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[Brentai]

Put another way: They can't possibly win another Presidential election without tacking left.  The math won't allow it.

[Bal]

For some reason I read "The deep red" as "the drop dead red". I don't know why, but I'm going to go with it.

[Mazian]

That's their challenge now - reaching out to the middle after 12 years of for-us-or-go-die.  And it probably won't happen until they manage to excise the elements within themselves that still think that way.

Amazingly to me, there are elements of the normally unshakable conservative-Christian wing that are starting to think that way:

“It’s that the entire moral landscape has changed,” he said. “An increasingly secularized America understands our positions, and has rejected them.”

But then, there's a big anti-compromise bloc in the House that has already rejected any moderation of their stance in the next Congressional session, sooooo....  Wonder if some faction's going to make a play to seize the Speaker's seat from Boehner.

[Thad]

Put another way: They can't possibly win another Presidential election without tacking left.  The math won't allow it.

That's a reasonable person's interpretation.

An unreasonable person's interpretation is "We just need to work harder to keep Mexicans from voting."

It worked pretty goddamn well here.

I don't think they can take another presidential election through voter disenfranchisement (short of another perfect storm like 2000, where the deciding state was run by the candidate's brother and campaign manager), but there are still plenty of House races to be won that way, I think.  And that's without getting into local office.

Wonder how long they can continue to actually win races through suppressing turnout.  Four more years?  Eight?  Maybe even longer, but it seems to me the longer they keep it up the more long-term damage it will do to the Republican brand.


It'd be funny if the Republican Party started campaigning to abolish the electoral college but I don't really see things going as far as that.

[Bal]

At least the votes are getting counted here. Barber pulled ahead and seems to be on track to take his seat. I wonder, give how many provisional ballots there were here (over 600k) if some of the propositions might end up swinging a different direction when all is said and done.

[Shinra]

More like Chris Christie.

But yeah, this makes official the fact that Romney did not take a single swing state.  That's what Republicans are worried about: they have very effectively made themselves unpalatable to EVERYONE but the deep red (which is what generally happens when you tell them they don't matter), and those sectors are diminishing in power every year.  That's their challenge now - reaching out to the middle after 12 years of for-us-or-go-die.  And it probably won't happen until they manage to excise the elements within themselves that still think that way.

Technically North Carolina was a swing state, but only in the same sense Wisconsin was, really. By the same standards the media used to frame the Bush re-election, this is a mandate. I suspect a large part of the reason that the mainstream media isn't as quick to play the mandate card probably has something to do with more than half of Obama's voters not being white men.

From everything I've seen outside of the obscurer republican strategists, everybody including (esp) Karl Rove seems to agree that the only reason Mitt lost was because he wasn't conservative enough and stayed on defense too much. Considering these two things are the opposite of what is true, barring a mass epiphany it looks like we will see a repeat of their 2012 performance in 2016, but maybe with a token minority as their guy. Rubio seems likely. He's Cuban, and all hispanics like all other hispanics, right? Automatically!

The GOP formula for voters seems to be "only white people are smart" and "of smart people, only men matter". The funny thing is, if they nominate Rubio I imagine a lot of their baked in white voterbase will vote for a white Democrat over "that damn Mexican". I seriously doubt they're going to manage 60% of the white vote again without a black guy as the other choice.

[R^2]

Instead of talking about how wrong their "math" was the conservative media (or at least Rush Limbaugh earlier today) is talking about how it is no longer a white America.

So I guess 2016 will look like 2012.

What's wrong with whites becoming minorities?
:wonka:
Are minorities treated like second-class citizens or something?

[Stush]

I make it a point to say loudly to the check-out clerk, "EBT, what is that for?" She inevitably says, "it's government assistance." I respond, "Oh, you mean welfare? Great. I work for a living. I'm paying for my food with my own hard-earned dollars. And other people get their food for free." And I look around with disgust, making sure others in line have heard me.

This is like the libertarian version of a dude who goes to a coffee shop with a super-intellectual book and sits next to girls to see if they'll notice what he's reading.

[Ted Belmont]

From everything I've seen outside of the obscurer republican strategists, everybody including (esp) Karl Rove seems to agree that the only reason Mitt lost was because he wasn't conservative enough and stayed on defense too much. Considering these two things are the opposite of what is true, barring a mass epiphany it looks like we will see a repeat of their 2012 performance in 2016, but maybe with a token minority as their guy. Rubio seems likely. He's Cuban, and all hispanics like all other hispanics, right? Automatically!

This was pretty much the exact argument I heard from a prominent GOP strategist whose name I can't recall on NPR the other day.

[Bal]

The GOP actually seems pretty drastically divided on this point. Whether they need to move center, and get back women and Hispanics (with whom they actually have an ideological foothold if they can just get something reasonable going with immigration), or go even deeper down the right wing rabbit hole. I mean, look at Boehner since the election. Sticks out the olive branch, only to have it smacked out of his hand by the Tea Party. Now he's dancing around like a frog on a hot plate trying to find some kind of middle ground, not with the Dems, but with his own party so he can actually, you know, get anything done at all as Speaker. I feel bad for the guy, he looks more exhausted than Obama.

[Brentai]

At some point someone has to raise the question of how much Boehner's circumstances are due to poor luck and how much they're due to Boehner not being very good at his job.

[Zaratustra]

The reps also need to fucking stop grilling the left for doing things the right would do anyway. Besides Obamacare, the fucking jab at Chrysler was essentially "Hey obama gave a lot of money to businesses and they left! -we- are going to give lots of money to businesses!"

[Brentai]

Most of them still actually think Obama signed TARP.

[Kfroog]

At some point someone has to raise the question of how much Boehner's circumstances are due to poor luck and how much they're due to Boehner not being very good at his job.

Incompetent Drunk: The John Boehner is 'Bad at His Job' Hypothesis

Nearly a year ago.

[Brentai]

Frank retroactively brings up the other nice thing: The momentum of the political machine right now means that the Republican party will not, in fact, benefit from intentionally hurting people, as opposed to when they were running every election on the "Make the black guy look bad" strategy.

Of course, you have to kind of hope they realize that in time.  This is the part where generally the villain just can't seem to stop being a dick long enough to preserve himself and ends up bringing about his own downfall.

[TA]

Well, people are hitting up the White House petition site already.

[Brentai]

I like the idea of Texas seceding, given that voting map.  Hey guys see that solid blue line at the bottom?  Yeah, that's just gonna keep moving up, and you guys aren't going to have much of anywhere else to go.  Enjoy your flan.

[Zaratustra]

Not to mention the progressive bluing of oh, every city with more than a hundred thousand people.

[Royal☭]

If Texas secedes I will lose what little federal protection I currently have.

[Büge]

http://gawker.com/5959174/georgia-voters-vote-for-my-neighbors-cat-and-burning-bag-of-dogshit-over-anti+science-congressman