Certainly not out of touch with what is going on these days, and for the record I rarely tune in to Fox News, and if I do I'm usually toggling to compare the content of the moment to CNN and the others. I never listen to talk radio.
I'm not at all surprised by the result as I certainly have a strong sense of what is happening in and to America today.....especially with regard to our societal future and the well being of our future generations.
The Fox and the like prognosticators were only fooled by misjudging the ability of the Obama team to replicate their 2008 voter base.....however it might have been done. Turnouts of 90% plus voting 95% plus for Obama in most all urban areas of America is unprecedented, but what happened essentially to give Obama Florida, Ohio, Pennsvlvania, Michigan, and perhaps Wisconsin.
I haven't seen all the final stats by city and county yet but I believe at the moment that is the way it played out.
To clarify, I think when all is said and done with the precinct and county stats it will show that the overwhelming numbers of counties in each state voted more for Romney.
Obama offset it by successfully harvesting the urban vote in astronomical percentages and numbers to carry the borderline states.
Obama won Florida by 74,000 votes at this time. I'll wager that when all is in and recorded he won Dade and Broward on the southeast cost by two or three times that amount or more. Romney will have won most everywhere else not urban in Florida.
According to CNN, Obama won Ohio by less than 104,000 votes, with Romney receiving about 2.6 million votes in the state. Obama sweeping the City of Cleveland by likely way more than 200,000+ was the nail that pounded and sealed his victory in the state.
http://www.usatoday.com/election-2012/results/
When the final election results are made public, precinct by precinct and county by county, the election map will be overwhelming red.
Obama was an election day loser in an overwhelming majority of the counties of America that are not urban.
That's the historical legacy of this 2012 Presidential Election.
Re: Politics
452Has anyone seen some of the turnout numbers? 141% in St. Lucie county in FLA, 104% in Wood county in OH. Absentee requests down 50% from our military. Some have noted the percentage breakdown in inner cities.
The EV figures aside - this vote was close. I'm reading 407,000 votes, if reapportioned in some battle-grounds, would've changed the outcome. Out of what -- 116M votes cast?
The urban turnout numbers seem to smell, and if I remove my tinfoil hat, I come to the following:
This, my friends, is how you win elections in Chicago.
And don't get me started on Benghazi/Patreus.
The EV figures aside - this vote was close. I'm reading 407,000 votes, if reapportioned in some battle-grounds, would've changed the outcome. Out of what -- 116M votes cast?
The urban turnout numbers seem to smell, and if I remove my tinfoil hat, I come to the following:
This, my friends, is how you win elections in Chicago.
And don't get me started on Benghazi/Patreus.
Re: Politics
453This write up by the local Philadelphia newspaper about their own city is out today:Darkstar wrote:Has anyone seen some of the turnout numbers? 141% in St. Lucie county in FLA, 104% in Wood county in OH. Absentee requests down 50% from our military. Some have noted the percentage breakdown in inner cities.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/polit ... votes.html
In 59 Philadelphia voting divisions, Mitt Romney got zero votes
Miriam Hill, Andrew Seidman, and John Duchneskie, Inquirer Staff Writers
Posted: Monday, November 12, 2012, 5:30 AM
It's one thing for a Democratic presidential candidate to dominate a Democratic city like Philadelphia, but check out this head-spinning figure: In 59 voting divisions in the city, Mitt Romney received not one vote. Zero. Zilch.
These are the kind of numbers that send Republicans into paroxysms of voter-fraud angst, but such results may not be so startling after all.
"We have always had these dense urban corridors that are extremely Democratic," said Jonathan Rodden, a political science professor at Stanford University. "It's kind of an urban fact, and you are looking at the extreme end of it in Philadelphia."
Most big cities are politically homogeneous, with 75 percent to 80 percent of voters identifying as Democrats.
Cities are not only bursting with Democrats: They are easier to organize than rural areas where people live far apart from one another, said Sasha Issenberg, author of The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns.
"One reason Democrats can maximize votes in Philadelphia is that it's very easy to knock on every door," Issenberg said.
Still, was there not one contrarian voter in those 59 divisions, where unofficial vote tallies have President Obama outscoring Romney by a combined 19,605 to 0?
The unanimous support for Obama in these Philadelphia neighborhoods - clustered in almost exclusively black sections of West and North Philadelphia - fertilizes fears of fraud, despite little hard evidence.
Upon hearing the numbers, Steve Miskin, a spokesman for Republicans in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, brought up his party's voter-identification initiative - which was held off for this election - and said, "We believe we need to continue ensuring the integrity of the ballot."
The absence of a voter-ID law, however, would not stop anyone from voting for a Republican candidate.
Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia who has studied African American precincts, said he had occasionally seen 100 percent of the vote go for the Democratic candidate. Chicago and Atlanta each had precincts that registered no votes for Republican Sen. John McCain in 2008.
"I'd be surprised if there weren't a handful of precincts that didn't cast a vote for Romney," he said. But the number of zero precincts in Philadelphia deserves examination, Sabato added.
"Not a single vote for Romney or even an error? That's worth looking into," he said.
In a city with 1,687 of the ward subsets known as divisions, each with hundreds of voters, 59 is about 3.5 percent of the total.
In some of those divisions, it's not only Romney supporters who are missing. Republicans in general are nearly extinct.
Take North Philadelphia's 28th Ward, third division, bounded by York, 24th, and 28th Streets and Susquehanna Avenue.
About 94 percent of the 633 people who live in that division are black. Seven white residents were counted in the 2010 census.
In the entire 28th Ward, Romney received only 34 votes to Obama's 5,920.
Although voter registration lists, which often contain outdated information, show 12 Republicans live in the ward's third division, The Inquirer was unable to find any of them by calling or visiting their homes.
Four of the registered Republicans no longer lived there; four others didn't answer their doors. City Board of Elections registration data say a registered Republican used to live at 25th and York Streets, but none of the neighbors across the street Friday knew him. Cathy Santos, 56, founder of the National Alliance of Women Veterans, had one theory: "We ran him out of town!" she said and laughed.
James Norris, 19, who lives down the street, is listed as a Republican in city data. But he said he's a Democrat and voted for Obama because he thinks the president will help the middle class.
A few blocks away, Eric Sapp, a 42-year-old chef, looked skeptical when told that city data had him listed as a registered Republican. "I got to check on that," said Sapp, who voted for Obama.
Eighteen Republicans reportedly live in the nearby 15th Division, according to city registration records. The 15th has the distinction of pitching two straight Republican shutouts - zero votes for McCain in 2008, zero for Romney on Tuesday. Oh, and 13 other city divisions did the same thing in 2008 and 2012.
Three of the 15th's registered Republicans were listed as living in the same apartment, but the tenant there said he had never heard of them. The addresses of several others could not be found.
On West Albert Street, Duke Dunston says he knows he's a registered Republican, but he's never voted for one.
The leader of the 28th Ward is Democrat Anthony Clark, who grew up under the tutelage of the late power broker and Democratic ward leader Carol Ann Campbell. Clark is also a city commissioner, one of three elected officials who oversee Philadelphia elections.
"In the African American community from 33d to 24th between Ridge and Somerset, there is a large population of Democrats and there are not many Republicans in there at all. I think it's the issues. People are not feeling that Romney is in touch with them," Clark said.
Despite the Democratic advantage in the 28th Ward, Clark says he also makes sure party workers are getting the vote out.
"People get out, give out literature, talk to people about the issues. Also, they work the polls," Clark said. "People know them in their divisions."
Clark struggled to recall anyone in his area who ever identified as a Republican. Though that is not something anyone would likely volunteer to a Democratic ward leader, Clark eventually remembered Lewis Harris, the GOP leader in the nearby 29th ward, and that rare species: an urban black Republican.
Harris, in an interview, said he works for the GOP mostly because he believes city neighborhoods need attention from both parties.
"I open the door to the community and let them be exposed to diversity in the political party," Harris said. "I want political community-based leverage."
Harris cast his vote for Romney, but he's also an Obama fan.
"I love both of those people," he said.
Nationally, 93 percent of African Americans voted for Obama, according to exit polls, so it's not surprising that in some parts of Philadelphia, the president did even better than that.
In the entire city, Obama got 85 percent of the vote. His worst showing was in South Philadelphia's 26th Ward. There, the president garnered 52.3 percent of the vote, compared to 46.6 percent for Romney.
Paula Terreri, 57, a 26th Ward Republican who describes herself as a devout Catholic, said outside the polls on Tuesday that she voted for Romney because she opposed abortion.
Many parts of Philadelphia and other big cities simply lack Republican voters, a fact of campaigning that has been true since Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, Stanford University's Rodden said.
In 2008, McCain got zero votes in 57 Philadelphia voting divisions. That was a big increase from 2004, when George W. Bush was blanked in just five divisions.
As the first African American president, Obama held immense appeal to black voters, but skin color is only part of the story, said Mark Sawyer, a political science professor at UCLA.
Previous Republican candidates, including Richard Nixon and Jack Kemp, supported affirmative action and urban development, but their party has abandoned those stances, Sawyer said.
Romney's comments, including talking about people who want "more free stuff from the government" after a visit to the NAACP, only further distanced African Americans who felt the comments played to stereotypes about welfare, Sawyer said.
Inquirer Staff Writer Bob Warner contributed to this report.
Contact Miriam Hill at 215-854-5520, hillmb@phillynews.com, or follow @miriamhill on Twitter.
Re: Politics
454So let me get this straight--you would favor an electoral system based on counties rather than states? Each county gets one electoral vote? Sounds like a Goldilocks analysis. States are too big, and individual voters are too small, but counties are just right?
The kind of red vs. blue map you are talking about has been made before, and probably has already been made for 2012. The one for 2008 is very striking indeed--A big huge red interior with blue blotches on some parts of the periphery and occasionally in the middle as well. If I run across one online I'll try to remember to post a link for it (if I can figure out how).
The kind of red vs. blue map you are talking about has been made before, and probably has already been made for 2012. The one for 2008 is very striking indeed--A big huge red interior with blue blotches on some parts of the periphery and occasionally in the middle as well. If I run across one online I'll try to remember to post a link for it (if I can figure out how).
Re: Politics
455Does your plan allow one vote for county regardless of population? That's like a system Ohio used to have where each county got at least 1 member of the General Assembly. But even then the big counties got more. e.g. Cuyahoga with about 1.5M pop got 17 seats, Vinton with 10T got 1. It was thrown out as unconstitutional.
Re: Politics
456Ha ha ha, here's one that's not completely accurate but the inaccuracies bring it more closely in accord with my description so It's My Story and I'm Sticking With It.
http://media.photobucket.com/image/rece ... er1024.png
http://media.photobucket.com/image/rece ... er1024.png
Re: Politics
457If you want to look at an elections result map that looks at results based on where the people are in addition to those that are based on how people living around vast and barely populated farm lands, deserts, mountains, forests, and plains vote, here is a webpage that: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2012/. Be sure to scroll down.
Representation by President and members of the House of Representatives is supposed to be based (roughly) on population. The Senate balances that by giving two votes to each state regardless of huge differences in population between states. Citizens of the rural red states already enjoy greater overall representation on a person-by-person basis than do citizens living in highly urban, liberal states. The District of Columbia gets no effective voice in Congress at all, despite the fact that its population is larger than several states.
There thus really is no legitimate argument that the rural states get screwed by the federal system of representation. The purely geographic maps cited in this forum simply do not depict how democratic principles are advanced by the current system. They show where the land is, not where the people live.
Nor is it safe to jump to conclusions about "voter fraud" based only on odd-looking data points. The 141% turnout for the one county in Florida is based on a counting system for "voter participation" that counts twice for voting on both pages of a 2-page ballot. Thus, there was really just over 70% voter turnout. I am not sure why they use a system like that (perhaps it was using a program designed with the expectation that there would be only one page per ballot). But the reason that such an odd-looking number can exist is explained in notes on the page where the result was posted. And how voting was done this year in Florida was controlled by Republican state officials.
Finally, I think the reason that black turnout was so large and uniform is two-fold: First, one can reasonably expect that people who have long suffered discrimination would want to support the first black person to be elected president on his re-election bid, especially in light of the nasty kinds of attacks at least some were directing at him (including the notion that this very accomplished man was just over his head in being president, without regard to the unusually difficult situation with the economy and two wars that he came to office facing).
Second, efforts by Republican-controlled states like Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania that were understood to be efforts to suppress the black vote backfired. They created a huge incentive for black voters to show up in order to assert that right, even if it meant standing in line for hours and having to give up a day's pay to do so. Throw in the 47% comment, and the talk about minorities that mentions only Hispanics and Asians as "hard-working" people who share "Republican" "family values" and it is really not hard to see why black voters might have felt especially motivated and fiercely loyal to Obama in this election.
You can argue that none of the above was motivated by racism. But I think it is hard to blame the black community for feeling that it was, at least in part, and that it was insulting and anti-democratic in any event. And feelings like that make people want to be heard.
The over-heated and outraged reaction of many white conservatives to the "highly dubious" election results merely confirms that black voters have cause to feel they must remain vigilant in protecting their interests.
I am not intending to directly quote or judge the motives of anyone here. I know you all to be people who seek not to react based on bias or prejudice. I am merely pointing out that, if one considers the perspective of the black community in light of everything that has gone on in this election cycle and leading up to it, then it really is not so hard to understand why they might feel very strongly about voting to re-elect Obama.
Representation by President and members of the House of Representatives is supposed to be based (roughly) on population. The Senate balances that by giving two votes to each state regardless of huge differences in population between states. Citizens of the rural red states already enjoy greater overall representation on a person-by-person basis than do citizens living in highly urban, liberal states. The District of Columbia gets no effective voice in Congress at all, despite the fact that its population is larger than several states.
There thus really is no legitimate argument that the rural states get screwed by the federal system of representation. The purely geographic maps cited in this forum simply do not depict how democratic principles are advanced by the current system. They show where the land is, not where the people live.
Nor is it safe to jump to conclusions about "voter fraud" based only on odd-looking data points. The 141% turnout for the one county in Florida is based on a counting system for "voter participation" that counts twice for voting on both pages of a 2-page ballot. Thus, there was really just over 70% voter turnout. I am not sure why they use a system like that (perhaps it was using a program designed with the expectation that there would be only one page per ballot). But the reason that such an odd-looking number can exist is explained in notes on the page where the result was posted. And how voting was done this year in Florida was controlled by Republican state officials.
Finally, I think the reason that black turnout was so large and uniform is two-fold: First, one can reasonably expect that people who have long suffered discrimination would want to support the first black person to be elected president on his re-election bid, especially in light of the nasty kinds of attacks at least some were directing at him (including the notion that this very accomplished man was just over his head in being president, without regard to the unusually difficult situation with the economy and two wars that he came to office facing).
Second, efforts by Republican-controlled states like Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania that were understood to be efforts to suppress the black vote backfired. They created a huge incentive for black voters to show up in order to assert that right, even if it meant standing in line for hours and having to give up a day's pay to do so. Throw in the 47% comment, and the talk about minorities that mentions only Hispanics and Asians as "hard-working" people who share "Republican" "family values" and it is really not hard to see why black voters might have felt especially motivated and fiercely loyal to Obama in this election.
You can argue that none of the above was motivated by racism. But I think it is hard to blame the black community for feeling that it was, at least in part, and that it was insulting and anti-democratic in any event. And feelings like that make people want to be heard.
The over-heated and outraged reaction of many white conservatives to the "highly dubious" election results merely confirms that black voters have cause to feel they must remain vigilant in protecting their interests.
I am not intending to directly quote or judge the motives of anyone here. I know you all to be people who seek not to react based on bias or prejudice. I am merely pointing out that, if one considers the perspective of the black community in light of everything that has gone on in this election cycle and leading up to it, then it really is not so hard to understand why they might feel very strongly about voting to re-elect Obama.
Re: Politics
458
Election results by county
But we can go further. We can do the same thing also with the county-level election results and the images are even more striking. Here is a map of US counties, again colored red and blue to indicate Republican and Democratic majorities respectively:
_______________________________________________________
Thank you for the background on my point, Peter.
In the vast majority of cities and counties in America, one can walk into a supermarket or watering hole and find people who are not happy Barack Obama is slated to be our President as 2013 approaches. Squish another map at that link a bit more with Alaska, and probably 85% of the land area of The United States contains people who are not happy Barack Obama will apparently be our President as late January 2013 arrives.
There is always the Electoral College, and the possibility of bolting, which might be fun conversation and effort.
In 2008 Barack Obama ran for President telling America he was going to be "The Great Unifier".
Turns out he best unified people who depend on government and would most likely support him when voting.
He alienated and enraged people who work for a living, and most who work to provide a living for others.
In the meantime, our World Stature as a Nation falls, and the likelihood and goal of better lives for our children and grandchildren in America have been thrashed and trashed by Barack Obama as he basks in the glory of his personally felt limelight.
Re: Politics
459And the wing nuts are still at it. Can't live with the will of the majority of the people. Secession talk on right wing radio.
Re: Politics
460Barack Obama's most firm political historical accomplishment to date?Tribe Fan in SC/Cali wrote:
Election results by county
But we can go further. We can do the same thing also with the county-level election results and the images are even more striking. Here is a map of US counties, again colored red and blue to indicate Republican and Democratic majorities respectively:
_______________________________________________________
Thank you for the background on my point, Peter.
In the vast majority of cities and counties in America, one can walk into a supermarket or watering hole and find people who are not happy Barack Obama is slated to be our President as 2013 approaches. Squish another map at that link a bit more with Alaska, and probably 85% of the land area of The United States contains people who are not happy Barack Obama will apparently be our President as late January 2013 arrives.
There is always the Electoral College, and the possibility of bolting, which might be fun conversation and effort.
In 2008 Barack Obama ran for President telling America he was going to be "The Great Unifier".
Turns out he best unified people who depend on government and would most likely support him when voting.
He alienated and enraged people who work for a living, and most who work to provide a living for others.
In the meantime, our World Stature as a Nation falls, and the likelihood and goal of better lives for our children and grandchildren in America have been thrashed and trashed by Barack Obama as he basks in the glory of his personally felt limelight as his harvest machine reaped high numbers of votes from the low hanging fruit.
Keeping a paid ground team in the swing states the past four years to make certain his key precinct voters received ballots and cast them.....with any assistance....or inspiration.... necessary.
Barack Obama's legacy from this election?
He shot fish in a barrel as no candidate had done before.
Re: Politics
462Just so the source I provided is not reflected in a one-sided manner in this forum, here is the cartogram that shows how the voting really broke out based on where voters actually live.
One way to improve the map and reveal more nuance in the vote is to use not just two colors, red and blue, but to use red, blue, and shades of purple in between to indicate percentages of votes. Here is what the [cartogram] looks like if you do this:
Romney said "corporations are people," but he never said corporate-entity "people" should be allowed to vote in presidential elections or that their views or votes are more important than natural people for election purposes. Tribe Fan, you take an even more bizarre approach than that would be. You are the first person I have ever heard that says land area matters MORE than voters in determining how presidents should be elected. I do not think you really believe what you are saying in that regard. It makes no sense. Would you really feel the same if the results were reversed?
"Turns out he best unified people who depend on government and would most likely support him when voting.
He alienated and enraged people who work for a living, and most who work to provide a living for others."
I work for a living. I work to provide a living for others. I am not alienated or enraged. Very few people I know are. Indeed, a great majority of such people I know are happy with the election result, even where it likely means we will pay somewhat higher taxes in order to help control the deficit.
Moreover, I know lots of black people who work for a living and/or who provide livings for others too. (FYI, most black people do.) I am sure many such people live in those precincts about which you complain. Are you saying they are too stupid, lazy or intimidated to vote or to speak up when reported results show that their votes were ignored?
Really?
One way to improve the map and reveal more nuance in the vote is to use not just two colors, red and blue, but to use red, blue, and shades of purple in between to indicate percentages of votes. Here is what the [cartogram] looks like if you do this:
Romney said "corporations are people," but he never said corporate-entity "people" should be allowed to vote in presidential elections or that their views or votes are more important than natural people for election purposes. Tribe Fan, you take an even more bizarre approach than that would be. You are the first person I have ever heard that says land area matters MORE than voters in determining how presidents should be elected. I do not think you really believe what you are saying in that regard. It makes no sense. Would you really feel the same if the results were reversed?
"Turns out he best unified people who depend on government and would most likely support him when voting.
He alienated and enraged people who work for a living, and most who work to provide a living for others."
I work for a living. I work to provide a living for others. I am not alienated or enraged. Very few people I know are. Indeed, a great majority of such people I know are happy with the election result, even where it likely means we will pay somewhat higher taxes in order to help control the deficit.
Moreover, I know lots of black people who work for a living and/or who provide livings for others too. (FYI, most black people do.) I am sure many such people live in those precincts about which you complain. Are you saying they are too stupid, lazy or intimidated to vote or to speak up when reported results show that their votes were ignored?
Really?
Re: Politics
464WWRD: What would Reagan do after Obama's victory?
By Martin Sieff
Published November 08, 2012
FoxNews.com
The Republican Party and the conservative movement in America have been brought to their current appalling state because they are full of people who endlessly praise Ronald Reagan while doing the opposite of what he taught and practiced. In fact, Reagan’s brilliant example and crystal spirit can light up the road ahead – if conservatives will open their closed minds and shriveled spirits to him.
First of all, Ronald Reagan was a lifelong optimist and an example of remarkable resilience especially in bad times. After Barry Goldwater went down to the greatest presidential defeat in American history to that point in 1964, Reagan, whose nationally televised speech was the one shining success in that campaign, was neither shaken no disheartened. Within two years he had won the governorship of California – and the rest is history.
Reagan therefore would not have lost heart and despaired of conservative and patriotic principles, nor of America. He would have taken a good night’s sleep and got up in the morning eager to find new directions and new opportunities for the way ahead.
Second, the conservative movement that Ronald Reagan created was generous and inclusive. Reagan welcomed brilliant African-American and Jewish intellectuals alike on to his team.
Ronald Reagan was a lifelong optimist and an example of remarkable resilience especially in bad times.
-
President George W. Bush understood this generous, inclusive essential component of conservatism. I have been critical of Bush for many important things -- unnecessary wars, out of control spending, playing ultimately catastrophic games with keeping interest rates artificially low. But Bush 43, among other things, was highly successful in reaching out to Hispanic Americans. He knew and thought better of grassroots conservatives than assuming that they would never accept Hispanic, black or Jewish Americans in major positions.
Mitt Romney lost a major opportunity when he refused to seriously consider Gov. Susana Martinez of New Mexico or Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida as his vice presidential running mate. Martinez in particular gave a superb speech at the Republican National Convention in Tampa and could have helped Romney enormously with women and Hispanics – two huge constituencies that he effectively chose to write off.
George W. Bush did not make that mistake. Neither did Ronald Reagan.
The Republican Party spent at least $1 billion on the 2012 presidential campaign and it still lost by a clear two percentage points in the national popular vote. There was no serious effort to reach out to women or Hispanics, nor to young Americans – a constituency who responded tremendously to Ronald Reagan back in 1980.
Ronald Reagan have never have blamed these groups for not voting Republican. He would certainly never have written off 47 percent of Americans as a waste of time. He would never have dreamed of even thinking such a thought. Ronald Reagan loved and respected ordinary working Americans and they knew it. He always recognized clearly that arrogant, self-appointed elitists were political poison to the conservative movement and the GOP.
Reagan’s two administrations were exceptional from the start in ringing new and brilliant talents and ideas to Washington. Often these ideas and their champions clashed with each other. The fresh blood Reagan brought to the moribund Beltway culture was often remarkably young in years. Sometimes in age it was remarkably old, as in the case of Director of Central Intelligence William Casey. Reagan never cared. He never ruled talent out however old or young it was according to conventional wisdom.
The conservative moment has lost that open-mindedness and flexibility. The same columnists, the same pundits, serve up the same ideas in lockstep with each other time and again. When new ideas and new challenges emerge across America, they are shoehorned into the old rhetoric by the same arrogant, repetitive tired old faces. New minds and new blood are needed.
Ronald Reagan was a social conservative and one of the greatest spokesmen for genuine moral values in the history of American politics. But he was never a bigot or a fool. He never outraged women or any other group by expressing ridiculous, offensive, or plain absurd sentiments. An ill-judged tolerance for such buffoons has just cost the Republican Party and the conservative movement two Senate seats they were otherwise almost certain to win.
Ronald Reagan did not mindlessly worship youth or embody it. His mind and spirit were always young – always optimistic, intellectually curious and ready to challenge old orthodoxies from economics to national security. But he was almost 70 years old when he took the oath of office for the first time, the oldest American ever to do so.
Neither was Reagan afraid to change and adapt his policies to changing times. The Ronald Reagan who ended one of the most dangerous periods of the Cold War by launching a new era of détente with Mikhail Gorbachev was not a different Reagan from the Reagan who had had fearlessly stood up to previous Soviet leaders Leonid Brezhnev, Yury Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko. It was the same Reagan. But when the Soviet leadership changed, he recognized when he needed to change his policies – never his principles – too.
Ronald Reagan was no war-lover, armchair warrior or quick on the trigger hothead. He defused immensely serious crises with the Soviet Union and Iran on many occasions. But he also avoided getting the United States bogged down in any blooded and extended war, unlike others we could mention. Like Dwight David Eisenhower, for a full eight years he brilliantly preserved peace through strength and wisdom when it seemed almost impossible to do.
Reagan had nerves of steel and genuinely trusted the workings of the free market. He let interest rates soar to break the back of inflation in 1981-82 even though for more than a year it looked as if he would suffer sweeping defeat in any re-election bid for doing so.
George W. Bush never shared that courage and optimistic faith and kept interest rates bottled up for almost his entire two terms. The result was the housing bubble burst and disastrous Wall Street meltdown of 2008.
The Republican Party and the conservative movement need to recover that steely courage in applying necessary economic policies rather than pandering to either public opinion or ignorant pundits.
Reagan would not have despaired -- or even been disheartened -- by the national election results on Tuesday night. He would have been energized by them to seek out new opportunities. He would have sought to learn the right lessons and apply them. And he would not have let the architects of such a sweeping and comprehensive defeat get the chance to bang their heads against the same old brick walls and ever bury the conservative movement again.
Finally, Ronald Reagan would never have tried to turn the clock back to some mythical golden age before the New Deal, or before Teddy Roosevelt’s Square Deal or, for that matter, before the Bill of Rights. For him the true golden age was always ahead, and it was a privilege for him and the American people to strive to achieve it.
By Martin Sieff
Published November 08, 2012
FoxNews.com
The Republican Party and the conservative movement in America have been brought to their current appalling state because they are full of people who endlessly praise Ronald Reagan while doing the opposite of what he taught and practiced. In fact, Reagan’s brilliant example and crystal spirit can light up the road ahead – if conservatives will open their closed minds and shriveled spirits to him.
First of all, Ronald Reagan was a lifelong optimist and an example of remarkable resilience especially in bad times. After Barry Goldwater went down to the greatest presidential defeat in American history to that point in 1964, Reagan, whose nationally televised speech was the one shining success in that campaign, was neither shaken no disheartened. Within two years he had won the governorship of California – and the rest is history.
Reagan therefore would not have lost heart and despaired of conservative and patriotic principles, nor of America. He would have taken a good night’s sleep and got up in the morning eager to find new directions and new opportunities for the way ahead.
Second, the conservative movement that Ronald Reagan created was generous and inclusive. Reagan welcomed brilliant African-American and Jewish intellectuals alike on to his team.
Ronald Reagan was a lifelong optimist and an example of remarkable resilience especially in bad times.
-
President George W. Bush understood this generous, inclusive essential component of conservatism. I have been critical of Bush for many important things -- unnecessary wars, out of control spending, playing ultimately catastrophic games with keeping interest rates artificially low. But Bush 43, among other things, was highly successful in reaching out to Hispanic Americans. He knew and thought better of grassroots conservatives than assuming that they would never accept Hispanic, black or Jewish Americans in major positions.
Mitt Romney lost a major opportunity when he refused to seriously consider Gov. Susana Martinez of New Mexico or Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida as his vice presidential running mate. Martinez in particular gave a superb speech at the Republican National Convention in Tampa and could have helped Romney enormously with women and Hispanics – two huge constituencies that he effectively chose to write off.
George W. Bush did not make that mistake. Neither did Ronald Reagan.
The Republican Party spent at least $1 billion on the 2012 presidential campaign and it still lost by a clear two percentage points in the national popular vote. There was no serious effort to reach out to women or Hispanics, nor to young Americans – a constituency who responded tremendously to Ronald Reagan back in 1980.
Ronald Reagan have never have blamed these groups for not voting Republican. He would certainly never have written off 47 percent of Americans as a waste of time. He would never have dreamed of even thinking such a thought. Ronald Reagan loved and respected ordinary working Americans and they knew it. He always recognized clearly that arrogant, self-appointed elitists were political poison to the conservative movement and the GOP.
Reagan’s two administrations were exceptional from the start in ringing new and brilliant talents and ideas to Washington. Often these ideas and their champions clashed with each other. The fresh blood Reagan brought to the moribund Beltway culture was often remarkably young in years. Sometimes in age it was remarkably old, as in the case of Director of Central Intelligence William Casey. Reagan never cared. He never ruled talent out however old or young it was according to conventional wisdom.
The conservative moment has lost that open-mindedness and flexibility. The same columnists, the same pundits, serve up the same ideas in lockstep with each other time and again. When new ideas and new challenges emerge across America, they are shoehorned into the old rhetoric by the same arrogant, repetitive tired old faces. New minds and new blood are needed.
Ronald Reagan was a social conservative and one of the greatest spokesmen for genuine moral values in the history of American politics. But he was never a bigot or a fool. He never outraged women or any other group by expressing ridiculous, offensive, or plain absurd sentiments. An ill-judged tolerance for such buffoons has just cost the Republican Party and the conservative movement two Senate seats they were otherwise almost certain to win.
Ronald Reagan did not mindlessly worship youth or embody it. His mind and spirit were always young – always optimistic, intellectually curious and ready to challenge old orthodoxies from economics to national security. But he was almost 70 years old when he took the oath of office for the first time, the oldest American ever to do so.
Neither was Reagan afraid to change and adapt his policies to changing times. The Ronald Reagan who ended one of the most dangerous periods of the Cold War by launching a new era of détente with Mikhail Gorbachev was not a different Reagan from the Reagan who had had fearlessly stood up to previous Soviet leaders Leonid Brezhnev, Yury Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko. It was the same Reagan. But when the Soviet leadership changed, he recognized when he needed to change his policies – never his principles – too.
Ronald Reagan was no war-lover, armchair warrior or quick on the trigger hothead. He defused immensely serious crises with the Soviet Union and Iran on many occasions. But he also avoided getting the United States bogged down in any blooded and extended war, unlike others we could mention. Like Dwight David Eisenhower, for a full eight years he brilliantly preserved peace through strength and wisdom when it seemed almost impossible to do.
Reagan had nerves of steel and genuinely trusted the workings of the free market. He let interest rates soar to break the back of inflation in 1981-82 even though for more than a year it looked as if he would suffer sweeping defeat in any re-election bid for doing so.
George W. Bush never shared that courage and optimistic faith and kept interest rates bottled up for almost his entire two terms. The result was the housing bubble burst and disastrous Wall Street meltdown of 2008.
The Republican Party and the conservative movement need to recover that steely courage in applying necessary economic policies rather than pandering to either public opinion or ignorant pundits.
Reagan would not have despaired -- or even been disheartened -- by the national election results on Tuesday night. He would have been energized by them to seek out new opportunities. He would have sought to learn the right lessons and apply them. And he would not have let the architects of such a sweeping and comprehensive defeat get the chance to bang their heads against the same old brick walls and ever bury the conservative movement again.
Finally, Ronald Reagan would never have tried to turn the clock back to some mythical golden age before the New Deal, or before Teddy Roosevelt’s Square Deal or, for that matter, before the Bill of Rights. For him the true golden age was always ahead, and it was a privilege for him and the American people to strive to achieve it.
Re: Politics
465OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Demographic Excuse
By ROSS DOUTHAT
Published: November 10, 2012 299 Comments
THE Republican Party has lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections. It just failed to unseat a president presiding over one of the longest stretches of mass unemployment since the Great Depression. In a year when the Senate map offered them numerous opportunities, the Republicans managed to lose two seats instead.
In part, these failures can be attributed to the country’s changing demographics. Reliable Republican constituencies — whites, married couples and churchgoers — are shrinking as a share of the electorate. Democratic-leaning constituencies — minorities, recent immigrants, the unmarried and unchurched — are growing, and voting in larger numbers than in the past.
But Republicans are also losing because today’s economic landscape is very different than in the days of Ronald Reagan’s landslides. The problems that middle-class Americans faced in the late 1970s are not the problems of today. Health care now takes a bigger bite than income taxes out of many paychecks. Wage stagnation is a bigger threat to blue-collar workers than inflation. Middle-income parents worry more about the cost of college than the crime rate. Americans are more likely to fret about Washington’s coziness with big business than about big government alone.
Both shifts, demographic and economic, must be addressed if Republicans are to find a way back to the majority. But the temptation for the party’s elites will be to fasten on the demographic explanation, because playing identity politics seems far less painful than overhauling the Republican economic message.
This explains why many high-profile Republicans responded to last Tuesday’s defeat by embracing some form of amnesty for illegal immigrants. Fox News’s Sean Hannity, a reliable weather vane, publicly converted to the cause of comprehensive immigration reform last week. The Washington Post’s Charles Krauthammer argued that if the Republican Party embraced amnesty and nominated Marco Rubio, it would win the Hispanic vote outright in 2016, solving its demographic problem in one swoop. Judging from the noises emanating from John Boehner and Eric Cantor, the party’s Congressional leadership agrees.
No doubt a more moderate tone on immigration would help Republicans. But the idea of amnesty as a Latino-winning electoral silver bullet is a fantasy.
First, Hispanics are not single-issue voters: they can be alienated by nativism, but they can’t just be won by the promise of green cards and open borders. (After Reagan signed an amnesty bill in 1986, the Republican share of the Hispanic vote fell in the next presidential election.) Latino voters are not, as conservative strategists often claim, “natural” Republican voters — notwithstanding their (moderate) social conservatism, they tend to lean leftward on economic issues, and to see government more as an ally than a foe. They can be wooed, gradually, if Republicans address their aspirations and anxieties, but they aren’t going to be claimed in one legislative pander.
At the same time, a Republican Party that moves too far leftward on immigration risks alienating its white working-class supporters, an easily disillusioned constituency whose support the party cannot take for granted. These voters already suspect that Republican elites don’t have their interests at heart: Mitt Romney lost last week because he underperformed among minority voters, but also because a large number of working-class whites apparently stayed home. If the party’s only post-2012 adjustment is to embrace amnesty, they aren’t likely to turn out in 2016 either.
What the party really needs, much more than a better identity-politics pitch, is an economic message that would appeal across demographic lines — reaching both downscale white voters turned off by Romney’s Bain Capital background and upwardly mobile Latino voters who don’t relate to the current G.O.P. fixation on upper-bracket tax cuts.
As the American Enterprise Institute’s Henry Olsen writes, it should be possible for Republicans to oppose an overweening and intrusive state while still recognizing that “government can give average people a hand up to achieve the American Dream.” It should be possible for the party to reform and streamline government while also addressing middle-class anxieties about wages, health care, education and more.
The good news is that such an agenda already exists, at least in embryonic form. Thanks to four years of intellectual ferment, Republicans seeking policy renewal have a host of thinkers and ideas to draw from: Luigi Zingales and Jim Pethokoukis on crony capitalism, Ramesh Ponnuru and Robert Stein on tax policy, Frederick Hess on education reform, James Capretta on alternatives to Obamacare, and many more.
The bad news is that unlike a pander on immigration, a new economic agenda probably wouldn’t be favorably received by the party’s big donors, who tend to be quite happy with the Republican Party’s current positioning.
But after spending billions of those donors’ dollars with nothing to show for it, perhaps Republicans should seek a different path: one in which they raise a little less money but win a few more votes.
The Demographic Excuse
By ROSS DOUTHAT
Published: November 10, 2012 299 Comments
THE Republican Party has lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections. It just failed to unseat a president presiding over one of the longest stretches of mass unemployment since the Great Depression. In a year when the Senate map offered them numerous opportunities, the Republicans managed to lose two seats instead.
In part, these failures can be attributed to the country’s changing demographics. Reliable Republican constituencies — whites, married couples and churchgoers — are shrinking as a share of the electorate. Democratic-leaning constituencies — minorities, recent immigrants, the unmarried and unchurched — are growing, and voting in larger numbers than in the past.
But Republicans are also losing because today’s economic landscape is very different than in the days of Ronald Reagan’s landslides. The problems that middle-class Americans faced in the late 1970s are not the problems of today. Health care now takes a bigger bite than income taxes out of many paychecks. Wage stagnation is a bigger threat to blue-collar workers than inflation. Middle-income parents worry more about the cost of college than the crime rate. Americans are more likely to fret about Washington’s coziness with big business than about big government alone.
Both shifts, demographic and economic, must be addressed if Republicans are to find a way back to the majority. But the temptation for the party’s elites will be to fasten on the demographic explanation, because playing identity politics seems far less painful than overhauling the Republican economic message.
This explains why many high-profile Republicans responded to last Tuesday’s defeat by embracing some form of amnesty for illegal immigrants. Fox News’s Sean Hannity, a reliable weather vane, publicly converted to the cause of comprehensive immigration reform last week. The Washington Post’s Charles Krauthammer argued that if the Republican Party embraced amnesty and nominated Marco Rubio, it would win the Hispanic vote outright in 2016, solving its demographic problem in one swoop. Judging from the noises emanating from John Boehner and Eric Cantor, the party’s Congressional leadership agrees.
No doubt a more moderate tone on immigration would help Republicans. But the idea of amnesty as a Latino-winning electoral silver bullet is a fantasy.
First, Hispanics are not single-issue voters: they can be alienated by nativism, but they can’t just be won by the promise of green cards and open borders. (After Reagan signed an amnesty bill in 1986, the Republican share of the Hispanic vote fell in the next presidential election.) Latino voters are not, as conservative strategists often claim, “natural” Republican voters — notwithstanding their (moderate) social conservatism, they tend to lean leftward on economic issues, and to see government more as an ally than a foe. They can be wooed, gradually, if Republicans address their aspirations and anxieties, but they aren’t going to be claimed in one legislative pander.
At the same time, a Republican Party that moves too far leftward on immigration risks alienating its white working-class supporters, an easily disillusioned constituency whose support the party cannot take for granted. These voters already suspect that Republican elites don’t have their interests at heart: Mitt Romney lost last week because he underperformed among minority voters, but also because a large number of working-class whites apparently stayed home. If the party’s only post-2012 adjustment is to embrace amnesty, they aren’t likely to turn out in 2016 either.
What the party really needs, much more than a better identity-politics pitch, is an economic message that would appeal across demographic lines — reaching both downscale white voters turned off by Romney’s Bain Capital background and upwardly mobile Latino voters who don’t relate to the current G.O.P. fixation on upper-bracket tax cuts.
As the American Enterprise Institute’s Henry Olsen writes, it should be possible for Republicans to oppose an overweening and intrusive state while still recognizing that “government can give average people a hand up to achieve the American Dream.” It should be possible for the party to reform and streamline government while also addressing middle-class anxieties about wages, health care, education and more.
The good news is that such an agenda already exists, at least in embryonic form. Thanks to four years of intellectual ferment, Republicans seeking policy renewal have a host of thinkers and ideas to draw from: Luigi Zingales and Jim Pethokoukis on crony capitalism, Ramesh Ponnuru and Robert Stein on tax policy, Frederick Hess on education reform, James Capretta on alternatives to Obamacare, and many more.
The bad news is that unlike a pander on immigration, a new economic agenda probably wouldn’t be favorably received by the party’s big donors, who tend to be quite happy with the Republican Party’s current positioning.
But after spending billions of those donors’ dollars with nothing to show for it, perhaps Republicans should seek a different path: one in which they raise a little less money but win a few more votes.