Thoughts - 2012

[Townhallsavoy]

- The sky is not falling.  Despite what many of the talking heads will shout today and for the next few months, America will not collapse, implode, or explode because Obama was reelected.  This is America.  It is still a free country and you are free to educate, persuade, and convince people to change their political stance over the next four years.

- Republicans have no one to blame but themselves for this loss.  The problem isn't that the majority of America wants freebies and handouts.  The problem is that many educated people in the North view the Republican Party as a group of Southern, obstinate hicks that have crazy views on women, compassion, and culture.  It doesn't help when Todd Akin makes asinine comments.  It doesn't help when Romney is heard saying he doesn't care about 47% of the country.  It only reinforces what those people already think.  So considering we live in a "lesser of two evils" country, it's not surprising that many people who already have preconceived notions would cast their vote for the non-Republican. 

- 2004 and 2012 have taught me something: You absolutely cannot run as the anti-incumbent and expect to win.  You have to be your own candidate that has strong ideas on how to run the country.  Romney did okay at this.  Much better than John Kerry; however, it seemed like most of the excitement this election period was for getting Obama out of office. 

- Blacks and hispanics haven't "stolen" the country and they didn't decide this election.  A lot - a whole lot of white people, traditional American whites, voted Democrat. They always do.  They just live in a different environment with different ideas of politics.  As stated earlier, more preconceived thoughts about Republicans and right wingers.  It is shameful that 95+% of blacks (who voted) voted for Obama simply based on his race, but blacks only make up 12.6% of the country, and you know not all of them showed up at the polls.

- Speaking of, voter turnout is and continues to be embarassing.  There should be a strong push for reform in how we cast our votes or at least where.  No one should have to wait in line for more than an hour to vote.  That's absolutely ridiculous and seems like something a third world country could figure out how to fix.

- There's a stalemate in Washington.  With Republicans owning the House, Obama can't just pass new taxes at will. 

- I'm most afraid of the ACA.  Obamacare is terrifying.  Working in public education has taught me that the government lacks common sense, cares more about control than production, and fails to achieve the goals it desires.  I expect the ACA to be exactly like No Child Left Behind.  NCLB was sold as a wonderful government act that saves struggling kids.  It helps all kids achieve success.  But in the details came the truth.  It was all about money and control, and it's done nothing but hamper teachers, frustrate students, and embarrass ourselves when compared to other countries.  ACA will be the same.  Sold as a way for the poor to get insurance but the fine print will reveal how much control the government really wants.  That's the biggest loss for me last night.

- Republicans will not win until they create a new identity not centered around social issues.  I know this is probably impossible as evidenced by the lunatic abortion question in the vice-presidential debate.  The Left will always make abortion and gay rights a spotlighted topic, but they are far away from being relevant.  They don't matter.  Roe v. Wade is not going away. 

- The best news of the day: Either Obama's plan is going to work and the country will improve, or it won't and people will know for sure that it doesn't.  He's the most liberal president we've ever had.  We're about to see what that means for the country. 

[AUChizad]

Couldn't agree more with everything here (except your second to last sentence, but not enough to quibble over).

First sane, measured response I've seen on the election results so far. Thanks for that.

[The Six]

Seconded

[Tiger Wench]

I am not even going to make a pretense at a sane and measured response. 

Someone made a comment on FB last night that the Republican House is "just obstructionist".    Damn right they are.  That's what their consituents put them up there to do - block the nightmare policies of the present administration until such time as a different person can be elected.  They hold a majority in the House because the majority of Americans voted them in - as in popular vote, not a random electoral vote.

I may not have been in the majority on the national level last night, but Texas voted against Obama in double digits.  I hope like hell that the Texas delegation - the people I DID elect, the people that DO represent me and my belief system on a majority (not all) of the issues -  obstructs Obama's proposals.  I see my delegation as a tourniquet on the severed artery.  They have to apply pressure, or else we bleed out.  They have to do all they can to limit the damage. 

And on another note:  people who made their choice in this election strictly because of race or gender or social issues are the ultimate idiots.  Gay marriage and abortion rights and legalizing pot are issues to fight about when our economy is sound, our deficit is manageable, our borders are secured and our enemies are not trying to obtain nuclear weapons.  Until then, this nation has bigger fish to fry than whether some black lesbian can marry her partner and have an abortion at 38 weeks while she smokes pot.

[Tarheel]

I am not even going to make a pretense at a sane and measured response. 

Someone made a comment on FB last night that the Republican House is "just obstructionist".    Damn right they are.  That's what their consituents put them up there to do - block the nightmare policies of the present administration until such time as a different person can be elected.  They hold a majority in the House because the majority of Americans voted them in - as in popular vote, not a random electoral vote.

I may not have been in the majority on the national level last night, but Texas voted against Obama in double digits.  I hope like hell that the Texas delegation - the people I DID elect, the people that DO represent me and my belief system on a majority (not all) of the issues -  obstructs Obama's proposals.  I see my delegation as a tourniquet on the severed artery.  They have to apply pressure, or else we bleed out.  They have to do all they can to limit the damage. 

And on another note:  people who made their choice in this election strictly because of race or gender or social issues are the ultimate idiots.  Gay marriage and abortion rights and legalizing pot are issues to fight about when our economy is sound, our deficit is manageable, our borders are secured and our enemies are not trying to obtain nuclear weapons.  Until then, this nation has bigger fish to fry than whether some black lesbian can marry her partner and have an abortion at 38 weeks while she smokes pot.

Halle-fucking-lujah!


Either obstruct or, as someone noted on another site, give the Dems every damn thing they want thereby bringing the gas truck to fire and burn the whole damn sideshow down that they now own.  Personally, I'm not quite that radical...

[Townhallsavoy]

Something else -

I noticed this on my Facebook and it was Drudge's headline this morning.

This nation is divided.  Pretty much down the middle.  59 million to 57 million with many people not voting tells me that we're a split country. 

Looking at specific states, I see that even the historically red/blue states are not as one sided.  Barak Obama received 43.6% of the votes in Mississippi.  38.4% in Alabama went to Obama.  787,000+ people in Alabama are Obama supporters.  I can drive around town all day and see maybe one or two Obama stickers while seeing hundreds of Romney and even Bush stickers. 

On the flip side, California, known as a staunchly democratic, left-wing state, had 3.6 million votes for Romney.  38.6%.  That's a lot of people in what most see as the liberal, environmental, hippy, whacko state. 

My point?  This nation is divided all over. Not just in swing states.  And that's a good thing.  It should never be criticized.  We should never lament the even split.  It's good for debate.  It's good for progress.  It's good for the country. 

You want 100%?  Move to North Korea or Iran. 

[Saniflush]

Something else -

I noticed this on my Facebook and it was Drudge's headline this morning.

This nation is divided.  Pretty much down the middle.  59 million to 57 million with many people not voting tells me that we're a split country. 

Looking at specific states, I see that even the historically red/blue states are not as one sided.  Barak Obama received 43.6% of the votes in Mississippi.  38.4% in Alabama went to Obama.  787,000+ people in Alabama are Obama supporters.  I can drive around town all day and see maybe one or two Obama stickers while seeing hundreds of Romney and even Bush stickers. 

On the flip side, California, known as a staunchly democratic, left-wing state, had 3.6 million votes for Romney.  38.6%.  That's a lot of people in what most see as the liberal, environmental, hippy, whacko state. 

My point?  This nation is divided all over. Not just in swing states.  And that's a good thing.  It should never be criticized.  We should never lament the even split.  It's good for debate.  It's good for progress.  It's good for the country. 

You want 100%?  Move to North Korea or Iran.

Agree.  So why should one candidate get all of those votes when 38.6% of the voters didn't vote that way?

Isn't that the same as saying their opinion/voice/vote doesn't matter?  Hello N. Korea

[CCTAU]

Agree.  So why should one candidate get all of those votes when 38.6% of the voters didn't vote that way?

Isn't that the same as saying their opinion/voice/vote doesn't matter?  Hello N. Korea

No its all good man. We can have a good debate on it and all will be right with the world.....

[AUChizad]

Something else -

I noticed this on my Facebook and it was Drudge's headline this morning.

This nation is divided.  Pretty much down the middle.  59 million to 57 million with many people not voting tells me that we're a split country. 

Looking at specific states, I see that even the historically red/blue states are not as one sided.  Barak Obama received 43.6% of the votes in Mississippi.  38.4% in Alabama went to Obama.  787,000+ people in Alabama are Obama supporters.  I can drive around town all day and see maybe one or two Obama stickers while seeing hundreds of Romney and even Bush stickers. 

On the flip side, California, known as a staunchly democratic, left-wing state, had 3.6 million votes for Romney.  38.6%.  That's a lot of people in what most see as the liberal, environmental, hippy, whacko state. 

My point?  This nation is divided all over. Not just in swing states.  And that's a good thing.  It should never be criticized.  We should never lament the even split.  It's good for debate.  It's good for progress.  It's good for the country. 

You want 100%?  Move to North Korea or Iran.

[Tarheel]

Agree.  So why should one candidate get all of those votes when 38.6% of the voters didn't vote that way?

Isn't that the same as saying their opinion/voice/vote doesn't matter?  Hello N. Korea

"I won, you lost!" - Barack Hussein Obama to Paul Ryan in 2009 after the House attempted to make a bi-partisan agreement for an actual budget as I recall.

[GH2001]

Agree on all but the "GOP has no one to blame but itself". It's very hard to run against Santa Claus giving away unicorns. I'll give obama credit, he's a great salesman. Romney wasn't going to sell as many lies. Obama was willing to do it more. I don't think that's a sore spot for the GOP. The dems wanted it worse to a point where they were willing to say or lie about anything to get it and hoped enough people would buy it. And they did. I thought Romney ran a good campaign. It was going to be an uphill climb from the start and he at least made it halfway close. I know, moral victory but I thought he did ok.

[GH2001]

Something else -

I noticed this on my Facebook and it was Drudge's headline this morning.

This nation is divided.  Pretty much down the middle.  59 million to 57 million with many people not voting tells me that we're a split country. 

Looking at specific states, I see that even the historically red/blue states are not as one sided.  Barak Obama received 43.6% of the votes in Mississippi.  38.4% in Alabama went to Obama.  787,000+ people in Alabama are Obama supporters.  I can drive around town all day and see maybe one or two Obama stickers while seeing hundreds of Romney and even Bush stickers. 

On the flip side, California, known as a staunchly democratic, left-wing state, had 3.6 million votes for Romney.  38.6%.  That's a lot of people in what most see as the liberal, environmental, hippy, whacko state. 

My point?  This nation is divided all over. Not just in swing states.  And that's a good thing.  It should never be criticized.  We should never lament the even split.  It's good for debate.  It's good for progress.  It's good for the country. 

You want 100%?  Move to North Korea or Iran.

It's not the divided part so much as it is what they are divided about. You have two very polarizing opposite philosophies right now battling. No middle really. People from each side literally hate each other. The two sides used to get along civilly.

[Tarheel]

...
My point?  This nation is divided all over. Not just in swing states.  And that's a good thing.  It should never be criticized.  We should never lament the even split.  It's good for debate.  It's good for progress.  It's good for the country. 

You want 100%?  Move to North Korea or Iran.

I would tend to agree with you were it not for the fact that the other 'half' of the nation are utter morons voting for the man who did this to the economy:

23 Million Unemployed
43 Continuous Months of 8+% unemployment
45 Million on Food Stamps
Black Poverty at an all time high
Black Unemployment at an all time high
Black Youth Unemployment at 50% or higher
Hispanic Unemployment at 10.3% or higher
Food Prices Up more than 25%
Average Household Income has Dropped $4,300.00
US Credit Downgraded Twice
$6 Trillion added to the National Debt
Worst Economic "Recovery" in 75 Years
not to mention the number of people on means tested welfare and a steadily retracting labor force and double gas prices (which I would argue are due to Bernanke's and O's policy of quantitative easing or "printing more money" for those of you who voted for The ONE).

Yes we can.

Anyway, it's all Bush's fault...and "I got my Obama-phone!"

[dallaswareagle]

Agree on all but the "GOP has no one to blame but itself". It's very hard to run against Santa Claus giving away unicorns. I'll give obama credit, he's a great salesman. Romney wasn't going to sell as many lies. Obama was willing to do it more. I don't think that's a sore spot for the GOP. The dems wanted it worse to a point where they were willing to say or lie about anything to get it and hoped enough people would buy it. And they did. I thought Romney ran a good campaign. It was going to be an uphill climb from the start and he at least made it halfway close. I know, moral victory but I thought he did ok.

I think you squarely put the blame on the pubs, when you have shit this fucked up and you can’t get separation then is it falls squarely on your shoulders. Romney ran a safe campaign, in one of the debates he should have highlighted the difference Obama’s 4 years have done. Just off the top of my head-(Gas prices-Unemployment-Food prices-Housing market-Middle class pay-Etc) and then when he started to blame Bush spank his ass down with “WHAT DID YOU DO TO FIX IT"

Regan would have eaten Obama’s lunch.

[dallaswareagle]

I would tend to agree with you were it not for the fact that the other 'half' of the nation are utter morons voting for the man who did this to the economy:

23 Million Unemployed
43 Continuous Months of 8+% unemployment
45 Million on Food Stamps
Black Poverty at an all time high
Black Unemployment at an all time high
Black Youth Unemployment at 50% or higher
Hispanic Unemployment at 10.3% or higher
Food Prices Up more than 25%
Average Household Income has Dropped $4,300.00
US Credit Downgraded Twice
$6 Trillion added to the National Debt
Worst Economic "Recovery" in 75 Yearsnot to mention the number of people on means tested welfare and a steadily retracting labor force and double gas prices (which I would argue are due to Bernanke's and O's policy of quantitative easing or "printing more money" for those of you who voted for The ONE).

Yes we can.

Anyway, it's all Bush's fault...and "I got my Obama-phone!"

This-This and more this-You beat his ass over the head with this.

[Tarheel]

It's not the divided part so much as it is what they are divided about. You have two very polarizing opposite philosophies right now battling. No middle really. People from each side literally hate each other. The two sides used to get along civilly.

It might be a knee-jerk reaction (and I did warn that I'm not thinking objectively today) but I am absolutely done with civility and fucking compromise.

[GH2001]

This-This and more this-You beat his ass over the head with this.

Go back as watch the first debate. He did. Over and over. Again you can't beat Santa Claus giving away free shit with fake promises. Doesn't matter what Romney says. Romney shouldn't have to beat it in peoples heads to see it. If the electorate can't see what tarheel just posted in their everyday lives then we are hopeless.

[Tarheel]

Go back as watch the first debate. He did. Over and over. Again you can't beat Santa Claus giving away free shit with fake promises. Doesn't matter what Romney says. Romney shouldn't have to beat it in peoples heads to see it. If the electorate can't see what tarheel just posted in their everyday lives then we are hopeless.

News Bulletin: We are hopeless.

[AUTiger1]

Thoughts?  I have avoided this thread b/c I knew my response is going to get bashed but here it goes anyway...

- The Republican Party is going to have to step back and take a long hard look at themselves and their platform.   There is going to be a lot of infighting in the next several years.  Look for someone to go after Boehner, look for someone to go after Eric Cantor, or look for them to go after each other.  It won't be pretty.   Fiscally we could do some things different, but we have it down pat for the most part.

 - We (and I say that, even though I have grown more Libertarian since 2000 when I feel like the party abandoned me) have got to take a look at our social platform.  America is mostly social moderate and there is nothing we can do about it.  I am not saying that you abandon them all together, but they definitely need to re-frame the arguments.   We can't legislate morality and most of these issues need to be pushed down to the states and keep the federal gov't out of it.

- The Latino vote, how in the world did we not go after the "brown people"?  I know several Latino's, middle class, upper class and lower class.  All of them I know are very socially conservative, predominantly Catholic, very family oriented and in their personal finances are very fiscally conservative.  We screwed up.  Instead of screaming " THEY ARE TAKING OUR JOBS!!!!! DEPORT THEM ALL!!!! MAKE THEM SPEAK ENGLISH!!!!", *we should have said "Hey, we see that you share a lot of our values, we see that you are wanting to work and make a better life for yourself.  Let us help you by making a feasible pathway to citizenship so you can be here legally."  Then they could be paying into the system that they take advantage of.   I laugh at the "They are taking jobs away from American's argument".  I don't many Americans that are willing to go work in the orchards for $7/hour except maybe some broke college kids or high school kids in the summer and most of them would rather work some where indoors.  Instead of leading the charge we allowed the Dems to sweep in, give them amnesty and lock up their votes.  Well played Dems, well played. *

*Props to W, which I don't do often, for trying to go that route. 

- Moving the base to vote.  We have got to do a better job with this.  The Dems are kicking our ass in this.  Romney didn't even get the vote that McCain did.  Read that again.  McCain, probably the worst candidate that they have trotted out for me to vote for in my lifetime and Romney can't even beat his numbers?  Wow, just wow!

- Choice of candidates.  We have to start getting our younger and brighter minds to run.  When we are running the likes of a Todd Akin, then we are doomed.

I am pissed at this party for several things. I am pissed that they went along with the Dems so much from 2000-2006 and spent money like crazy.  If I am not mistaken, and I could be, but pretty sure that we increased revenue by 40% which is good, but we also increased spending by 60 to 65% which is bad.   Bush didn't wield the veto stamp until his 6th year and it was over a social issue.  Lots of spending during those 6 years that was necessary.  We weren't fiscally conservative during those years and it hurts us.  He and that Congress wasn't the worst, but they damn sure didn't do themselves any favors.

Overall I am disgusted with DC and everyone up there, from the POTUS, his cabinet, staff all the way down to our Congress, both sides.  I am not blaming Bush and Republicans for the shit we are in, not in any way, nor am I blaming it solely on the Dems either.  They have all hand their hand in the cookie jar in regards to fucking up my country the past 16 years.  I am sick of it and sick of trying to understand why we, the electorate, haven't said enough is enough several years ago and sent them all packing.   

[AUTiger1]

Actually I weep for this country and not because of the election results.  We have been through some hard shit in this country and have always rebounded.  But when more people vote in the American Idol season finale than they do in a Presidential Election, then yes, I weep for our future.   I would blame it on the young teenager vote, but I know several grown ass adults that participated as well that I would almost bet sat at home Tuesday night and will bitch about our elected officials.  Well, fuck them and people like them!  Do something about it!