Obama Reelected: Republicans Feel the Schadenfreude

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In summary: The auto bailout won the election.actually young southerners are much less racist than us oldsters, or maybe it is just the ones in my neighborhood.The republicans possibly put up the most inept challenger available in an election that was theirs to lose. Obama was perceived as the lesser of evils, not the great hope for the future.
  • #71
Angry Citizen said:
Maybe we should go off the popular vote more...
I would never trust the American people to have such full say in making the correct decision on who should be president. A good percentage of the people in this country know zilch about their own government let alone have a systematic way of deciding which president would benefit the country more. They just choose the candidate who more decorates them with lies of prosperity.
 
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  • #72
russ_watters said:
There are different ways to spin the economy, but the Presidential election results are just statistcs and those statistics moved away from Obama since four years ago.

If you want to talk about Congress... Sure, it moved a touch to the left since two years ago.

I think when you look at both together though it has to look like a split decision.
Probably, this is the last election GOP tries to mobilize primarily WASPS, ignoring the rest; I expect some massive "minority"-flirtation will be the issue in 2016.
Unless GOP wants to lose again, that is. The US is becoming a different country, and GOP hasn't realized that.
 
  • #73
arildno said:
Obama lost 33 EVs, and his percentage lead in the popular vote went down from 7.2 in 2008 to 2 in 2012.

I sure call that a rightward shift.

Please explain to me why it should NOT be counted as such.
First of all, you are comparing with the political mood 4 years ago, when we have plenty of data from mid-term elections 2 years ago that you've left out.

Secondly, Obama won an easy landslide in 2008 because the incumbent (Republican) party had just presided over the worst economic and financial disaster since the Great Depression, and they had just picked a dimwit for their VP. It is meaningless to make a direct comparison with 2008 numbers when conditions have so drastically changed from extremely favorable for Democrat challenger to very favorable to Republican challenger.
 
  • #74
No, it is not meaningless to compare 2008 to 2012.

As of the moment, the Republicans losing the grand total 2 out of 435 in HoR (or something in that order of magnitude) cannot be regarded as a "landslide" victory for Obama that, either.

But, it certainly nuances the picture.
 
  • #75
arildno said:
Well, intelligent and knowledgeable liberals like Nate Silver and the folks at NYTimes have a different view from you.

The point is that this was an election where, basically, the critical voter group deciding the EV outcome is in the low hundreds of thousands.
This is a typical result in "winner-takes-it-all"-systems.

That depends on how you interpret "broad". I'd say "broad" is an appeal from the majority of demographic groups to please, please fight against the Angry White Religious Male crowd that tightened up the vote so considerably. Obama won huge margins with Hispanics, Blacks, young voters, and women - all the folks who are traditionally marginalized in American society. That should tell you something.
 
  • #76
russ_watters said:
There are different ways to spin the economy, but the Presidential election results are just statistcs and those statistics moved away from Obama since four years ago.

If you want to talk about Congress... Sure, it moved a touch to the left since two years ago.

Funny though how a smaller win for Obama was a"landslide", but a smaller win for Republicans in the house is a loss :rolleyes: .

I think when you look at both together though it has to look like a split decision.

Regarding the House, it's clear that they benefited greatly from gerrymandering. But Obama's victory was a landslide, and since the Senate looks like a 56/44 split, I'd say that yes, being four seats away from a filibuster-proof majority after an election that most folks a year ago didn't even expect you to survive is a landslide for the Senate.

The House is a win for the Republicans - no doubt about it. Back in September, I expected it to be much narrower than it turned out to be. But the fact is, certain prominent Tea Party House members got the crap kicked out of them. Even Bachmann only narrowly won reelection. That's a repudiation of the conservative swing the Republicans have taken of late. If anything, it's an appeal towards the moderate Republican base to retake its own party.
 
  • #77
arildno said:
No, it is not meaningless to compare 2008 to 2012.

As of the moment, the Republicans losing the grand total 2 out of 435 in HoR (or something in that order of magnitude) cannot be regarded as a "landslide" victory for Obama that, either.

But, it certainly nuances the picture.

More like six. And there were some important seat flips. Allen West lost, for instance. Plus Joe Walsh.
 
  • #78
arildno said:
No, it is not meaningless to compare 2008 to 2012.
Assertion without justification.

As of the moment, the Republicans losing the grand total 2 out of 435 in HoR (or something in that order of magnitude) cannot be regarded as a "landslide" victory for Obama that, either.
Strawman. I didn't say anything about Obama winning a landslide in 2012. The argument is about whether or not this election reveals a RIGHTWARD shift in the political mood. Republicans losing seats in the House and Senate does not support the assertion of a RIGHTWARD shift.
 
  • #79
Angry Citizen said:
That depends on how you interpret "broad". I'd say "broad" is an appeal from the majority of demographic groups to please, please fight against the Angry White Religious Male crowd that tightened up the vote so considerably. Obama won huge margins with Hispanics, Blacks, young voters, and women - all the folks who are traditionally marginalized in American society. That should tell you something.
And, still, that does not constitute a..landslide.
At least to intelligent, fact-centered liberals.
Nor should it be regarded as a death knell; at least for intelligent, fact-centered..conservatives.
 
  • #80
Gokul43201 said:
Assertion without justification.

Strawman. I didn't say anything about Obama winning a landslide in 2012. The argument is about whether or not this election reveals a RIGHTWARD shift in the political mood. Republicans losing seats in the House and Senate does not support the assertion of a RIGHTWARD shift.
No, it is your first assertion that is entirely without justification.
There is a rightward shift, from 2008 to 2012, even though you hate do admit it and pretend it does not exist.
Nor is it a "strawman" to deny "landslide for Obama", considering the bleatings and ravings of some other commentators here at PF.
 
  • #81
There is a rightward shift, from 2008 to 2012, even though you hate do admit it and pretend it does not exist.

But there is a huge, huge leftward shift from 2004 to 2012. What does this even mean..?
 
  • #82
I have to laugh at the fact that four years ago the republicans #1 priority was to make O'Bama a one term president. They had four years to do it, and failed. Based on the little they got done in the meantime I'd have to say that they must have been putting all their effort on keeping him out. Still failed.
 
  • #83
  • #84
Angry Citizen said:
But there is a huge, huge leftward shift from 2004 to 2012. What does this even mean..?
Well, in keeping with your previous statements about the death of the Republican party, it probably means a complete Republican government in 4 years! :smile:
 
  • #85
russ_watters said:
Well, in keeping with your previous statements about the death of the Republican party, it probably means a complete Republican government in 4 years! :smile:

*shrug* Time will tell. You've been on these boards long enough, and I'm probably not going away, so in a year or so we can hash out just how closely the new Republican Party resembles the one that just got its butt kicked.
 
  • #86
Angry Citizen said:
*shrug* Time will tell. You've been on these boards long enough, and I'm probably not going away, so in a year or so we can hash out just how closely the new Republican Party resembles the one that just got its butt kicked.
How did it get its "butt kicked" by a roughly status quo from 2010 and a rightward shift from 2008.

The more correct view is that GOP is banging its HEAD in the ceiling, and needs to diversify its voter base.
 
  • #87
arildno said:
That the present day constituency is far more on the Left side in 2012 than it was in 2004.
What else?
--
Again, this year's election is the 11th lowest winner's margin of the popular vote in the last 48 presidential elections, from 1824.
Still an Obamaslide?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_elections_by_popular_vote_margin

Yep. Because, y'know.. the popular vote doesn't really matter. It should, but it doesn't. Again, most of Obama's losses came from the South. Virginia wasn't even very close. Neither was Colorado, or Minnesota, or Michigan, or Pennsylvania, or Ohio, or any other swing or semi-swing state.
 
  • #88
arildno said:
No, it is your first assertion that is entirely without justification.
There is a rightward shift, from 2008 to 2012, even though you hate do admit it and pretend it does not exist.
Sure, feel free to make up your facts.

Nor is it a "strawman" to deny "landslide for Obama", considering the bleatings and ravings of some other commentators here at PF.
I thought you were responding to me in all of that post. But I guess you weren't responding to me in any part of it.
 
  • #89
Angry Citizen said:
Yep. Because, y'know.. the popular vote doesn't really matter. It should, but it doesn't. Again, most of Obama's losses came from the South. Virginia wasn't even very close. Neither was Colorado, or Minnesota, or Michigan, or Pennsylvania, or Ohio, or any other swing or semi-swing state.
And again:
That Loony Lefties are bleating about an Obama landslide and Rabid Righties are wailing about a death knell is not very interesting.
Intelligent commentators, on both sides, calls this a narrow, but solid win for Obama.
Which it was.
 
  • #90
How did it get its "butt kicked" by a roughly status quo from 2010 and a rightward shift from 2008.

Because this election should've been a landslide for you. It wasn't. You lost seats in both the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. The Reagan coalition is dead, and it's only going to get worse. Like I said in another thread, the Republicans are a dead party. The new Republican Party will be more moderate. You wait and see.
 
  • #91
arildno said:
And again:
That Loony Lefties are bleating about an Obama landslide and Rabid Righties are wailing about a death knell is not very interesting.
Intelligent commentators, on both sides, calls this a narrow, but solid win for Obama.
Which it was.

"Intelligent" commentators are calling it a "broad" victory for Obama, per Nate Silver.
 
  • #92
Gokul43201 said:
Sure, feel free to make up your facts.
No, you are the one denying the rightward shift from 2008 to 2012, by declaring it to be inadmissible evidence. It is not. It is a..fact.
 
  • #93
Angry Citizen said:
"Intelligent" commentators are calling it a "broad" victory for Obama, per Nate Silver.
He says:
Not a BIG win, but a broad one.
 
  • #94
Angry Citizen said:
Because this election should've been a landslide for you. It wasn't. You lost seats in both the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. The Reagan coalition is dead, and it's only going to get worse. Like I said in another thread, the Republicans are a dead party. The new Republican Party will be more moderate. You wait and see.

Are you getting personal here??
I'm not an American, nor would I have voted for Romney.
 
  • #95
arildno said:
He says:
Not a BIG win, but a broad one.

Y'know man..

You can keep telling yourself this wasn't a huge loss for your party. I'm not going to stop you.
 
  • #96
Angry Citizen said:
*shrug* Time will tell. You've been on these boards long enough, and I'm probably not going away, so in a year or so we can hash out just how closely the new Republican Party resembles the one that just got its butt kicked.

I'm very glad Obama won. Very glad. But I fail to see how "landslide" or "butt kicked" characterize these elections. In my opinion, Romney got very close to beating Obama, closer than he should have come. If the republicans elected a better candidate, then they probably would have won.
 
  • #97
301 to 201 is close?
 
  • #98
Does this help?
History of popular vote margins
You can click on the Margin heading next to pct of pop vote and the table will be sorted on that field. This was the 57th election, but there are somewhat less than 57 rows in the table. I think that popular votes were not consistently used in the early years of the country. Anyway, the 2.28% margin this time is 11th from the bottom of the list.

Here is a link that has electoral votes. I haven't found any that give you percentages and sort them. However, a quick look at the numbers shows that 303/535 is anything but a landslide. In fact, Kennedy got 303 and that was considered one of the closest elections ever. If Obama gets Florida, it will be 332/535, still at the low end historically.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election
 
  • #99
I see. I thought 100 electoral votes was a big difference. It's about 20%.
 
  • #100
micromass said:
I'm very glad Obama won. Very glad. But I fail to see how "landslide" or "butt kicked" characterize these elections. In my opinion, Romney got very close to beating Obama, closer than he should have come. If the republicans elected a better candidate, then they probably would have won.

I am less unhappy that Obama won than Romney.
As to those meaning the 2010 election is truly the only admissible evidence (while 2008 is meaningless being prior in time), one might as well say that 2010 is meaningless because the popular support gained by the Republicans in 2010 had vaporized entirely by mid-2011 lasting into summer 2012, and Mitt Romney made a slight re-energization of GOP towards Election Day.
 
  • #101
Pythagorean said:
301 to 201 is close?

60,038,554 vs 57,361,032 is close. I don't care whether the popular vote doesn't really matter in electing the president, I feel that the popular vote best represents the sentiment of the population, so I base myself on that.
Furthermore, I find the results in the swing states to be quite close as well.

When watching the republican primaries, I expected Obama to win by a landslide. When watching Romney screw up, I didn't think Obama would be challenged at all. But I still think it got dangerously close.
 
  • #102
Pythagorean said:
I see. I thought 100 electoral votes was a big difference. It's about 20%.
No, it is not.
Because in "winner-takes-it-all"-systems, slight consistent edges make for massive overrepresentation.
The UK election system is the archetype of that dynamic.
 
  • #103
Pythagorean said:
301 to 201 is close?
In a game where small differences get magnified by the scoring system, yes.
 
  • #104
Ah yeah, I wasn't thinking of popular vote. It's basically just an elaborate poll with strings attached.
 
  • #105
I see what you mean.
 

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