Elections 2012: BFP Watch Party

[dreadgeek]

1) The Southern Strategy of race -baiting is now dead. The GOP can never again do the wink and nod and use things like "we want to teach blacks how to work" as a way of gaining votes. The GOP will have to change its tune on immigration and send the Muslim-baiting folks like Bachmann (who won) and West (who didn't) into political Siberia.

2) The country has turned a corner on gay rights. We were running 0 for 32 until last night and we swept on marriage equality so we are now 4 for 32.

3) The end of the drug war may not be in sight but we just passed the beginning of the end of the drug war.

4) The pendulum has swung and America is now course-correcting back to a more liberal-centrist position.

5) The GOP is going to have to drop the anti-birth control insanity and they will have to moderate their anti-abortion stance.

Cheers
Aj

[Sun]

Arizona is still counting the votes on the Senate race and I am hoping that Kyrsten Sinema will be the winner. The race is very close. 2,000 votes are left to be counted.

[Martina]

Prop 30 -- a raise in income tax for those making over 250k -- passed. This is good news for education in California -- and good news for me.

[Martina]

I just wanna say to all my white born again relatives, you will never ever have the power to decide the Presidency again. Demographic changes mean that you will never ever be able to impose your ignorant standards on others. You think that you are true Americans. You are not. No one running for President will be obliged to pander to you ever again.

You lost more than this election tonight. Your time is over.

Karl Rove, your day is over too. Genius, my ass.

edited to add -- Does anyone remember what hell the eighties were when the Moral Majority intimidated anyone running for election? Who could have imagined this day coming. Those folks will NEVER ever hold significant power on the national stage AGAIN.

[Soon]

[Kobi]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

1) The Southern Strategy of race -baiting is now dead. The GOP can never again do the wink and nod and use things like "we want to teach blacks how to work" as a way of gaining votes. The GOP will have to change its tune on immigration and send the Muslim-baiting folks like Bachmann (who won) and West (who didn't) into political Siberia.

2) The country has turned a corner on gay rights. We were running 0 for 32 until last night and we swept on marriage equality so we are now 4 for 32.

3) The end of the drug war may not be in sight but we just passed the beginning of the end of the drug war.

4) The pendulum has swung and America is now course-correcting back to a more liberal-centrist position.

5) The GOP is going to have to drop the anti-birth control insanity and they will have to moderate their anti-abortion stance.

Cheers
Aj

Aj I love your brain but are you serious on this?

I am suspecting just the opposite. When the dust settles and they analyze what went wrong, the GOP is going to be back on the warpath with a vengence.

The reason? The close popular vote - last count I think was 48.8-48.4. Swing states, tho successful, were won by the hair on someones chinny chin chin. Thats still a shitload of hatred and division in a very polarized county.

Congress has the same composition with some new faces and there is no reason to think the stalemate of the last 4 years will end. And, I dont see an appreciable difference on the local level where the war on women and others is still being waged.

And, unfortunately, in 4 years, there will be no charismatic Obama leading the way. Biden is not an Obama. Hillary, I love, but she isnt an Obama and barring some unforeseen change of heart, this country is not ready for a woman to lead it.

On the other hand, the GOP has a lot of up and coming white male stars they have been and will be grooming and investing in. And, they now know to focus better on potential groups who may help push them over the top. They will not lay down.

Personally, I am going to enjoy the victory, but this was just another successful skirmish in a very big ideological war.

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Kobi

[COLOR="Navy"]
Aj I love your brain but are you serious on this?

Serious as a heart attack Kobi. Now, I might be wrong that has happened more times than not but I don't think I'm wrong for a few reasons:

1) A number of true conservatives (as opposed to right-wing reactionaries who call themselves conservative) who have been talking about the GOP's demographics problem for a while now have already started the conversation about how to gain more minority voters. The percentage of the American electorate that is white keeps ticking downward. 74% in 2008, 72% in 2012 and on track for 70% in 2016. There's simply no mathematical way that the GOP can be nationally viable trying to court only the white vote and pealing off a few scattered black and Latino votes here and there. Mathematically impossible. Obama won 75% of the Latino vote (13% of the population) and 91% of the black vote (10%). That means that if the GOP continues going on as it has, it could lose substantial majorities of almost a *quarter* of the population. That's not total numbers, those are actual votes.

2) The GOP lost women voters by a full 19% on the national level. That's devastating. That can be tied to their stance on women's health issues, abortion, birth control and equal pay for equal work. They can't suffer that kind of thing again.

3) It's clear that the nation has moved on gay rights. We were 0 for 32 until last night and we were 4 for 4 in the cycle that finished yesterday. That's two of the pillars of the culture wars that the GOP can no longer rely on to push them over the top. Does that mean that America turns into queer nirvana tomorrow? No, it will be hard to be queer in Alabama for a long, long time to come. It does mean that the GOP is going to have to face the fact that the culture war is over and they lost.

The country is certainly as divided as you say it is and we will have contentious elections for some time to come but 2012 is the Republican's 1968. In that year, the Democrats lost badly an election that should have been winnable and five cycles later (1992) nominate Bill Clinton, a centrist Democrat. The GOP will win more elections and they will win more presidential elections but they have no choice but to change their tune. The consequences of the near total epistemic closure on the right is now coming home and from what I have read on conservative blogs that are sane (so not Drudge, Red State or WND) they are waking up to the fact that they did this to themselves.

Like I said, I might be wrong but I think we've seen a sea change in American politics.


Cheers
Aj

[DMW]

Update on Florida
this is interesting...
the counts on florida
now, obama leading romney 47261 and 50072 votes left to be counted

[JustJo]

I hope that dreadgeek is right...and I fear that Kobi is.

I'm beyond relieved and thankful that Obama won. Romney, and his crazy woman-hating, racist cohorts scare the crap out of me.

The worst thing, to me, is how freaking close this race was. The Republican platform was a call to hatred, to racism, and to repression.

And it was a close race.

That scares the hell out of me.

I hope that, in 4 years, the numbers will have shifted. I hope that the sane Conservatives (who I have no issue with) will figure out that they need to rid themselves of the insane fringe element of haters in their party.

I hope so.

I'm just not betting on it.

I'm not really celebrating....I'm breathing a sigh of relief. I feel like we just dodged a really big bullet, and we have a small reprieve.

[Zimmeh]

Florida is known as the ass backwards state for a reason. There are still quite a few old Republicans in power down here and I would like to see them try and live on $9.65 an hour for a month!

I was born in Daytona Beach, Florida and this state has changed so much and it is now governed by someone who was convicted of Medicare fraud and employers look to Disney to see how much they pay their employees...

Where is the great state that I was born in?

Zimmeh

Originally Posted by DMW

Update on Florida
this is interesting...
the counts on florida
now, obama leading romney 47261 and 50072 votes left to be counted

[Kobi]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

Serious as a heart attack Kobi. Now, I might be wrong that has happened more times than not but I don't think I'm wrong for a few reasons:

1) A number of true conservatives (as opposed to right-wing reactionaries who call themselves conservative) who have been talking about the GOP's demographics problem for a while now have already started the conversation about how to gain more minority voters. The percentage of the American electorate that is white keeps ticking downward. 74% in 2008, 72% in 2012 and on track for 70% in 2016. There's simply no mathematical way that the GOP can be nationally viable trying to court only the white vote and pealing off a few scattered black and Latino votes here and there. Mathematically impossible. Obama won 75% of the Latino vote (13% of the population) and 91% of the black vote (10%). That means that if the GOP continues going on as it has, it could lose substantial majorities of almost a *quarter* of the population. That's not total numbers, those are actual votes.

2) The GOP lost women voters by a full 19% on the national level. That's devastating. That can be tied to their stance on women's health issues, abortion, birth control and equal pay for equal work. They can't suffer that kind of thing again.

3) It's clear that the nation has moved on gay rights. We were 0 for 32 until last night and we were 4 for 4 in the cycle that finished yesterday. That's two of the pillars of the culture wars that the GOP can no longer rely on to push them over the top. Does that mean that America turns into queer nirvana tomorrow? No, it will be hard to be queer in Alabama for a long, long time to come. It does mean that the GOP is going to have to face the fact that the culture war is over and they lost.

The country is certainly as divided as you say it is and we will have contentious elections for some time to come but 2012 is the Republican's 1968. In that year, the Democrats lost badly an election that should have been winnable and five cycles later (1992) nominate Bill Clinton, a centrist Democrat. The GOP will win more elections and they will win more presidential elections but they have no choice but to change their tune. The consequences of the near total epistemic closure on the right is now coming home and from what I have read on conservative blogs that are sane (so not Drudge, Red State or WND) they are waking up to the fact that they did this to themselves.

Like I said, I might be wrong but I think we've seen a sea change in American politics.


Cheers
Aj

Aj, I understand your rationale well. I hope you are right. I hope I am wrong.

Yes, the GOP needs to change strategies to draw in more minority and female voters. They need the numbers and they need them in areas they usually dont win. Only then will they have the opportunity to exert their true agenda. Does that mean they are going to abandon their sexist, racist bullshit? Not likely.

The GOP is pragmatic and opportunistic tho in a fucked up way. I suspect they will go after the minority vote in a more concentrated way in areas they dont usually have success.

Specifically, they will target minority males. They will attempt to draw in these males by doing what they have been successfully doing for 4 years now......men need to regain their control, men need to assert their manhood and its control, men need to keep their women in line, men need to reassert their dominance. And, in their fucked up brains....as men go so do "their women".

Put it in a historical context. When it came to abolition, blacks and women teamed up, they were both slaves/indentured servants in a white mans world. And yet, when the issue of giving the right to vote to former slaves arose, black male leaders abandoned the women who fought along side of them.

It was Frederick Douglass who turned down Anthony and Stantons request that he insist that women be allow the right to vote just as black men were about to be allowed to. According to Douglass, "their treatment as slaves entitled the now liberated African-American men, who lacked women's indirect empowerment, to voting rights before women were granted the franchise. African-American women, he believed, would have the same degree of empowerment as white women once African-American men had the vote; hence, general female suffrage was, according to Douglass, of less concern than black male suffrage."

Men bonded in solidarity with other men for their own benefit. A man is a man is a man....and a woman is not. And women had to fight another 50 years to get the right to vote. Even then, it required a lil bit of extortion.

History has a way of repeating itself over and over and over just in more creative ways as time goes on. It is a mistake to assume something is an ideological change when it may just be slanting the ideology in a potentially more lucrative and fruitful direction.

Same with gay rights. To say "the culture war is over and they lost" is to lose sight of history. The GOP already has a significant contingent of rich, white and non white queer males. They even have some rich queer females. The operative words here are rich and male....not queer. Just as the end of slavery hasnt abolished racism in this country, the passage of queer friendly legislation isnt going to abolish homophobia. It may, however, lull us into believing an ideological change has occured when it really hasnt.

I hope you are right. I hope I am wrong cuz I am fucking weary of fighting this fight. Yet, history continuously warns me to never underestimate the power, influence, and control of both internalized and externalized hatred in its many forms. It can be used to exploit, control and otherwise fuck with people in some pretty nefarious ways.

[girl_dee]

I feel there will always have racist, sexist assholes, but the country is finallt shifting, the tables are turning.

The GOP i feel isn't going to gaim supporters with their ideals. Young people won't have it. Some will but the balance is shifting away from the ideals that seem dated and unfair.

Look at the audience for both candidates. Obama's audience represents America as it is today, diverse. Romneys reflects only the elite white man.

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Kobi

Aj, I understand your rationale well. I hope you are right. I hope I am wrong.

Take this in the spirit in which it is given Kobi, so do I. I would really strongly prefer that my grandson and granddaughter *not* have to continue fighting this. I don't want to give the impression that I'm being a Pollyanna because I'm constitutionally very poor at being that optimistic. Your analysis is spot on. The wild card is whether the GOP wants to be a national party or a regional party. One or two more elections like this and they could be the latter.

Consider: if the GOP had not embraced the Southern strategy my parents would have probably been Republicans by the mid-80s. They were liberal on civil rights, pro-union, nominally feminist and that was about the extent of their liberalism. On everything else they were fairly conservative (in the old sense not in this new crazy, clown-car sense). So honestly they *should* have been Republicans. Blacks *used* to vote Republican when we could vote, the GOP is right that MLK was a Republican as was Jackie Robinson. Then they embraced the race-baiting and blacks turned away from the GOP in droves. It will be a month of seven Sundays, particularly given their recent flat-out embrace of virulent racism, before blacks return to the GOP.

My own prediction, given the fact that Latinos stampeded toward Obama in a big way is that the GOP has one, perhaps two, Presidential electoral cycles to get their act together regarding race and if they don't, they're done. If they lose the Latino vote for two generations at the level they've lost the black vote for two generations, the GOP as it currently stands winds up a rump regional party that is strong in Deep Dixie, can hold on in some of the Midwest and Rocky Mountain states and is all but dead in Florida, the Southwest, West Coast and East Coast north of Virginia. They could lose Texas and Arizona soon if they keep going as they are.

Yes, the GOP needs to change strategies to draw in more minority and female voters. They need the numbers and they need them in areas they usually dont win. Only then will they have the opportunity to exert their true agenda. Does that mean they are going to abandon their sexist, racist bullshit? Not likely.

You couldn't pay me to be a GOP strategist right now because they have an *impossible* job. They have to simultaneously hold the sane part of the base, shed the theocratic and rabid John Birch Society parts of the party *and* expand their base beyond the South. That's a tall order. How they are going to do it, I don't know and I doubt that there are a dozen people in the GOP who have any ideas about how to pull it off.

The GOP is pragmatic and opportunistic tho in a fucked up way. I suspect they will go after the minority vote in a more concentrated way in areas they dont usually have success.

Specifically, they will target minority males. They will attempt to draw in these males by doing what they have been successfully doing for 4 years now......men need to regain their control, men need to assert their manhood and its control, men need to keep their women in line, men need to reassert their dominance. And, in their fucked up brains....as men go so do "their women".

I can see them doing this but it doesn't necessarily get them where they want to go. An 18 point gap with 50% of the population is not a tenable position to be in. Someone in GOP-land has to be looking at that number, considering the fates of Todd Akin and the rest of the "Rape-Thing Crew" and thinking "sweet and sour Jesus how do we send these people packing?"

<some really excellent historical analysis regretfully snipped>

History has a way of repeating itself over and over and over just in more creative ways as time goes on. It is a mistake to assume something is an ideological change when it may just be slanting the ideology in a potentially more lucrative and fruitful direction.

I hope I'm not making that mistake.

Same with gay rights. To say "the culture war is over and they lost" is to lose sight of history. The GOP already has a significant contingent of rich, white and non white queer males. They even have some rich queer females. The operative words here are rich and male....not queer. Just as the end of slavery hasnt abolished racism in this country, the passage of queer friendly legislation isnt going to abolish homophobia. It may, however, lull us into believing an ideological change has occured when it really hasnt.

I said what I did about the culture war for two reasons:

1) We went 4 for 4 last night in popular referendums on marriage equality. Now, I don't think it's a good thing for majorities to vote on the rights of minorities but given that we'd been 0 for 32 until last night I think something has genuinely shifted and marriage equality is about to become what interracial marriage was forty years ago. On the ascendancy toward acceptance.

2) Not a single one of the "Rape Thing Crew" won. Not one. It may not be winning but given what how that's gone on both issues for a while, it sure as hell doesn't look like we're losing.

I hope you are right. I hope I am wrong cuz I am fucking weary of fighting this fight. Yet, history continuously warns me to never underestimate the power, influence, and control of both internalized and externalized hatred in its many forms. It can be used to exploit, control and otherwise fuck with people in some pretty nefarious ways.

Oh I don't think it'll be easy but I think that the pendulum has swung. Now that it's all over, I'm going to share with you the nightmare scenario that has woken me up for most of the last four years. My greatest fear was that the GOP would pull out a sweep last night and empower the theocrats and the plutocrats and they would demand, and receive, their pounds of flesh. We would wind up in a theocratic America where freedom of religion exists on paper but not in either law or practice. This would, of course, break the nation in some pretty profound ways and that it would be from those ashes that America would swing back the other way. It appears--as we've both said, I may be very wrong about this--that the swing has happened without us having to have a *historical* event. By historical I mean Germany in the 30s historical which is what it looked like for a while back in 2011.

Great analysis from you, as always, Kobi.

Cheers
Aj

[Linus]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

Take this in the spirit in which it is given Kobi, so do I. I would really strongly prefer that my grandson and granddaughter *not* have to continue fighting this. I don't want to give the impression that I'm being a Pollyanna because I'm constitutionally very poor at being that optimistic. Your analysis is spot on. The wild card is whether the GOP wants to be a national party or a regional party. One or two more elections like this and they could be the latter.

While Canadians and Americans differ on many things, you may want to look at a historical political events that lead up to the creation of a party known as the Reform Party. Canada, unlike the US, has very strong regional sentiment (I suspect that there are diversity ties with the regional piece as well). You could divide the country into BC (West Coast), "Western" (largely Alberta but often includes Saskatchewan and Manitoba), Ontario (Central with very diverse population located mostly in a large city, Toronto), Quebec (francophone with a unique culture) and the East (often viewed as a "poorer" part of the country due to its dependence on resource trade of fish and lumber). This is a very simplistic view.

For the longest time, two main parties -- the Progressive Conservatives* and Liberals -- and a third smaller party (the New Democratic Party or NDP -- very socialist; what some Americans might call Communist) primarily ruled the nation overall and treated everyone as if they were from Ontario. When the Constitution came about and special provisions were put in place for Quebec (the idea of a distinct society due to language, a huge Catholic base and a xenophobic attitude towards anglophones or the rest of the country), it created an avenue for the other parts to also stand up and say "Me too!"

When Brian Mulroney was in power, Reagan was President (for point of time reference). When Brian Mulroney won, he won votes across the country and from the differing regions. It was both based on seats and general populous attitude**. This meant balancing the needs and desires of all the regions, a challenging task for the boy from Baie-Comeau, Quebec. When he retired, a vacuum was left as to who would replace him. At the time of his retirement, a new party had been formed to represent Quebec interests in the form of the Bloc-Quebecois (sometimes affectionately referred to as the BlocHeads). They came about after the Meech Lake accords failed to add more to Quebec's idea of them being a distinct society. Most came from the Quebec MPs of the PC party and were lead/created by Mulroney's former cabinet minister and former friend, Lucien Bouchard.

At the same time, a new party was being formed in the West (Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba -- Prairie Provinces) known as the Reform Party. They were founded by Preston Manning and he wanted less centrist policies that the PCs and/or Liberals offered. In fact, he wanted more right-wing, traditional family attitude (a light version of what here in America is seen in the Tea Party faction). This split of the PCs meant a fractured House in the PCs and it's ultimate demise. It also meant nearly a decade of Liberal control of Federal politics under Jean Chretien.

Now, why does this matter to the US? Well, this meant huge fracturing of the parties and no concessions in the House since it was all "me-me-me!". The Reform Party and what was left of the PCs have since merged but it remains rather more Reform towards the West than an overall national centrist-right. And I expect that we will see this happen with the GOP. I've heard from a lot of Republicans that say they do not agree with the current stance of the party (particularly the talking heads) and seem to be leaning more towards Libertarian or not voting at all (!!!).

I suspect that given the large Christian right-wing base that has been emerging and it's perceived attacks on itself that it probably feels the GOP isn't doing enough to stand up against, we will see a party like the Reform Party of Canada emerge here. There will be those that will try to stay with the GOP, attempting to revive what used to exist (more centrist-right). And then a variety of splinter groups (either regionally based or issue based) making up the remaining conservative types.

This won't necessarily bode well for the House and/or Senate. While these will be at odds with each other over a variety of things, if they form a block on various issues it will prevent any one President, party or Representative from passing bills forward, which means the continuation of lame-duck sessions. And having multiple "lame-duck" sessions won't help either. It means a stagnant nation with little to no growth on a variety of fronts.

The return of the word "compromise" needs to happen in this nation for it to be successful, regardless of who is President. I don't see this happening for a while since it's starting to sound almost like a chorus of "me-me-me" going on in the background (think of the seagulls from the movie Finding Nemo and replace the "mine?" with "me!") The idea of sharing and that we're **ALL** in this together seems lost these days (not sure why).

Anyways, that's the way I see it happening. I don't think it'll take a few more federal elections (whether Presidential, House of Reps or Senate). I think it's already starting. I wonder how long before someone formally creates a national Tea Party to represent those issues. And then a Christian Coalition Party. And so on. And we see this nation turn worse before things getting better.





*As a former Progressive Conservative member and former President of various regional youth parts of the Party, the experience and description above is from my POV and understanding growing up in Ottawa (which is all politics). Today, I'm a-political. While I do not regret, I know I'd never go back to the current day Conservatives or Liberals for that matter. I'd vote NDP or Green (depending on how that MP views their policies) since few parties are interested in representing *ALL* citizens, IMO.

**Unlike the US, Canada doesn't elect our country's leader directly. The leader of the party with the most seats in the House of Commons becomes the leader of the nation (Parliamentary system). It is therefore possible to become a leader without winning your seat and without having the popular vote for your overall party.

[Martina]

There is no doubt that this election was the deciding battle in the Culture Wars. That does not mean they are over. But white conservatives will never be able to dominate as they once did. The demographics won't allow it.

I heard that this election was the last one -- given current trends -- where you could win if you got a big turnout of whites and got 60% or so of that vote. That wasn't that hard in the past. It was possible yesterday, but didn't happen. It will never be possible again.

As of now, Republicans are losing ground with every demographic but white men. Every demographic. And the the folks they are losing ground with -- many of them are increasing in terms of percentage of the population.

It is possible that the GOP can re-invent itself. But it will take time. It cannot base itself on racism and homophobia. That will never work again, as dreadgeek points out.

It's a fucking watershed moment.

There will always be conservatives among us. It's a personality type, IMO. There's been a lot of social psychology on the subject. But it will look different forever more in this country. It will not be the race-baiting, woman-hating, queer-fearing conservatism we know so well.

Those people are still with us. But they can't win a national election again. Now, if you live in Alabama, . . . .

[Okiebug61]

We no longer have "Affirmative Action" in Oklahoma. What bugs the hell out me is that a Woman wrote the bill that was passed last night :-(.