So Florida Dems - in number - are against the favored immigration status of Cubans because "wet foot, dry foot" is a racist policy. I've been looking for evidence of this, but my google-fu seems to be failing. Can you provide?

As for even sticking with RCP as evidence of anything is just laughable stupidity at this point. RCP did not use a bunch of polls that turned out to be accurate while using polls that turned out to be inaccurate and at times biased towards Romney. Nate Silver was much more accurate with his system and his polls revealed that Romney never ever had the lead.

Silver never had Romney projected for more popular votes, and the worst odds of Obama winning were ~ 60%. Sandy may have made the win bigger, but it didn't flip the results.

In the last five days of national polls before Sandy hit, Romney was over +2.0 ahead of Obama. A week later, he was -0.7. I was being cautious with the "1 percent" claim, but Sandy was the only intervening event over the last 8-9 days of the campaign, and the polls shifted ~3 points toward Obama.


Silver never had Romney projected for more popular votes, and the worst odds of Obama winning were ~ 60%. Sandy may have made the win bigger, but it didn't flip the results.

During the 2012 campaign, Republicans kept circling back to the spot where government expansion threatens personal initiative: you didn’t build that; makers versus takers; the supposed dependency of the 47 percent. Again and again, Republicans argued that the vital essence of the country is threatened by overweening government.
...
The Pew Research Center does excellent research on Asian-American and Hispanic values. Two findings jump out. First, people in these groups have an awesome commitment to work. By most measures, members of these groups value industriousness more than whites.

Second, they are also tremendously appreciative of government. In survey after survey, they embrace the idea that some government programs can incite hard work, not undermine it; enhance opportunity, not crush it.

Moreover, when they look at the things that undermine the work ethic and threaten their chances to succeed, it’s often not government. It’s a modern economy in which you can work more productively, but your wages still don’t rise. It’s a bloated financial sector that just sent the world into turmoil. It’s a university system that is indispensable but unaffordable. It’s chaotic neighborhoods that can’t be cured by withdrawing government programs.

For these people, the Republican equation is irrelevant. When they hear Romney talk abstractly about Big Government vs. Small Government, they think: He doesn’t get me or people like me.

I didn't claim Sandy flipped the results. I said Sandy put the campaign on hold for a week and clearly affected some voters.

6790. Joe Kehoskie Posted: November 10, 2012 at 04:24 PM (#4299639)



If you're a hurricane and/or some dumb "rape" comments away from winning a national election, you don't need to run your platform through the shredder.

If we trust Nate Silver - do we trust Nate yet, Joe? - Obama could have lost the popular vote by close to 3% and still won the electoral college. Given that no one here has suggested reforming the EC (in a while, at least) this would indicate that in order to swing Presidential elections going forward, the GOP will need to make up the margin of their current loss (3 points) PLUS 3 additional points. So even if Joe finds an extra 3% of white people, he's still down in the EC.

Finding a 6% swing is going to be really tough, Joe.

Moreover, when they look at the things that undermine the work ethic and threaten their chances to succeed, it’s often not government. It’s a modern economy in which you can work more productively, but your wages still don’t rise. It’s a bloated financial sector that just sent the world into turmoil. It’s a university system that is indispensable but unaffordable. It’s chaotic neighborhoods that can’t be cured by withdrawing government programs.

For these people, the Republican equation is irrelevant. When they hear Romney talk abstractly about Big Government vs. Small Government, they think: He doesn’t get me or people like me.

Let’s just look at one segment, Asian-Americans. Many of these people are leading the lives Republicans celebrate. They are, disproportionately, entrepreneurial, industrious and family-oriented. Yet, on Tuesday, Asian-Americans rejected the Republican Party by 3 to 1. They don’t relate to the Republican equation that more government = less work.

OTOH although I've heard that policy described many times as racist, I've yet to hear any of those making that charge to propose treating the Cubans like the Haitians and Dominicans. Instead, they propose treating the Haitians and Dominicans as Cubans. Which is a perfectly consistent and unbiased approach to the "wet foot, dry foot" policy, unlike our current version.

Really?

Moreover, when they look at the things that undermine the work ethic and threaten their chances to succeed, it’s often not government. It’s a modern economy in which you can work more productively, but your wages still don’t rise. [...] It’s chaotic neighborhoods that can’t be cured by withdrawing government programs.

Haiti is hell on wheels, every bit as much so as Cuba and in many ways even more so**. The DR has certainly improved in recent years, but at the time of the "wet foot, dry foot policy" enactment it hadn't yet settled into its current period of relative stability.

One always hears this, but nobody ever suggests the opposite, and just as plausible perspective: that American employers' love of non-union, low-wage workers acts as a magnet for illegal immigrants. One of the most pervasive clichés is "they do work that American citizens don't want to do." And it's true, debt peonage in the produce industry is certainly something that American citizens don't want to undertake.

But many Haitians were specifically fleeing from chaotic political conditions in Haiti. Poverty was only part of it. And while Cubans were given automatic presumptions of refugee status, Haitians had to jump through endless hoops to qualify on a one-on-one basis. As I said, it's a purely political distinction.

I don't believe the GOP has an identity or a psyche. People within the GOP do, but the GOP itself is an institution, a corporation, a set of loose affiliations, an idea. So I agree that Jack Carter's claim is too broad both because the future is inherently unknowable and because the GOP cannot have a psyche.

That's how it is at a lot of places now. Not grocery stores yet, but certainly most 7/11-type places. Receipts are on their way out.

At no point in this thread did I claim Sandy clearly flipped the election. I continuously referred to Sandy and the "rape" comments, the latter of which led to the whole "war on women" thing.

At no point in this thread did I claim Sandy clearly flipped the election. I continuously referred to Sandy and the "rape" comments, the latter of which led to the whole "war on women" thing.

If Hurricane Sandy didn't hit at all, or if Hurricane Sandy didn't flip 1 percent of voters and/or the absolutely idiotic "rape" nonsense from Akin and Mourdock didn't hurt the GOP with women, Tuesday could have been a whole different ballgame.

I am not saying your mother is a whore. I am saying she likes to sleep with men for money.

Which claim, Greg? Serious question. I can't link your post to a specific assertion I've recently made.

Sean Hannity may well be floating the party's Wall St. money men's desire to moderate on immigration, but that's a far cry from seeing that desire carried out. Contempt for and fear of--even hatred of-- the Other is essential to the GOP's identity. We saw rampant paranoia as a dominant characteristic of the party. We've seen the inability to absorb facts pertinent to the most important foreign policy decision of the last two decades from not just too many in the GOP, but in a significant majority of the GOP:

I still wonder what happened in early October; I suspect the first debate was a factor...

I still wonder what happened in early October; I suspect the first debate was a factor, and wrangling over Benghazi was a factor, and these factors (like so many ephemeral things) then faded in their effect.

...parties are loose and baggy monsters.

I've been saying it for a little while, but I voted Obama because he is a net positive influence on the country. He probably believes that expanded drone strikes are necessary. And for all we know, he's right. It seems like an ugly choice: to not kill likely members of Al Quaeda may mean to embolden them. But it's still awful, and a black mark on him for not finding a better way than killing an American citizen who had committed no crimes.

Listen, I am a republican but you argue dishonestly. You are a typical politician who implies something without really saying it, but when gets called on it, says I really didn't say that.

The polls showed Romney behind. He was trying to catch up, but didn't. Did the hurricane help? No. But it didn't lose the election for him, nor did it stop his momentum. He didn't have the momentum. The Republican spin was that he did, which is what you are arguing.

Done! I finally caught up with this thread.

I have nothing to say.

'Identity' is a concept we could write a few thousand books about. Characterizing a party's tendencies is fair, I believe. At what point characteristics do or do not become or represent identity, however, and at in what places identity is and is not stable independent of characteristics are things I won't claim to be clear on.

Done! I finally caught up with this thread.

I have nothing to say.

More nonsense. Romney was leading in most national polls before Sandy hit

Librulbias!

But still not the same thing. Aside from Mexico's border zone being a mess, tens of millions of people in places like Venezuela and Guatemala live in high-crime areas of abject destitution, but we don't give refugee status to anyone who steps foot in the U.S. from those places.

Like a lot of people, I listened to Rush Limbaugh the day after the election. Pure Schadenfreude, I admit it; I just wanted to hear the reaction. I searched the right-wing media landscape far and wide and tried to find even a hint of self-examination, self-criticism, and I didn't find much. Then again, they didn't lose the presidential vote by much, so they didn't take the election result as a total repudiation of their belief system, as they probably shouldn't have, anyway.

It doesn't count. Why not? Why, putting it coarsely, doesn't the Republican Party get credit for Condoleeza Rice? Why doesn't the Republican Party get credit for Marco Rubio? Why doesn't the Republican Party get credit for Suzanne Martinez...?

But what are supposed to do, in order to get the Hispanic vote now? Does that mean, open the borders and embrace the illegals? I want you to think about this. So – the Republican establishment, does that mean, if we're not getting the female vote, do we become pro-choice? Do we have to start giving out birth control pills? Is that what we have to do?

Remember the famous scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark when Indiana Jones faces off against a guy who unsheathes a scimitar and wows the audience with his fancy swordsmanship--only to get shot in the chest by Indy? The swordsman—that’s House Speaker John Boehner right now on the Bush tax cuts. Whether it’s out of deference to the office, eagerness to have an interesting story to write about, or plain gullibility, every congressional reporter in town is now dutifully reporting on his negotiating strategy. But this fight is over. Boehner has brought a knife to a gunfight, only nobody seems to have told anyone in the conservative movement.

I am left wondering to what extent Nate Silver would be hoisted up onto shoulders and carried off the field had he correctly predicted a Romney victory instead.

Gov. Rick Scott of Florida on Saturday said he requested a review of his state's voting processes with a particular emphasis on areas where voters waited four hours or longer to cast their ballots.

"We are glad that so many voters made their voices heard in this election, but as we go forward we must see improvements in our election process," Scott said in a statement. "I have asked Secretary of State Ken Detzner to review this general election and report on ways we can improve the process after all the races are certified.”

... But last cycle, the state allowed two weeks of early voting, which was shortened this year to eight days. Election boards were permitted to schedule as little as 48 hours of early voting ...

A previous review ordered by Scott drew controversy over the summer.

The governor directed that local election boards review their voter rolls and remove names of people who appeared to be ineligible.

I am left wondering to what extent Nate Silver would be hoisted up onto shoulders and carried off the field had he correctly predicted a Romney victory instead.

A true discussion about immigration would strongly consider significantly raising the allowed levels of legal US immigration, so that the Venezuelans and Guatemalans (and Sudanese and Afghanis and people from any other country that desperately want a better life) who wanted to move to the US to improve their lot could do so. In that context an amnesty isn't pandering, but recognition that the previous US immigration policy was misguided.

BECAUSE IT'S ONLY ABOUT FOUR YEARS AWAY:
Politico: "Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would start out as a dominant favorite in the 2016 Iowa caucuses if she chooses to run for president, a new survey from Public Policy Polling finds. The PPP poll ... shows Clinton taking 58 percent of the Iowa vote in a hypothetical presidential run. Vice President Joe Biden trails far behind at 17 percent, followed by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo at 6 percent and Massachusetts Sen.-elect Elizabeth Warren at 3 percent."

What a complete tool Scott is.

I am left wondering to what extent Nate Silver would be hoisted up onto shoulders and carried off the field had he correctly predicted a Romney victory instead.

"they do work that American citizens don't want to do." And it's true

In the first two weeks of October, he was telling me that Romney was coming on like the 2012 Oakland Athletics. I did not want to hear that, but I accepted it as probably right for the reasons you mention: that Silver had been right on in '08.

he welfare-bureaucracy and its related parties that wants to keep these needy people in the country. It means more business for the welfare departments and justification for more public jobs (and thus more forced into public unions, more forced dues, more contributions to a certain political party). Their dependency, their need for advocacy, their need for legal defense also grows and sustains community organizations and their public funding opportunities.

It's not just rich corporations that are exploiting the undocumented immigrant, the very core of the Democratic Party is in on it too.

My only doubt of Silver was the newness of his model, which had been through only one presidential campaign

Since you're relatively new here (or at least your handle is) and you're making all sorts of scattershot claims about "profiteering class[es]" and the "Democrat" Party (a giveaway right there), maybe you might ground yourself by telling us who would have been your top choice for president this year among all the names who were mentioned. It might help put some of your comments into a bit of perspective.

The same Dream Act that requires the payment to colleges (where liberals are employed in large numbers) and attendance (indoctrination) to qualify for eventual citizenship?

Thanks, but I'm a long-time reader (although infrequent poster) so I'm already well aware of this kind of mocking and bullying by BBTF's liberals.

The lived experience of someone who rose out of poverty and witnessed the false compassion of the welfare system. It's a scheme for bureaucratic self-protection and statist expansion, not charity.

Andy, if I recall correctly this was the guy making ridiculous comments about same-sex marriage a few days ago.

Many liberals no doubt latched on to Silver because his blog told them some things they wanted to hear

This is the era of the Big Lie, in other words, and it translates into a lot of little lies - "death panels," "out-of-control" spending, "apologies for America" etc. - designed to concoct a false narrative so simple and so familiar it actually succeeded in getting into people's minds in the midst of a brutal recession. And integral to this process have been conservative "intellectuals" who should and do know better, but have long since sacrificed intellectual honesty for the cheap thrills of enabling power-grabs. And few lies represent this intellectual cooptation of talk radio/FNC propaganda better than the lie that Obama has publicly rebutted the idea of American exceptionalism.

Where does one start? Where one always starts with these things - Jonah Goldberg:...

"I have only a limited capacity for distinguishing truth from the desire to have my beliefs affirmed, even in the face of strong, objective evidence, therefore you must have a limited capacity for distinguishing truth from the desire to have your beliefs affirmed in the face of strong, objective evidence".

Had he been telling me that Romney was in the driver's seat, I would have gone into Tuesday thinking that Romney was probably going to win

Not sure what you are going for here, but if you are talking about me as an individual, then quote this as well:

Actually, they were the same "ridiculous" comments of why liberal secularists and statists invoke a minority in the self-serving pursuit to redefine human and societal institutions and to enforce their new laws against competing influences of public morality (family, churches).

Thanks, but I'm a long-time reader (although infrequent poster) so I'm already well aware of this kind of mocking and bullying by BBTF's liberals.