Tag Archives: Obama 2012

So here we are, almost 2 weeks since Obama’s overwhelming victory over Romney. I’ve waited a week to reflect a bit on what it all means and so far, it has had profound implications, just

limited impact on the people who needed a wake up call the most, the Republican Party.

 

The Sunday before the election, people like Dick Morris and Karl Rove were claiming it would be an overwhelming “landslide” victory for Romney with over 300 electoral votes. Yet when they faced a 332 to 206 loss to Obama, it was a victory with “no mandate”. Then the GOP began to go through the many stages of grief, as their bubblicious world met reality in a grim way.

The implications were staggering. The GOP carried 59% of the White vote, yet lost everywhere else, even among the breakdowns of the White demographic. They lost African-Americans, sure, yet they saw that coming. What they didn’t see coming was that all their voter suppression tactics failed miserably and African-Americans voted in higher numbers than in 2008! They lost Latinos by 40 points, even losing among Florida Cubans! They lost single-women by almost 20 points, and while much is made about how Romney lost women overall, it’s important to note that Obama won a majority of single men as well. Republicans lost Asians overwhelmingly(who remarkably got almost no attention this election even though they are one of the fastest growing groups) and they lost the youth. Sure young voters turned out in smaller numbers, yet they made up a larger percentage of the vote than in 08 despite Romney’s triangulation, and the general consensus of the media that they would be significantly smaller. Many of Romney’s targeted group, older white people, stayed home or split more evenly, as older Americans did (56% to Romney) than they hoped for. In other words, it was a certifiable disaster for Team Romney.

 

The rest of the Republicans did pretty bad as well. The Republicans, once favored to take the Senate saw their dreams not only slip away, they lost 2 seats overall. To make matters worse, two of seats were easy victories for the GOP that slipped away when 2 of their candidates needlessly answered a question nobody asked about rape. Both Mourdack and Akin, the rape brothers, were Tea Party darlings and their position on rape has become the Tea Parties de facto position on rape, so to see them both go down for being loyal Tea Party idiots, made the loss all the more stinging.

The GOP clung to the House through redistricting and gerrymandering Congressional districts to be more conservative and still, just barely hung on, even though the Democrats received more overall votes.  Bachman and King, two Tea Party leaders hung on with their fingernails, while 2 other Tea Party heroes fell to defeat, Allen West and Walsh. West is STILL in denial about losing, refusing to concede while Walsh was beaten so badly, it was without question. Yet the Republicans were in control, though they did not pick up any seats and actually lost a couple.

Meanwhile initiatives passed that raised taxes on the rich in California, where an anti-union bill also went down to defeat, marijuana was legalized in several states and gay marriage initiatives became an asset to the Democrats, a complete reversal of 2004.

Crying about a mandate seems kind of moot when your party and ideology lost across the board in every major column. As The New Republic points out, Yes, Obama did win a mandate. Especially when it was the Republicans who made his election a fight about ideology. Paul Ryan was and continues to be the intellectual leader of the Republican party. He and other GOP leaders were spoiling for a fight with liberalism and socialism. They championed eliminating Social-Security and Medicare. Yet when that tactic began to go south after being made Vice Presidential nominee, Ryan was put back in the closet and Romney became a born-again moderate for the first-debate. Too little too late, and proof that conservatism doesn’t sell.

Meanwhile the rest of the party didn’t get the memo. They cried about socialism every 20 minutes and called Obama a communist. Allen West announced a list of communists he wouldn’t share, yet he assured everyone they were all Democrats. Now he can take his list home with him, along with his other office things, from Washington.

Bottom line is that the conservatives made the election a referendum on liberalism and socialism, and lost. The very moderate Obama was not some radical Leftist, yet he fired back with attacks on Romney’s record as a “vulture-capitalist”. When it came to people trusting who represented their values, Romney was soundly beaten. No mandate eh? That’s just what peopl who just had their ideology trounced would say.

Yet it goes deeper. There are some very real demographic problems for Republicans. Losing every minority and especially Latinos is very bad news. Latinos and other minorities are growing at much faster rates than White Americans, and like it or not, they will be a huge voting block in the future. Even worse, Latinos, especially their kids are not “natural Republicans” as some have speculated. They are natural Democrats who believe more in the social programs the Democrats champion, and their kids, are not susceptible to the conservative social issues the Republicans use as wedge issues. Now that they have flexed their muscles along with other minorities, the GOP is in real trouble.

Some, such as Speaker Boehner and even Sean Hannity have shown a willingness to return to immigration reform, due to the trouncing, yet this is not the be all end all issue for Latinos, the economy is, and the Tea Party, as well as rank and file Repubs, which were whipped into an anti-immigration xenophobia will never reverse course without a fight. It’s not a good place to be. So far, few have followed the establishment Republicans, insisting on going off the cliff of hatred and intolerance, like Limbaugh. More or less, it’s expecting the GOP to fundamentally change who they are and who they are is a group who sees race as an important issue in this country. Is it any wonder that the youth is not going along with them?

The country has changed. Younger people don’t have the same feelings about race. Many are mixed, like me, and have a hard time even defining which race they “belong” too. By the way, expect to start seeing “mixed-race” more and more. This poses an even bigger threat to the Republican party, whose brand sells very poorly to younger Americans. Starting with late Gen X and down, the Republicans are losing large numbers of supporters to social issues they once played like a fiddle.

Gay marriage?
Young people support it.
Gay’s in the military?
Young people support it.
Repealing drug laws, especially marijuana?
Young people support it.
Single-Payer healthcare?
You guessed it.
Cheaper college education?
Well you get the point, and the list goes on and on.

It’s a bad place to  be when your party brand is only appealing to a rapidly ageing and dying audience. Just look what 8 years did to them! Imagine another 8?

So will the Republicans change?

So far, as mentioned, many of the pundits and top establishment Republicans have made concessions to immigration reform, taxing the rich and other issues they once so vehemently opposed. However the rank and file have gone the opposite direction. A secession movement has begun in almost every state and an impeachment movement has as well. Both have about as much chance as coming to light as a pig does owning a sausage factory, yet it shows you the challenges the Republicans will have in the coming months as they try to round up their pawns.

These pawns go fairly high up the food chain as well. With Tea Party idiots like Bachman already trying to stir the pot again, after nearly losing her political life, it seems that there is little chance the Republicans will be able to return to a feasible governing party anytime in the near future.

Yet this secessionist garbage really is the bees knees, ain’t it? Most Red States get back an average of $1.46 back in taxes with South Carolina being the undisputed largest deadbeat state around. They take our money and spend it on new roads and bridges and to plug the enormous deficits that are the result of Republican policies, then turn around and call states like California a socialist paradise, even though California is in the black and contributes more than it gets back. What’s even en funnier is that despite all the America loving nonsense these Republicans spout out of their loud mouths, many are willing to part ways with the Constitution and the country for no other reason than that they lost the election. It’s really rather pathetic when you think about it. If you really loved America, you would respect its political process.

Yet these guys are out there calling Obama childish names like Obummer or Obanzo or whatever, crying like little kids because they didn’t get their way. I’ve seen an GOP strategist make empty claims that “liberals” were making anti-white tweets, and GOP sites calling the country a nation of zombies (I almost wrote on the site, “you guys don’t have much to worry about because zombies go after brains,” though I decided it was best not to rub salt in the wounds). Though I would have been justified as these are the same types of people I was debating after the first debate, who were gloating as if Romney had already won the election, telling liberals to stop crying. One guy even wrote down crying baby sounds in an attempt to mock my unwavering belief that Obama was going to win. I told him the realities of politics and spoke of, ya know, polls and math and science and stuff. He replied with baby sounds. Wow, how did these guys end up on the losing end of an election? Karma perhaps?

So all this seems to boil down to plain old-fashioned sour grapes in the rank and file Republicans who really don’t get how power or politics work in Washington and probably in general since so many Red States are a mess. How can the leadership get these people on board?

My guess is that they won’t. My guess is that the Republicans are facing 2 major paths, adapt or die. Yet to adapt would be to deny themselves who they are. How can you change who you are when your party is so old and stubborn? The Republican brand is having a hard time attracting voters under the age of 40 as well so they are setting themselves up for a generation of irrelevance and minority status, especially as the minorities themselves, African-Americans, Latinos, Asians, etc. continue to grow as a proportion of the nation. With their elderly base dying every day, it’s not looking good. What the above demographics really show is that the Republican coalition, which was able to win in 2004 is no longer viable from here on out. They will need to tap a new base of voters to survive. So far, it’s not looking too good.

The party of Lincoln may just end up joining the Whigs in the trash bin of American History.