Friday, November 9, 2012

The Party of Victory

From Caroline Glick, at National Review:
Next to the American people themselves, Israel is no doubt the biggest immediate loser in the U.S. presidential election. President Obama’s foreign policy is predicated on the false notion that the U.S. and Israel themselves are the principal causes of the Islamic world’s antipathy toward them. Consequently, Obama has cultivated the anti-American, genocidally anti-Jewish Muslim Brotherhood and facilitated the Brotherhood’s takeover of Egypt and Tunisia and its gains in strength throughout the Middle East. In addition, Obama has appeased Iran’s Islamist regime and has enabled it to reach the cusp of nuclear capability.

Obama’s policy of relying on the United Nations has placed Israel’s diplomatic viability at risk as the Palestinians and the international Left that supports and feeds on their cause use the U.N. to delegitimize Israel’s right to exist. Finally, Obama’s animosity toward Israel has strengthened the hand of anti-Israel forces within the Democratic party. In the coming years, Israel will become an increasingly partisan issue in American politics.

While Obama’s reelection clearly places Israel in jeopardy, the plain truth is that the inevitable continuation of his foreign policies places the United States at risk as well. The jihadist assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi must be viewed as a sign of things to come, just as al-Qaeda’s 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and the 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole were precursors of the 9/11 attack on the U.S. mainland. Obama is empowering the United States’ worst enemies in the Sunni and Shiite Muslim worlds alike. Thereby emboldened, they place America at increased risk.

Israel can and must take the actions necessary to mitigate the dangers that Obama’s reelection poses to its national security and indeed its very survival. It must embrace its advantages in economic growth, the domestic support it can count on from its deeply patriotic populace, and its demographic advantages — it is the only Western country with a high and growing fertility rate. It must boldly assert its national rights. In its relationship with the U.S., it must move from being a dependent to being an ally. It must take the military steps necessary to prevent Iran from making good its promise to annihilate the Jewish state. It must deter the Muslim Brotherhood–led Egyptian military from making war against it.

As for the U.S., Israel’s allies in the Republican party and the conservative movement must now take a serious look at their own foreign policy positions and reassess them in the light of the Republican defeat in Tuesday’s elections and in the face of the growing dangers to the country that are the inevitable consequence of Obama’s reelection. This is not merely a partisan interest. It is a matter of the United States’ own national security...

...today and in the coming months and years, there will be a lot of soul-searching in the Republican party and the conservative movement over what went wrong in the 2012 elections. And with that soul-searching will come the inevitable temptation to adopt the Democrats’ policy of appeasement in a bid to woo various constituencies — suburban mothers, for example, and perhaps Muslim communities in Michigan, Tennessee, Minnesota, and other states. But Republicans must understand that, while this is tempting, it is a recipe for repeated electoral defeats. Democrats will always and forever be able to out-appease Republicans. And so constituencies that want the American government to appease our enemies will always and forever vote for them. If the Republicans wish to return to power in the foreseeable future, they must boldly draw a distinction between themselves as the party of victory and the Democrats as the party of defeat.
More at the link.

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

Revenge: Obama Says We Must Raise Taxes on the 'Rich'

Those making $200,000 annually are not "rich," nor are couples who're making $250,000 a year. And we don't have enough people at those income levels to fund the progressive grab bag for Obama's second term. Folks across the middle class are going to get soaked, even those at incomes of $100,000 or less.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Door Open to Compromise on Tax Breaks in 'Cliff' Talks":

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama invited congressional leaders to the White House next Friday to begin talks to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff, opening the door to a possible compromise on taxes.

Mr. Obama said any deal would have to result in wealthy Americans paying more in taxes, but he notably did not repeat his campaign call to let the top tax rate rise on household incomes above $200,000 for individuals and above $250,000 for couples. That left open the possibility of raising tax revenue by limiting or eliminating tax deductions or other tax breaks for families above those thresholds.
Continue reading.

David Petraeus Resigns as Director of CIA

CNN is reporting.

Petraeus is said to have had an "extramarital affair."

Updates forthcoming...

12:07pm PST: At CNN, "BREAKING: CIA Director Petraeus resigning."

12:30pm PST: At London's Daily Mail, "David Petraeus resigns as head of CIA and apologises for 'unacceptable behaviour' after admitting to extra-marital affair."

12:38pm PST: There's lots of speculation at CNN. The administration's Benghazi debacle's coming in for major investigations in the weeks ahead, and the CIA will be in the crosshairs. More later. Meanwhile, check this poll at Theo Spark's, "Sorry but extra-marital affair is not enough to resign over! However it is enough to force him to resign when put under pressure by an administration desperate to hide the facts over Benghazi."

1:09pm PST: There's a huge Memeorandum thread building.


Charles Krauthammer Calls for Immigration Amnesty: 'Everything Short of Citizenship'

There's video at RCP, "Krauthammer Gives Election Post-Mortem: GOP Needs to Be Open to Amnesty." The key segment:
I think Republicans can change their position, be a lot more open to actual amnesty with enforcement. Amnesty, everything short of citizenship. And to make a bold change in their policy. Enforcement and then immediately after, a guarantee of amnesty. That would change everything. If you had a Rubio arguing that it would completely up-end all the ethnic alignments.
I can see the attraction politically, but amnesty's such a loathsome thing, a complete capitulation to progressivism, it's repulsive. But see Krauthammer's Friday column, FWIW, at WaPo, "The way forward":
They lose and immediately the chorus begins. Republicans must change or die. A rump party of white America, it must adapt to evolving demographics or forever be the minority.

The only part of this that is even partially true regards Hispanics. They should be a natural Republican constituency: striving immigrant community, religious, Catholic, family-oriented and socially conservative (on abortion, for example).

The principal reason they go Democratic is the issue of illegal immigrants. In securing the Republican nomination, Mitt Romney made the strategic error of (unnecessarily) going to the right of Rick Perry. Romney could never successfully tack back.

For the party in general, however, the problem is hardly structural. It requires but a single policy change: Border fence plus amnesty. Yes, amnesty. Use the word. Shock and awe — full legal normalization (just short of citizenship) in return for full border enforcement.
More at the link.

Mark Krikorian is having none of it, "Amnesty Is the Best Revenge":
The Chicken Little amnesty panic is underway among the Republican establishment. Boehner, Hannity, the Wall Street Journal, Jeb Bush, Lindsey Graham, Norquist, Krauthammer, et al. are announcing that in the wake of Romney’s loss the GOP can’t survive unless it revisits the failed Bush/Kennedy amnesty.
Read it all.

Frankly, I'm not looking forward to four years of conservative infighting over facilitating the left's open borders agenda. But I doubt this issue is going away anytime soon. The soul searching's going to be deep on the right, and with the demographic shifts seen in the data, conservatives will keep coming back to the question of how to win the Hispanic vote. I'll have more on this topic, no doubt.

Californians Will Now Experience the Joys of One-Party, Union-Run Progressive Governance

I joked around earlier about the how California's the preview of a Democrat partisan realignment in --- and it ain't pretty. The Wall Street Journal lays out the case against unfettered blue-state radicalism, "California's Liberal Supermajority":
For Republicans unhappy with Tuesday's election, we have good news—at least most of you don't live in California. Not only did Democrats there win voter approval to raise the top tax rate to 13.3%, but they also received a huge surprise—a legislative supermajority. Look out below.

The main check on Sacramento excess has been a constitutional amendment requiring a two-thirds majority of both houses to raise taxes. Although Republicans have been in the minority for four decades, they could impose a modicum of spending restraint by blocking tax increases. If Democratic leads stick in two races where ballots are still being counted, liberals will pick up enough seats to secure a supermajority. Governor Jerry Brown then will be the only chaperone for the Liberals Gone Wild video that is Sacramento....

So now Californians will experience the joys of one-party, union-run progressive governance. Mr. Brown is urging lawmakers to demonstrate frugality and the "prudence of Joseph." As he said the other day, "we've got to make sure over the next few years that we pay our bills, we invest in the right programs, but we don't go on any spending binges." That's what all Governors say. Trouble is, merely paying the state's delinquent bills will require tens of billions in additional revenues if lawmakers don't undertake fiscal reforms.

The silver lining here is that Americans will be able to see the modern liberal-union state in all its raw ambition. The Sacramento political class thinks it can tax and regulate the private economy endlessly without consequence. As a political experiment it all should be instructive, and at least Californians can still escape to Nevada or Idaho.

With a Deep Sadness and No Little Fear

Hugh Hewitt's advice to glum conservatives, at IBD.

Looming Tax Hikes Come Into Focus After Obama's Win

At IBD, "Fiscal Cliff: Will Obama Yield On Tax Hikes In Time?":
Until President Obama's victory Tuesday, going over the fiscal cliff seemed like a distant possibility.

Reality may have begun to set in on Wednesday. Unless Obama yields, at least for now, on a central campaign plank — that taxes rise for higher earners — the Republican-led House will have little to gain by striking a deal before the tax cliff hits.
If tax hikes come to be seen as hurting the economy, the Republicans won't want to share responsibility.

The U.S. "may at least briefly go off the fiscal cliff at the end of the year," IHS Global Insight wrote. "This would be a recipe for turmoil in the financial markets, and would threaten such a severe shock to the economy that the pressure to come to some sort of compromise would be extreme."

Come Jan. 1, a series of tax hikes would take effect totaling $400 billion through the end of fiscal 2013 — just nine months.

On top of that, automatic spending cuts would kick in on Jan. 2, divided between the Pentagon and domestic programs. Extended jobless benefits would lapse and Medicare would slash payments to physicians.

Over the full year, the combined tax hike and spending cut would be at least 4% of GDP.
RTWT.

And see NYT, "Lawmakers Say They See Rising Urgency on Fiscal Deal."

Bill Whittle: An Unmitigated Disaster for This Country

This "Hot Seat with Bill Whittle" has some double meaning, since Bill's in the "hot seat" after being one who long ago predicted a tea party rout against the Obama regime. Another prediction bit the dust on Tuesday.

Resist Republican Despair

I think most folks are getting over this and tooling up for the long battle ahead, and I think Laura Ingraham evokes an excellent message (although scapegoating George W. Bush isn't helpful, especially in national security).

Kenneth Turan Reviews 'Lincoln'

At the Los Angeles Times, "Review: Steven Spielberg's 'Lincoln' a towering achievement":

Hollywood's most successful director turns on a dime and delivers his most restrained, interior film. A celebrated playwright shines an illuminating light on no more than a sliver of a great man's life. A brilliant actor surpasses even himself and makes us see a celebrated figure in ways we hadn't anticipated. This is the power and the surprise of "Lincoln."

Directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Tony Kushner and starring Daniel Day-Lewis as the 16th president of the United States, "Lincoln" unfolds during the final four months of the chief executive's life as he focuses his energies on a dramatic struggle that has not previously loomed large in political mythology: his determination to get the House of Representatives to pass the 13th Amendment outlawing slavery.

This narrow focus has paradoxically enabled us to see Lincoln whole in a way a more broad-ranging film might have been unable to match. It has also made for a movie whose pleasures are subtle ones, that knows how to reveal the considerable drama inherent in the overarching battle of big ideas over the amendment as well as the small-bore skirmishes of political strategy and the nitty-gritty scramble for congressional votes.
Continue reading.

Vote Fraud in Philadelphia?

This story was bubbling up all day yesterday, although Weasel Zippers has the hot headline, "Philly Polling Stations Where GOP Inspectors Were Kicked Out Had 90% Voter Turnout, 99% Voted For Obama…"

And see the Philadelphia Inquirer, "Vote was astronomical for Obama in some Philadelphia wards."

The article takes the Democrat numbers in good faith. The rest of us know better.

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Democrat Civility: Dead Pig in Romney T-Shirt Left at GOP Headquarters in Manhattan Beach (VIDEO)

No note was attached, but a dead pig, wrapped in barbed wire and wearing a Mitt Romney t-shirt, needs no further intimidating warnings.

At KABC-TV Los Angeles, "Dead pig left at Republican HQ in Manhattan Beach":
MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. (KABC) -- A dead pig clad in a Mitt Romney T-shirt was left at a Republican campaign office in Manhattan Beach.

Manhattan Beach Police had to discard the pig's head and its feet in a trash bin, but not before several passersby saw it.

"I thought it was a dead body because of the way he approached it," said Manhattan Beach resident Andy Gaeta. "And then when he lifted the shirt, he saw the head wrapped in barbed wire and it's cut in half, the whole skull was. It looked like something from a butcher's market."

The pig was laid out at the doorstep of the Republican headquarters on Highland Avenue.

Tom Scully saw the display about 6:30 a.m. while he was out walking his dog.

"When I got closer I was like, 'Oh, this is kind of gross. There was like barbed wire on its head. It's nasty," said Scully.

Manhattan Beach Police Animal Control later removed the trash bin containing the pig's remains, taking it as evidence. Police say they're investigating the incident as an "illegal dumping of an animal carcass."

According to a police sergeant, they have no evidence suggesting any other crime was committed at this point...
There's video at the link.

No, not a crime, but pure Democrat villainy and hypocrisy no matter how bloodily you slice it.

The president who implored the nation toward greater civility after the Gabby Giffords shooting now has partisans exacting their "revenge" with macabre gangland-style political thuggery. It's going to be a long four years.

In Elections Since 1896, Obama Ranks 22nd Out of 30 in Size of Electoral College Majority

O's so-called "mandate" election doesn't seem all that impressive in historical context. See John Pitney, "Obama's Electoral Vote in Historical Perspective":
The 2012 race was the thirtieth presidential contest since 1896, which many scholars use as the beginning of "modern politics." If we look at those 30 contests, we find that the mean winning percentage of the electoral vote is 73.43% and the median is 71.27%.

In other words, President Obama's share of the electoral vote is below average for winning candidates. It ranks twenty-second out of thirty.
The data are displayed at the post.

Data Show Tectonic Shifts

I've been using the concept of plate tectonics in my discussions of Tuesday's elections. I'm seeing the term thrown out elsewhere as well, although I think it's better to really get a handle on the scope of things before jettisoning the demographic narrative outright, as some on the right are suggesting. That's not to say folks should cave to the left's demographics-is-destiny thesis. These idiots will call you racist no matter what you do. The point is to consider the real demonstrable shifts that are taking place. Here's this, from the Wall Street Journal, to that end, "Vote Data Show Changing Nation":
President Barack Obama's election victory exposed tectonic demographic shifts in American society that are reordering the U.S. political landscape.

The 2012 presidential election likely will be remembered as marking the end of long-standing coalitions, as voters regroup in cultural, ethnic and economic patterns that challenge both parties—but especially Republicans.

Older voters and white working-class voters, once core elements of the Democratic Party, have drifted into the Republican column. Rural and small-town voters, whose grandparents backed the New Deal, now fill the swath of the U.S. that leans reliably GOP.

But in cities and dynamic suburbs, a rapidly growing force of Latinos, Asian-Americans, African-Americans and higher-income whites emerged this week as the strength of Mr. Obama's winning Democratic coalition.

"The Democrats now own a coalition of emerging metro areas where the whites and minorities live together, and where they vote Democratic," said Robert Lang, a demographer who directs the Brookings Mountain West, a research center at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

In northern Virginia's Fairfax County, for example, Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly represents a district where 20 years ago, he said, 3% of residents were born outside the U.S. Now, it is nearly 30%, with the majority Asian immigrants.

Mr. Obama won big there Tuesday, helping him to tally the once reliably Republican state of Virginia for the second straight general election.

Similar shifts throughout the U.S. help explain how Mr. Obama was returned to the White House on support from young people, minorities, women and upscale whites, a coalition virtually identical to the one that carried him to victory four years ago.

Some political analysts thought that coalition came together only because of the historic nature of Mr. Obama's 2008 victory and wouldn't prove durable. That belief didn't hold up this week.

The question now is whether Mr. Obama and other members of his party can solidify this coalition into a foundation of the Democratic Party.

Republicans said their party won a smashing victory in congressional elections just two years ago, when they took control of the House of Representatives, illustrating that there is no clear claim for either party.

The 2010 election, they said, shows that even with modest inroads among Latino and Asian-American voters, the GOP can build a solid majority on the foundation of its strong white support. Republicans enjoy historically high levels of control over governorships and state legislatures, which they say shows the party's potential if it can improve its message to minorities.

In any case, both Democrats and Republicans see new contours of a split electorate.
I've placed in bold a key point I raised as well, in my essay, "Democrat Partisan Relignment."

More later...

Do Dems Really Have an Emerging Majority?

From Megan McArdle, at The Daily Beast, "Is Demography Destiny?"

There's no pullout quote so read it all at the lnk. She's skeptical and raises a lot of provocative issues.

And see William Jacobson as well, "Hope already on the horizon":
I will have more in coming days on the flawed demographic narrative.

You know, the one which liberals love to push particularly since Tuesday that because the percentage of non-white people is growing, Republicans are doomed. Because skin color is destiny to them.
I'll be interested to see how all the numbers shake out. But two things I know. (1) If California's a model for the Democrats nationally, I wouldn't discount the realignment thesis too quickly. Republicans are facing a tough political environment. (2) That said, Americans can't keep spending like a drunken sailor (or they can't keep having bare-backer sex like a Castro District homosexual, to choose a different metaphor) without the bills coming due. Something will change. Political alignments could shift. And the Republicans could once again lead the charge toward both good government and political sanity.

I too will have more on this. I think there's more to the demographic tide than left wing talking points. Tuesday was a big election. It wasn't just that Romney was a flawed candidate or what have you. There's some tectonic shifts taking place. Conservatives indeed have some serious thinking ahead of them.

Voters Reject Death Penalty Repeal in California

The defeat of Proposition 34 was one bright spot in an otherwise deathly blue election in California on Tuesday.

At the Los Angeles Times, "California death penalty repeal, Proposition 34, rejected."

And see, "Californians say they oppose death penalty, then vote for it":
The Field Poll has been querying Californians on the death penalty for more than 50 years, and in 2011 there was a notable shift. Although 68% of respondents said they were in favor of keeping capital punishment, a percentage that had fluctuated only slightly since 2002, the answers grew more interesting when the question was phrased a different way. Asked whether they would rather sentence killers to life without parole or the death penalty, a significant majority of Californians in 2011 said they preferred the former -- 48% favored life imprisonment vs. 40% for state-sponsored execution. Since the poll started asking this question in 2000, death had always trumped a life-in-prison sentence.

Proposition 34 would have done precisely what voters in 2011 said they wanted, resentencing the 726 death row inmates to life without the possibility of parole and eliminating capital punishment as an option in future cases. Yet the initiative lost, 52.8% to 47.2%. What happened?

It's possible the 2011 poll just wasn't all that accurate. Or maybe voters changed their minds when the possibility of ending the death penalty wasn't just theoretical but real. Or perhaps some version of the Bradley effect was at play: Under this theory, white voters are sometimes inclined to tell pollsters they intend to vote for a black candidate even though they don't intend to do so. Similarly, a voter whose brain tells him the death penalty is a seldom-carried-out waste of taxpayer money that risks the execution of an innocent person -- but whose gut tells him that an eye for an eye is the true definition of justice -- might be inclined to tell pollsters that his brain is in charge. Once in the voting booth, the bile takes over.
Wrong. It wasn't that. The freak progressives always blame it on RAAAAACISM!!

No, it was an aggressive blitz by No on 34 forces that powerfully exposed the moral bankruptcy of the initiative. Heinous murderers were about to have their death sentences commuted. The voters woke up when confronted with the brutal truth about progressive "compassion." There is hope toward stemming the tide against the bloody brutal wave of progressive decadence and decay. Conservatives can't sit around and pout. They've got to redouble the fight, even in the bluest of (black and) blue states like California.

More at the San Jose Mercury News, "Death penalty proposition: Statement from No on Prop 34."

America Goes Into the Darkness

From the inimitable Melanie Phillips:
Four years ago, America put into the White House a sulky narcissist with an unbroken history of involvement in thuggish, corrupt, far-left, black power, Jew-bashing, west-hating politics. Obama’s agenda has been crystal clear from the get-go: to increase the power of the state over the citizen at home, and to neutralise American power abroad. Four more years of this and he’ll almost certainly have succeeded.  The impact upon western security could be cataclysmic.

Britain and the Europeans love Obama because they think he will end American exceptionalism and turn the US into a pale shadow of themselves. What they don’t realise is that, all but lobotomised by consumerist rights, state dependency, victim culture, sentimentality, post-religion, post-nationalism and post-Holocaust and Empire guilt, Britain and Europe are themselves fast going down the civilisational tubes.

Romney lost because he refused to provide an alternative to any of this for fear of being labelled a warmonger, flint-heart or social reactionary. He refused to engage with any of the issues that made this Presidential election so truly momentous. Up against the bullying of the totalitarian left, he ran for cover. He played safe, and as a result only advertised his own weakness and dishonesty. Well, voters can smell inconsistency from a mile away; they call it untrustworthiness, and they are right.

Romney lost because, like Britain’s Conservative Party, the Republicans just don’t understand that America and the west are being consumed by a culture war. In their cowardice and moral confusion, they all attempt to appease the enemies within. And from without, the Islamic enemies of civilisation stand poised to occupy the void.

With the re-election of Obama, America now threatens to lead the west into a terrifying darkness.

'There is much to life beyond politics...'

Ann Althouse offers some consolation, at Instapundit, "THANKS TO GLENN..."

And from Ann's blog, "'Listen, I like stopping by Althouse, but let's get real. Althouse and Meade are living a high-income, privileged life that many of us can only dream about'."

Gay Marriage Victories May Signal Larger Shift

Perhaps broader social acceptance of homosexuality is genuinely breaking through. The gay marriage movement saw some of its first state-level victories on Tuesday night. Progressive depravity is getting a pass at the polls.

At the Los Angeles Times:

Four years ago, opponents of gay marriage celebrated a winning streak, having persuaded California voters to end marriage rights for gays. If courts or legislatures bowed to the pro-marriage forces, the opposition figured it could just go to the ballot box to restore marriage bans.

But all that changed Tuesday, when gay marriage supporters succeeded in the four states where the question was on the ballot. Until then, voters had consistently opposed marriage rights, most recently in May in North Carolina.

The opposing sides differed on the significance, with Christian conservatives considering the election a blip and gay rights activists describing it as a monumental sea change. But the results emboldened activists to target other states for marriage rights and left their opponents reeling.

Gay rights activists singled out President Obama's change of heart in favor of same-sex marriage as a key ingredient in Tuesday's victories. Just four years ago, the sponsors of Proposition 8's ban on same-sex marriage made robocalls to California homes with a recording of Obama saying he opposed gay nuptials.

"His shift caused a lot of other politicians to feel free to change their positions as well and made it easier for African American churches to change their positions," said Jon W. Davidson, legal director for Lambda Legal, a gay rights organization.

With election victories in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington, gay rights activists said Wednesday that they would focus next on winning marriage rights both in the federal courts and in state legislatures, which could include states such as Rhode Island, Delaware, Hawaii and Illinois.

"When you have momentum on your side, it's the time to double down," said Chad Griffin, who launched the legal fight against Proposition 8. "That's exactly what we've got to do: We've got to take this momentum and move forward."
RELATED: "Bishop E.W. Jackson: ‘It Is Time For a Mass Exodus from the Democrat Party’."

BONUS: "Gay Marriage is Not a Civil Right."

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."

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

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):

Divisions
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:


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.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

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.

Obama Crying
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:



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:


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:


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:


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

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

Obama Communist
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:


7:39pm Pacific: As I was saying:


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!

Democracy's Feast

From Timothy Dale, at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, "Elections are celebrations of the American way":
In the United States, our patriotism is rooted in the democratic principle that we participate in the decisions that affect our lives. The symbols of our patriotism - the flag, the national anthem and the Pledge of Allegiance - represent underlying ideals of liberty, equality and self-determination. We unite around these symbols because we agree about the fundamental values they represent. On election day, we should unite around voting because it is more than a symbol of these values. Voting is the actual practice of living out the ideals of democracy.

An election, and all that comes with it, is a celebration of democracy. Voting is the practice and commemoration of the spirit of a government that is founded and renewed on the principle that we are the source of political power. As we vote Tuesday, enthusiasm and pride should overtake our fatigue, knowing that our trip to the ballot box is the lifeblood of democratic governance. Election day is a day to honor democracy.
I like to think of it like that. Indeed, this is what I teach my students.

Read it all at the link.

Voting Irregularities Expected

There may well be some problems at the polls today, but you'll get even better odds on progressives alleging voting irregularities simply to delay vote counting and disrupt GOP momentum in the swing states.

Something's gonna happen, that's for sure.

Some background at the Los Angeles Times, "Election experts say a lot could go wrong":
Peg Rosenfield has been monitoring elections for the League of Women Voters in Ohio for almost 40 years and has seen just about every voting glitch imaginable. She says there's a saying among election workers:

"Please, God, make it a landslide."

In a landslide, there is no quibbling over hanging chads or provisional ballots or registration requirements or rigged voting machines or whether ballots were cast by the dead. A winner is declared, a loser concedes — election over.

No one expects a landslide when Americans go to the polls on Tuesday. As in 2000 and 2004, there is great potential for the race to be too close to call immediately in some states, and the possibility that the presidency will hang for days or weeks on a recount, or on the counting of provisional or late-arriving absentee ballots.

It is possible the election won't be decided at the polls alone, but, as in 2000, that it will determined in court — or in Congress.

"The best chance is that we end up with a winner declared on election day and then everything's done," said Rick Hasen, an election law specialist at the UC Irvine School of Law, but "there is no question that there will be some glitches on election day." The question is how serious they are and whether they will decide the winner.

This much is known: The election will be subjected to unprecedented scrutiny by both campaigns, by a variety of partisan and nonpartisan monitors, and by thousands of lawyers prepared to go to court at the sight of the slightest irregularity.

"It's the new normal," said Ed Foley, an election law expert at Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law. "You could see some lawsuits that may end up not amounting to much, but skirmishes as the candidates try to control the terrain."
RTWT.

Payback

After watching Fox News all evening yesterday --- taking in Hannity, Greta, and O'Reilly from 6 to 9pm Pacific --- I clicked over to watch Rachel Maddow's show. I rarely do this, for reasons that are obvious. She's frequently wrong, and regularly dishonest. I'm rarely surprised watching her show, which is of course all progressive red meat for today's far-left Democrat partisans. But this opening segment was a little more over the top than usual. After going through a list of President Obama's accomplishments, she declared that a second term for this administration would elevate Obama as one of "the most consequential" presidents in American history. I guess that's understandable coming from someone as far-left as Maddow. The ideological mirror is true on the right side of the spectrum. Conservatives widely consider this administration as one of the worst in history, even surpassing the Carter administration for the mantle of most inept, candy-assed regime of modern times. I'm not one of those predicting a Mitt Romney landslide. Oh, I won't be surprised at a Romney win, but it'll be a close run thing no matter how it turns out. That said, folks might get a kick out of Michael's Walsh's essay, at National Review, "Crush Them." This passage is key:

From Day One of the Obama administration, real conservatives understood the explicit threat of “fundamental change,” whose meaning can now be clearly discerned in Obama’s “revenge” remark; for the Left, “revenge” is precisely what this election is all about. For them and their voting-bloc constituents, it’s payback time: payback for slavery and segregation; payback for poverty; payback for foreign wars; payback for restrictive immigration laws. They’ve long used the goals of the civil-rights movement — which after all was directed precisely against Democrats – and the Vietnam-era “anti-war” movement — which arose in opposition to the foreign policy of the Democrats — as wedges with which to crack the larger social structure and now, so close to realizing the ultimate expression of “critical theory” — that everything about America stinks — they and their media allies are doing their best to swing one last election for Obama.

Mitt Romney is an imperfect standard bearer, but tomorrow he is the army we have. Elsewhere, I’ve predicted a Romney victory and even a retake of the Senate, despite the breathtaking tactical stupidity of Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock, both of whom needlessly wandered into the mine field of social issues (where the media is guaranteed 100 percent arrayed against them) and blew their own feet off. But, should Romney win, he can’t simply assume the vote was a mandate for putting America back to work, and then do his corporate-turnaround thing. If he wins, if his victory is beyond the margin of David Axelrod’s ability to cheat, Mitt needs to understand that a considerable portion of his vote was not only anti-Obama but anti-Obamaism, that it was a repudiation of everything the Marxist Left and its bien-pensant fellow travelers in the media stand for. And, most important, that going forward, it’s a call to substantially reduce their influence on the body politic.
There's more at the link, but that really is it.

Just listen to the orgasmic glee at which Maddow rattles off this veritable Christmas list of pent-up progressive policy demands. She's loving the payback, and she's literally chomping at the bit for a second term to consolidate the left's programs of the last four years, knowing deep inside that these are not popular agenda items with the bulk of the American people. Obama's been lucky. From his rise as the un-vetted savior in 2008 to his exploitation of the horrible but politically fortuitous hurricane last week, this president has just been riding along atop the froth of history, with hardly a real accomplishment to his name other than becoming a vessel for all the dreams of the American neo-socialist left.

So yes, victory is important. But if Romney doesn't win tomorrow it's only going to delay the reckoning. Politics moves in cycles. Perhaps Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.'s cyclical theory of public purpose is now having its moment after years of private interest politics. But at some point the cycle of history swings back, and in this case it'll swing back with a vengeance. The tea party set the contemporary standard for protests movements, and activists are seasoned now at grassroots-to-governing politics. There'll be a rekindled revolt upon a second Obama term, because the left's push for change has indeed been radical and disruptive. And the left's politics has been completely divisive and contemptuous of what in the past has been largely bipartisan courtesy and respect. Obama himself governed as a calculating partisan, not the highly touted "post-partisan" unifying figure he campaigned as. He's a fraud all around, and a dishonest hack with no decency or larger values. For example, see this shocking post at Lonely Conservative as a case in point, "Uber Creepy Campaign Tweet From Team Obama."

By hook or by crook the Obama Democrat-socialists may indeed leverage themselves back into power. But if they do, there'll be a rekindled conservative movement to light a million prairie fires of outrage against a second Obama term.

Stay tuned. Either way, I'm amped up for the fight.


Savannah Guthrie: Obama's Got Nuthin'

Man, Guthrie's coming on here like a gut punch to the collective MSNBC solar plexus.

Amazing.


Also at Mediaite, "Savannah Guthrie: Hurricane Sandy Handed To Obama ‘From Above’ to Let Him Appeal to Independents."

To Hell With Nate Silver!

That's Robert Stacy McCain, actually: "OHIO: IT’S MITT’S TO WIN":
Eight days into this Ohio road trip, I’m sick of all these experts who issue their pronouncements from the comfort of their living rooms without ever having set foot in a swing state, pundits whose idea of a “road trip” is blogging from their neighborhood Starbucks.

To hell with Nate Silver, and to hell with all the rest of them, these stationary buddhas of political prognostication, journalistic intellectuals who consider mere reporting to be beneath their dignity. You won’t find any graduates of the Kennedy School of Government sleeping on the floors of motel rooms and eating crappy breakfast food from the nearest convenience store. But I digress .
Read it all at the link. Plus, "Wild-Ass Scenarios? Chill."

I'm not for the "wild-ass" prediction scenarios either, although it's grim reaper time for Nate Silver if Obama fails to meet the "wild-ass" 538 "math-based" projections. The wonder boy's got Obama pegged at an 87 percent chance of wining? Sheesh. Talk about progressive dreams. The left is going to be all shot to hell if Romney wins.

And don't miss Colby Cosh at Macleans, "Tarnished Silver: Colby Cosh assesses the new king of stats." (The bottom line: Silver's lucky.)

PREVIOUSLY:

* "Romney's Internal Polling Shows GOP Up in Ohio, Tied in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin."

* "Don't Be Surprised When Obama Loses."

* "Nate Silver Bets $2,000 on Obama's Reelection, Provokes Public Editor's Ire."

* "Nate Silver Fast on His Way to One-Term Celebrity."

* "Akron Beacon Poll Finds Ohio Dead Heat at 49-49 — Presidential Race Tighter Than Obama's A**hole in a Prison Shower."

* "Nate Silver: Voice of the New Castrati."

* "If Bias Doesn't Matter Why Would Bill Maher Host Nate Silver on 'Real Time'?"

* "Oh My! Romney Back Up to 51 Percent in Gallup's Daily Tracking — Nate Silver Hardest Hit!"

* "'Grand Swami' Nate Silver Boosts O's Chances to 71.0% in Electoral College!"

* "Obama Crashing in Ohio; or, For the Love of Mercy, Leave Nate Silver Alone!"

* "Nate Silver Calls It: Advantage Obama!"

* "Nate Silver's Flawed Model."

* "Boom! Romney Back Up 52-45 in Gallup's Daily Tracking of Likely Voters."

* "ABC News Touts Nate Silver's Prediction That Obama's Handicapped at 68 Percent Chance to Win!"

* "'It's becoming increasingly obvious that Silver can't be taken seriously...'"

* "Nate Silver Blows Gasket as Gallup Shows Romney Pulling Away in the Presidential Horse Race."

Check back tonight for the final 2012 Nate Silver polling update!

Decision Day in America

At the Wall Street Journal, "Obama and Romney Battle Down to Wire":

After more than one million television ads, countless appearances and three contentious debates, the 2012 presidential election remained on a knife's edge with both candidates seeking to shore up support in states crucial to their chances Tuesday.

President Barack Obama cheered on backers in Wisconsin, Ohio and Iowa on Monday, evidence that his campaign aimed to build a firewall in the Midwest to try to block his Republican rival. He plans to await the election returns at his base in Chicago.

Mitt Romney swooped through four battleground states—Virginia, Florida, Ohio and New Hampshire—where the Republican needs to do well to secure a win. His campaign organized two additional stops on Election Day, at campaign offices in Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Mr. Romney is hedging his bets with a last-minute push in Pennsylvania before he returns to Boston to monitor the returns.

National polls are essentially tied while polls in some battleground states showed Mr. Obama with narrow leads. Both campaigns said their internal data show their candidate would win.

Voters are set to determine whether $6 billion in advertising and other campaign spending would bring a new era to Washington—with a Republican White House and administration—or extend the status quo of a Democratic White House and split Congress.

The result will answer some questions that have lingered since Mr. Obama's historic 2008 victory. The president was sent to the White House by a coalition comprising segments of the electorate—African-Americans, Hispanics and young voters—as well as women. The president's aides spent much of the past four years working to keep that group together, one that if it remains viable could be a lasting strength for Democrats.

With the margin of victory for the winner expected to be narrow, a likely outcome is a political system as split as the country. It isn't clear either party would be positioned to emerge Wednesday with a clear mandate for tackling some the nation's biggest problems—including the looming tax increases and spending cuts known as the fiscal cliff.

The tightness of the race sparked speculation about the possibility of unusual outcomes, such as an Electoral College tie or the winner failing to capture a majority of the popular vote.

Monday, November 5, 2012

Polling Conservative Bloggers on the 2012 Election

John Hawkins has a survey, at Right Wing News:
Right Wing News polled more than 230 right-of-center bloggers on who they think is going to win tomorrow and whom they plan to vote for in the election. The following 68 bloggers responded....
Check the link for the results.

Jessica Davies at Front Army

Lovely Egotastic! election eve ogling pics.