Since there still seems to be some bizarre combination of excuse-making, reality dodging, blame-shifting, and general confusion among the right as to why Obama won, let me lay it out real simple for you:
Two Wars
Dow at 8000 when it was up near 14000 a short bit ago
Our financial industry so screwed up that we are spending trillions to rescue ourselves
At the very least, five trillion in national debt over the last eight years
$500 billion deficit
A deep recession for the last year while all Republicans did was say we are not “officially” in a recession.
Rising unemployment
Stagnant wages
Skyrocketing health care costs
$4 dollar a gallon gasoline
And on and on and on. The Republicans have lost the last two elections not because of media bias, but because they are being blamed for the current mess we are in, and they are being blamed for good reason. Until 2006 they controlled Congress and the White House, right now they control the White House. Listening to Republicans trying to blame their loss on media bias is like listening to OJ Simpson trying to blame his conviction on racism.
The Republicans did not lose because of media bias. Dan Rather wasn’t in New Orleans knocking water bottles out of people’s hands at the convention center. Brian Williams didn’t crash the stock market. Keith Olbermann didn’t invade Iraq. Chris Matthews doesn’t run OPEC.
Republicans lost because they were in charge of the country for the better part of the last decade, and their governance has been an unmitigated disaster. This is not rocket science. You can argue that Democrats should share some of the blame for some of the policies, and you would not get any disagreement from me, but that does not change the fact that the Republicans were in charge, and blew it.
Incertus
Shhhh. If the Republicans want to keep looking for blame in the media, or anywhere other than their own policies, for that matter, let them. It’ll make it easier for us to pull the country out of the shit.
slag
I thought Obama won because America secretly longs for an Uppity-Muslim-Black Liberation-Socialist-Fascist-Terrorist Fist Jabber President. So, you’re saying that’s wrong?
MIchael Demmons
Of course, all that stuff you said is true, but I would also like to think that Obama won because people think he’d be a pretty good president.
Blackacre
It really is that simple. So why the heck is Rove still on the teevee trying to deny the obvious? This guy’s "genius" is primarily his advice to Bush to move to a prop ranch to look like a regular guy.
Loneoak
Yeah, you sort of left off:
Obama ran a nearly flawless campaign
Obama has near perfect political timing
Obama is smart as hell
America is smart enough to elect Obama
Laura W
POTUS-E looks very tired and distracted this morn on tee vee with Richardson. Bungling his words a bit. Can’t imagine what he’s worried or stressed about. Maybe he’s under the weather.
(This site is loading as slowly as it was in the old days. Damn you, Rachel.)
sparky
anyone else having lots of trouble accessing this place this morning?
Rosali
Media bias showed people drowning in a major US city.
Incertus
@Loneoak: All that is true–well, except maybe the last part–but I really think that if the country isn’t in such a ditch, that Obama’s race and name would have been a far larger factor in the race than it was. He probably wouldn’t have gotten out of the primaries if it weren’t for the war.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
Yes he does! Stop spreading the lies!! I’m forming a committee to show the Truth to the world! OPEC is a terrorist supporter of MSNBCs socialist attacks against our new American representative to Lord Jesus Christ, our perfect Sarah Palin.
I’m calling it the Committee to Impeach Obama from the Axis of Media-Oil Alliance.
OPECNN controls us all!!
Truth!!!!!!
sorry, I know, it’s the month after and I’m still waaaay too euphoric
Zifnab
Fix’d!
Third Eye Open
@Incertus:
I would like to believe that anyone with memory longer than a Grey’s Anatomy episode should realize that we have many of the same human-nature tendencies stacked against our collective consciousness as we did ’round the time of Pearl Harbor. Now try imagining Gerald Masako Fujiwara as the Nominee for POTUS in 1948.
But women don’t have to go into either hiding or a truck-stop bathroom if they unintentionally get pregnant. So I would like to think we have gained ground in places. y’know?
Foobar
I was never good w/ date math, but didnt the 2006 vote take place in November, and the Dem majority took office in ’07.
Bubblegum Tate
Also, media bias moved Iraq’s WMDs to Syria.
Echoes without Bunnies or Men
Wingnuts are completely incapable of self reflection. They cannot honestly sit down and make a list of what went wrong; it’s always the other kids fault, and not mine. Is this the behavior of sane, responsible adults?
This is 3rd grade shit I remember so clearly. Watching some other kid during ‘quiet time’ get called out by the teacher for making faces at me, and his response? "He has a calculator that’s beeping!" pointing at me.
I hope they keep this up, I really do. Let them purge their party even further of anyone rational and sane, leaving it to the dregs and conspiracy idiots to run the GOP. Shit, they still think Palin is a player for their party! That says it all to me.
TenguPhule
Unless you live in a state where the domestic terrorists have driven out every abortion clinic in the area.
The stupid dies hard and must be killed with fire. It’s the only way to be sure.
Calouste
Last time the GOP had the Presidency and both houses of Congress? 1921-1931. We know how that ended.
A recession/depression is the natural result of the kind of unbridled laissez-faire capitalism that the GOP stands for.
Jeff
And he has still not proven his citizenship. Front page on Google News this morning. I guess it is a legitimate news story when someone spends thousands of dollars in your newspaper.
CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMVIII
John, we’ve been saying this stuff for years, you’re preaching to the choir, and the opposition will never hear or understand it.
Case in point: The Pajamas Media graphic on this site has (or had yesterday) a question asking whether Obama was more of Bush. Those people are absolutely freaking NUTS! Bush was THEIR guy! They can’t sing his praises for 6 of the last almost eight years and then disown him and pin him on Democrats. Fuck that business.
Douche Baggins
Calouste: Last time the GOP had the Presidency and both houses of Congress? 1921-1931. We know how that ended.
Crikey! I find your factoid both alarming and comforting, and am too lazy to find out whether it’s true because it rings of truthiness. But I’m gonna use it.
The Repukes lost it in ’94 with the Contract on America, and it only spiralled further into teh suck when they made obstructionism their modus operandi. "I can’t or won’t, so you don’t get to either" is the LAMEST principle of governance ever. Christ on a pony, these people are awful. Mitch McConnell and Weepy Boehner should choke on a Sam’s Club PartyPak Chile-Lime Bag o’Dicks.
4tehlulz
>>unbridled laissez-faire capitalism
You can use many terms for Bush administration policy, but "laissez-faire capitalism" is not one of them. Coolidge and Hoover would have given AIG and co. a bag of burning dicks as their bailout package, not untold trillions of dollars.
TenguPhule
But remember, the media is always biased *for* Obama.
Please, just shoot them now.
rumpole
I think you left out a big one:
"Let New Orleans Drown"
Zifnab
Why not? If you’re going to be a nutter, no point in half-assing it. The wingnut movement is many things, but it is not half-assed. No, they go for the full ass every time.
CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMVIII
@Jeff:
OMFG! Those people will do anything to confuse the issue so scary black man doesn’t become president, huh?
Bubblegum Tate
@CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMVIII:
And the PJ Media ad today is Chuckles Johnson talking to Roger L. Simon about media bias. I feel like those jokes just write themselves.
Tonal Crow
OT: This site is really slow today, and often issues the error:
Third Eye Open
@TenguPhule:
I am willing to accept ‘focused stumbling’.
I will paraphrase a quip that Chomsky once said: If you compare today to 1930s union busting, then you have to admit that we are getting somewhere. The battles are ones of the mind now, not ones of force–in America. It has to say something about where we are going when we have managed to wrest that powerful a tool from the decision makers.
I will now go self-flagellate for being such a squishy incrementalist, not sufficiently devoted to the Cause.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
Holy shit, is that a news article that actually states what the record is, instead of implying that everyone gets to be correct if they wish hard enough?? I’m going to have to remember to read more of the ChiTrib.
And as of today the Times still can’t say that what we have done to terrorism suspects is torture.
Betsy
Media bias stole my parents’ retirement savings.
JR
I miss Atanjarnut. Boy, what he wouldn’t have to say about this liberal nonsensical blaming of conservatives for conservatism.
CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMVIII
Fixt by "another Betsy".
:)
Svensker
Is it slow here because of the Maddow mention? Success spoils everything!
The Moar You Know
Too late. This started well before the election. "Big Liberal Spender Bush". The sane mind reels, of course, but these people just roll on without a moment’s cognitive dissonance.
Napoleon
Did she mention BJ on her show? If so what did she say exactly (a link to a video would be even better).
CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMVIII
@Napoleon:
Link
Here ya go. The BJ mention is around minute 4 mark.
Joshua Norton
Change the headline to "What Obama Won" and it gets really depressing.
And the loons will start screaming that he hasn’t fixed anything about 20 seconds after the takes the Oath on Inauguration Day.
CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMVIII
Boy, does it. The only people they are fooling are themselves. Everyone else hasn’t forgotten the last 2,400 days.
Calouste
@Douche Baggins:
Composition of the 1929-1931 Congress on wikipedia. It is linked to the preceding and following congresses.
Calouste
@4tehlulz:
Yes, I should have said
But deregulation, corporate favoritism, it’s all there.
Oh, and also ignoring the welbeing of Louisiana African-Americans in the wake of a natural disaster (Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, occupying foreign countries for business interests (Nicaragua, Haiti), it’s all there as well.
Joshua Norton
It was pretty hard to pull this off, but the "titans" of American industry have made Herbert Hoover look like a very wise man – at least when he said: “You know, the only trouble with capitalism is capitalists; they’re too damn greedy.”
Tsulagi
Strange as it may seem, there’s a diary post at RedState that is reasonably insightful for the denizens there as to why they lost. In fact, the title sums it up well: We Lost Because We Suck. Fleshing that out a bit before he got rolling…
Amen.
Some of the comments are kind of funny. One dip said GW failed because he was too much of a uniter and not a divider. Seems the love has waned for GWB, and that short infatuation they had with McCain while he had the nomination is over.
Jeff
@CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMVIII: That is all kind of awesome. OK, now let’s figure out which commenter is Maddow or works for her show.
Calouste
@Tsulagi:
Well, that’s another one who is going to be kicked out of the "conservative movement" soon. Can’t have any self-reflection now, can we?
Are there any suggestions there on how to reduce the level of suckiness so that some people in their right mind might trust them to run a government, or alternatively how to make sure that the majority of the American voters are not in their right mind, kind of like how things were in 2004?
Cyrus
@Third Eye Open:
I don’t know, that’s only a little bit harder to imagine than a nominee for POTUS with a German name in 1952.
(Yeah, it’s not exactly the same thing because Japan is more foreign than Germany, and Eisenhower’s family had been in America far longer than Obama’s, but I still think it’s pretty cool.)
Chuck Butcher
@Tsulagi: they don’t trust the Democrats much either.
Hmm, suppose we fix Obama’s complexion and name and see if it wouldn’t be a 20 point blow out. It’s about Democrats? Bullshit. Add in one other piece, some parts of the county have a conservative type of mentality, change isn’t necessarily good. Don’t mistake that with political Conservatism. As an example, where I live if your car breaks 20 miles from town and you’ve not prepared for such a thing, you may die. Ooopses are dangerous. New things and new ideas aren’t proven. You could argue all day that the Republicans have proven what they can do, but you’re also up against 30 years of propaganda as accepted wisdom.
I’d like the Republicans to stay ignorant for awhile longer, I think they need a serious lesson before they get to come play again.
Tsulagi
@Chuck Butcher:
Don’t think so. If I recall, a Democratic white guy with an unremarkable name ran against a Republican four years ago…and lost.
I think the writer of that RedState diary I linked to has it right. They lost control of Congress and the presidency because they suck across the board. Simple as that.
And as far as the Democrats, I don’t have high expectations. Now that they have control of Congress and the presidency, if they can just stop the full-throated bringing of stupid to bear that has been a hallmark of the Bush years, I’d call that change I can believe in. We live in hope.
Phoebe
Obama beat the Republicans for those reasons, plus one more, which is also why he beat Clinton first: A whole ton of people really wanted him to be president. Enough to put their money [and their labor] where their their mouths were.
Why the massive wanting? Because, to invert that Red State poster’s point, Obama clearly Does Not Suck. People are hungry for Not Sucking, in large part thanks to Bush, who showed us how sucky a president could be, and how far that could drive the country into the ground.
And H. Clinton, I’m sorry, kind of sucked during her campaign, for reasons that have been exhaustively described on this blog. I hope she’s better at her new job.
DrDave
Shorter "Why Obama Won":
Republicans suck at governance.
Used to not be the case but is the truth today. Republicans believe that government is the problem so being good at governance is not on their agenda.
kommrade reproductive vigor
What, no mention of Axelrod’s Ovinator?
CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMVIII
That’s true, until their stomachs go empty. The problem is when their stomachs go empty their likewise empty heads will blame it on Obama and not on the administration that threw trillions of dollars down the drain.
CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMVIII
I’ve linked a graphic to my name, in case anyone wants to see the code. Just so you all can figure it out.
CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMVIII
Sorry, wrong thread. I need to wake up ;)
Flüge
Well, didn’t you forget the influence of the internet? Since it is assumable that Obama voters more often used the internet during the election campaign so the campaing aides did have just a channel more to influence potential voters?
Lilibelle
re: OJ Simpson blaming his conviction on racism — don’t you mean his acquittal?