Election Aftermath

[Teatownclown]

The Tea Party needs to realize that there are far more people in the middle than them.  They are just as fringe as the ultra-libs on the left.  There's about 60% of the electorate who is really weary of hard-line partisanship.

And so, the infighting begins....

a shallow civil war

[patric]

Rove's on-air Fox Meltdown

Every election night has at least one standout television moment,  and  -- with all due respect to John King and magical fingertips -- the clear winner Tuesday was Republican strategist Karl Rove, who staged a civil war on the air after Fox News called Ohio -- and therefore the entire election -- for President Obama.

Technically speaking, it was Chris Wallace who fired the first shot. Shortly after Fox projected Obama as the winner, Wallace explained that he had received an email from the Romney campaign contesting the network's decision. 
Rove wasn't willing to concede, either, saying it was premature to call the race, even though most of the remaining votes were from Ohio's Democratic-leaning Cuyahoga County. After several minutes of protest, he warned,  "I'd be very cautious about intruding into the process."

Intruding in the process?  Like when they called the last Oklahoma governor's race for the "R" candidate with ONE PERCENT of the precincts reporting?

[Townsend]

How Did Science, Medicine, and the Environment Do in the Elections?

Your House of Representatives now has twice as many physicists.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/11/science_environment_medical_election_2012_what_the_votes_mean_for_the_future.html

Overall, it was a pretty good night for science. Voters may have had other issues in mind, but when they re-elected President Obama, they endorsed one of the most scientifically accomplished administrations in U.S. history. Obama has been a great supporter of science education and research; he has appointed science-friendly people to science posts (which shouldn't be a big accomplishment but is); and although it wasn't the first act of his presidency (there's no shame in losing out to Lily Ledbetter), he did give a great shout-out to science just a few weeks after taking office:

Science and the scientific process must inform and guide decisions of my Administration on a wide range of issues, including improvement of public health, protection of the environment, increased efficiency in the use of energy and other resources, mitigation of the threat of climate change, and protection of national security.


A win for Obama was a win for science, the environment, and health care.

The election was also an affirmation of the magical powers of math, statistics, and social science research. Well-conducted polls gave Bayesian statistics god Nate Silver the raw data to predict electoral outcomes with satisfying accuracy. Numbers work!

At the state level, California's genetically-modified food labeling initiative failed. Providing information on food labels may sound innocuous, but fear of GMOs is misguided and irrational; on this particular issue, some liberals compete with right-wingers in their rejection of research. Another win for science.

Massachusetts voters weren't quite as wise. The Death With Dignity Act appears to be heading toward a loss. Washington and Oregon passed similar physician-assisted laws and have had no abuse of the system. The main opposition to the law was inspired by religious beliefs.

Voters in Michigan had a chance to put renewable energy in their constitution; Proposal 3 would have required 25 percent of the state's electricity to come from renewable sources by 2025. It failed.

Locally, San Francisco voters—who are normally famously pro-environment—rejected a proposal to study alternative sources of water for the city. The eventual goal of the effort was to restore the once spectacular but now submerged Hetchy Hetchy Valley. California's water wars tend to bring out the worst in everybody.

The number of physicists in Congress doubled last night. Bill Foster, a particle physicist from Illinois, will join Rush Holt, a plasma physicist from New Jersey. They're both Democrats.

Congress lost a physiologist, though: Roscoe Bartlett, a member of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, was a member of the Tea Party Caucus but a booster of scientific research.

Rep. Henry Waxman, a force for science and the environment as the ranking member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, was re-elected to a redrawn district in a squeaker.

There's a lot of competition in the Senate and House (especially the House) for the most scientifically-illiterate member. But this year Todd Akin really distinguished himself, and his loss was a victory not just for women and rationality and good judgment, but also for basic biology.

The impact of the election on science and the environment will play out over many years, of course, but to take the big-picture view: It looks like we're going to an asteroid.

[nathanm]

I think the good news we can take out of these election results is that this is probably one or two coffin nails from the end of the Republican party.  Hopefully within the next 4 years we can cultivate the birth of a real Libertarian movement to serve as an alternative for people like myself who believe social policy is separate from political and economic policy.  Republicans lost this election.

Heh, I've had a hard time convincing left-minded folks that when the Republican party implodes, they're just going to move farther to the right as if their electoral failures are because they aren't sufficiently right wing.

[swake]

Heh, I've had a hard time convincing left-minded folks that when the Republican party implodes, they're just going to move farther to the right as if their electoral failures are because they aren't sufficiently right wing.

I agree, and I'm actually shocked it hasn't happened before now. I thought the Tea Party was going to split it. They may still.

[Townsend]

Heh, I've had a hard time convincing left-minded folks that when the Republican party implodes, they're just going to move farther to the right as if their electoral failures are because they aren't sufficiently right wing.

I was wondering if the crazy was going to scooch to the crazier after this. 

As long as they think conservative entertainers are worth listening to, there will be some sort of justification of the crazy.

[dbacks fan]

Glad to see the market is reacting so positively, best day after election market  results since Dewey defeated Truman in 1948.

[Conan71]

Glad to see the market is reacting so positively, best day after election market  results since Dewey defeated Truman in 1948.

[Townsend]

Glad to see the market is reacting so positively, best day after election market  results since Dewey defeated Truman in 1948.

The 2% drop?  That's the Koch brothers beating their people with money belts.

[nathanm]

The 2% drop?  That's the Koch brothers beating their people with money belts.

Selling to pay off the massive loans they took out to finance the election, I'm sure.

[Conan71]

Damn Koch heads.

[dbacks fan]

Glad to see that some got the sarcasm. I tend to agree with some of the articles on CNBC that I have been reading that whats happening is a sell off of high paying dividend stocks, the two best being AT&T and Verizon, so as to avoid the potential dividend tax. The example was that if you bought 1000 shares of AT&T you would invest ~ $34,000.00, the dividend is ~$1.76/share so you would get $1760.00, but at a tax of 43% you would only get a return of ~$800.00.

[Townsend]

Washington Approves Gay Marriage In Referendum 74 Vote

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/07/washington-referendum-74-gay-marriage_n_2050539.html

UPDATE: Officials from Washington United for Marriage (WUM) declared a 52 to 48 percent win for Referendum 74 on Nov. 7.

"This is an historic day for Washington, an historic day for our country and, most of all, for families across the state who have dreamed of this day and the wedding celebrations to come," WUM campaign manager Zach Silk said in a statement on the group's website.

Washington looks poised to join Maine and Maryland in allowing same-sex couples to wed via public vote.

Given the state's mail-in voting system, Washington's final tally won't be official for the next few days. But the Seattle Post-Intelligencer found that support for Referendum 74 was leading 51.8 percent to 48.2 percent in the final hours of Nov. 6.

Among those to praise the preliminary results was Rick Jacobs, founder and chair of the Courage Campaign. "More and more voters are coming to know that gay people are our neighbors, our co-workers, our fellow parishioners, our family and our friends," Jacobs said in an email statement. "It won't be long at all before all loving committed couples have the freedom to marry."

Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire signed the voter-approved marriage equality legislation into law in February. Opponents of the law, which would have taken effect in June, filed more than 200,000 signatures seeking a Nov. 6 public vote on the issue.

A number of high-profile, Washington state-based corporations -- including Amazon, Nordstrom and Starbucks -- publicly backed Referendum 74, despite ample criticism from some conservative outlets and right-wing pundits.

In other big wins for marriage equality, Maine and Maryland legalized gay marriage. In Minnesota, voters shot down a constitutional amendment that would have defined marriage as a union only between a man and a woman

[Hoss]

Washington Approves Gay Marriage In Referendum 74 Vote

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/07/washington-referendum-74-gay-marriage_n_2050539.html

In Minnesota, voters shot down a constitutional amendment that would have defined marriage as a union only between a man and a woman

Wouldn't that already invalidate the Bachmann's marriage?

[Conan71]

Washington Approves Gay Marriage In Referendum 74 Vote

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/07/washington-referendum-74-gay-marriage_n_2050539.html

A friend of mine was celebrating the fact that in Maryland he can now legally play blackjack while seated next to a legally married gay couple.

I think passing the bong around at a gay wedding reception in Washington would trump going to a casino.