Why O won and R lost?

[Zoebird]

Gregg,

In my personal experience knowing a lot of republicans, I think that a lot of them got caught in the bread and circus.

I think that as human beings, most of them are truly intelligent and honestly want what they feel is best for the nation, and they have good ideas. The problem is that these ideas then get muddled with other, bad ideas that come out of that conservative media or just really bad statements that some folks made in the party, including Romney himself (particularly in the infamous 47% speech), or even worse, just bizarro conspiracy theories and claims.

I had one particularly mind-numbing conversation with an old jr highschool friend and her mother on FB. Romney said some zinger,a and she replied "lets hear the kenyan respond to that!" and I said "please tell me that you are not one of those birthers!? I'm shocked that you would feel at all comfortable aligning with such an idea!'

She then asserted that I should look at incredibly biased web site X. I posted citizenship and naturalization law for the US, Kenya, and Indonesia, all of which clearly spell out how one acquires citizenship. That was it. Not even a position paper -- quite literally just the laws themselves. I then asked: was Obama's mother a natural citizen of the US?

She answered yes. Then said "but he was also a natural citizen of Kenya through his father." And I said, "true, but according to kenyan law (link), he has to claim that at age 18 to maintain dual citizenship, and there's no evidence that he claimed it. And the same is also true for indonesia (link)." Therefore, is Obama -- by dint of his mother's natural citizenship as well as his active rejection of either two other dual citizenships he could have had -- a natural american citizen who then qualifies for the presidency?

And she said "yes, but I read his book, and he seems so interested in his kenyan heritage as to be. . . well, not very american in my book." And I said "didn't you spend a lot of time studying your german heritage, taking german language lessons (along with french, like me), as well as studying up on your family history and culture both in Germany as well as their journey of immigration? Does studying your history as a German make you less american? Or does it just make you interested in the culture of your heritage, a normal study for a person of that age? It is ok to study European heritage, but not african or central american or asian?"

I also pointed out that she travelled internationally a lot, and yet hadn't visited all 50 states, and that she also loved to study all kinds of languages and cultures -- does that make her less american?

At this point, her mother pipes in some nonsense about how smart my friend is and how I'm completely "swayed by liberal professors" and "unable to think clearly" because of it. I tell her to not be so patronizing. I'm 15 years post college and those "liberal professors" and managed to get through a relatively conservative law school (since coproprate law tends to the conservative) well enough to ascertain whether or not this "birther argument" has any validity, TYVM.

She then gives me the "when you're my age, you'll understand" argument, and I said "I would hope that when i age I continue to grow in enough wisdom to continue to respect people regardless of their perceived political leanings. I have no issue with Friend being republican, but I feel that this particular argument is a waste of her time, effort, and thought-energy. I'm simply asserting my own shock at her participation in this ideology, because she's the last person that I would consider a racist, or who would entertain such a ridiculous idea.

At whihc point my friend suggests separating us, and I assert that I doubt such is necessary, but would she answer the question? She concedes that Obama -- as the laws of all three countries are written, just facts, no partisan or biased websites, but literally the straight up laws as they are written -- is in fact a natural american citizen. She also then admits that studying a person's heritage doesn't make them less american, and therefore, it stands to reason that just because obama happened to think about kenya and she happened to think about germany (and I interjected, and I think about the british isles and scandinavia) does not make any of us less American.

I even asserted that, living in a foreign country by choice also makes one no less american, and it is -- in my experience -- the experience with other cultures that helps us discover just how American we truly are!

I told her that I would expect no less from her, and was really, truly shocked by the idea that she would hold tightly to this (racist in origin) idea.

To me, she's a smart girl who got caught in some bread and circus.

If we can dialogue about it (as we did), then we usually discover that she doesn't actually stand by that ridiculous idea when provided with *facts*. And I think most people are like this.

For me, the Romney 47% speech was really no big deal. I think that it was an idiotic communication of a standard idea of business: go for the new market, rather than trying to draw the current market away from your competitors. It's the reason my business is growing. I focus on getting people who work a lot and are busy and in this particular area of town and brand new to yoga into yoga classes. Brand new to yoga is 96% of the population! Yoga population is 4%. Do I want to fight over 4% with other yoga studios/teachers, or do I want to expand into a new market (draw in some of the 96%)?

I got what he ws saying, which is why I didn't rail against it too much. I think he said it stupidly (not as stupidly as O'Reilly, btu still), but I think sometimes we all do that anyway. And, I suppose he figured he was among friends, where our stupid stuff is sort of glossed over because we all get the general idea and know that the other one isn't really a dumbass (i'm not saying Romney is a dumbass, just that sometimes I say things not-gracefully, but my husband knows I'm not mean, you know? that i'm not a dumbass.).

So, I don't really cotton to anyone on either side getting all circus-y. It's why I asked about O'Reilly. If he is a voice for the party, then all they have to blame is themselves (and read that last blog that Red Fox posted, because it does sum it up nicely). But, if he's just an idiot, and most people view him as that, then no harm done, he's bread and circus.

And there's no need for me -- or anyone else -- to get too caught in bread and circus.

[The Storyteller]

On stuff...

Most people want and expect stuff from the government. Most of us want free public education, libraries, roads, police protection, etc. If their kids are in public schools, they very much expect text books to be free. We are all just so used to these things that we take them so for granted that they do not seem like stuff, but they very much are. And there are many one the dole who voted and supported the Republican ticket in this last election. Corporate farms want their subsidies, and corporations want their corporate welfare.

That was the first thing that struck me when O'Reilly made his really stupid comment. That Republicans benefit from and want stuff no less than Democrats do.

And Zoe, I think the 47% comment WAS a big deal. It really is how many of the people on the right think. They think that Democrats are users and takers. That thinking has been expressed numerous times since the video was leaked, even by people in this forum. It is sad, condescending, and just plain wrong.

I also don't think promoting such stereotypes is particularly helpful, but YMMV.

[The Storyteller]

I missed seeing live Karl Rove's challenge* to Fox since I stopped watching the election an hour earlier. So, I watched it the next day on Youtube. And I have to say, I want geeky Karl on my side when I run for Queen. I kept hearing about Rove's "meltdown" yet when I watched the episode in question he was just arguing numbers. It's what all of the election geeks do, but he's the geekiest of the geeks. He didn't get crazy about it. He thought Ohio was coming in extremely close and Romney still might pull it off, and that's ok.
He seemed reasonable to me. An hour earlier, just before I left my friend's house, Jonah Goldberg was tweeting chastisements about Fox New calling other states early, and earlier than other mainstream news organizations. And, Jonah is one of their own.

I just wonder if any of you saw Fox News call states for Obama BEFORE the other networks? It happened, I saw it.



*"meltdown" is what mainstream leftie media called it,and glad to see that Stoyteller mimicked the adjective

Well, I wasn't mimicking anyone. It is what I called it while I was watching it live, only it was more like a meltdown of the entire Fox news fabrication machine. But in retrospect, collapse or unraveling are probably better adjectives. They lied to their viewers for weeks, but first they lied to themselves. They just did not believe it could be happening, just as it is obvious the Romney campaign and indeed the candidate himself could not believe it was happening. It turns out the polls were right all along, and all of the rationalizing of the right wing infotainment establishment couldn't make that fact go away.

I will admit I am gloating just a bit, not at your loss (I remember how I felt after 2004), but at truth's gain. And I really enjoyed watching Rove's fantasy world go down in flames. To see it play out live on international television was just too beautiful to describe.

Here is Jon Stewart's take on it...

[iris lily]

...They lied to their viewers for weeks, but first they lied to themselves. They just did not believe it could be happening, just as it is obvious the Romney campaign and indeed the candidate himself could not believe it was happening. It turns out the polls were right all along, and all of the rationalizing of the right wing infotainment establishment couldn't make that fact go away...

Fox News called two states for Obama before other stations did. Did anyone see that? I did. I got that from a tweet from Jonah Goldberg who chastised Fox for calling them so early. Point being: analysts for each station are going to call them the way they see them, and in this case having a Right viewpoint didn't change their call.

As far a "lies" in conjunction with polls: when polls deliver the same results as the elections, let me know. Then I won't bother to watch election returns, we will already know.

Look, no one I know including Jonah Goldberg who I saw a week before the election was very optimistic for our side about the Presidential election. More so with the Senate, but not the Presidential election. In the last three weeks of the election Romney's numbers came up and "cautiously optimistic" was the phrase people I know used.

I will admit I am gloating just a bit, not at your loss (I remember how I felt after 2004), but at truth's gain. And I really enjoyed watching Rove's fantasy world go down in flames. To see it play out live on international television was just too beautiful to describe.

Here is Jon Stewart's take on it...

[/QUOTE]

[Gregg]

I appreciate your story Zoebird, but it does relate an encounter with a single individual rather than a whole group. I freely admit it is not hard to find people like that if you want to, but they are not in the majority. Anything can happen locally, but in national elections the GOP has never put a birther or any other kind of fanatic out front. The moderates keep rising to the top and its precisely because there is not a broad enough base within the party to support the more radical factions. People focus on the Tea Party or the birthers or the abortion clinic bombers or whatever and somehow decide that is who the party is. I'm not a republican, but from what I see those folks are a very small part of a very large party. I think Mitt Romney is a pretty good example. He basically created Obamacare for heavens sake. How moderate can a GOP candidate be? Ideologically I think Mr. Romney and the President were fighting over a lot of the same ground to stand on.

[iris lily]

My view of the Tea Partiers is that they are for fiscal conservatism. Ergo--I am a Tea Party sympathizer if not entirely a Tea Partier.

[Gregg]

My view of the Tea Partiers is that they are for fiscal conservatism. Ergo--I am a Tea Party sympathizer is not entirely a Tea Partier.

Exactly. And if that was all that was involved in the Tea Party platform I would probably be a Tea Partier myself.

[The Storyteller]

As far a "lies" in conjunction with polls: when polls deliver the same results as the elections, let me know. Then I won't bother to watch election returns, we will already know.

The poll aggregators (prognosticators in another thread) used the polls and predicted the presidential election dead on. In fact, Sam Wang not only got the presidential race exactly right state by state, he called 10 out of 10 close senate races correctly, including North Dakota and Montana, which Nate Silver got wrong. Nate added weighting and layers to his models. Wang used only the polls. When take together, the polls were dead on, with an error rate of less than 1%.

I knew exactly who was going to win election day. I merely tuned in to see who was most right and to (yes, I will confess) gloat.

But everyone else on the media right, your Goldberg friend aside perhaps, was certain of a Romney win. All you have to do to know the right wing spin machine's position is to read Alan's posts, which regurgitated the nonsense of polls being weighted "Dems +10".

Edited to add...
But to be fair, it wasn't just the right who was wrong. Seems most of the mainstream media were bad predictors, with most of them calling it a razor thin tossup. It was close, but it was never a tossup.

[iris lily]

Exactly. And if that was all that was involved in the Tea Party platform I would probably be a Tea Partier myself.

Was there actually a posted, credible, Tea Party platform? By who? The Tea Partiers were only loosely organized. Anyone who claimed that they had The platform I would look upon with skepticism.

For instance, one of our acquaintances who is conservative is a Tea Partier and kept DH updated on Tea Partier doings around here. But when time came to caucus, he went for Rick Santorum. Ummm, who decided that Santorum was the Tea Party candidate? In my mind it would have been Ron Paul.

[Alan]

All you have to do to know the right wing spin machine's position is to read Alan's posts, which regurgitated the nonsense of polls being weighted "Dems +10".

Polls weighted D+10 is nonsense?

http://www.examiner.com/article/mitt...id=db_articles

Most of the previous Washington Post/ABC News polls analyzed earlier this year have been skewed and showed a small lead for Obama. The July 10 Washington Post/ABC News poll was skewed by 11 percent and showed the race tied at 47 percent. The August 27 Washington Post/ABC News poll was skewed by 10 percent and showed Obama leading 47 percent to 46 percent. The September 11 Washington Post/ABC News poll was skewed by 10 percent and showed Obama leading 49 percent to 48 percent. The October 1 Washington Post/ABC News poll was skewed by three percent and showed Obama leading 49 percent to 47 percent.