Politico has a story up about the finger pointing and blame game of Team Mittens and the Wingnuts. These “flow-of-wingnut-tears” stories will be common in the coming days, but one part stood out for me (emphasis added):
Multiple Romney sources buzzed about one number in particular: 15 percent. According to exit polls, that’s the share of African-Americans who voted in Ohio this year. In 2008, the black percentage of the electorate was 11 percent. In Virginia and Florida, exit polls showed the same share of African-Americans turned out as four years ago, something that GOP turnout models did not anticipate.
“We didn’t think they’d turn out more of their base vote than they did in 2008, but they smoked us,” said one Romney operative. “It’s unbelievable that that they turned out more from the African-American community than in 2008. Somehow they got ‘em to vote.”
Here is the thing that Team Mitt and Team Wingnut failed to understand: that when you insult folks and dismiss them, they tend to get mad and they tend to want to kick your ass.
Mitt and the Wingnuts have run a four-year campaign that is only a blond hair’s width away from calling the President a nigger every single day. They are focused like a laser beam on promoting white rage and using every dog whistle they can think of to get the message across. White folks heard them and so did people of color. Team Mitt is surprised that African-American turnout increased over 2008, but that is only because they are incapable of thinking of these folks as people.
As I knocked on door after door in a black neighborhood in Columbus, it was clear that folks heard the Mitt/wingnut code-talking and that it pissed them off. They heard the endless disrespect of the President and the general contempt for anybody who is not white that has become the core message of the modern conservative movement. They heard it and they decided to kick Mitt’s ass in the voting booth.
Mitt’s “Vote for me, I’m white” strategy made my job of getting Obama supporters to the polls really easy.
Cheers
freelancer
I don’t even play MMORPGs, but I fucking know how agro works.
Sheesh.
Yutsano
You kick people in the teeth, they tend to not appreciate it. Really funny how that works.
Spaghetti Lee
This white Obama voter will drink up their bitter tears and politely ask for more. You lost, you stupid bastards. You ran a campaign dedicated to getting out every racist and bigot in America to vote for you, and it wasn’t enough. You failed. You probably could have won, but you failed, because you were utterly repulsive to the country’s minorities and more-evolved whites, and they crushed you. I wish everyone on the Romney team a remaining lifetime of shame, self-doubt, and despair.
Rita R.
Don’t forget the part about when you try to block people from being able to vote, that also tends to piss them off and make them try even harder to cast their ballot. Against you.
David Koch
This can’t be true.
The numbers have to be wrong.
How could turnout of core constituencies rise without the endorsements of Matt Stoller and GG??
freelancer
Semi-OT: The latter half of Maddow’s opening segment from earlier tonight is flat out amazing.
Watch it now.
ruemara
Not to be a grammar gnome, but focused like a laser beam, not bean. Although I’m sure laser beans are delicious. Also too, agreed.
Hill Dweller
Does anyone have the latest on the Florida count?
D. Mason
I love laser beans with some cornbread in the winter. Just sayin.
freelancer
@D. Mason:
Hannibal ate his liver with some laser beans and a nice chianti. [slurpslurpslurpslurp]
Dennis G.
@ruemara: Typos are always delicious. Thanks.
kuvasz
Rule number one is not to not talk about fight club, but never underestimate your opponent. The Republicans did and it is derivative to their nature; an amalgum of laziness of mind, lack of intellectual curiousity, and arrogance.
AND THANK FUCKING JESUS THAT THESE CLOWNISH AMATUERS DID NOT GET THEIR HANDS ON THE LAUNCH CODES!
MikeJ
@Hill Dweller: They’re having trouble getting their shoes untied. It might take them a while.
redshirt
@D. Mason: LASER beans and SONAR bread. Yum!
AT
Im sure that the same strategists that worked for McCain and then Romney will take the learnings from this campaign and lead the republicans tO glorious victory in 2016! Dog whistles to the shrinking white majority don’t fail, they can only be failed!
gwangung
Lawd, that’s some weapons grade stupid.
And their base is even stupider.
Jimmy Jazz
“It’s unbelievable that that they turned out more from the African-American community than in 2008. Somehow they got ‘em to vote. Probably with a pack of Kools and some malt liquor.”
I retranslated that from the original German.
angler
cyber high five dennis g.
MikeJ
@freelancer: The whole rant from 12:50 on is lovely.
GeneJockey
They’re still at it. They can’t understand why Blacks, Latinos, young voters, and women don’t vote for them, except that THOSE PEOPLE all want ‘Free Stuff’.
And did you know Puerto Rico voted for statehood to get ‘Free Stuff’ from Obama?
Mudge
Perhaps Obama’s use of the word revenge was appropriate.
Waldo
@Rita R.: yep. You can’t truly appreciate the value of your vote until someone is trying to take it from you.
The prophet Nostradumbass
Speaking of this subject, one of my cousins in Northern Ireland posted this on Facebook today:
Before I could figure out how to reply, another cousin said:
I still am not sure how to reply to that bit of stupidity. I did briefly consider asking him about the lack of tribalism in voting patterns there, but thought better of it.
MikeJ
The Washington Examiner reported:
On a related note, Moby Dick is just starting on TCM.
David Koch
The next demographic dominoes to fall are Georgia, Arizona, and Texas.
this is gonna be so much fun.
PurpleGirl
@Waldo: Didn’t one of the entertainers who made ads for President Obama say that people died to enable blacks to vote… that’s a powerful reminder of how important voting is and then, yes, you add on voter suppression measures and you make people (black and white) mad.
I also think that providing the transportation for many to go to vote aided the turnout. If you are older and/or sick and don’t drive or aren’t able to use what little mass transit there might be, it’s important that someone helps transport you. That should be planned for again for the midterms in 2014.
The prophet Nostradumbass
Something amusing… Mick LaSalle, the San Francisco Chronicle’s movie critic, is systematically RTing a whole hell of a lot of right-wingers’ stupid pre-election puffery.
gwangung
I think black people didn’t need entertainers making ads to know this. Not when it’s within living memory of a family member.
Republicans were frakkin STUPID to forget this. Voter suppression is a trigger word for them, like rape–
Oh. Wait. Never mind.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@gwangung:
I suspect a lot of White people need to be reminded of it, though.
gwangung
Yeah, I know. Lots of white folks simply don’t realize how visceral it is, even when you tell them directly.
? Martin
@David Koch: Texas and Arizona should be reachable now with effective state-level GOTV. Latinos in Texas just aren’t voting.
Latinos and African Americans make up 42% of Texas’ eligible voter demographics. With the current rates that Democrats are pulling those groups, if they turned out at the same rate as whites, Democrats would earn 36% of the total vote just off of those two groups. They’d need to pull only 14% points off of the remaining 58% of the electorate, so they could lose whites 70-30 to the GOP and still win the state – and Democrats are drawing much better than that now.
Texas is 100% a turnout problem, but it’s a big state and turnout is really difficult to do. There isn’t the turnout machine that states like Ohio had – with labor leading much of the charge. If that can be remedied, Texas would be a blue state right now.
Jewish Steel
@freelancer: Thanks for posting that. Pretty sweet. Esp, as MikeJ says, the rant from 12:50.
Raven
@The prophet Nostradumbass: That’s correct. I don’t think many of these fucking wingnuts have a clue. I mentioned last night that my half brother jumped on a “see you later jerk” Facebook post I made about that Nazi cocksuker Allen West. I told him months ago to stay out of my political conversations and he’s going to tell me he’s “put up” with MY shit for long enough. Him and his wife have posted pictures of themselves with “the great Sheriff “Joe Arpaio” My sweet wife is trying to calm me down and contends that he is just hurt because they lost. I’m so fucking mad that it is a really good thing he lives 1500 miles away. Apparently people think the racist, homophobic sexist vile that is the foundation of their party is just some kind of fun game they play. This is why we fight.
amk
@David Koch: Yup. Fuck florida. It’s high time they became irrelevant like for ever. When bill nelson could rack up a double digit blowout, the fucking sepuku loving seniors seem balk at blackety black.
Kathleen
A tad OT, but I heard Diane Sawyer say on ABC’s Evening Propatainment Outlet last night that the impact of people of color and women (particularly single women) at the polls was a “revelation”. This was followed by a segment in which George Stuffitupurass revealed the American electorate is now like “Modern Family”. Warning: expect “Modern Family” to be the new buzzword for the media effete. The fact that ABC News is amazed that people who aren’t white have an impact speaks volumes about its biases.
Frankensteinbeck
Behold the subtle tongue of racism. His instinct says it cannot be that the African American community WANTED to vote in higher numbers, that they were more motivated. They had to be pushed from the outside.
Raven
Gail Collins this morning:
Paul
Mittens and the Wingnuts – great name for a band – are singing the blues. They tried to weaponize the stupid just one last time but couldn’t get enough angry white guys to hoist themselves out of their Barcaloungers to push them over the top. Now on to 2014!
Anya
When talking about AA voter turn out, I think mad props should go to urban radios. The last two days leading up to the election I was paired with a young AA man from Lorain, Ohio so I was exposed to Hip hop stations and they really contributed a great deal to the GOTV efforts. In between songs and in every AA talk radio they encouraged people like mad to stay in line, to vote and to report back any challenges they were having. They played Mittens saying: “I am not concerned about the very poor,” in every segment. This was repeated over and over again and then the presenter would say something like: show him that “you care” or “you matter” by staying in line and voting.
The 2014 GOTV model should be repeated in every election. We really need to mobilize all of our forces.
WereBear
@freelancer: Thank you.
That was flat out amazing.
RosiesDad
With an increasing minority demographic that decreases the proportion of whites by 0.7% every four years, only cultivating the white vote does not seem to be a winning strategy to me.
But WTF do I know?
Xenos
@? Martin: re. Texas: obviously, then, getting Texas organized has got to be a strategic priority over the next three years. Putting that state in play changes everything.
What does OFA have on its agenda?
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
The Puerto Rico statehood vote is an interesting curveball. If they petition for statehood, the Republicans’ first impulse would undoubtedly be to turn them down, but I can’t imagine anything that would make Spanish-surname voters angrier…or to avoid that, they could let it become a state, which would hasten their demographic downfall by five years at least. Looks like a lose-lose situation. That’s the only kind I want them to encounter, of course.
WereBear
It’s not. But it was a great short term strategy.
It was perhaps inevitable; the Democrats, like the Republicans during the Civil War, took a strong stand that was the polar opposite of the other party’s strong stand. This creates a stronghold of like-mindedness that feeds back into strategy and platform. It’s not just a plan to follow; it becomes an identity, a part of themselves.
Which is where the entire Wingnut Thinking Process reveals its fatal flaw. The big crevasse was in 1964. It was a time when women stayed in the kitchen, non-whites were supposed to “know their place,” and it looked like Democrats were being soft in the head as well as soft in the heart. They were hitching their wagons to The Powerless. Haw haw! Good luck with that!
They still don’t want to align with The Powerless. That’s giving their Power away. So instead, it’s going to be wrenched away from them, bit by bit.
MikeJ
@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge:
Puerto Rico would send two Republicans to the senate, or so the thinking has long been. We should off a swap and bring in DC at the same time.
Xenos
@MikeJ: Not to be to thick here, but why would Puerto Rico choose Republican Senators?
aussie sheila
Not wanting to be OT or anything, but again I am amazed at the tolerance that otherwise smart and progressive US citizens (BJers natch!) have for the appalling travesty that is the US election machinery. It seems no one’s right to exercise an effective vote (meaning easily accessed, properly recorded and honestly counted) can be guaranteed for any election in the US, even for important ones such as President etc.
The issue of GOTV mightn’t be so fraught if the following could be guranteed-
* independent (non political) oversight of redistricting to ensure parity of all electorates
*automatic registration of all citizens once they attain aadult status (18 in US?)based on issuing of SS card
*automatic registration of all citizens who attain that status via naturalisation/citizenship ceremonies
*requirements for polling booths based on a numbers of people in electoral district eg. One booth staffed by x no. of people per x number of electors in an electoral district/county
*prohibition of restrictions on access to absentee ballots for any reason
*absentee ballots to be available for all citizens up to one month pprior to election, and to be available from post offices, on line etc. Issuing of such ballots should of course be recorded, to ensure that people cannot vote twice-once by AB and in person
*effective federal legislation to ensure that every shi*hole county/state complies with minimum standards of access, accuracy of recording, and proper vote counting
Combinations of all of the above represent the basic standards enjoyed by citizens in every democratic OECD country-except the US.
I mean I ‘get’ US exceptionalisim, but this is one of the most head scratching issues to outsiders, that exists.
Every converstaion with friends and colleagues over the last couple of days always includes-‘can you believe how they conduct elections over there.
It is disgraceful that the poor, the young and minority citizens generally, still have to pay a poll tax, represented by their time ( a whole day!) just to get to exercise their right to vote.
Un fuc***g believable.
NonyNony
@Rita R.:
This too. Really. When Republican secretaries of State are out there basically gloating about how they’re going to find ways to suppress the vote your parents and grandparents and great-grandparents and so on fought and died for you to have the right for, it tends to make you angry.
And when rich Republican idiots put up billboards in an obvious and ham-fisted attempt to suppress votes by unsubtly calling all black people criminals, it has a tendency to piss you off as well.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@NonyNony: I hope people stay pissed off long enough to turn out for the goddam off-year elections that put people like Husted, Rick Scott and a bunch of bass-ackwards crackers in control of state governments that determine voting rules, which@aussie sheila: aussie sheila, is the answer to your question. We at BJ are political junkies, most voters probably couldn’t name their state’s Secretary of State (a very different animal from the national one), and off-year (non-presidential) elections are overwhelmingly dominated by older, whiter, more conservative voters. If Obama committed himself to this unglamorous cause, either now or in retirement, that would be some fucking change I could believe in.
Lavocat
I’m so shocked that Ni-CLANG! would kick Mittens’ ass! It’s not like this was The Worst Dogwhistle Campaign In The History Of History or anything.
What next? I’m guessing that the more unhinged wingnuts (I know, I’m being redundant) will start in soon with ANY whites voting AGAINST Mittens must be self-loathing race haters. The horror!
It simply can’t be about the truth, at all costs.
PurpleGirl
@aussie sheila: Most natural born Americans get their Social Security number/card at birth now since it is used for ID (even though SS law says it can’t be used that way) and on paperwork of all kinds.
Patricia Kayden
@aussie sheila: The problem is that voting appears to be a state-by-state proposition in the US, which means that Repubs get to muck around with it to decrease the vote of Dems in certain states where they have control.
I agree with you that voting rules should be the same for each state and be set up by Congress.
I’m hoping that Dems will target the Floridian governor and the Ohioan Secretary of State for their appalling voter suppression tactics. Their conduct is exactly why I will never vote Repub ever.
aussie sheila
@PurpleGirl so if every US citizen gets a SS card, and only one per person, natch, what in all that’s sensible and practical, stops the possession of that card being the sole requirement for registering as a voter abd obtaining a ballot paper? And while I’m at it, what’s with the ‘registered Dem/Repub’ issue. I am a political maniac too, and a party member (Australian Labour Party)and an active election day volunteer (handing out how to votes, ringing people, canvassing for votes etc), but I’m damned if I would ever tell our electoral commission, or a polling official what party I vote for, or ‘register’ to vote via political affilitation. It is simply incredible, unbelievable that people who prattle so much about liberty tolerate such shoddy, intrusive and undemocratic approaches to what should be the foundational right of citizenship-the right to cast a secret, effective, properly counted vote!
MikeJ
@aussie sheila: Some states require you top register with party affiliation so you can vote in the primary.
Personally I’d take the government out of the primary business. I have no problem with local Democrats getting together to decide who our candidates should be, and the Republicans can go read goat entrails or whateverthefuck it is they do.
Ksmiami
@Lavocat: they are already saying that white women who voted for Obama were stupid, misguided and the types of women who are in bad relationships… For a start. Funny that though … Aren’t the divorce rates higher in red states?
PurpleGirl
@aussie sheila: Americans seem to have a fear and loathing for the idea of a national ID card. (Something about it being tyrannical and authoritarian, I guess.) When Social Security was begun provision was made that the card could not be used as an ID card, although now it is asked for for any number of things (like bank accounts). But we keep this fiction that it isn’t an ID card. One reason that it wasn’t initially used for ID was that not all citizens were covered under Social Security and therefore did not get numbers. Many categories of workers (notably household workers) were not covered by the law. Social Security cards do not have pictures on them or addressed — only your name and a place to sign the card. Naturalized citizens get their number/card when they become citizens.
Unfortunately many of our pundits and “intellectuals” consider voting to a privilege and not a right.
Dennis G.
@NonyNony: Spot on. There was real anger over the attempts to block the vote and many folks mentioned how they fought for the right to vote.
PurpleGirl
@Ksmiami: Yes. It’s also pointed out that Massachusetts, that leader of all that is immoral, has one of the lowest rates of divorce and lowest rates of teen pregnancy.
Suffern ACE
On a related note, one of the NPR folks reported that the net result of dog whistles was that Asian Americans went +47 for Obama, which is +20 more than in 2008. I haven’t seen more breakdown on that, but it actually floored me.
Laura
I read on Daily Kos that Arizona still has 600,000 votes to count. Sheriff Joe may still lose and Carmona still win.
NorthLeft12
@Frankensteinbeck: You know, because they are so lazy and shiftless.
As a Canadian, I just cannot fathom how 100% of the voting population is not completely repulsed by the Republican efforts to hinder/suppress/take away the right of American citizens to vote. Most other Canadians I have spoken to about this flat out don’t believe it could happen and think I am making this shit up.
Quite a legacy the Republicans/Tea Party is building.
aussie sheila
@PurpleGirl.
I appreciate the explanation. But if people reject an ID card (and I am not a supporter either), the solution should simply be automatic registration to vote at age 18 (for natural born citizens) and otherwise, registration upon naturalisation/citizenship ceremony. On-line rego. isn’t hard-after all people pay bills that way. Main thing is, US federal govt. needs to ensure no half assed politician can interfere with the machinery and process of voting-ever.
And that ‘true the vote’ mob ought to be fined and/or jailed, for interfering with the ballot. My god, if someone dared request ID of any voter in this country while they waited to vote, they would be arrested-and that isn’t hyperbole-they would be flat out requested to leave and their name and details obtained, and charges laid for interference in an election, which is a serious offence in this country.
Cermet
Let me get this right – African-Americans came out in the 90’s in most the US and in the high 90’s in Ohio!? So, African-Americans are, without a doubt, the best voting block this country has or pretty much ever has? That is amazing and the democrats had better start paying special attention to their needs; the thugs are also amazed and apparently taking notice – that means they will kick into high gear ALL methods to defeat African-Americans from voting; democrats had better protect these voters rights big time.
different-church-lady
Hey, I got a suggestion for you guys: maybe next time you should think less about how to suppress and depress the black vote, and more about how to get blacks to not hate your guts and consider voting for your side.
There was a GOP guy on local pubrad yesterday who said, “We can’t keep using a strategy that relies on winning 110% of the white vote.” He may be the only smart person in the entire GOP right now.
NorthLeft12
@Suffern ACE: I am sure that Romney’s continued demonization of China as the agent for all [excepting what Obama and DFHs caused] that is wrong in the US probably contributed to that.
On a side note; did an NPR reporter actually refer to “dog whistles/racial baiting” on the air? Or was that your own interpretation of his comments?
As others have mentioned here and on other sites, the NPR is totally worthless for any meaningful political reporting. I actually even donated money to them, before they turned into an arm of the Republican propaganda network.
jeffreyw
I haven’t seen this anywhere else yet, looks like Obama flipped the Cuban vote in Florida.
Alex S.
I don’t think that they turned out more than in 2008. Instead, it’s probably a combination of lower turnout in general, while black turnout stayed the same, and demographic developments. Romney couldn’t even get all McCain voters. Also, some voters probably switched from Obama to Romney, because “CHANGE” or something, so in the end, the Romney campaign just wasn’t engaging enough.
Steve
I just want to point out that quite a few people died to secure the right of white males to vote, too! We studied this in grade school.
Alex S.
@jeffreyw:
In four years, Fidel Castro will be dead.
El Cid
We white males better thank our lucky stars that African Americans, Latinos, and (particularly younger and unmarried women) saved our asses from the meat grinder our kind would have so happily jumped into.
Suffern ACE
@Alex S.: So who did the 11% of Hispanics in Florida who voted for neither Obama nor Romney vote for?
Patricia Kayden
@jeffreyw: I know one Cuban from Florida who voted for Obama. I can’t see her voting the other way for a while.
Repub motto is now officially: “Need more Whites”. That’s all they’ve got now.
Alex S.
@Suffern ACE:
Interesting. It doesn’t make sense.
El Cid
Remember that one major motivation of the anti-abortion movement was to increase the number of white babies born so as to avoid the darkie apocalypse.
This is also why so many oppose contraception.
If they were truly committed to this cause, their priority would be to see that black and Latino women were ensured a high education and great early medical care and job prospects, because those are the most effective ways of reducing birth rates ever.
I’m sensing a contradiction.
El Cid
@jeffreyw: So, Fidel Castro finally won. Jorge Mas Canosa, sitting at the right hand of God and George Washington, weeps. At least freedom can take solace in that the Cuban American National Foundation keeps turning out members of Congress, only some of whom have been arrested for election corruption and fraud.
Yankeedevil
It really just goes to show that you can’t pretend to not be a race-baiting asshole when you’re clearly being a race-baiting asshole. I’m still confounded by the way this election turned out, not the good-guy side, I knew that the President had the resources and the ground game. But considering the endless amount of money Rmoney had, how stupid and ridiculous were his advisors? I could have told him to spend his money on Yoo-Hoo and Snickers and I think I would have been more effective. Horrible people and horrible results. Good for us!
Dan
The delicious irony is that if the Republicans decide to reach out to Hispanics, gays, blacks, and women, they’re going to alienate a pretty significant chunk of their existing base that votes Republican because of their attitudes towards said demographics. It’s going to be a fun four years.
Ash Can
@jeffreyw:
Whoa. That’s huge.
Elie
@Raven:
LOL!!!!!!
Snarki, child of Loki
I’m sure that the GOP will conclude that they have to “raise the pitch of the dog whistles! Too many Blahs and Humans can hear it!”
NCSteve
The assholes blew the dog whistles and blew them and blew them, never once imagining that, what with white people and black people being members of the same species and all, black folks might just be able to hear the damn whistle just as well as the whites did.
Funny how idiot racism causes racists to do idiotic things.
Steve
It’s not too soon to start thinking about how we can maintain this voter turnout in two years. Historically, old white people are much more reliable voters in midterms than many of the groups that make up Obama’s coalition, and that has to change if we don’t want Congress to become more of a Tea Party hell than it already is.
IowaOldLady
I’ve been amazed at the Republicans’ apparent delusion that they can insult Hispanics, African-Americans, women, gays, and a bunch I’ve probably forgotten and none of us will hear them. What did they think would happen?
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
@aussie sheila:
I agree with you on everything except this part.
When I first registered to vote (a long, long time ago….) Washington was the only state that* didn’t require you to register as a member of any party. All that led to was people (well, Republicans) voting for whoever they figure the other guys’ weakest candidate is in the primary so their candidate would have a less formidable opponent in November.
Some years ago, we went to an ordinary registration process, where you register as one party or the other. Unfortunately, people started whining about the state “telling me who to vote for”, so now we’re back to a “open” primary. (First two advance, to be exact.) I still think the possibility of dirty tricks makes this a very, very bad idea. As a Democrat, I don’t want Republicans voting in my primary, and they shouldn’t want me voting in theirs. Nobody has ever “told” anybody who to vote for in the general, anyway.
Of course, the Republicans got the “open” primary back figuring they could turn Eastern Washington into a one-party (sub)state, with two Republicans on the ballot every time. It hasn’t worked that way for them (not that they don’t always win in Mordor), but I was gratified to find two Democrats on my ballot for state senator a couple of years ago….
*So many sentences can be started with: “Washington is the only state that….”
Ash Can
And BTW, this —
— is going to spell electoral disaster for all GOP candidates running for nation-wide office (and many running for state-wide offices, depending on the states) for as long as this kind of thinking prevails among people with any influence in the party at all.
Beth in VA
Dennis G. this is it exacty!
I’m insulted by it and I’m white. What’s up with these racist white men. Is it the southern white male thing? I know non-racist, Democratic southern white males. Is it a Republican male thing? I don’t know but it’s ugly and driving me bonkers.
28 Percent
What I’m really hoping is that the big data operation that the Obama campaign put into place moves over to the DNC and keeps running. Devolve that micro-targeting effort into recapturing state legislatures so that in 2020 the redistricting isn’t all being done by Republicans and see what happens to the House after that.
Age of the Geek FTW!
Tone In DC
Trying not to gloat here, since late Tuesday night…
If anyone needed his ass (electorally) kicked, ever, it was OvenMitt. One line from that debate that truly burned my ass was this:
“You’ll get your chance. I’m still speaking.”
1badbaba3
Man, why they always got to be fuckin’ with us? Ain’t they got nothin’ better to do? Well, apparently not. Cool. I guess they could try harder. But that would mean bringing back the Night Riders. That’s cool too. But they should know that this time around, we’ll be armed, and have the law on our side. So it’s kinda, like, y’know, a fair fight this time. I know that doesn’t much appeal to them much. But whaddayagonnado?
Barbara
I am a white person who is enraged by the transparently racist voter suppression tactics being used in Ohio, as well as in Pennsylvania and Florida. I can only imagine how infuriating it is to the people who were the objects of that campaign (as well as the nakedly racist welfare/work ads). And surely, they noticed, that NOT ONCE did Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan or any elected Republican official stand up for their right to vote, for equal access to voting locations and resources. Even just telling Jon Husted to back off because they didn’t need his “help” might have given Romney a little credibility, but of course, IT DIDN’T EVEN OCCUR TO HIM. That’s what Ralph Ellison meant by the concept of being the invisible man — of mattering so little to someone that it’s like you are not even there. And look at the Romney campaign’s reaction — they were counting on African-American voters to remain invisible, to not be there for them to have to worry about.
Enhanced Mooching Techniques
So brilliant move Mittens, blatant racism didn’t work in the 1960s South and you thought it would work nationally fifty years later.
Worse politician ever.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Can we also get a shout-out to Asian-Americans, who per the stats in the linked article voted Dem over GOP in percentages just as overwhelming as the other minority groups. Folks who think the only problem the GOP has with minority groups is that they’ve swapped dogwhistles for bullhorns in broadcasting their racism might want to ponder those figures and ask if there are some other things wrong too.
Mnemosyne
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
Mick LaSalle’s two books about Pre-Code Hollywood were what launched me on my current obsession with it. And the books include a couple of great rants about how the censorship of the Code infantilized the US and kept us from dealing with the real problems that we had.
Angela
I work the polls in a primarily African-American community. This election was an experience I hope I never forget. The determination to vote was palpable. The turnout was huge. The joy, the hope, the excitement of an Obama win were much more subdued than in 2008, but the determination was so much more prevalent.
Added: I think the last four years of Republican obstructionism and lack of respect for President Obama’s administration were the fuel that led to the turn out.
blingee
Over at my home away from home the past couple days there is one link that takes you to a collection of racist rant tweets. Those people are off the deep end crazy!
http://goptears.tumblr.com/
Xecky Gilchrist
How on earth did all these poors and darks and sluts even hear about the election?
Oh, right. They’ve all mooched big-screen TVs off the government and we were running nonstop screaming ads about how horrible they all were.
/wingnut
Cargo
Here’s a name that nobody’s mentioned that I think has more importance than one might think: Ron Paul. All the serious – and I mean serious wingnuts, and even more than a few of the reachable ones thought Ron Paul was awesome and when he was snubbed HARD by the Republicans, to the point of the party changing rules to prevent them from seating delegates at the convention, all that stuff – those serious wingnuts stayed home. I think that’s your 3-4% lower white vote right there.
Cargo
I know and you know that the entire Paul candidacy is an elaborate grift for the benefit of Ron Paul and his family but he has an audience, of basically isolationist neo-Confederates, that is going to bear watching. Whatever movement conservatism evolves into in the next couple decades a) won’t be pretty but b) might look something like the crowd at a ron paul rally. It brings in the youth vote and the tech-libertarians like Romney didn’t.
Someguy
Why should Republicans ever, ever bother with the black vote? No matter what they do, they aren’t going to get more than 5-8% of it. It’s a pretty small demographic group too. Their response of neglect is actually pretty honest and logical, it’s a done deal.
Which is increasingly why the Democratic Party should explicitly align itself against white males and their shrinking demographic and eroding control of society, in favor of hispanics, asians and blacks. Not all at once and not directly, but by subtly working over time to target white suburbs, white owned businesses, white dominated schools. Break them, break their power, and you will break their politics permanently. There’s a couple of unions wont be happy about this, but who cares – the (politically unreliable members of the) UAW, IBEW and similar old line unions have a history of racism, so they won’t be that much of a loss (and the disappearance of manufacturing means they are decreasingly relevant) as the more diverse SEIU and similar unions take their place in the movement.
Matt McIrvin
@aussie sheila: The root cause of all of these problems is that elections are run on the state level, the top responsible officials are explicitly partisan elected officials, and at least half of the states have little interest in making it easy for everyone to vote. There are states in the South, with a history of segregation, that require federal pre-clearance under the 1965 Voting Rights Act for any change to voting systems that might affect minorities, but this rule unfortunately doesn’t extend to the whole country. And even that doesn’t go as far as requiring things like automatic registration.
It’s a combination of the legacy of Jim Crow and the extremely federated, localized nature of US government.
shortstop
I just can’t figure out how they understood what we were talking about! We were using code!
tazzle
Our votes don’t count as much because of the gerrymandering. It’s blunted our power at the polls greatly.
danimal
I’ve made a realization abour Republican economics. If, as reports claim, the very top levels of Republican strategists and politicians really believed that Romney was going to win, based on anecdotal evidence and gut feelings, then my assumption the Republican leaders are horribly cynical in their approach to tax and budget issues may be wrong. They may truly believe in the confidence fairy, the Laffer curve and Rosy Scenario. They may not understand that tax cuts in a high tax-rate environment are more stimulative than tax cuts in a low-tax environment. Maybe they don’t understand basic Keynesian concepts, rather than dismissing them cynically based on political convenience. Maybe, as the age-old argument has often been framed, they are stupid rather than evil.
That doesn’t, obviously, excuse them from their responsibility to govern wisely. But perhaps we need to reframe our arguments away from the assumption the GOP leadership are behaving cynically (evil) and start from the assumption that GOP leaders are simply acting on gut feelings and folk wisdom, and they need to be addressed as if they are attending a high school economics class.
danimal
@Xecky Gilchrist: A good start, but you need to work in an Obamaphone reference to be a high-grade wingnut.
Richard
@Yutsano:
I wouldn’t say that’s entirely true. For the poor white male that keeps voting republican, they seem to love it and come back to lick the boot that’s kicking them again and again.
For all their bluster, I’ve never seen a group so inclined to subserviance and submission (and demographically, but not politically I’m one of them).
Opie_jeanne
@The prophet Nostradumbass: had a similar discussion with a distant cousin from Northern Ireland, except he tried talk policy-nonsense with me, lectured about dependency on govt not being a good thing.
Ridnik Chrome
@redshirt: It’s not a typo, it’s a Captain Beefheart reference: “Rocket Morton takes off again into the wind! What do you run on, Rocket Morton? [Aside] Say beans. I run on beans! [Laughter] I run on laser beans!” Sheesh, 104 comments and nobody got that yet?
asiangrrlMN
@Suffern ACE: @ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
We’re silent, but deadly. #ninjaskillz
Sometime late election night, I saw the graphic that 75% of Asians voted for PBO. We ended up at 73% – higher than Latinos, second only to blacks. Go head, errryone and continue to ignore us at your own peril.
Jay in Oregon
Sci-fi novelist and grade-A wingnut Orson Scott Card has a whopper up on his site:
http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2012-11-08-1.html
My favorite morsel:
Tell it to Ronald Reagan
central texas
@Hill Dweller:
Stalled. They had to send out for more fingers and toes.
SoINeedAName48
@Yutsano:
Now why would wingnuts think that repeatedly posting on their blogs a picture of Pres. Obama wearing a loincloth, with a bone through his nose and beating on drums motivate the Black community to get out and VOTE?
Is it any wonder these idiots got shellacked?
ORAXX
The Republicans, clearly, do not grasp that they’ve ridden their “angry white male” hobby horse as far as it’s ever going to go.