The us election 2012 - obama or romney?

[Jim Craik]

During the campaign, Mr Romney said over and over that due to his vast experiance, he knew exactly how to fix the economy. He had a secret plan to turn things around...........

I was kind of hopeing that during his concession speech he might just tell the Country what his secret plan was.

I must conclude that either he had no plan or he really does not really care about his Country.

 

[Doug S.]

Romney might have had a plan...IMHO his plan was to resume the same "trickle-down" economic approach that failed in the past. Sure, it would work for the rich, not so much for the poor, though, as the rich hoarded the cash.

His plan was probably what cost him the election, IMHO. We saw how things were going with Gee-Dub and his economic preferences (such as giving cash "GIFTS" to banking and Wall Street" by not requiring repayment of TARP funds), so if I had to point to an issue that might have cost Romney the election it could be his plan...which, in my view, ties in with his inability to connect with the common citizen.

He seemed sincere to me in his assertions that he really cared about America...but I had no confidence in his ability to bring about a positive change in our situation.

Conservatives seemed incensed about Pelosi's suggestion (???) that the universal healthcare bill needed to be passed so that people could find out what it contained, not so incensed about Romney's "Secret" plan. I agree, he asserted over and over again during the debates that he WOULD make sure things got better, but never once said how he would do it. Perhaps you are right, either he had no plan, or his plan was a secret to be revealed only after he was elected. Conservatives guilty of a double standard???? NEVER!!!!

Cheers, Jim!

Doug

 

[Jon Briggs]

An interesting breakdown of the voting pattens, and backs up what I stated earlier. The Republicans (Conservatives in the UK have the same problem) seem to appeal only to old, white, rich guys.

BBC News - Exit polls anatomise Obama win

If these parties want to stay relevant they are going to have to change.

 

[Pat]

It's interesting to hear the post mortem. The thrill of beating a conservative (sort of) is apparent. What I don't hear is the excitement and optimism surrounding Mr. Obama’s anticipated next term accomplishments. (He certainly inherited a mess from his predecessor.)
It's also a nice time to gleefully celebrate the end of the "old white guy era" and defeating Southern racists and Tea Party bigots.
Truth is, Mr. Obama ran a more effective campaign. I watched busload after busload of church vans shuttling people into the early voting sites, so much so that the lines were hours long. The announcement to cease immigration enforcement sealed the Latino vote turnout. The unions, smarting from reversals in Wisconsin were mobilized and aggressive in the Wisconsin Ohio and Michigan ground game. The floodgates were opened on the relaxing of welfare and food stamp requirements generating a profound motivation to vote against these benefits being taking away by a fiscal conservative. The media's soft stance on the "Fast and Furious", White House security leaks, Benghazi debacle and the celebration of Mr. Obama's handling of Hurricane Sandy after only a four hour tour with Mr. Christie greatly overcame flat spots in Mr. Obama's momentum and debate setback.
But most of all, the Obama ground game that never shut down his campaign apparatus from his 2008 election and the unrelenting multimillion dollar smear campaign on Mr. Romney from even before he was the nominee brilliantly painted him as an evil out of touch rich guy who hates poor people women and minorities. His wife was a smug elitist that lived like a czarina. The narrative was sold that Mr. Romney also plans to take away birth control and deny women breast exams. He was going to invade Iran and resume the Cold War with Russia. The attacks on his religion went unchallenged. The media and many of you supported these narratives.
All this proves that negative campaigning and an aggressive ground game can overcome a poor economic performance, political scandals and a lackluster debate.
Past elections were about ideas; this one was about the cult of personality and class warfare. And sadly our new norm is that "Chicago politics" works as does voting for class envy and "revenge" on a manufactured monster of an opponent. The Obama campaign memo early on said “Kill Mitt Romney” and they effectively did so.
Mitt Romney is a good and honorable man. His wife is a decent human being who had overcome tremendous personal adversity. What has been done to him, and his wife tells you why people don't run for office. (BTW. Please welcome Alan Grayson back to congress!)
What's left is Mr. Obama's economic strategy to further tax the rich, repay the debts to the coalition of special interests he skillfully assembled but most of all he owes Bill Clinton for energizing his campaign and Hillary Clinton for taking the little heat there was over Benghazi. I’m not optimistic that we will see much more in the next four years than symbolic drama in congress resulting in more debt, high gas, food prices and unemployment as the “new norm” kicking the hard fiscal choices down the road the greater centralization of power in the federal bureaucracy.
To repay the Clintons, I suspect the Obama ground game will immediately begin again on Ms. Clinton’s behalf. The demonization of Republican frontrunners like Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal and most of all Paul Ryan will immediately commence and the cycle will begin again.
Many of you may have read my past post indicating I thought Mr. Obama would win. An incumbent president has a massive advantage with his ability to “give stuff away”. He controls the national narrative. A Republican has the additional burden of a hostile national media. Republicans need to lead consistently by 7-10% to overcome an incumbent Democrat. Mr. Romney was never there.

 

[Doug S.]

It's interesting to hear the post mortem. The thrill of beating a conservative (sort of) is apparent. What I don't hear is the excitement and optimism surrounding Mr. Obama’s anticipated next term accomplishments.

Agreed, Veek...I've said it before, will say it again, this year my vote was not for anyone, it was against. Obama, sadly, was the lesser of the two evils, hard to be excited about the idea of his second term if you view it in that light.

I've been reading the editorial pages in the papers and there does seem to be a common thread among their opinions...most of them think that the ultra-radicalism displayed by the Tea Party zealots elected in the mid-term election, an understandable knee-jerk reaction that the Republican Party seemed to take as validation for their obstructionist policy of opposition. What it did for me, and apparently for a lot of voters, was paint the Republicans as "...the party of NO". "No, you can't have....we want, but you can't have".

I even wrote a song about it, here are the lyrics (imagine it played in a peppy, blues key):

The rich keep gettin' richer...every day,
and I can't seem to keep the dogs away!
I guess there's nothing left to do
but sing "the Sneaky Ol' Republican Blues".

Boehner wants help to make the economy grow
Obama gives 'em what they want and still they say "NO"
I guess there's nothing left to do
but sing the "Sneaky Ol' Republican Blues".

America wants the government to work and the TEA Partiers came in with the agenda that to get what they want they had to tie the government up. It was too radical a view for the majority of the voting public and as I understand it quite a few of them were sent packing in this past election.

It might not have been anything Romney did wrong, or anything that B.O. did right, that caused the election to turn out as it did...if the political editorials are right, it was the TEA Party that cost Romney the election. His only "transgression" was being the Republican Party candidate in an era after the TEA Party extremists had alienated the general public.

I was a bit surprised to find myself liking him better after the debates, at least he seemed sincere, even if his wife did not!

Cheers!

Doug

 

[Jim Craik]

Pat,

That is a very well thought out and very well written analysis. I agree with almost all of have you have to say. As I'm sure you are aware, I look at many of your points from a different perspective, but thats to be expected. I agree that Mr Romney is a good and decent man and except for his VP choice and the spector of Supreme Court appointments, I would have been OK with a Romney Presidency.

I join you in welcoming back Mr Grayson, a most interesting and entertaining person.

 

[Pat]

Thanks Jim,

Mr. Grayson was my congressman until his repeated inane outbursts cost him reelection in our district (Remember “Republicans want you to die!” from the floor of the house). He initially ran as a reformer but turned out to be a megalomaniacal idiot. He relocated to a new district that is heavily democratic and ran a massive smear campaign that included calling his opponent a wife beater during a debate. After he lost the first time, he sought legal action against bloggers that were critical of his performance. This time he won easily. It was reported that only Bill Nelson (ick!) had more campaign cash. Fortunately for conservatives, Mr. Grayson will no doubt provide entertaining fodder for mid-term elections. I’ve met him and he is definitely an exception to what Will Rogers said about people.
Prediction: Republicans will cave on taxes for the wealthy, agree to spending cuts at some future time (which will never happen) and extend the debt ceiling which in turn will reenergize the Tea Party for the mid-term elections. Mr. Trumka (to whom Mr. Obama owes his victory in Ohio, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania) has indicated he will not accept any reduction in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security and will probably get his way. He has emerged as perhaps the second most powerful unelected official in the Democratic Party (after Bill Clinton). So entitlement reform is probably a decade or fiscal collapse away-whichever comes first. If interest rates go up, it will massively affect the nation’s debt position and so the Fed will be forced to print trillions more to continue to monetize the debt (devalue to currency) to maintain stability.

 

[Bob Fechter]

B.O. lost in every state that has voter I.D. laws.

Crooked Politics: Obama Lost in Every State With Photo ID Law

 

[Jon Briggs]

Bob, is it not time to give this one up.

The majority of Americans don't agree with the republicans policies. Surely it's this area that must be addressed. Having read some of the stories arround the election, it appeaers that this very idea of voter ID counted against the republicans at the ballot box.

Surely your job now is not to stand on the side lines screaming FIX! But to produce reasoned policies that ensure a republican president in 2016. The Republican Party need to move more to the centre, if they can do this, then they will be hard pushed to be beaten.

It's the same in the UK. The centre ground is where the majority of the votes are to be found. Whoever occupies this area will win elections.

Just out of interest. Given some of the states required photo ID, what processes did those states put in place to ensure that every eligible voter had the required photo ID?

 

[Keith]

It's the same in the UK. The centre ground is where the majority of the votes are to be found. Whoever occupies this area will win elections.

Agreed but only if there are no crises. These tend to bring out more extreme sentiments on either wing and given the law of physics, any extreme of one flavour will only facilitate an extreme in other opposing (and thus balancing) flavours. The problem of the 'middle ground' is just that - it's middle, naive and manages to plod along quietly not wishing to make an undue fuss.

The middle ground only seems to get really irked if someone drops a bomb on them and even then, it only tends to light a slow fuse.

If a cataclysm approaches, it will be the extremes that will seize the moment at the polls especially if it is raining. (Does anyone need that explaining?)

I am quite sure that at least 75% of Germany was 'centre oriented' in the '30's until the rains came.

 

[Bob Fechter]

The U.N. election observers were flabbergasted when they found that the U.S. doesn't require voter i.d. in most states. I am too. I am not ready to stand down, I and my fellow Conservatives are going to have to pay for this mess.

"The most often noted difference between American elections among the visitors was that in most U.S. states, voters need no identification. Voters can also vote by mail, sometimes online, and there's often no way to know if one person has voted several times under different names, unlike in some Arab countries, where voters ink their fingers when casting their ballots."

Foreign election officials amazed by trust-based U.S. voting system | The Cable

As to " what processes did those states put in place to ensure that every eligible voter had the required photo ID?" What processes do those states put in place for people who need I.D. for the myriad transactions that already require I.D. ?

 

[Bob Fechter]

And, Keith, you are right, I'm still waiting for the book, "The Great Moderates Of History."

We are catering to the great mass of people who do the minimum for society and expect the maximum in benefits thereof.

 

[Mark]

Yep. The middle only feels right. Right up until you need someone with balls to face a crisis. Long live the centre, but I for one prefer the end of the see-saw. Much more fun.

Which end? I hear you cry.

Both ends! But not at the same time.

 

[Bob Fechter]

Yep. The middle only feels right. Right up until you need someone with balls to face a crisis. Long live the centre, but I for one prefer the end of the see-saw. Much more fun.

Which end? I hear you cry.

Both ends! But not at the same time.

So you're a bi-see-saw, not that there's anything wrong with that! ;~)

 

[Pete McCluskey.]

America has voted for more welfare, bigger government and even more debt.
And nobody gives a shit who is going to pay as long as it is not them.
Reminds me of Greece.

 

[Mark]

Like this?

 

[Keith]

America has voted for more welfare, bigger government and even more debt.
And nobody gives a shit who is going to pay as long as it is not them.
Reminds me of Greece.

And I think that the US are therefore now eligible and eminently qualified for EU membership.....if they can just align themselves fiscally with with Bulgaria. Mind you, they're going to have to instigate quite a serious austerity package before they can be as inefficient.

 

[Mark Clapp]

I'm so glad everyone did their due diligence in vetting Romney and his secret plans. Last time there was no vetting because BO hadn't done anything, ever. Most everyone was happy to vote for a guy that could only say "hope and change". Now we know where that got us and most still want to give him another chance; more hope I guess.

Pete, it does look like Greece. But we look so cool going down that road with our driver.

 

[Jim Craik]

America has voted for more welfare, bigger government and even more debt.
And nobody gives a shit who is going to pay as long as it is not them.
Reminds me of Greece.

What you are saying does not appear to be factual.

 

[Jim Craik]

And I think that the US are therefore now eligible and eminently qualified for EU membership.....if they can just align themselves fiscally with with Bulgaria. Mind you, they're going to have to instigate quite a serious austerity package before they can be as inefficient.

Don't you just love Brits lecturing us about debt!

National debt per person, in U.S. $ 2011:

UK...............$156,126
Australia........$52,596
US................$50,266