproportionately poor, they've disproportionately used government services, and, in Latinos' case, they unabashedly want bigger government. A whopping 75 percent of Latinos in the Pew Hispanic poll this summer said they want a bigger government with more services. And, alas, over 75 percent of Latinos voted for Obama yesterday.

You may know, or maybe not, since I'm sure I'm a good bit older than you, but when I was young and growing up in South Louisiana, late at night (meaning after about 10:30pm) the only station you could catch on your car radio was one with a big tower in Little Rock. You wouldn't know it's call letters and numbers?

KAA 1090, quite possibly.

(If you're indeed a good bit older than me & had access to a car radio, I'm impressed. Our '63 Rambler didn't have one.)

Just out of curiosity, what's the plan once the Dems control the government with big majorities? I assume raising taxes on the rich is at the top of the list, but doing so barely puts a dent in the deficit or debt. How does this Dem super-coalition of blacks, Latinos, and a growing number of whites survive the inevitable budget and/or service cutbacks that are coming?

explain how their policies will help solve the problem and give minorities a stronger voice and place in our national dialogue.

Republicans, I can only assume, are mainly people who don't understand the first thing for lack of experience, and rarely have occasion to understand the second thing, because--again for structural reasons--a poor white person is less common than a poor non-white person. What I'm saying is that at least some Republicans hate poor people who are also black or Latino because they're poor, not because they're black or Latino, and that's important for everyone to realize.

Really weird to hear conservative nuts say that Romney wasn't nutty enough. Romney got all the conservative votes. Something like 95 to 97% of all people that classify themselves as conservative voted for Romney. What he needed and didn't get were moderates so these winguts need to look in the mirror and understand that they can't get all the looney things they want and have to occasionally compromise.

Well, their policies won't do that. That's where the problem lies.