Tag: 2012 Elections

Humor Is Where You Find It

And friends, this is beyond humorous!

Ever read something that makes you chuckle….and then there are stories that make you laugh out loud…..

The polls show that Obama is sliding in the approval polls…….you know that worthless momentary snapshot we get everyday from the media?  Then the pundits build the story of the day around the polls….that is what they do….make up as much crap as they possibly can and use polls to justify their analysis…..this one just makes me smile with disgust…..

(Newser) – Just how bad are things for President Obama a year into his second term? So bad that if the American people got a mulligan on the 2012 election, there’s a good shot we’d be looking at a President Romney. A Washington Post–ABC News poll reveals that if the election were held today, Obama would lose the popular vote 45% to 49%. While the Post reminds us that the Electoral College, not the popular vote, is the ultimate decider, it notes that spread roughly mirrors the 4 points Obama actually won by, and reflects plummeting support from his key demographics:

  • Obama won women by 11 points; now, his edge is down to one point.
  • He won voters aged 18-39 by 18 points; that’s down to two.
  • He won voters earning less than $50,000 by 22 points; it’s down to three.
  • He’s now nine points in the hole with voters without a college degree, after winning them by four points.
  • While he’d still win 59% of liberals, that’s down from 75%—and 20% now say they’d vote for Romney.

Obama’s approval rating has fallen 13 points this year to 42%, tying its lowest mark ever in the poll. The culprit, as you might suspect, is at least in part the Affordable Care Act rollout, which 63% think has been handled poorly. The public now opposes the law itself 57%-40%, its worst numbers yet, and 71% favor delaying the individual mandate.

(AP photo)

Mitt could not beat Obama in November of 2012…..and regardless what the mental midgets say….he could NOT beat him today…….hindsight is 20/20……wishful thinking knows NO bounds!

Anyone who uses the daily snapshots they call polls as a fact of reality is NOT playing with a full deck……not the sharpest tack in the box….not…..well you get the point.

How About Those Independents?

Election is over and for a year, maybe longer, we heard from the MSM all about the independents……daily we were told all about the need for the independent vote to win the election….remember those days?

Just in case you are not at all sure what an independent voter is all about…….

More recently, scholars focused on self-identification as a good measure of a person’s political independence. The value of self-identification as a measure of a person’s political independence or partisanship is that it is seen as a proxy for the behavior which should be exhibited by the independent voter. Additionally, self-identification could be easily captured either with a nominal question “Do you self-identify with an existing political party?”, a question which is answered with a “yes” or a “no”, or by a structured ordinal question “Generally speaking, do you consider yourself a Democrat, a Republican, an Independent, or what?”. The first analyses of this measure of political independence found that there were significant differences between those individuals who self-identified as “independent” and those who listed “no preference” as to party identification. Individuals who expressed “no preference” usually exhibited low levels of interest in politics, low levels of knowledge about the candidates and issues, low frequency of voting, and less confidence in their ability to influence politics.

Although some scholars continue to conclude that self-description is the best measure of partisanship or independence, Even the nature of a survey instrument as a measure of partisanship and independence has been called into question.

Yes, I have never thought the independent vote was gonna be all that…..of course the partisans made it all about these voters, especially in Ohio and Florida…..these voters were going to be the make or break sector………

Hate to tell you guys this…IT IS ALL SO MUCH CRAP!

in 2004, the so called independents broke for John Kerry and he lost the election…….now in 2012 the independents broke for Mitt 50% to 45%…..and he lost (in case you missed it)…..

This is just another illustration of how the media wants to drive the news….they are the ones that made this group a whole lot more important than they were….they were NOT the deciders of the 20122 election……..

Keep this in mind for we will hear about these voters again and again…..and they will be painted as the sole decider of a future election….at least the media will want them to be…….

Who Can Explain Mitt’s Loss?

I know….I know…….enough already!

This will be my last (hopefully) post on the 2012 election…….there have been so many reasons given for the GOP loss in the past election…..some say “fact checkers” cost them the election, some say it was the MSM….other blame pollsters……I have even heard the it was Newt’s fault for his stinging attacks during the primaries……..But I am sure you have heard some that I have not…..but what can explain the loss?

The best analysis that I have seen was that of Gov. Barbour.

Gov. Haley Barbour, former governor of Mississippi, former lobbyist, former chairman of the RNC, former head of the Repub governors assn……former….well you get the idea….this guy is Mr. GOP.  I live in his state and have never been a supporter of his……but I will say that there is not a more astute politician than Barbour.  No matter what you man think of the man…he is smarter than the average GOP strategist…….and his analysis of why the GOP lost so badly is summed up in a few words…..

This is a direct quote from Gov. Barbour……..

Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) had a simple explanation for why Republicans didn’t do better in U.S. Senate races, Ben Smith reports.

And it wasn’t about the party being too conservative.

Said Barbour: “We had some shitty candidates. We pissed away two seats.”

Let us emphasize his analysis for effect…….

“We (GOP) had some shitty candidates.  We pissed away two seats.”

Enough said!

Will There Be a New Direction?

Mercifully, the election is over….everybody had their moment in the sun and now it is time to start thinking about the next election….that would be 2016 in case you were not sure…….

Contrary to popular belief I am not a fan of a one party system and the way we go about demonizing everyone who does not agree with us is just pathetic…….it is time for the GOP to think about a new direction…….also contrary to popular belief, I like the two party system as long as it is a debate on facts and not some made up crap……sorry to say the last election was more crap than substance.

Two things that I have foreseen……this may be the last time a baby boomer will be nominated……..the demographics are changing and changing quickly…….Obama was basically elected thanx to minorities……..Romney was the candidate of white men with a smattering of Hispanics……..but mainly white men between the age of 45 and 150……..

I really do want to see a viable second party, one of facts and sincerity….for that to happen a few changes would need to occur……..

This was a piece written in the American Conservative…..(yes, I read that to expand my knowledge for I am a voter and want facts not crap)……

It’s a bad night for social conservatives, in fact it is almost a complete reversal of 2004. Same sex marriage won on the ballot in Maryland and Maine. Obama did not really propose anything new on the economy or foreign policy fronts, but he did make contraception, rape, and Roe v. Wade a large part of this campaign. He constantly portrayed Romney as a man with “the social policies of the 1950s.” Apparently this worked. If there is one thought that comforts me (and perhaps some readers), it is that the chances of courts striking down the “contraceptive mandate” that impinges on religious freedom seem very good. However, Obama’s second term will mean that a future American judiciary may be more open to that sort of thing.

But in reality the more pressing problem is that Republicans are still a party badly damaged by the George W. Bush years. The GOP has traditionally held huge advantages on foreign policy and the economy. That advantage is gone now. And Mitt Romney was the wrong candidate to give the party a refresh on those issues, particularly when the gettable voters were downscale whites. It isn’t that Republicans aren’t reaching enough voters; voters simply don’t believe the GOP is competent to govern.

To change the direction of the party will take work………it will take lots of hard work…….just a few comes to mind……

1. The GOP has a huge Latino problem
Latino voters account for 10 percent of the electorate, and their share is growing every year, says Chris Cillizza at The Washington Post. The GOP’s harsh positions on immigration helped Obama win 69 percent of Latinos’ votes. Romney got just 29 percent. The GOP’s “huge Hispanic problem” was the reason Florida was a tossup, and it will be enough to make once deep-red Arizona a swing state in 2016. “Texas could even be a swing state by 2020 unless Republicans” see the writing on the wall and find a way to make inroads with Latinos. “The Republican Party simply cannot lose 7 in 10 Hispanic voters in elections and expect to be a viable national party in 2016, 2020, and beyond.”
2. Conservatives must soften their rhetoric on abortion
The biggest lesson “from this debacle,” says Joe Battenfeld at The Boston Herald, is that the GOP needs to start winning back women. Putting more women like Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) into GOP leadership positions would be a nice start. Symbolism only goes so far, though. The GOP also has to shed policies that fuel charges that “the party is unfriendly toward women,” and one way to do that is to “reassess their hard-line position against abortion rights.” At the very least, staunchly anti-abortion Republicans need to stop pushing “the rhetorical envelope” when they talk about banning abortion, and whether there should be exceptions in cases of rape, says Lindsey Meeks at The Seattle Times. As Todd Akin found out in Missouri after making his comments about “legitimate rape,” and as Richard Mourdock learned in Indiana when he said pregnancies from rape are “something God intended,” when you’re dealing with a sensitive topic and you use insensitive words, you lose.

3. The GOP nominee has to be more aggressive
The thing that sank Mitt Romney, says William A. Jacobson at Legal Insurrection, was that “instead of playing to win, he appeared much of the time — as did Paul Ryan — to play not to lose.” Nowhere was this more visible than in the third and final debate, “when Romney let Obama slide on Benghazi.” Obama’s mishandling of the attack that killed our Libyan ambassador and three other Americans left him “mortally vulnerable” on this issue, yet Romney gave him a pass in a bid to play it safe by looking presidential. Let’s hope the party’s next nominee will treat his Democratic opponent “as aggressively as he’ll (she’ll?) have treated the other Republican candidates that he beat to win the nomination.”

4. Lying doesn’t work
The Romney campaign’s “most shocking strategy” was acting like “winning was more important than truth,” says Robert L. Cavnar at The Huffington Post. Romney “freely lied about the president, the economy, welfare reform, the auto bailout, major companies, history, and even Americans themselves. He flipped on every single social issue that he had advocated as governor of Massachusetts and stridently concealed his own tax records.” When confronted, he doubled down and told stretched the truth even further. In the end, though, Romney’s failure to be straight with voters “badly damaged his reputation” — and proved to be a losing strategy.
5. Republicans need to stop ripping each other apart in primaries
Republicans, says Battenfeld at The Boston Herald, must “stop engaging in ridiculous primary fights.” Everybody knew from the get-go that Romney was going to be the Republican nominee. He was clearly the most electable candidate in the field. But that didn’t stop “ego-driven Republicans like Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum” from viciously tearing him apart for months. They forced Romney to overtly appeal to conservative primary voters “when he should have been honing his message to moderates,” doing serious damage to his prospects in the general election against Obama. “Newt, Donald Trump, Karl Rove, Ron Paul, and Rick Santorum all need to step aside. It’s time to put a new face on the GOP.”

4. Lying doesn’t work
The Romney campaign’s “most shocking strategy” was acting like “winning was more important than truth,” says Robert L. Cavnar at The Huffington Post. Romney “freely lied about the president, the economy, welfare reform, the auto bailout, major companies, history, and even Americans themselves. He flipped on every single social issue that he had advocated as governor of Massachusetts and stridently concealed his own tax records.” When confronted, he doubled down and told stretched the truth even further. In the end, though, Romney’s failure to be straight with voters “badly damaged his reputation” — and proved to be a losing strategy.

2. Conservatives must soften their rhetoric on abortion
The biggest lesson “from this debacle,” says Joe Battenfeld at The Boston Herald, is that the GOP needs to start winning back women. Putting more women like Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) into GOP leadership positions would be a nice start. Symbolism only goes so far, though. The GOP also has to shed policies that fuel charges that “the party is unfriendly toward women,” and one way to do that is to “reassess their hard-line position against abortion rights.” At the very least, staunchly anti-abortion Republicans need to stop pushing “the rhetorical envelope” when they talk about banning abortion, and whether there should be exceptions in cases of rape, says Lindsey Meeks at The Seattle Times. As Todd Akin found out in Missouri after making his comments about “legitimate rape,” and as Richard Mourdock learned in Indiana when he said pregnancies from rape are “something God intended,” when you’re dealing with a sensitive topic and you use insensitive words, you lose.

I know that there will be many that think this is BS……….The Tea Party will not like much of this deal….but they need the GOP to stay in vogue…..without the party they are just whack-a-doodles…..and the Party needs to make adjustments to remain a viable alternative……

What will the party do?  Will they choose life?