Against Despair

From Jonah Goldberg, at National Review:

I’ll be blunt: I do not think Mitt Romney ran a good campaign. Don’t get me wrong, I think he worked his heart out as did many who worked for him. I think he made himself into the best candidate he could (which is different from saying he was a great candidate). But I also think that Romney’s theory of the contest was wrong. As I wrote at the time, the Republican convention was a mess. I think Romney strategist Stu Stevens’s contempt for ideas — never mind conservative ideas — was absurd. I think the failure of the Romney campaign to offer a compelling explanation of any kind (at least until the second debate) for how it wasn’t a third Bush term was fatal (as I discussed here and elsewhere). Politics is about persuasion. And persuasion requires making serious arguments. Stevens, by all accounts, has contempt for serious arguments.

None of this means that all of the talk about changing demographics and long-term structural challenges for the GOP is without merit. I have strong views about all of that as well.

In fact, I have a different view from some about the coming wave of recriminations: I welcome it. I don’t know that things need to be vicious or personal, but they do need to be honest. And honesty requires we say things that may feel personal to our friends. This is one of the great and abiding strengths of the conservative movement and the thing I love about it most. Contrary to the conventional wisdom among liberals, conservatives are actually far more willing to examine their dogma and their first principles than liberals or “centrists” are. This has been the source of conservatism’s lasting strength.

It’s going to take a while to sort through this mess...

I like that part about Mitt's seriously flawed campaign.

I said so much in September, although Mitt's debate performances were excellent (even the third debate, which Bill O'Reilly pegged as weak and costing Romney the election, which is absurd).

But read Goldberg's piece in full, at the link.

Obama Supporters Celebrate: 'No More Israel...'

This brief video clip is truly a microcosm of the future of our country. Conservative despair needs no explanation when you have such ready examples of the Obama coalition's human pustules.

From Anne Sorock, at Rebel Pundit (via Memeorandum):

David Horowitz's Post-Election Epistle

At my inbox yesterday, from the David Horowitz Freedom Center:

Dear Donald,

Watching last night's returns, conservative commentators talked mournfully about how America is a changed country—demographically, culturally, and most of all morally. Because of these changes, we are no longer the country we have always been.

We don't buy it. Yes, America is a divided country. But half of the people are holding fast to traditional values and voting no to policies that are leading to bankruptcy at home and defeat abroad. To believe, moreover, that the other half has turned its back forever on our national ideals and national greatness would be to sell them and America short.

It would also be selling short those of us who are willing to take the fight to the left to defend this country; it would be to give up on our ability to change minds with the power of our ideas.

What lies ahead is not only an opportunity to change the course on which we are headed but a solemn obligation to our children and to ourselves. We must educate more Americans about the threats to our liberty at home and abroad. That is what the Freedom Center has always done; it is not only our mission but our reason for being. It is what we intend to do—now more than ever.

To take one example of why this election is not a verdict on America: We are in the midst of a global war against Islamic fascism; our government has been penetrated by Islamists; our president has abetted the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Middle East and the spread of al-Qaeda terrorism in Libya, Mali, Syria and elsewhere. Our ambassador in Benghazi has been murdered along with three heroic Americans who gave their lives defending our consulate but whom our government refused to deploy our military forces to save. Our president has surrendered Iraq to Iran and has passively abetted the mullahs in their pursuit of nuclear weapons. Yet none of these horrific events were issues in the election. Despite the fact that they are the key responsibility of the president who is our commander-in-chief.

The Center's mission is to educate the American public in these realities, to school conservatives in the nature of the left and its plans for the American future.

Today is a time to think about what just happened to our country. But, more importantly, it is a time to renew the fight to save it. That fight is against a leftist media and educational system; against the socialist policies that seek to fundamentally transform our economy and political system; against the appeasement of our enemies and the weakening of our allies like the state of Israel; and the fight is against the Islamists and their progressive allies who wish to silence our free speech by reviving blasphemy laws and embargoing criticism of America's enemies. These are the issues that face us and the ground on which we must fight.

We at the Freedom Center know the left too well to think that this fight will be easy. Today I received an email from someone describing himself as a "Pitchfork Patriot." The note said: "I was wrong — not by that much. That is no consolation. Losing sucks. I am out of politics for awhile — Maybe a long while." This is exactly the wrong attitude to take out of yesterday's election. What kind of pitchfork patriot throws in the towel after an election in which half the country voted no to the policies that are leading us down the path to bankruptcy at home and defeat abroad? If George Washington's troops had decided to take a break from the cause during the grim and losing years of the revolutionary war, would there have been an America at all?

Think of this moment as the middle of the war to save our country. The David Horowitz Freedom Center is ready to fight if you will continue to support us. Its mission of educating Americans to the nature of the enemy and the battle lines that have been drawn is more needed than ever. Please use the form attached to make your contributions and to divert some of the money that the Obama government will otherwise take and invest it in the cause of defending our liberty and country.

Sincerely,

David Horowitz

The Real Tears Are Only Just Beginning

Via Instapundit, "REASON TV: Sorry little girl, but while the election may be over, the real tears are only just beginning."

NewsBusted: 'President Obama Re-Elected...'

Hey, laughter's the best medicine, via Theo Spark:

Dick Morris: 'Why I Was Wrong'

Morris was calling it a coming GOP landslide. Many folks had their doubts, for good reason. But punditry doesn't work unless you make bold, even bombastic, predictions. There's little price to be paid, because guys like this can say their mea culpas, post a couple of YouTubes, and then get right back to raking in that pundit cash.

See: "I’ve got egg on my face. I predicted a Romney landslide and, instead, we ended up with an Obama squeaker."

Democrat Partisan Realignment

Sometime early this morning it dawned on me that the Democrats are consolidating a partisan realignment in American politics. It's not a full realignment --- the party would need unified control of Congress for that --- but the demographic shifts are so substantive, and the Tuesday victory so decisive, that there's no doubt that some tectonic movement is at work in today's polity.

So cruising around the web today I've seen folks hinting at a realignment here and there. Mostly it's in the raft of horrible dread that's been plaguing movement conservatives, which I noticed first on Twitter and then more lastingly at Memeorandum. Among those found in the latter category is Ross Douthat's piece at Campaign Stops, "The Obama Realignment":

When you do it once, it’s just a victory. When you do it twice, it’s a realignment.

The coalition that Barack Obama put together to win the presidency handily in 2008 looked a lot like the emerging Democratic majority that optimistic liberals had been discerning on the political horizon since the 1990s. It was the late George McGovern’s losing coalition from 1972 finally come of age: Young voters, the unmarried, African-Americans, Hispanics, the liberal professional class – and then more than enough of the party’s old blue collar base to hold the Rust Belt for the Democrats.

But 2008 was also a unique political moment, when George W. Bush’s immense unpopularity was compounded by a financial collapse, and when the possibility of electing the country’s first black president fired the imagination of the nation (and the nation’s press corps). So it was still possible to regard the Obama majority of ’08 as more flukish than transformative – or at the very least, to see it as a fragile thing, easily shattered by poor choices and adverse developments.

There were plenty of both during the president’s first term....

But the lesson of the election is that the Obama coalition was truly vulnerable only to a Republican Party that took Obama seriously as an opponent – that understood how his majority had been built, why voters had joined it and why the conservative majority of the Reagan and Bush eras had unraveled.

Such understanding eluded the Republicans this year. In part, that failure can be blamed on their standard-bearer, Mitt Romney, who mostly ran as a kind of vanilla Republican instead of showing the imagination necessary to reinvent his party for a new era. Romney’s final month of campaigning was nearly flawless, though. His debate performances were the best by any Republican since Reagan and he will go down in history as one of the few losing challengers to claim a late lead in the polls. A weak nominee in many ways, he was ultimately defeated less by his own limitations as a leader, and more by the fact that his party didn’t particularly want to be reinvented, preferring to believe that the rhetoric and positioning of 1980 and 1984 could win again in the America of 2012.

Read the whole thing.

Interestingly, that's exactly my argument, that Romney ran a flawed campaign for most of the year but came on like lightning in the last month. It was very close in the end, but the Democrats outperformed all expectations, and that's after Obama got some political wind at his back ---- really big wind, in fact ---- from Hurricane Sandy.

And the part about not understanding the nature of the Obama beast echoes Jonathan Tobin's penetrating comments from last night.

But the real test of realigning elections --- and realignment theory --- is historical sweep. Folks might be awestruck now at the commanding Democrat victory last night, but the proof of partisan hegemony comes in future elections. The New Deal Coalition that began with FDR's 1932 election lasted nearly uninterrupted until 1968. Only Eisenhower's two terms in the 1950s punctuated nearly 35 years of Democrat Party dominance of the executive branch. And it wasn't until the GOP took majorities in both chambers of Congress in 1994 that the Democrats' half-century legislative dominance was crushed. I'll have more on the demographics of the vote in the next few days. There's no doubt that the share of the conservative white ethnic vote is declining as a powerful force in the overall electorate. An urban progressive voter-of-color coalition has propelled the Democrats to a second term in the White House. It's simply astonishing to so many, and literally soul-crushing for movement conservatives. But it is what it is. There are cycles in American politics, so I'm not one to lose faith whatsoever. The political and economic system literally can't sustain for long the kind of policies the Obama administration has been pushing. The outstanding debt alone is now more than 100 percent of GDP. These are systemic changes to the political economy and the bills are going to come due. Democrats won't be able to deal with them effectively. Conservative realists of the tea party stripe are the only ones currently grasping the enormity of the situation, and people like this made some good showings in yesterday's results. I'll have more on some of those local deviations from the Democrat juggernaut later. The key thing will be whether Obama indeed moderates his extreme partisanship and works cooperatively to solve problems. He needs to be more like Bill Clinton than Franklin Roosevelt. If he's able to shift the party toward rational macroeconomic reforms he'll perhaps pave the way to greater economic prosperity for the nation and another term or two for the Democrats at the helm of the executive branch. This is bitter tonic for conservatives to swallow. But it's going to take a midterm election cycle before folks on the right will have a real sense of where they stand in this new landscape of Democrat consolidation. Tuesday's election was historic. But it wasn't the first time that the ground gave way beneath the parties. Things could well swing back toward the Republicans, sooner rather than later.

More on all of this later...

The Electorate Doubles Down on Partisan Polarization

At the New York Times, "Divided U.S. Gives Obama More Time" (at Memeorandum):

Barack Hussein Obama was re-elected president of the United States on Tuesday, overcoming powerful economic headwinds, a lock-step resistance to his agenda by Republicans in Congress and an unprecedented torrent of advertising as a divided nation voted to give him more time.

In defeating Mitt Romney, the president carried Colorado, Iowa, Ohio, New Hampshire, Virginia and Wisconsin, a near sweep of the battleground states, and was holding a narrow advantage in Florida. The path to victory for Mr. Romney narrowed as the night wore along, with Mr. Obama winning at least 303 electoral votes.

A cheer of jubilation sounded at the Obama campaign headquarters in Chicago when the television networks began projecting him as the winner at 11:20 p.m., even as the ballots were still being counted in many states where voters had waited in line well into the night. The victory was far narrower than his historic election four years ago, but it was no less dramatic.

“Tonight in this election, you, the American people, reminded us that while our road has been hard, while our journey has been long, we have picked ourselves up, we have fought our way back,” Mr. Obama told his supporters early Wednesday. “We know in our hearts that for the United States of America, the best is yet to come.”

Mr. Obama’s re-election extended his place in history, carrying the tenure of the nation’s first black president into a second term. His path followed a pattern that has been an arc to his political career: faltering when he seemed to be at his strongest — the period before his first debate with Mr. Romney — before he redoubled his efforts to lift himself and his supporters to victory.

The evening was not without the drama that has come to mark so many recent elections: For more than 90 minutes after the networks projected Mr. Obama as the winner, Mr. Romney held off calling him to concede. And as the president waited to declare victory in Chicago, Mr. Romney’s aides were prepared to head to the airport, suitcases packed, potentially to contest several close results.

But as it became increasingly clear that no amount of contesting would bring him victory, he called Mr. Obama to concede shortly before 1 a.m.

“I wish all of them well, but particularly the president, the first lady and their daughters,” Mr. Romney told his supporters in Boston. “This is a time of great challenges for America, and I pray that the president will be successful in guiding our nation.”

CARTOON CREDIT: Legal Insurrection.

MSNBC Anchors Overjoyed by Obama Victory; Rachel Maddow: 'Historic Moment' (VIDEO)

At Huffington Post, and there's a YouTube clip here.

I tweeted last night:

They're so happy over at @msnbc, I think @rachelmaddow's making cream pies in her shorts. #p2
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) November 7, 2012

And be sure to listen to that segment. You'll practically gag at Al Sharpton spouting off about how President Obama "maintained the dignity of the office," blah, blah...

I can live with another four years of this regime. It's the kook progressives who'll be driving me crazy. What an alternative universe of lies.

And for a dramatic reaction to last night's results, see Robert Stacy McCain, at the American Spectator, "Doomed Beyond All Hope of Redemption":

Let's not mince words, eh? It was one thing, obviously, for the electorate to choose Barack Obama in 2008, when Bush-era "brand damage" was still a fresh irritant in the wounds of a war-weary nation. Four years ago, Obama was untested and enshrouded in the glowing mantle of Hope. No intelligent person could possibly believe that "Lightworker" crap anymore, but then again, it's been a long time since any intelligent person believed anything a Democrat said. The cretins and dimwits have become an effective governing majority, and the question for conservatives at this point is perhaps not, "What does it mean?" but rather, "Why should we bother ourselves resisting it any longer?"

Alas, as always, the duty of the Right is to manfully endure, to survive the defeat and stubbornly oppose the vaunting foe, and so this brutal shock, this electoral catastrophe, must be absorbed and digested. At some point next week or next month or next year, then, we shall recover our morale and plot some new stratagem for the future. In the immediate aftermath of Tuesday's debacle, however, it is difficult to see any glimmer of light amid the encroaching gloom. Surely, there are many Americans who now sympathize with that New York infantryman who, in the bleak winter of 1862, when the Union's Army of the Potomac was under the incompetent command of Gen. Ambrose Burnside, wrote home in forlorn complaint: "Mother, do not wonder that my loyalty is growing weak.… I am sick and tired of the disaster and the fools that bring disaster upon us."

Keep reading.

'I'm So Glad We Had That Storm Last Week...'

Well, as they say, never let a crisis go to waste. Tingles gets all grateful for Hurricane Sandy, at RealClearPolitics:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: I am so proud of the country. To reelect this president and overcoming -- not because of the partisanship or even the policies. Here's an African-American guy with an unusual background -- part immigrant background, part African-American background -- with all this assault on him from day one. From Mitch McConnell, from the clowns out there that will never be elected, never will be to anything.

And the way he took it, as someone said, with coolness and charm and dignity and took it and took it and kept moving forward and doing his job. And the American people, and I know we look at these percentage, 40% of white vote. Fine. That's about right among Democrats in the last couple cycles, three cycles or four. Good work for them. Good work for him. A good day for America.

I'm so glad we had that storm last week because I think the storm was one of those things...

Watch it at the link.

Post-Mortems

This piece at Politico ran Monday, "If Romney loses…":

For Republicans, the only thing harder than losing to Barack Obama might be explaining it.

By any reasonable standard, Obama is a seriously vulnerable incumbent: a president overseeing a limping economy, whose party got thumped in the 2010 midterm elections and whose signature accomplishment of health care reform is highly controversial. Whatever his strengths on national security and personal likability, Obama probably began the 2012 campaign as the most beatable sitting president in 20 years.

So if Obama manages to defeat Mitt Romney on Tuesday, the Republican Party will have to go through a painful process of self-examination and internal debate in order to explain what went so badly wrong.

The debate won’t just be fodder for political obsessives: It will also determine how Republicans approach governing next year and how the party campaigns in 2014, 2016 and beyond.

Even before tomorrow’s vote, the post-election arguments about why Romney lost — if he does — are beginning.

Continue reading.

And see this outstanding essay from Jonathan Tobin, from last night at Commentary, "The Conservatives’ Obama Delusion":

Most conservatives were prepared to acknowledge that the majority of Americans were still pleased with the idea of righting some historic wrongs by electing an African-American in 2008. But they failed to understand that even though Obama’s administration was not widely viewed as a great success, at least half of the country was not prepared to toss him out of office after only one term.

As an incumbent, Obama was able to claim credit for things for which he did not deserve many plaudits, like the killing of Osama bin Laden or even the response to the hurricane in the last days before the election. He also could count on the unfailing support of much of the media even when he was embarrassed by events, such as in Libya.

These were strengths that many Republicans continually discounted or disregarded entirely.

The close nature of the loss at a time when the national economy is still stagnant will naturally cause many on the right to speculate on what Romney and his campaign could have done differently. They will be right when they point out he should have fought back immediately against the slurs against his character that were the focus of much of the Obama campaign’s early efforts. Maybe a perfect GOP effort could have gotten that extra one percent of the vote that would have turned a few close states and elected Romney. That’s something that will torment conservatives as ObamaCare is implemented and Obama continues to govern from the left.

But even his sternest critics must admit Romney ran quite a creditable campaign and was able to use the debates to make the race closer and even take a lead in some polls in the last month. They must also acknowledge that the conservative assumption that the electorate in 2012 would be very different than it was in 2008 was wrong.

Tobin's a treasure.

RTWT at that top link.

Tobin suggests the post-mortems will continue all the way up to the 2016 election. At that time no incumbent will be on the ballot, and perhaps the cycle of history will return to greater individualism and the decency of traditional values.

I'll have more...

Wait! Don't miss Ron Radosh, "Why Obama Won — and What Conservatives Must Do..."

Okay, no I'll have more later...

President Obama Re-Elected to Second Term

At the Los Angeles Times, "Obama pulls out reelection in hard-fought battle":

WASHINGTON — With Ohioans casting the decisive votes, President Obama was reelected Tuesday in a hard-fought battle with Mitt Romney that turned out to be nearly as close as advertised.

Network projections of an Obama victory in the perennial swing state of Ohio, shortly after 8:10 p.m. PST, put the nation’s first black president over the top in an uphill second-term fight in a country slowly recovering from the worst economic downtown since the Depression.

Thousands of Obama supporters at a victory celebration in Chicago erupted in cheers when the race was called, and a boisterous crowd quickly gathered in front of the White House as it did on election night four years ago.

The final minutes of a presidential contest that remained extremely tight for months were not without controversy.  Romney strategists, closeted with their candidate at a Boston hotel, resisted the conclusion that the race was over, and the former Massachusetts governor did not immediately concede the election.  The Romney camp was looking at official returns from Ohio that showed a margin of fewer than 15,000 votes, out of more than 4.3 million cast, separating the two men.

Their hesitation was bolstered, for a time, by former George W. Bush strategist Karl Rove, now a Fox News commentator, who conjured up memories of the news media’s premature decision to give Florida to Al Gore on the night of the 2000 election.  Rove soon backed away, conceding that his network’s decision desk, which along with the other networks and the Associated Press called Ohio for Obama, had more information than he did.

Less than an hour later, the president carried Nevada and Colorado, making the dispute about Ohio irrelevant. Obama had amassed more than enough electoral votes to win without Ohio, or the largest battleground — Florida, which remained too close to call.

As expected, Obama also took the swing states of Iowa, New Hampshire and Wisconsin.  He also repeated his 2008 victory in Virginia and carried the heavily Democratic West Coast and Northeast, as well as Illinois, Maryland and Hawaii.

Romney’s late play for Pennsylvania, a state no Republican has carried since 1988, fell short.  The GOP nominee also lost his home state of Massachusetts and his native Michigan.

Romney, however, turned the electoral map red across a vast stretch of the South, Great Plains and much of the Mountain West. He won North Carolina and Indiana back from Obama, who had carried those states in 2008.

Defeats in Massachusetts and Wisconsin made Romney and his running mate, Paul D. Ryan, the first major party ticket to lose their home states since Democrats George McGovern and Sargent Shriver in the 1972 Nixon landslide.

After Loss, GOP Faces Struggle Over Party's Direction

At the New York Times, "Republicans Face Struggle Over Party’s Direction":

Mitt Romney’s loss to a Democratic president wounded by a weak economy is certain to spur an internecine struggle over the future of the Republican Party, but the strength of the party’s conservatives in Congress and the rightward tilt of the next generation of party leaders could limit any course correction.

With their party on the verge of losing the popular presidential vote for the fifth time in six elections, Republicans across the political spectrum anticipate a prolonged and probably divisive period of self-examination.

The coming debate will be centered on whether the party should keep pursuing the antigovernment focus that grew out of resistance to the health care law and won them the House in 2010, or whether it should focus on a strategy that recognizes the demographic tide running strongly against it.

“There will be some kind of war,” predicted Mike Murphy, a longtime Republican Party consultant, suggesting it would pit “mathematicians” like him, who argue that the party cannot keep surrendering the votes of Hispanics, blacks, younger voters and college-educated women, against the party purists, or “priests,” as he puts it, who believe that basic conservative principles can ultimately triumph without much deviation.

Continue reading.

Actually this isn't a new war. The coming battle will be a repeat of the "internecine" struggles from the 2008 loss, when John McCain was widely seen as a floundering candidate and over-accommodating moderate. Romney will be attacked in like fashion to a large extent, although I think the ticket's last month of the campaign was absolutely dialed in. It's too bad Romney couldn't have campaigned like that since wrapping up the nomination.

Oh well...

Re-Election Reactions

As I said before, losing's not fun. Although it's not like folks were blindsided or anything.

Books will be written, but in the end Mitt Romney pulled up close with the president and made it the most exciting presidential election campaign in my lifetime. He would have made a great president, but this wasn't his moment. The loss for the country is enormous, but seasons change.

I imagine I'll be doing a lot of analysis over the next few weeks, but in the meantime there's some interesting commentary going up even before everything's settled back down.

Michelle Malkin bucks up the troops, "Election 2012: Obama gets his “revenge,” but conservatives must stand tall."

Also from William Jacobson, "Dunkirk."

And at Instapundit, and a reader writes:

If Obama is reelected, good hardworking people should give up and go Galt. The tipping point is the 2012 election. Will the makers finally succumb to the takers?...

Keep reading.

I'll have more later...

Obama's Victory Speech

The transcript's at CNN.

Romney Supporters Shocked

Losing's not only hard, it's a freakin' bummer.

See all the photos at London's Daily Mail, "Heads hang in dead silence at Romney headquarters in Boston as President Obama is projected to win reelection."

Romney's Concession Speech

CNN has the transcript, via Memeorandum.

Kenyan Witch Doctor Calls It Correctly: Barack Obama Re-Elected President

Hey, the dude lined up all the rocks and artifacts and called this puppy. Screw Nate Silver. The Kogelo village elder is the man!

And see Fox News, "Barack Obama Re-Elected President."

Election Night Updates

Polls in Virginia are closing in about 15 minutes.


I haven't really thought much about it, but I'll start out with this post as a sticky up top and see how it goes.

There are election night posts at AoSHQ, "OFFICIAL AOSHQDD ELECTION NIGHT RETURNS," at Legal Insurrection, "Election Night 2012 — Live," and at The Other McCain, "ELECTION DAY UPDATES."

Plus check Instapundit as well.

4:07pm Pacific:

Early exit poll estimates in Virginia show presidential race 49-49%
— Steve Brusk (@stevebruskCNN) November 7, 2012

4:23pm Pacific: At Fox News, "Virginia too close to call; Romney wins Indiana and Kentucky, Obama takes Vermont."

4:35pm Pacific: CNN reported exit polls showing Obama up 51-48 in Ohio.

4:44pm Pacific: Robert Stacy McCain's not happy with CNN's South Carolina projection as too close to call:

John King is a goddamned dishonest Democrat propagandist. He should be collecting a paycheck from the DNC, not @cnn
— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) November 7, 2012

5:07pm Pacific: Polls in a bunch of states just closed. I'll have news reports posted on those in a bit. Florida and Pennsylvania are too close to call but exit data shows an Obama edge. JPod responds to these on Twitter:

Remember exit polls and early exits classically oversample Democrats. That's why you can't believe them. They don't swing both ways.
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) November 6, 2012

5:13pm Pacific: From earlier, at AoSHQ, "GOP Sources: We're Looking Good In CO, IA, NH, and WI":

Assuming Romney wins Florida, NC, and Virginia, then Wisconsin, Colorado, and either Iowa or New Hampshire wins it for him.

I think Team Obama is trying to put out word that Virginia is shaky for Romney. I think they're trying to demoralize us. I don't believe it.

Still too close to call in Florida and Virginia, so we'll see.

5:55pm Pacific: Romney rolling up South, including Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina. But no word yet on Florida. And of course we're waiting for Ohio and Virginia as well.

The Lonely Conservative is blogging, "Election Results Open Thread," and at Twitchy, "Moving pics of Romney’s final campaign flight; Visibly moved by supporters, talks to media on plane."

6:16pm Pacific: Im in the bathroom just now and I hear my wife scream: "Florida just flipped with Romney ahead!" Susan Candiotti has that:

CNN reports: with 76% of Florida's vote in, the vote is split 50/50 Obama/ Romney! #cnnelections
— susan candiotti cnn(@susancandiotti) November 7, 2012

6:20pm Pacific: Various sources call Pennsylvania for Obama.

6:41pm Pacific: Theo Spark provides an important election reminder:

Yeah, the CPUSA endorsed him again this year: "... re-electing Obama is absolutely essential."

7:12pm Pacific: CNN projects a New Hampshire win for Obama. And Florida remains within hundreds of votes either way. The path for the GOP ticket is narrowing.

Perhaps the editors of the Wall Street Journal saw the way things were shaking before going to press, but here's this leader, "The Republic Will Survive":

As our early editions went to press Tuesday evening we had no idea who'd win the Presidential race. But we'll venture the prediction that the Republic will somehow survive the outcome. Even if Barack Obama wins a second term.

These columns have made no secret of our disappointments—we're writing with the mute button on—with this Administration. Nor have we stinted on our criticism of Mitt Romney, both on tactics and policy. Sadly for us, Ronald Reagan wasn't on the ballot Tuesday. Sadly for some of our friends, Bill Clinton wasn't on it either, though sometimes you could have been fooled.

To choose between imperfect candidates representing unwieldy coalitions has been the American way since America's first contested election, the squeaker of 1796. If you think the stakes in 2012 are great, remember that Thomas Jefferson's Democratic Republicans accused John Adams of being a closet monarchist, while Adams's Federalists treated their opponents as closet Jacobins. Adams won that race, 71 electoral votes to 68, only to lose to Jefferson four years later. Who was it who said voting is the best revenge? So it has gone ever since. The U.S. has survived countless mediocrities in the White House, several placeholders, at least two scoundrels and some real unmitigated disasters. In that last category, we'd name James Buchanan, Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter, with Woodrow Wilson getting an honorable mention. As for President Obama, we'll resist historicizing until we know he's out of the White House. Perspective is usually the best teacher.

That's not to say we're indifferent to what lies ahead these next four years. Elections have consequences. At issue in this one is whether Mr. Obama's attempt to govern the U.S. from the left winds up being a parenthesis in U.S. history, or a point of departure. If the former, we have a chance to return swiftly to real growth in the U.S. economy. If the latter, we will have to wrestle with the negative consequences for many years.

Well, I think I said it earlier, but the country will take a long time to dig itself out from the destruction of the Obama years, and eight years in office will practically bury American exceptionalism. But as the editors note, the republic will survive. Read the rest at the link.

7:35pm Pacific: It ain't over 'till it's over, but folks are getting glum on Twitter:

@michellemalkin I guess they've chosen "die" in New Hampshire.
— Nick Holmes (@Brensdad_1974) November 7, 2012

7:39pm Pacific: As I was saying:

Dear A$$hole Republican leaders, you suck.You suck like a top of the line Dyson vacuum cleaner. and @reince eff buddy, eff off
— Em (@lamblock) November 7, 2012

8:36pm: This thread's done. I've got a new entry up: "Kenyan Witch Doctor Calls It Correctly: Barack Obama Re-Elected President."

#RomneyRyan Will Protect and Restore 'Judeo-Christian Values'

I met Mitt Romney in March 2010.

I had a feeling he'd wind up as the 2012 GOP nominee, so I decided to attend that book signing. He's a genuinely nice and decent fellow. He's "corny" in an all-American way, to such an extent that upwards of 30,000 people have been thronging events to hear him speak. There's a longing for the values that Romney represents, after almost four-years of progressive attacks on America's basic values and international standing. Indeed, I wish Paul Ryan had spoken out like this earlier in the campaign, "Ryan Says Obama Policies Threaten 'Judeo-Christian' Values":

CASTLE ROCK, Colo. — Representative Paul D. Ryan accused President Obama on Sunday of taking the country down a path that compromised Judeo-Christian values and the traditions of Western civilization.

The remarks came in a conference call with evangelical Christians, sandwiched between public rallies in which he often spoke of the Romney-Ryan ticket’s promise to bridge partisan divides if elected.

Mr. Ryan’s campaign plane touched down in Colorado late on Sunday, his fourth state in a hectic day of rallies meant to maximize turnout on Election Day, and he spoke by phone to the Faith and Freedom Coalition, a group founded by the conservative Christian strategist Ralph Reed.

“It’s a dangerous path,” Mr. Ryan said, describing Mr. Obama’s policies. “It’s a path that grows government, restricts freedom and liberty and compromises those values, those Judeo-Christian, Western civilization values that made us such a great and exceptional nation in the first place.”’

The election's too close to call. For all my bluster and hype, I honestly have no idea who's going to win. As I've been saying for a long time, I think Ohio will be decisive, and if Romney puts both Florida and the Buckeye State in his column I expect it will be over. But listening to other analysts there's a considerable sense that Romney's widened the map and a number of states are within serious reach of a GOP pickup. Pennsylvania would be awesome (Romney could call it a night after that). But Colorado, Virginia and Wisconsin all look like strong potential pickups. There's a theory floating around that this is an "undertow election," that the expected huge grassroots turnout and massive conservative enthusiasm will upend all the establishment polling prognostications and sweep the Republican ticket to victory. I think it's a plausible --- even likely --- theory and that's why I feel so good as this post is being scheduled to go live early morning Tuesday. I'll be at the college until around 3:00pm Pacific. Then I'll head out to vote and pick up my young son at his after-school program. Then I'll be home, sometime before 5:00pm if there's no delay at the local polling station, and I'll be in front of the television trolling the cable channels for reports. And I'll be on Twitter for instant reactions to the night's developments. I'll of course be blogging, so check in here for periodic updates throughout the night.

In any case, check Instapundit and The Other McCain for updates. And the Wall Street Journal's website features free access all day, so there'll be lots of election reporting over there as well.

Until tonight!