The AfterMath

A lot has been made of the supposedly skewed poll numbers that most major polling organizations showed during the last month of the campaign. Rethug-friendly pollsters convinced Willard "Not-President" Romney and his campaign that the election was in the bag for them. Their allies smeared New York Times' brilliant Nate Silver's projections which showed a small, steady Obama lead for weeks and were ultimately right on target, despite the punditry to the contrary. In so many ways, the math of the election -- from bogus budget claims to their poll numbers -- never worked for Not-President Romney's campaign.

Perhaps the biggest loser last Tuesday was political hack Karl "Turdblossom" Rove, who blew through hundreds of millions of dollars contributed by right wing fat cats hoping to purchase the Federal Government. As we noted yesterday, there's some serious anger among those fat cats this week, who want to know why their vast sums of payola didn't produce the results that Turdblossom clearly promised. His meltdown on Fux News on election night is a political classic -- waving numbers around, initially hubristic, then skeptical, then defensive, then defeated. He's full of excuses now, and Talking Points Memo has them catalogued. None of them hold much water at all, and his statement that the Obama campaign "suppressed the vote" by painting Willard as an out-of-touch plutocrat is an example of projection, given the Rethugs' failed attempt to actually suppress Democratic constituencies in several states.

As they say, "denial" isn't just a river in Egypt. It's a stage of grief that Turdblossom has entered, and he -- and his party -- may not emerge from it anytime soon.

(photo: The meltdown begins.)

Romney Concedes Florida

Now it's REALLY over. The Romney campaign has conceded Florida to President Obama. While the state is still counting ballots, there aren't enough left to overturn the result. We were oh so close on our election prediction, but Obama ended up the winner in a Florida. Final electoral tally: President Obama 332, Willard =cough=203 (bwahahahaha!).

Post-Election Cartoon - Plutocrat Fail Edition

(click to enlarge)

As we noted earlier, one of the pleasures of last night's victory was knowing that hundreds of millions of dollars of plutocrat money was wasted in the effort to defeat President Obama and Democratic candidates. What did your millions buy you, Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson? Much of the plutocrats' money went to voter suppression efforts and/ or to mendacious ads from Crossroads GPS, the Karl "Turdblossom" Rove operation. So it was particularly gratifying when self-deployed air bag Rove was seen on Fox "News" last night, vainly battling the intrusion of reality into his right-wing bubble, in full-blown denial of Obama's victory in Ohio. Sweet!

(Cartoon: Clay Bennett, via gocomics.com)

Election Day Cartoon

(click to enlarge)

(Clay Bennett, via gocomics.com)

Fearless Hackwhackers Election Prediction

President Obama wins re-election with 303 electoral votes to Willard's 235. Obama wins Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, but loses Florida in a drawn-out, challenge-plagued recount (that doesn't affect the outcome anyway). We hope we're erring on the conservative side (the only time we're ever on the "conservative side" is when we're erring).

Politicrap from Politico

From Politico editors Jim VandeHei and John Harris, the continuing Rethuglican narrative trying to de-legitimatize Barack Obama is taking shape:

"If President Barack Obama wins, he will be the popular choice of Hispanics, African-Americans, single women and highly educated urban whites. That's what the polling has consistently shown in the final days of the campaign. It looks more likely than not that he will lose independents, and it's possible he will get a lower percentage of white voters than George W. Bush got of Hispanic voters in 2000.

"A broad mandate this is not."

Hmmm. In other words, ballots come in demographically-coded colors. If you don't have enough of the white-male coded ones, you're not legit! Nice!

But it shouldn't surprise anyone that the "Tiger Beat on the Potomac" boyz are among the first to try to discredit a probable Obama victory tomorrow. VandeHei is married to a former staffer for Rethuglican hit-man ex-Rep. Tom DeLay (Felon-TX) -- although he worked at one time in Democratic Sen. Herb Kohl's office -- and Harris is an occasional collaborator with Hackwhackers' Wanker Emeritus Mark Halperin (son of Rethug sinecure Morton Halperin). Presumably the boyz hadn't been getting their calls returned from Democratic spinners quickly enough, so Politico has developed into a reliable source of inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom wired heavily Rethuglican.

On a related note: in the pudnitz' arsenal of upcoming excuses for noted white boy Willard "I Like To Fire People" Romney's expected loss: Hurricane Sandy! Also: Massive voter fraud! Also: Nerds! But a broad mandate? Nah!

The Hackwhackers Voter Guide

If you haven't voted yet, we're offering this partial list as a guide. Is any of this appealing to you:

Mandatory transvaginal probes, Rep. Michelle Bachmann, birtherism, unequal pay for women, Rush Limbaugh, privatizing Social Security, de-funding Planned Parenthood, Donald Trump, right-wing religious extremists, "Defense of Marriage Act," Rep. Todd Akin, Richard Mourdock, "legitimate rape," a baby from a rape is "God's will," more tax cuts for the 1 percent, tax hikes for the middle class, Ann Coulter, increasing income inequality, Sen. Mitch McConnell, Gov. Scott Walker, deregulating Wall Street and the banks, de-funding PBS, taking 30 million Americans off of health insurance, Rep. Steve King, voucherizing Medicare, climate change denial, anti-science agenda ("Darwin who?"), Sean Hannity, Ayn Rand, never compromise, voter suppression, corporate money awash in the political system, Speaker Boehner, Rep. Eric Cantor, "self-deportation" for Hispanic immigrants, Rep. Allen West, Rethuglican obstructionism and economic sabotage, rewarding political hostage-taking, and finally "President Willard Romney and Vice President Paul Ryan."

If any of the above is appealing to you, please exit this blog immediately. Otherwise, think about what the Rethuglicans represent when you're in the voting booth on Tuesday. Think about the America you want for yourself and your family. Then vote.

BONUS: Want more food for thought? Here you go.

(Photo: Willard "Corporations Are People Too, My Friend" Romney wears his mom jeans to show that he "gets it" when it comes to women's issues.)

Nate Silver Makes It Simple

Unfortunately, use of crayons on the internet is frowned upon, so Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com tries to make it simple for the Beltway pudnitz and other malpractitioners of journalism:

If you are following some of the same people that I do on Twitter, you may have noticed some pushback about our contention that Barack Obama is a favorite (and certainly not a lock) to be re-elected. I haven’t come across too many analyses suggesting that Mitt Romney is the favorite. (There are exceptions.) But there are plenty of people who say that the race is a “tossup.”

What I find confounding about this is that the argument we’re making is exceedingly simple. Here it is:

Obama’s ahead in Ohio.

And has been for pretty much the entire campaign. Look at the whole article and you'll see why Nate has Obama at an over 80% favorite to win (but please, please Democrats, Independents and thinking Republicans, let that just be more motivation to get out and vote).

"Why Obama Now"

This is just a wonderfully informative, brilliant 3-minute summary of what this election is all about. Please pass it along to all you know.



(h/t Wisconsin Cousin Kathy)

On "Too-Polite" Obama

Charles P. Pierce on President Obama's assertion that he was "too polite" in last week's debate, and that calling out Willard's lies would be "repetitive:"

"Has it dawned on you yet that you're holding down two jobs at the moment? You are president of the United States and you are a political candidate for re-election. Each job has different requirements and different emotional imperatives. In your capacity as a political candidate, nobody cares whether or not you find pointing out that Willard Romney was lying about his tax plan, lying about his health-care plan, and lying about virtually everything you've done as president repetitive — and, as long as we're being frank here, what a prissy academic word that is to describe what should be a full-throated defense of your own record against a truthless and dangerous mountebank. Calling a liar out on all his lies should be energizing. It should get your blood up. It is one of the most important things you can do in your job as a political candidate.

"In your job as a political candidate, you are not allowed to find things like Willard Romney's lying — and its unsightly offspring, his evolving positions on virtually every important issue of the day — too boring to be worthy of your time and effort. It is your job to turn this most ridiculous man and his ridiculous positions into the fuel for your campaign, the grist for your mill, the garbage for your flux capacitor. One thing you don't need right now is the lofty disdain of a man who's already president. Leave that stuff back in the Oval. You don't work there right now."

Perhaps the President and his handlers will absorb this lesson before the next debate.

Obama's Plan - In Two Minutes

Latinos for Obama and Working Families Ads

We share because we care:

A Tale of Two Parties

There's a really helpful comparative summary here of the 2012 platforms of the Democratic and Rethuglican parties that illustrates the difference between a 21st Century party and one stuck in the 16th Century -- B.C. The summary has links to the actual platforms, so you can peruse them yourselves in greater detail if so inclined.

Letters We Wish We'd Written Dept.

From today's Kaplan Daily "Letters to the Editor":

"Michael Gerson ['Following Ryan’s map,' op-ed, Aug. 14] had an interesting take on what will characterize the political debate: 'The Democratic ticket will go small, detailing how Ryanism will hurt this group and that.'

"That seems likely, but it helps to do some math. The groups in question are, in no particular order: racial and ethnic minorities; women; veterans; gay men and lesbians; people with disabilities; the poor; federal employees; teachers; and more. When you add up all these groups, you get a big group. A very big group. I think that qualifies as going 'large.'

"Meanwhile, Mr. Gerson asserted, Republicans will go 'large' by 'arguing that budgetary indiscipline creates uncertainty that undermines current growth, while eventually leading to fiscal crisis and economic catastrophe.'

"One can’t argue with the Republican Party’s expertise on this front. It has undeniable credibility on that scenario, having walked the walk during the George W. Bush administration. Fiscal crisis and economic catastrophe indeed. I can live without trying on the Republican brand’s 'large' again, and so can most of those small groups that make up America.

John Allison, Williamsburg"

That's Mr. Allison, 1; "Mushroom Cloud" Gerson, 0.

The Campaign Thus Far

... as filtered through the parallel Earth theory.

(click to enlarge)

Your Pierce-ing Quote of the Day

Speaking of the great Charles P. Pierce, here's a snip from his Monday morning review of the fools and knaves festival, also known as Sunday news shows:

"Can everybody on both sides of the big political dig please now come to the overdue realization that the president was not elected to fulfill your rosy dreams of what you believe America to be? He was a politician, more ambitious than most, who was handed the biggest dungburger of pre-existing political conditions of any president since FDR. Right now, his primary obligation to himself — and, I would argue, to democracy its own self — is to keep his job out of the well-manicured and grasping talons of Willard Romney. That he is doing so with enough vigor to give the vapors to the country's lycanthropic financial titans, and to the reporters who worship them, is what he's supposed to be doing. And, in doing so, I don't think he's gone more than a yard out of bounds to make his hits. If that disturbs nappy-nap time for people who thought the country voted for Martin Luther Ruxspin last time around, that's just going to have to be too bad."

Believe it or not, it only gets better from there.

Sunday Reading

The Kaplan Daily has the always insightful Drew Westen looking back on the mistakes made by the Obama Administration that could translate to an election day loss. (Westen has often been way ahead of the curve in advising Democrats how to position themselves policy-wise and politically; it's too bad his advice was often ignored or followed too-tepidly.) While we still believe this is Obama's election to lose, it's frustrating to know that this needn't have been such a struggle. As Westen says,

"So, beyond the anemic economy, why do the latest polls show the former Massachusetts governor in a dead heat with the president? Because Obama’s administration made three crucial errors that enabled the Republican obstructionism that has tied his hands for the past two years, with GOP leaders shooting down any idea — even if it’s one of their own — that might have helped the president strengthen the economy. And those mistakes have made possible what was unimaginable in January 2009: that a private-equity baron lacking a sense of noblesse oblige, and preaching the gospel of deregulation and lower taxes for the rich, might actually win the presidency four years after those policies led to the collapse of the U.S. economy."

Also, the Kaplan Daily has an editorial about Rethuglican voter suppression - calling it, rightly, a modern version of the old poll taxes that were meant to keep minority voters away from the polls in the Jim Crow South. We need more media outlets to shine a light on this Rethuglican attempt to pull off an election day coup.

150 Days From Today

Charles P. Pierce reminds us:

"It is not much of a landmark, but, in 150 days, we’re going to be electing ourselves a president again. We will do so in a political world made wholly different by the power of anonymous corporate money and by the ongoing descent of the Republican party into the kind of madness from which there seems to be no real escape. The airwaves are going to be full of slander and calumny. Imaginary, but profitable, hobgoblins will stalk the land, howling through 10,000 thirty-second spots. The whole event will take place within the sprawling corporate Id of the country. In 150 days, we’ll be electing ourselves a president again, and the story this year is the money, and the money is the only story, and everything else is a puppet show."

Rethuglican sociopaths, plutocrat money flooding campaigns, corporate Dems (yo, Mayor Booker) backstabbing Obama, all played out in front of an audience of low-information, easily-swayed voters with 5-second attention spans. We can hardly wait as the depressing spectacle unfolds.

On the Obama Campaign Kickoff

As President Obama kicks off his reelection campaign in Ohio and Virginia, Charles P. Pierce looks at the political landscape that Rethugs and an often too-conciliatory President Obama created:

"There was too much conciliation, too much presumed good faith, a continuation of the haughty disdain for what raw, bloody partisan politics can achieve that we saw in the last campaign. There was too much reaching out, too much pre-emptive compromise, too much thumb-sucking about the 'shellacking' in 2010, and not enough of grasping the American people by the shoulders and shaking them, saying, 'Do you see what you've done? Allen Fking West?' There has been a lot of argument over the past three years about the limitation of the 'bully pulpit' given the nature of the way things work in our government, and most of it is valid. But there is an educational component to the presidency, too, and part of that component is to remind the people that extended tantrums are not self-government, that electing the unqualified and the half-bright simply because they say the things that you also hear on your radio for 12 hours a day is not a recipe for moving the country forward. The partnership in government didn't 'break down.' The Republicans broke it and then walked away from the splinters. Period. There was nowhere near enough of that kind of talk over the past three years."

Pierce goes on to say why he's sanguine about whether President Obama and his team have finally learned a lesson, but too late.

"Forward" / "One Chance"

As opposed to the Rethuglican's/ Willard "Mendacious Mitt" Romney's "Backward!"



BONUS: And here's the spot that has Willard's Wingnut World in a tizzy:



Please rub it in their faces some more, please, please, please.