The Washington Post‘s Dan Balz has a book on the 2012 election to sell, and Monday’s excerpt goes into the granular on “How the Obama campaign won the race for voter data“:
From the moment Barack Obama took the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2009, and every day thereafter, his team was always preparing for the 2012 campaign. Everyone said Obama’s 2008 operation had rewritten the book on organizing. But that was just a beginning, a small first step toward what the team envisioned when it began planning the reelection campaign.
In one of their first conversations about 2012, campaign manager Jim Messina said he told the president that they could not rerun 2008. Obama seemed puzzled. “You know we won that one,” Obama said. Messina said too much had changed. For one thing, Obama was now an incumbent with a record. But technology had also leapfrogged forward, with new devices, new platforms and vastly more opportunities to exploit social media. The whole campaign would have to be different.
The president sent the team off to Chicago, far away from the hothouse of Washington and Beltway chatter, to use 2011 to build the foundation and reassemble the army from 2008. As the Republican candidates were gearing up and then battling one another through the summer and fall of 2011, the Obama team was investing enormous amounts of time, money and creative energy in what resembled a high-tech political start-up whose main purpose was to put more people on the streets, armed with more information about the voters they were contacting, than any campaign had ever attempted.
The Obama team had to be better in 2012. The weak economy made the president vulnerable to defeat. His political advisers knew well that turning out the vote would be far more challenging in the reelection effort than it had been in 2008. Many of his early supporters were disappointed and some were outright frustrated with Obama’s performance in office. The advisers recognized that Republicans were trying to block his agenda by questioning whether he had the leadership skills or the tenacity to get done what his first campaign had promised. Obama advisers also knew this campaign would have to be far more negative than the first — with few of the aspirational themes of 2008 — and they began preparing to attack Mitt Romney, the presumed challenger, long before the Republican primaries and caucuses began…
schrodinger's cat
Is Dan Balz Broder’s successor on WaPo?
Revrick
I was recruited for the Allentown PA campaign in October 2011, so I know the effort that was put into this.
gene108
Will these guys work with whoever the 2016 nominee is or will they only work for Obama?
Face
Dan seems….concerned.
By the way, isn’t’ “Dan Balz” just a fantastic pr0n name?
smintheus
Take away: The candidate who described himself as the competent one, wasn’t; and the opponent he portrayed as incompetent, wasn’t.
cleek
@Face:
do you think that’s not a true statement?
there will be a half-dozen people in this thread, very soon, complaining about Obama.
smintheus
@Revrick: Where do you live in A-town?
Short Bus Bully
There is no way that Obama can just simply be SMARTER, a BETTER POLITICIAN, and a BETTER ORGANIZER and MANAGER than a rich white man like Romney.
Just
no
way
in
hell.
Chicago style politics! Paying off voters! IRS! ACORN!
catclub
The Onion Interview excerpts;
TO: “I hear you are working on preserving produce from your garden”
Obamas: “Yes, we can”
TO: “On your Paris trip we learned you tried dancing.”
Obamas: “Yes, oui, Can-Can”
TR
Balz is pretty good. His book with Ron Brownstein on the Gingrich Republicans and 1994 is classic.
Belafon
My single favorite take away from that block is:
“It worked last time” is a useless excuse.
ranchandsyrup
The Village must at all times reassure people that we are a CENTER RIGHT NATION. Any other result comes from magick or witchcraft or de debil and should be ignored.
Hunter Gathers
His Royal Highness Baron Mittens Von RomneyBot tried to deny that he ever said that ‘47%’ thingie. I’d say something about shame and whatnot, but androids don’t possess that kind of software.
Duane
It turns out the bank in Wellston Ohio is not done doing idiotic things…..or saying them…. turns out they found a bowflex on the side of the road for the woman whose they stole……. the stupid it does indeed burn…. enjoy…
http://www.10tv.com/content/stories/2013/07/26/wellston-bank-issues-statement-about-home-it-wrongfully-foreclosed-upon-balks-at-paying-up.html
Hal
Mitt Romney was defined as a person and politician long before 2012 or even 2008. 20 or 30 years ago he could have gotten away with his attempts at rebranding himself. You just cannot do that anymore in the internet era.
Amir Khalid
It helped that Obama didn’t have Democratic primary opponents to worry about in 2012. But he’d already beaten the Clinton machine in 2008, and would no doubt have been ready in 2012 for any such opponents. As we’ve all noticed, he was obviously so far ahead of Mitt on CEO ability, there was simply no contest between them.
On another, ahem, note: John Williams’ Imperial March has apparently become popular with patrol officers in the NYPD.
Jeremy
@Face: Well I think the more fickle supporters were not satisfied. Polling supports this because President Obama’s approval ratings never went below 40 % like Reagan and Clinton who went on to win re-election.
Too many people had unreasonable expectations and thought Obama would be Barack the magic negro.
Anoniminous
@gene108:
I’m
freaking out aboutlooking at 2014. If the Democrats can’t upgrade their turn-out from the expected – think 2010 – there is a good chance the GOP taking the Senate. If they recapitulate the 20012 turn-out there’s a possibility of the Democrats keeping the Senate and taking back the House. The GOP hold of the House depends on gerrymandering a 3 to 4 percent increase in Dem vote and a stable GOP non-presidential voter turn-out could translate to a 20 (+/-) flip of seats.And it could be more, looking at Texas, Florida, and Arizona?
Revrick
@smintheus: Southside
Soonergrunt
I don’t want to step on your thread, Anne Laurie, so I’ll post it as a comment and follow up with a thread later:
The Judge, COL Denise Lind, has reached her verdict in the Findings phase of the Court-Martial of PFC Bradley Manning.
She told the parties she would give them 24 hours notice, so we can assume the findings will be announced tomorrow afternoon.
PeakVT
Interesting. I’d like to know how much 2010 affected the team, and how much (or how little) they saw that debacle coming.
jayjaybear
@Jeremy: Is it really necessary to use Rush Limbaugh’s old routines, even ironically? Ugh.
Jeremy
@gene108: Many Obama campaign tech people and strategist have said that they will be involved in the 2016 race to help the democratic nominee.
Ted & Hellen
@smintheus:
Alternate take away: The candidate is very competent at getting himself elected, not so much at governing competently once in office.
Unless, of course, one wonders if he’s competent at doing exactly what he wants to do and playing spineless poor me those mean Republicans the rest of the time.
Ted & Hellen
@ranchandsyrup:
You are, of course, commenting on a center right blog.
cleek
@Hal:
but it’s fun to watch people try!
Kay
This part made me laugh a little, because one wouldn’t expect Schmidt to know that, but wouldn’t one expect national pundits to know it?
Omnes Omnibus
@Ted & Hellen: Why don’t you say something substantive on a thread rather than simply making snide comments?
Redshirt
Tweaking.
I hope this team of programmers and managers and analysts works for the next candidate, and the entire DNC. We are in a true struggle against the forces of darkness, and we all need to contribute to the effort. The teams that helped Obama win in 2012 need to get out there for all Dems in 2014, and 2016, and forever. Or until the Republican Party is no longer an actual threat to the country.
Ted & Hellen
@Jeremy:
Or too many people had perfectly reasonable expectations based on Obama’s rhetoric the first time around and actually were stupid enough to take him at his word. Hope. Change. And all, you know.
It’s fascinating that as an excuse making ploy, many Botsplainers have become as obsessed with BO’s race as are the far right haters.
He’s only half negro, btw, you racist.
Jeremy
@Anoniminous: I don’t see 2010 happening again. That was the best shot the republicans had due to a crappy economy and the standard backlash against the incumbent party after winning elections back to back. We need to focus on turnout in order to retain seats and win some but the enthusiasm is not there on the other side like it was in 2010. Also nearly every economist says the unemployment rate will be even lower in 2014.
Ted & Hellen
@Omnes Omnibus:
I take offense, sir! There is lots of substance mixed in with my snidosity!
Jeremy
@jayjaybear: Sorry for saying it. But many people really believed it.
Gene108
@Anoniminous:
2014 is big, but so is 2016. As much as folks talk about the demographic shift washing away Republicans, they were not beaten as badly in 1992, 1996, 2008 and 2012 as the Democrats were in 1980, 1984, and 1988.
The Republicans still have a punchers chance of winning the Presidency in 2016, like Bush,Jr managed to do in 2000 and 2004.
Violet
@Jeremy: The other thing is, people have seen just what Republicans will do if Democrats don’t show up to vote. How many Dems will vote because of it? Probably not as many as in a presidential year, but Republicans have pissed off a lot of Democratic voters, from women, to African Americans, to Latinos to college aged kids. I expect the Democratic turnout to be higher. Republican turnout might be lower because more Republican voters are no longer around.
Kay
Romney really was bad, I got an elaborate (and expensive) “biographical” direct mail piece that probably should have gone to someone persuadable, BUT Bush’s operation was really, really good (for the time!) so there’s no telling.
Belafon
@Omnes Omnibus: Because if he said something meaningful, people might ignore him.
Gin & Tonic
@Ted & Hellen: Maybe *bold* the substantive parts so those of us who are not as highly evolved can recognize them more easily.
kindness
Apparently it worked too.
The fact that Republicans keep trying to deny that Obama won again is par for their course.
Xantar
@Ted & Hellen:
“He’s only half-negro, btw, you racist.”
Quoted without further comment.
Jeremy
@Gene108: Every party has a chance to win but I rather be the Democrat in 2016 than the republican. The demographic shift is a big deal when you look at which states that use to be red went blue for Obama in both elections. The electoral map use to be an advantage in the 70’s and 80’s but now the Democrats clearly have the advantage.
If Hillary Clinton runs none of the candidates on the republican side will stand a chance. She is even performing well in states like Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, etc. which have trended red over the years.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Violet: Probably not as many as in a presidential year, but Republicans have pissed off a lot of Democratic voters, from women, to African Americans, to Latinos to college aged kids.
I suspect the older women vote will be a big issue in 2014. I have never seen my mom and her friends so incandescently mad at the Republicans as they have been the last couple of years over the “legitimate rape” crap from the Right. We’re talking about a group of middle class and above women fifty years and older, a group that should be pretty solidly voting Republican. Since the GOP is mainly old white folks now losing a big of them is going to hurt them.
Amir Khalid
@Ted & Hellen:
There is a difference between actual racist attitudes towards a black man, which we see in the racists among the American right, and discussing the political effects of that racism, which is what happens among the comentariat at this blog.
How much of Obama’s ancestry is African is really neither here nor there. No one else has mentioned it in this thread.Why have you brought it up?
Jeremy
@Ted & Hellen: First of all I’m black so I don’t know why you are calling me a racist for the statement I made. Second, when people look at the president he is looked at as a black man because he doesn’t look white and has not experienced life as a white person in America.
Sublime33
I got recruited in the Chicago burbs to phone bank absentee ballot requesters in Iowa and Wisconsin. I got scouted working for the “Take Down Joe Walsh” phone bank, and got a call up to the big leagues. They found me and talked me into making calls.
Bubblegum Tate
There’s also a segment about Romney’s decision to run. Turns out his little d-bag son Tagg was the real driving force behind it.
Kay
All the local Dems went out to see the Dem candidate for Ohio governor yesterday. He came to a picnic. I didn’t go because I was busy, but they all liked him.
“He’s so young and lively!”
They said. In so many words. Even the people that are younger than him.
Petorado
The Balz article about the Obama campaign machine’s IT advantage is already soil that’s been heavily tilled. But it also looks at election campaigns as being about money, strategy, messaging and technology. I wish Balz and Co. would stop looking at the gaming aspects of politics and begin writing about what the voters get out of these elections. Quit focusing on the horserace and start looking at the surrounding community that has to live with the stench of the horse manure.
Ted & Hellen
@Amir Khalid:
Jeremy at #17:
I’ll be waiting for your apology and retraction.
Belafon
@Xantar: As you know, Americans treated half-negros twice as well as the ones who were full negro. Slave owners would only beat them when they were really angry, and when they sold the slave’s children, they would make the new owners promise they would take care of them like family.
On the other hand, T&H is a full idiot.
Ted & Hellen
@Xantar:
Can you…explain the point you think you’re making here?
I’m white though, so type reeeeaaaallll slow.
Violet
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Yep. I think women may be an important part of the voters in 2014. Republicans may not see it coming. We’ll see. There’s still a long while until November 2014 and anything can happen, but if they keep up what they’ve been doing, I think women are going to get to the polls.
And if the Republicans stop the immigration bill, Latinos will also get to the polls.
Gene108
@Jeremy:
I think the unreasonable expectation was for people to think thirty years of economic policy could be washed away within the first 100 days or whatever and when that did not happen the true believers on the left got discouraged.
For everyone else a lousy economy really turned people off, because who the hell voted for 10% unemployment in 2008.
Jeremy
@Kay: Do you think Kasich could lose in 2014 ? His approval numbers have improved after he backtracked on the anti union legislation.
Violet
@Bubblegum Tate: Gawd, what a total d-bag little Tagg is. Slimy, rich, entitled little fuck. We’d be so much better off without people like him.
Violet
@Kay: He looks young and energetic! Does he stand a chance?
Jeremy
@Gene108: True !
Svensker
@Short Bus Bully:
If you look at the comments, that’s pretty much what the Repubs are saying.
IowaOldLady
@Hunter Gathers: I saw that Mitt denied the 47% comment. Thank god for cell phone videos. The world is a changing place for lying pols.
Remember when Steve Benen was making weekly posts about Romney’s lies? I thought the poor guy was going to break under the strain of keeping up with the flood. Apparently things haven’t changed.
Amir Khalid
@Ted & Hellen:
Where in that sentence does Jeremy say it is important that only Barack Sr was black?
Redshirt
I just checked my email and I’m part of this job chat regarding some guy named Jimmy, who’s supposed to be working at a power plant in Utah, but hasn’t shown up. Folks are getting mad at me! Jimmy, though I am not Jimmy nor have anything to do with Jimmy.
Should I reply? As myself? As Jimmy?
Face
@cleek: I think it’s so fuckin generic as to be worthless. Of course “some” think one way. How many? How many is “many” in the next sentence? Does Balz care to give stats? Cite a source?
I’m sure “some” people enjoy sack-tapping. I’m sure “many” people like ice cream.
Eric U.
I know people that are disappointed in Obama because he didn’t deliver on his promises. Of course, the fact that he has never had a Congress that would really work with him is never noted in these discussions. Sometimes I feel like we are doomed
tybee
@Ted & Hellen:
your particular color is best described as “santorum”
TooManyJens
@Duane:
Literally LOL here. What the FUCK.
Chyron HR
@Ted & Hellen:
Does that mean you only hate him half as much as, say, Trayvon Martin or Neil deGrasse Tyson?
And is “With the burning force of only half a million suns” really a meaningful distinction?
Kay
@Jeremy:
I do think he “could” lose. I agree with you, though, that his numbers have come back because the economy has come back.
He just did something that I think was really dumb. He zeroed the state portion of local school levies, and limited the “homestead exemption” which is what senior citizens get for a break on property taxes.
I know why he cut the state portion of school levies, because he’s fundamentally hostile to “government schools” but rural people really aren’t. Local schools are a big deal here. They’ll resent losing state funding. I know from personal experience that seniors will go bananas when the homestead exemption is cut, particularly because he cut rich peoples’ taxes to raise theirs. They really are “of modest means”. We’re talking about a brick ranch that’s paid off. You know, they’re elderly. They live there. It’s not like it’s a tax dodge.
My own sense is his “base” has always been wealthier Right-leaning suburbanites, so that’s clearly his strategy, rural areas PLUS suburbs, but they’ll lose school money too, suburbs.
His GOP predecessor (prior to Strickland) cut the state portion of funding for rural libraries, and it was wildly unpopular here. The library was smart, though. They played hardball. They cut hours. Drastically. It was nice to see people actually get some direct impact from voting GOP. CLOSED. I think more public entities should do it. It worked.
Violet
@Redshirt: You could just ignore it. Or you could be polite and let them know that you are not Jimmy and someone has used the incorrect email address. You could try to remove your name from the email–they obviously already have the address since you’re getting emails from them.
Ted & Hellen
@Amir Khalid:
Your willful obtuseness is neither clever nor impressive.
Jeremy refers to Obama as a “magic negro,” which of course no one else in the thread had mentioned before so how dare he write that! But never mind…I’ll play along…
Jeremy refers to Obama as a NEGRO. Attributing the entirety of his DNA to a black father and completely disappearing his white mother. Obama is every bit as much white as black, making this the equivalent of calling Obama a CAUCASIAN which would be, ya know…stupid..
Furthermore Jeremy injects racism where he imagines it to be, so I thought I’d play along with that too.
And you of course are a racist for…oh well, something…something…you know, the usual prevailing BJ standard for being called a racist…something.
Frankensteinbeck
@cleek: and @Face:
It is the ‘many’ that I particularly object to. As you said, the thread is full of complaints – from one person. The More-Liberal-Than-Thou crowd are very few, but VERY LOUD. Sorta like Paulites.
Ted & Hellen
@Chyron HR:
Don’t hate any of those people, though it pleases you and makes the world easier for you to deal with to imagine it so.
Mike G
@Amir Khalid:
Ignore the troll. She only comes in here to fling rhetorical poop because she’s desperate for attention.
Amir Khalid
@Ted & Hellen:
Your comment #71 is so confused, even you don’t understand it.
fuckwit
@Anoniminous: I too am freaking out about 2014. Losing the Senate would be a disaster from which I’m not sure the country could recover; incredibly, the government would become EVEN MORE dysfunctional, if that’s even possible to imagine. Not taking the House would be just a continuation of the misery we have now, and would be a slow-motion disaster. We have got to take both chambers in 2014. At least, we have to try as hard as fuck.
The biggest obstacle is education. Too many Americans, even on the left, have forgotten their Schoolhouse Rock, and have no idea that the Congress, not the President, has the power to make laws (or not). They keep waiting for the President to fix things, but that’s not his job. We don’t have an elected dictatorship. We have a representative republic. Those representatives are crucial; either they do the work we need them to do, or nothing gets done.
I really despair for my country. Quite honestly whenever I think about 2014 I get a twinge of the depression I felt in 2002 and 2004.
Amir Khalid
@Mike G:
Oopsie.
tybee
@Ted & Hellen:
merely a realist.
Anoniminous
@Jeremy:
Voter turn-out has trended between 41 and 42 percent for decades. In that environment 27% is a solid majority. As a long time
old fartpolitical activist I’ve seen too many elections go GOP because Dems didn’t bestir lazy asses and vote.@Gene108:
I agree 2016 is important.
I submit 2014 establishes the boundaries for what a Dem, if elected, President will be able to accomplish in 2016-2020. And I’m not even going to contemplate a GOP House and President in 2016-2020. Icky-yuckness of major proportions.
Omnes Omnibus
@Redshirt: When I get things like that, just reply asking if I was included by mistake. People usually respond politely and drop me from the chain.
lamh36
Jeez Florida.
Can’t wait to see Betty Cracker’s post about this one.
Florida Cops Shoot Unarmed Black Man In His Mother’s Driveway
Kay
@Jeremy:
And the people who aren’t hostile to school levies here are…wealthier Kasich-ites! His base. They pay taxes. They’re going to want to know why none of that come back to their schools. Republicans are saying “well, taxes are BAD!” but that’s not the perception. The perception is it’s a “cut” of taxes added to a local levy that goes thru Columbus and now won’t be coming back from whence they came :)
People here bitch that everything goes to or thru Columbus and they never see it again. He just set that in stone.
lojasmo
@Ted & Hellen:
He handily won a second election even after displaying how he actually governs. Funny how that works.
raven
This jerk has managed to dominate BJ for the entire afternoon. If you MUST engage how about skipping quoting it. It negates the whole purpose of the pie filter.
TooManyJens
@lamh36: Well, what did he expect, being so threatening? I’m sure the cops were in deathly fear that he’d kill them with secondhand smoke.
@raven: That’s why I like Troll-B-Gone; it eliminates the replies, too.
scav
@lojasmo: Those handy Proclaimed Majorities so very often fail to materialize in elections and polls.
Jeremy
@Eric U.: Well a lot of people didn’t remember what the president promised in 2008. Politifact has a list of Obama promises and many of them have been completed.
Anoniminous
@fuckwit:
You’ve given the answer:
The single biggest “bang for the buck” in elections is people encouraging their friends to vote. For the 18 – 30 demographic it’s absolutely vital. And it’s that demographic, IMHO, that will determine the 2014 outcome.
raven
@TooManyJens: OOO, since it is obvious that people really like talking to it I’ll give this a shot.
Roger Moore
@Gene108:
The big thing is that the demographics are working the Democrats’ way. The Republicans have won the popular vote exactly once since 1988: in 2004, when they had the advantage of incumbency, war, and a hell of a lot of dirty tricks. They could still win the presidency in 2016, but it’s going to take more than just a plausible candidate. They’re going to need some combination of a great candidate (good luck on that one), an economic downturn, voter suppression, and changing the rules on electoral vote allocation to have a chance. Also, 2016 will be a big threat to them in the Senate, since that’s going to be re-election year for the freshmen of the Teabagger class of 2010.
Kay
@lamh36:
I’m so glad he survived. Not just because “he survived” but because he can tell his side. I don’t think I could take another “Zimmerman said / Zimmerman said” situation. I can live with he said/ he said, although it will suck here, probably.
One side on self defense gets ridiculous. You know, RIPE for abuse.
Hal
Oh yay. Yet another comments thread completely ruined by one commenter who also somehow manages to criticize someone else for not having a life all the while posting over and fucking over again.
gene108
@Jeremy:
The electoral map isn’t much changed from 2000, with the exception of VA going Democrat and NC becoming more competitive. In 1992, Clinton and Gore carried Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee and a couple of other states I can’t think of off the top of my head that we now consider solid Republican states.
In 2000 and 2004 the electoral map pretty much became Democratic in the Northeast, Pennsylvania and the West Coast, with some Democratic states in the mid-west and Ohio and Florida being battleground states.
I think in the 2008 and 2012, the EV for the Democrat started off higher, but the battleground states were still places like Ohio. The Republicans had to make up more ground, but a good Republican candidate and a weak Democratic candidate can make it possible for Republicans to win the White House.
Obama and Clinton crack the 400 EV threshold in winning and the Republican candidate in 2008 and 2012 carried more than 20 states in each election.
The Democratic candidate will start off in the lead, because the safe Democratic states have more EV (thanks California) than the safe Republican states, but the advantage is not insurmountable for a good Republican candidate.
On the gubernatorial level there have been several candidates, who threaded the needle about not being a bug shit crazy Tea Party hack, but once elected did everything ALEC and Koch brothers wanted done.
There just has to be a Republican, who can do this on a national level.
I think Obama became such a “rock star” in 2008 and carried over the power of incumbency in 2012 that anybody with less stature than Hillary will be a let down for a lot of voters.
Obama’s left some big shoes to fill, with regards to enthusiasm and not every politician can be the sort of speaker he is.
Bush, Sr. had this problem in 1988 and was trailing Dukakis in early September, even after the conventions, but the Willie Horton and other photo-op ads, along with Dukakis’ incompetent response to them quickly turned the 1988 election around.
This is why I think we shouldn’t think 2016 is in the bag or Republicans can’t find a strong candidate. They just need somebody, who will not say “legitimate rape” and not be Obama, while Democrats have Obama’s shoes to fill with regards to stature and enthusiasm.
Black voter participation went up in the age of Obama, which is one reason he carried NC in 2008 by a whisker. I don’t know, if a white middle aged man – which is what most politicians and thus likely candidates will be – can be anything but a let down after an historic Presidency of the first non-white President.
aimai
@Hal: I honestly think T and H is getting crazier and more vicious. Its comments are certainly getting more incoherent and, at the same time, more agressive.
shell
His Royal Highness Baron Mittens Von RomneyBot tried to deny that he ever said that ’47%’ thingie.”
****************
Don’t you know? When you’re in that rarified level of the 1 %, you can make up any reality you want. (The lack of oxygen probably helps). The fact that he’s on tape making those 47% comments are just niggling carping by the hoi-poloi.
Jeremy
@Roger Moore: Yeah it’s going to take a lot of effort for a republican to win in 2016. Every year the Obama coalition grows while the coalition that elected Reagan and Bush declines.
If Hillary is the candidate she will put even more states in play than Obama did in 2008. With the demographic advantage and the technology advantage I rather be in the Democrats shoes in 2016.
Roger Moore
@lamh36:
Fortunately, they seem to go to the Stormtrooper School of Marksmanship, and only managed to hit him once.
Amir Khalid
Just what is going on with the trains in Europe?
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: It works so well, I almost was wondering who you were talking about.
Jeremy
@gene108: Yeah but you forgot to mention that Colorado and Nevada which use to be red states went blue for Obama and the legislatures in those states are controlled by the democrats. Georgia which is a red state is trending in our direction and Obama performed better than any democrat there in a long time and he didn’t even campaign there.
I agree that we shouldn’t take it for granted but some are underestimating how demographics have shifted presidential elections in a big way. Yes, there will be another Obama like there will never be another JFK, FDR, Lincoln, etc. but if democrats nominate a solid person with a strong message and campaign they could beat any republican. And if you look at the republican field it’s a bigger clown car than the 2012 republican primary.
I just have confidence that the Dems can win in 2012 like I had confidence in a solid win for Obama.
SIA
@Roger Moore:
Anne Laurie
@Soonergrunt: Thanks — but for the record, my rule is that after half an hour or longer, it’s not “bigfooting”.
Chris
When the best pollster in the country reported data, the Obama campaign listened.
When the best pollster in the country reported data, the Romney campaign claimed that he was a liberal homo and that automatically invalidated his facts.
Ain’t rocket science.
SIA
@SIA: FYWP.
JPL
@lamh36: I saw that earlier. The link to the paper has additional information from the mother showing the number of bullets that pierced her car and house. He is lucky their aim was bad.
Hopefully, the lawsuit is large enough to rid the county of bigoted policemen.
Cassidy
@Omnes Omnibus: That’s like asking a dog to not lick it’s ass. Sandusky & Ramirez knows nothing else.
@aimai: How did the recital go?
Felonius Monk
@aimai: To feed the Troll or not feed the Troll. That is the eternal question.
But sometimes the urge to piss on his shoes is just too great!
Jeremy
Also a republican hasn’t won over 300 electoral votes since 1988. They pretty much have to depend on running the table on the swing states/ lean blue to get a small victory (2004 election as an example).
jl
As commenters above, I am freaking out, or rather,worried and wondering about 2014.
Sure, the state and local organizations have to step up., but the Obama team has a big role too, and I wonder how much effort they will put into the Congressional midterms.
If were Obama, or I think Obama were any reasonable person, his team would do whatever they can. Who would not put substantial resources into a an even slightly better Congress with the current GOP nonsense going on (same as the old nonsense for last four+ years).
Anybody know something about their plans?
A commenter posted about the importance of women’s votes, just on the basis of state and national level GOP policies, even without HRC.
I can see that. Look at Krugman’ NYT blog today. Janet Yellen would be the first woman chairperson of the FED.
Since Yellen is a distinguished and innovative macroeconomist, the Yellen/Summers death match should only be a story about the usefulness and quality of their respective policy plans and probable effectiveness at pushing good monetary policy. And an examination of their past miscalls and mistakes.
(On that I’ve reached my conclusion. Sorry Larry, you big arrogant obnoxious lug your thinking is ‘inconisistent’ and hard to figure out, which may explain the many goofs you have committed in the past. Yellen, gets the call by a mile IMHO.
But what do we get: nonsense about whether Yellen will produce a ‘femail’ dollar. A poor weak of will, emotionally unstable dollar, at certain times of the month, perhaps ripe for ruin at the hands of some Carlos Danger style finance minister.
Would be nice for next election, if not country, to have an extended debate, dominated by GOP ignoramuses, with awesome sauce subtext, pissing on the dangers of Yellin’s woman-parts dollars!
There is a serious issue that plays in the sexist language angle, There are good arguments for a much weaker dollar. to undo the damage that Rubin’s (courtesy of Bill) self interested high dollar policy.
So folks, if we don’t get old grouch pot and not-as-smart-as-he-thinks-he-is Summers. then Beware those helplees little-oll’ Female dollars coming down tht pike.
Ted & Hellen
@aimai:
I’ll seek out professional help immediately, aimai, as I know you care only for my best interests. As I’m writing from inside an asylum, I can just press this little button here…
…meanwhile, I’d appreciate your opinion on something: Do you think I’m MORE vicious even than the commenters here to tell me to kill myself, or call me a pedophile/racist/shit stain, or who threaten bodily harm or death, or who imply that I’d wish my own daughters raped, or who…oh well I could go on and on, but you see what I mean?
I’d really like your input so I can share your thoughts with my ECT therapist and psychiatrist tomorrow at our twice daily meetings before the ice bath treatments and the insulin shock treatments.
thanks ever so!
Jeremy
@Chris: Silver was good but the Obama team had there own guys who were even more accurate than him. Sam Wang of Princeton election consortium was more accurate than Nate Silver. I like Nate Silver but the guy was not the only one to call the election accurately.
Schlemizel
Gosh, where is the no level staffer who was here to tell us what a shit show the data collection and mining effort was and that reports of its value to the win vastly over rated? My guess is the GOP is hot on this path and if the DNC does not find a way to leverage the tools OFA had and make them even more powerful the GOP has the money to catch up. We cannot count on simple demographics or the GOPs clown car cavalcade of candidates. Given the high probability of a GOP Senate to go with the wingnut House we will be completely screwed if we can’t at least win the White House
Chris
@Roger Moore:
Although a paranoid enough person might also bring up the rumors of hacked voting machines in Ohio back in 2004 to ask whether Republicans had even won that election.
Come on, it would be irresponsible not to speculate…
scav
@Amir Khalid: Austerity hitting their infrastructure might be part of it — lack of investment was certainly mentioned in the French crash. Spanish might just be more pilot arrogence although there might be a little mismanagement in the change between breaking systems / speed controls / whatever they were.
TooManyJens
On another topic entirely, does anyone know why someone is splashing green paint around various landmarks in DC? First the Lincoln Memorial, then I think a statue at the Smithsonian, and today they hit the National Cathedral. [insert Sully and Iran joke here]
jl
And Yellen is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco,.
San Francisco! We’ll have SF dollars with wimminn parts.?
OMG!
Aimai
@Cassidy: thank you for asking, Cassidy. It happens next weekend and im st panic stations. I’ve just discovered it is customary to decorate a table with a figure of a Hindu god and a lot if fresh rose petals. I do not have a two foot high statue of any god ready to hand. Working on the petal situation now.–kidding. The whole thing is ridiculous. Like stumbling into being the backer of an off broadway play by a playwright who keeps adding just one more thing to his would be hit play. What about elephants? Teeny ones?
scav
@Aimai: Ganesh is always a good god to go with, to my mind. Good luck.
MikeJ
@Amir Khalid:
Based on absolutely no evidence except what Thatcher did 30 years ago, austerity programs making huge cuts in maintenance.
Seanly
@Ted & Hellen:
“Magic Negro” is a term for a type of insulting stock character often encountered in movies or literature. Jeremy was making a perfectly valid statement about how some people who voted for Obama had unrealistic expectations which you seem to share. You have to willfully stand his comment on its head to get that Jeremy is making a rascist statement.
Violet
Back to the subject of the post–the tech guys and the tech advantage of the Obama campaign–how will the tech gap between Republican and Democrats be narrowed in the 2014 and 2016 elections? Will the Democrats retain the advantage? Will Republicans hire top tech guys? How’s it going to play out? Will it cease to be much of an advantage for the Dems because the Republicans are doing it too?
I know it’s also about organization and getting voters registered and contacted and out to the polls. I think Dems are probably better at that, but that also varies from campaign to campaign. How good will the Dems be at it in 2014 and 2016?
max
It is an open thread: Vatican Quickly Performs Damage Control On Pope’s Tolerant Remarks
max
[‘Oh, the unpredictability.’]
jl
@MikeJ:
” Just what is going on with the trains in Europe?”
‘ Based on absolutely no evidence except what Thatcher did 30 years ago, austerity programs making huge cuts in maintenance. ”
I don’t know about the Swiss train wreck. But heard a report that, due to budget cuts, recent work on the track in Spain was cheap-jacked. They just laid high speed rails over the old lower roadbed deigned for lower speed: didn’t re-engineer for additional demands of high speed. Thus forcing the high speed to slow down a lot on the curve. And delays in installing automatic positive speed controls on curves in Spain.
Heard a report automatic speed controls for dangerous curves and crossings and grades should be universal in U.S. sometime between 2016 and 2018.
In addition whatever the engineer was up to, which looks very odd at this point, from what I’ve read.
Mnemosyne
@Aimai:
You should track down schrodinger’s cat — I think she linked to her website in her comment #1 in this thread. She could advise you what the “right” god to get would be and you can buy it on Amazon.com. I just did a quick search and they definitely have Ganesh (in several price ranges), so they would probably have other major Hindu gods as well.
Cassidy
@Aimai: Dumb question, but does it have to be a statue? Hor d’oeuvres table setting in the shape of holy symbols?
Mnemosyne
@jl:
We had a truly nasty train crash here in So Cal where the idiot engineer was texting and missed seeing a signal — the idiot managed to kill himself and 24 other people. So engineer error is certainly a possibility in Spain.
Cassidy
@Violet: I don’t think they’re going to close the tech gap as they’re still focused on messaging; They’ve got too many grifters in their infrastructure to reliably build something like that. As to whether the voters buy it or not, though, I’m not so sure.
Ted & Hellen
@Seanly:
I know what the term Magic Negro refers to.
He’s still trying to immediately boil the discussion down to “everyone is racist against Obama.”
jl
@Mnemosyne: I noted that history to myself when I road that very Metrolink line earlier this month.
Amir Khalid
@max:
Not the first time the Church has felt the need to walk back something too-liberal that this Pope has said. Perhaps its hierarchy is working on how to deal with this apparent loose cannon.
ETA: I mean, in real life.
Mnemosyne
@jl:
I work across the tracks from the Metrolink line that crashed in 2005, so … yeah.
(Though the actual crash was a few miles further down near Los Feliz.)
Baud
Hope and SQL
MomSense
I haven’t read this article yet so I will hold my comments until after I have read it. One of the things that I appreciated was how responsive the OFA people were to the requests and ideas that came from the grass roots.
In 2009 I told my OFA FO (some of you know what this means!!) about the virtual phone banks I was running and how I did it. They put me in touch with the tech wizards in Chicago and we were able to get some great functions added to the VAN. We also had weekly trainings on the VAN where we were able to ask for different ways to filter voters/campaigners etc.
All this is to say that it started long before 2011 and to their credit they constantly looked for ways to improve the ability to use data to do targeting by incorporating the feedback and knowledge of those of us who were organizing on the ground.
There is another long story about messaging and how some of us were tapped to do targeted phone calls on issues like healthcare reform and our results became the campaign’s message on particular issues. I know that I heard the President say almost verbatim many of the messages that I developed doing these phone calls and then reported directly to the coordinator in Chicago.
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
Did you look at the link or read the whole block text?
Cassidy
@Baud: Conservatives have killed satire. Now you never know.
Amir Khalid
@Baud:
(Red faced) I did, finally.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Amir Khalid: Check the link. ;)
Bill Arnold
@Amir Khalid:
I’ve heard that people used to play it on boom boxes in the 2000s when Dick Cheney made public appearances.
PeakVT
@Amir Khalid: It is probably a poisson burst. There are mathematicians around here who can explain it better, but my layman’s understanding is that random events can clump, giving an appearance of a trend.
Amir Khalid
@TooManyJens:
IS FALSE-FLAG OPERATION TO DISCREDIT MUSLIMS!!!
— or maybe some idiot hardware store owner with too much green paint in stock.
Omnes Omnibus
@PeakVT: The Prussian officers were being killed by their horses because the horses simply didn’t like them very much. Horses can be like that. Also, moose bites can be nasty.
Neddie Jingo
Wellsir, that Tits & Hellion individual finally annoyed me enough. I’ve just installed Cleek’s Pie Filter, and it is full of tasty goodness.
Thank you, Cleek!
Amir Khalid
@Ted & Hellen:
… by pointing out that “Obama’s approval ratings never went below 40 %”? I think not.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: That idiot engineer lived a couple of blocks from our old place up in Montrose. I probably ran into him and his dog when walking my girls.
Kay
@Violet:
I don’t think Presidential races are comparable to midterms. It’s just an entirely different undertaking. I’ll just give you an example. We’ll have state-wide races here, and we have one local candidate (yay for him!) but as far as congressional races, our Democrat won’t be competitive.
If it were up to me, they’d focus on the state races (including the Senate) and let the House take care of itself. If they win the state races, that means Democrats came out, and they’ll vote for the D House candidate.
If there is no big state race, they can go hard for a House member, but the focus should be on state races. House members can ride along.
People hate Congress. Sad but true. It’s just a very small group, IMO, who are going to be all excited about House members. I tried quite hard in 2010, and I have to tell you, if we hadn’t have had labor supporting Strickland I would have had no one show up.
Redshirt
@Neddie Jingo: Friend of Blog Owner John G. Cole, mind you.
Jeremy
@Amir Khalid: So Ted and Hellen claims that I’m trying make an argument that everyone is racist against Obama ? I never made that claim and maybe Ted and Hellen should read what I said carefully before speaking.
raven
@Jeremy: You’re not from around here are you?
Cassidy
@Jeremy: Dude, Sandusky & Ramirez’s whole schtick is to try and say the most horridly offensive thing possible. It has no positions and no interest in debating honestly.
Ted & Hellen
@Redshirt:
GOOD friend, mind you.
Frequent email and chat exchanges…sometimes daily!
Does that bother you? You should write John about his choice of friends!
JPL
Who is the biggest jerk, Ted and Hellen or those that respond? I count myself among those that responded btw.
SiubhanDuinne
@max: Seriously, I thought that was a real thing until the last sentence.
Ted & Hellen
@Jeremy:
MAGIC NEGRO ring a bell?
Are you saying then, that people who look for a MAGIC NEGRO are not racist?
I see….
Ted & Hellen
@JPL:
The responders!
Villago Delenda Est
This is the thing, though…the idiot Rethugs were proposing that we revert to the policies that made the economy weak in the first place.
Plus, they nominated a dipshit, admittedly the least dippy of the shits that offered themselves up to be sacrificial slaughter for the Obama machine, but still, a dipshit.
BruinKid
@Mnemosyne: One of my online friends from a UCLA sports message board was killed in a train crash a few years ago when a guy tried to commit suicide by parking his car on the train tracks. But he chickened out at the last minute and jumped out. The train had no time to stop and slammed into it, killing 12 on board.
Oh, and about the data guys, the head guy gave a talk a few months ago here at UCLA, and frankly, a lot of media are overstating the role the data mining played. It helped on the margins, but was nowhere near as sophisticated as some were making it out to be.
Kay
@Violet:
I personally canvassed for Sherrod Brown in 2012. They did a “coordinated campaign” with the Obama people. We all love Sherrod Brown, right? He’s on tv all the time? People were saying “Sherry WHO?”
Admittedly, that was in, like, MARCH, but still. There were attack ads about him every day! They should recognize the name just from that! Obama was the big marquee name. It’s just the way it is. Brown runs really smart campaigns, his whole easy-going Lefty thing is a little deceptive, he’s really competitive. He didn’t do his (great) ads until much later, and they were popular, but it’s amazing how little people know about Congress.
Redshirt
@Ted & Hellen:
That’s precious. Blog owner is GOOD friends with the blog’s biggest troll. Hmm.
Villago Delenda Est
@BruinKid:
It’s fucking magic to the gullible twits. Of course they’re overstating it. There must be some magical reason why Rmoney lost. It’s the magic of ACORN, or the magic of actually putting out canvassing software that is tested and works, or some sort of supernatural force to explain why the cretinous dogshit of the Village so badly called the election.
Jeremy
@raven: Yeah I’m not here all the time.
Yatsuno
@BruinKid: I remember that crash. That was horrid. Plus the guy was all wrapped up in his own feelings afterwards as well.
Villago Delenda Est
@Ted & Hellen:
The projection! It’s dazzling!
raven
@Jeremy: This clown is like a fucking tomato blight.
hildebrand
T&H is simply Cole trolling his own site. Nothing else makes any sense.
So, Cole, knock this shit off, you are starting to piss off even the lurkers.
Villago Delenda Est
@jl:
The engineer BOASTED of exceeding the speed limits on the curves.
The guy needs to go away, forever. He’s fucking loony toons.
patroclus
Balz’s article is about tactics, gamesmanship, demographics and technology, but I think that issues are what matters most, and the Dems still have an enormous advantage on virtually every salient issue today, and if none of them are implemented by 2016, I think we’ll still have an enormous advantage then. Obama’s recent speech in Galesburg Illinois lays it all out – immigration reform, raising the minimum wage, investments in infrastructure and green technology, making college affordable, addressing climate change with tougher building standards and technological requirements, protecting women’s liberty, passing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and much more will still be the important issues in the nest eelction cycles and the Republicans have virtually nothing to say about any of them other than “No”, plus austerity and tax cuts for the wealthy. If none of that stuff is enacted and implemented, the next Dem candidate will continue to appeal to vast swaths of the electorate and the electoral map isn’t going to change significantly; except perhaps more in the Dems’ direction.
Violet
@Kay: I agree with you that they aren’t comparable. I wish the Obama tech whiz guys could somehow help out the state races, though. I think that would help.@Kay: People have no idea who their Congresspeople are. Seriously. I remember hearing that Ted Kennedy would get letters from people all over the country asking for help with things that their own Reps or Senators really should be able to help with. He’d get the requests to the proper Rep and the people would get helped, but the point of the story is that people had heard of Ted Kennedy, so that’s who they wrote. They haven’t heard of their own Reps unless they are a big national name too.
Jeremy
@Ted & Hellen: LOL ! I was mocking and referring to what Rush Limbaugh said. I also said it because many people thought Obama was some saint who could cure all of the problems with a snap of his fingers. There was nothing inappropriate about what I said but you can continue to run on and on about it.
aimai
@Cassidy: It has to be a god. Its ok. I don’t have one ready to hand–as everyone says Ganesh would be a classic since he is the opener of the way and the granter of wishes. Another good one would be dancing Siva (Nataraj). This is a huge community of people, this dance school, and we will be borrowing a couple of Nataraj’s and my partner in this madness says she has a “few…six…Ganeshas” to sprinkle around. I like the fact that I can’t take any of this for granted and yet it is completely standardized–like having a santa decoration at christmas or a halloween one for halloween.
We will have food shaped like food, I think.
Yatsuno
@Cassidy:
You just summed up pretty much all of Special Timmeh’s posting here.
Cassidy
@aimai: Thats good. I thought buying the oldest’s chorus uniform was bad.
aimai
@Jeremy: Don’t sweat it, Jeremy. Normal people grasp what you were trying to say–what you did say, quite clearly. T and H’s whole shtick is to derail the conversation, attack specific commenters, and draw attention to itself. Sometimes its fun to engage with it because it raises what seem to be classic right wing ideas or motifs, but its as pointless to do so (though fun) as it would be to argue with a computer directed shit throwing machine. It looks like T and H has “feelings” that get “hurt” but it doesn’t.
aimai
@Cassidy: I think Indian dance, in its way, is way cheaper than Ballet, tap/jazz, Irish or scottish dancing or the competitive sports. But it does kind of end with a bang.
Roger Moore
@PeakVT:
That sounds about right. There are probably really two factors:
1) We have an inaccurate idea of what really random events are like; this is something that’s been confirmed by psychological research. People expect random numbers to be evenly distributed, but they actually tend to clump. That makes people inclined to see patterns in events that are genuinely random.
2) There are so many possible things that could go wrong that suspicious looking clusters of wrong things happen all the time. You have to multiply the probability of a cluster of bad things by the number of possible similar clusters to get the probability of some kind of cluster.
Kay
@Violet:
That would be great. I think they should lose the strict division between state and federal races. Ohio has made some progress, we do “coordinated campaigns”, but I would like to mix it up further. They’re all one Party, and state races are so important. I get the efficiency aspect of not pouring money into guaranteed loser races, but a governor or sec of state should get all the help the national org can throw them, and vice versa. Where I live there’s no difference anyway. It’s the same people helping. People talk way more about the state races than they do any House race, so that’s why I think state pulls the House member up here, not vice versa.
ranchandsyrup
@aimai: @Jeremy: I don’t see what the dude posts any more, but from recollection he runs this playbook: http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/08/the-15-rules-of-internet-disinformation.html
Villago Delenda Est
@A Ghost To Most:
What we need to do is contrive to get Steve to disdain Special Timmeh.
Seeing as Steve is the boss of Cole, this will get us results.
Jeremy
@aimai: Thank you.
A Ghost To Most
@Villago Delenda Est: good luck with that; Steve seems way too good natured. Tunch we had a shot with.
Jeremy
@Kay: I agree. That’s why I agree with Howard Dean and others who believe that we should focus on state races along with national races.
aimai
@Jeremy: You were making a really good point, and you seem like a really nice person. I don’t want you to let T and H’s crazy disturb you. You should post more often and also Pie T and H.
The Moar You Know
@Hal: He’s John’s personal buddy – that’s something John has posted on the front page – and he’s not getting banned and he’s not going anywhere.
It’s too bad. This was a good blog.
Robert Sneddon
The Rolling Stone article not long after the election compared and contrasted the two data systems the Obama and Romney campaigns ran — Obama’s data coding teams ran tests, gamed disasters and breakdowns, simulated operations and started training the end users months out from the election date. Romney’s team had their first live-fire test of their nationwide system on the day of the election and apparently offered no real training to the thousands of people they expected to use it to keep things secret.
I’d guess some friends of the Romneys made a good deal out of it, financially speaking.
Neddie Jingo
@Redshirt:
Friend of mine, too, actually.
aimai
@ranchandsyrup: Wow! That is a fascinating article! I bookmarked it for later reference. Its T and H to the life. You could use it to play “blog disruptor bingo.”
ranchandsyrup
@aimai: I’m 99% sure that some other commenter here turned me onto it. :)
BruinKid
@Villago Delenda Est: And all when it was simply using that database to maximize their GOTV time and resources.
BillinGlendaleCA
@BruinKid: That was the crash by the Los Feliz Costco(I’m going there tomorrow). I’ve seen a BruinKid on an UCLA sports blog, any relation?
Amir Khalid
@Neddie Jingo:
Maybe you could share any insights you have into Ted & Hellen’s hostile and disruptive behaviour here. That way, if we can’t hope for the relief of a permanent ban, we might at least understand why he does it.
Neddie Jingo
@Redshirt: And now that I’ve read the rest of the thread, I get the reference. It still amuses the shit out of me that I can now see only one end of the T&H conversation.
And Cleek actually is a friend of mine.
Neddie Jingo
@Amir Khalid: I’m sorry; I meant Cleek, not Toad & Hallen. That person is happily unknown to me.
A Ghost To Most
@Villago Delenda Est: interesting; my comment you refer to in this comment has been deleted
Kay
@Jeremy:
I wasn’t a big fan of Dean’s operation. It wasn’t “his” really. The idea was he would release money and let state and county parties take the reins. It was just unrealistic for us. We had an organizer who lived 60 miles away and we got this incredibly complex PP presentation. The people in the back of the room were getting restive and loud-ish and sarcastic, and, you know, those are the people I like :)
I agree that we should focus more on state races, though. I just think 2006 was a wave year, like 2010 was a wave year. Republicans aren’t geniuses for winning in 2010, and we weren’t that fab in 2006. We had a huge GOP (state) scandal in OH and that drove the whole thing, locally. We just beat the hell out of culture of corruption, which was completely true, BTW.
Anoher Halocene Human
@TooManyJens: Really wondering how someone could very away worth it again after the first found, all that publicity and like five different police agencies crawling around. Then again, dc relies a lot on executive agency desk cops, some with no le experience, so it ain’t exactly Scotland yard.
That dc arsonist freaked me out-burning up Black ppl’s homes with residents inside for decades, alphabet soup involved, and only caught bc ncis was looking at abreak-in. Dude in his hubris was trying to implicate military personnel in his crimes.
Anoher Halocene Human
@jl: The deal here is that the US’ only high speed rail line has a safety system that hits the brakes when you try to so what this stupid creep did. The NEC has its share of lo speed curves, but afaik nowhere where the can signals just cut out. There are much lower standards for conventional rail although FRA is leaving on the class Is to upgrade. Some downgraded lines have semaphores.
For some CT, witnesses claim the signal in the Chatsworth crash showed an imprper green, but nhtsb refused to believe it. The guy wasn’t actually sending or receiving a text when he passed the signal, and the curve wheretge wreck occurred is blind.
Ive seen traffic signals give conflicting greens even tho thats supposed to be ‘unpossible’. So… Possible?
Bottom line, fra would not permit cheapo unsafe territory switcgover like renfe does, and that speed obsessed operator is going to be explaining himself before a judge.
Redshirt
@Neddie Jingo: You must be cool if you know Cleek.
Tyro
@Kay: We had a huge GOP (state) scandal in OH and that drove the whole thing, locally. We just beat the hell out of culture of corruption, which was completely true, BTW.
The point, though, was that the Democrats were poised to take advantage of those scandals in a big way because the party was prepared by having a lot of candidates running for office.
Tyro
@Robert Sneddon: I’d guess some friends of the Romneys made a good deal out of it, financially speaking.
Yep. The Obama system was developed almost completely in-house, while the Romney operation just found a custom software development company to build it for them at the cost of millions.
tybee
@A Ghost To Most:
that’s fairly cowardly.
Ted & Hellen
@Jeremy:
Who are these people, specifically? Perhaps you exaggerate, just a tad?
Cassidy
@A Ghost To Most: Funny. So was mine. Several of them actually.
Redshirt
@Cassidy: Can you summarize the content that was deleted?
cleek
@Face:
11, 12? more than enough to flood the past two entire fucking years with whiny-ass asshats bitching about how Obama sold us out? for fuck’s sake, the terms “firebagger”, “emoprog” and the phrases “Obama sold us out” and “I blame Obama” didn’t come from nowhere.
Balz? there are anti-Obama holier than-everybody progressives everywhere. don’t need a poll to know that.
cleek
@Neddie Jingo:
my pleasure, Neddie!
Death Panel Truck
@Hunter Gathers:
I prefer Charles P. Pierce’s Romney monicker: “G.I. Luvmoney.”
BruinKid
@BillinGlendaleCA: Hm, I go by BruinKid on DailyKos, but don’t use it on the UCLA sports boards. Did a few years ago, but was banned from that site along with all my friends for not agreeing with everything they said.
That site’s now to UCLA as the Tea Party is to America. They loathe our athletic director (who does deserve some criticism) that whenever any tiny thing comes up, they immediately blame him and demand his firing. They even marched on our administration building this spring to deliver a petition to the chancellor calling for his firing. Which really mirrored some of the Tea Party actions. (They wanted a big turnout to deliver the petition; there were 2 of them in total.)
karen
@Kay:
He may have surprised but he better hide so cops or Zimmerman wannabes don’t “accidentally” kill him. Can’t have him actually reporting what really happened can they?