Election Aftermath

[Townsend]

Jindal to GOP: 'Stop being the stupid party'

http://tv.msnbc.com/2012/11/13/jindal-to-gop-stop-being-the-stupid-party/

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has a message for his fellow Republicans: Stop being so "stupid."

In his first interview since Mitt Romney's defeat and Republicans failure to capture the Senate majority, the lawmaker went on the attack, saying his party needs to appeal to more voters and stay away from offensive comments that tarnish the party.

Jindal told Politico, "It is no secret we had a number of Republicans damage our brand this year with offensive, bizarre comments—enough of that "It's not going to be the last time anyone says something stupid within our party, but it can't be tolerated within our party."

Indiana's Richard Mourdock and Missouri's Todd Akin, who made offensive statements about rape and pregnancy during their Senate races and subsequently lost, of course, come to mind.
Jindal also said his party has a habit of speaking down to its electorate.

"We've also had enough of this dumbed-down conservatism. We need to stop being simplistic, we need to trust the intelligence of the American people and we need to stop insulting the intelligence of the voters," Jindal said, adding Republicans need to "stop being the stupid party."

Jindal's name is already being floated as a potential 2016 presidential candidate. He's been selected to chair the Republican Governors Association next year.

So on that note:

Gov. O'Malley to GOP: Remove Tea Party 'Stench'

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2012/11/13/gov-omalley-to-gop-remove-tea-party-stench/

BALTIMORE—Jumping off the fiscal cliff may make Republicans more willing to compromise next year on raising taxes for the rich, said a prominent Democratic governor.

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley added that he believed Republicans should compromise earlier to remove what he called their "Tea Party obstructionist stench."

Tax cuts passed under President George W. Bush expire at the end of the year. Republicans want to extend all the cuts, while Democrats say they should be ended for high-income taxpayers. The deadline is a central part of the fiscal cliff—the fear that, if Congress fails to act by the end of the year, the U.S. will fall back into recession owing to higher tax rates and spending cuts scheduled to take effect.

Democrats have differed in tone over the fiscal cliff, with some saying it must be avoided at all costs and others willing to entertain the idea of jumping over it as a bargaining tool to use with Republicans.

Mr. O'Malley seemed closer to the latter camp in a brief interview after a speech here. The governor said Republicans "may have painted themselves into such a corner that they are not able to support anything on the revenue part of this equation, even for wealthier Americans, until they are faced with the new terrain and the new reality that all of the Bush tax cuts have expired."

The top Republican in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, criticized such statements in a Senate speech Tuesday. "Some on the other side have said we should just go off the cliff, and just hope for the best," he said. "I don't think that's what the American people had in mind when they went to the polls this week."

Mr. O'Malley is chairman of the Democratic Governors Association but isn't directly involved in the fiscal talks.

He said President Barack Obama's re-election was a "pretty strong signal" to Republicans that voters want them to drop what he described as "obstructionist" positions on issues such as immigration.

On the fiscal cliff, he said, "I am hopeful that [Republicans] see that writing on the wall and will want to do [a deal] sooner rather than later in order to shed their sort of Tea Party obstructionist stench."

However, if the Bush tax cuts expire, he said he was "very confident" that "we will get to a reasonable and substantive and meaningful compromise."

Mr. McConnell said Republicans were making a "good-faith effort" for a deal and were "open to new revenue in exchange for meaningful reforms to the entitlement programs that are the primary drivers of our debt."

So it seems, the folks that frighten me more then the rest may be getting kicked in the chest from both sides.

[Townsend]

This Is the Real Political Map of America (Hint: We Are Not That Divided)

This is the real political map of the United States of America after the Presidential Election. A fascinating view, much different from the maps that you saw that night, which showed an artificial, binary divide. But these maps demonstrate that there is not such a huge divide between rural and urban America

On the top of the column you can see the usual representation by state: who won where. One or the other. It shows a big area of red (republican) and some blue (democrat). If you see the results by county (second in the column), the divide is even more overwhelming. Visually, it appears as if a few are imposing their will on a huge majority. We know that's not the case, but that's what the maps conveys.

That's why those maps are not really good for understanding what really happened. They convey the wrong idea.

The third map of the column is much more accurate. Created by Mark Newman (Department of Physics and Center for the Study of Complex Systems, University of Michigan, it mixes blue and red based on popular vote percentage instead of showing a binary representation.

There's no huge area of red. There is a gradient. A lot of purple. That's the accurate map that reflects the actual result of the election. It also shows that the divide between the cities and the countryside is not that huge. There are differences of opinions everywhere.

The large map is even better. It factors in the population density, showing the importance of every county based on the population. The lighter the color is, the less populated, the less weight in the election. The more saturated it is, the more populated and more weight.

The Republican Party should look at this map and think again for 2016.

[Townsend]

Some Early Returns From First Post-Citizens United Election

http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/11/13/165027641/some-early-returns-from-first-post-citizens-united-election?ft=1&f=1014&sc=tw

Political observers are still working through the rubble of the unprecedented $6 billion presidential campaign, but we're getting a steady stream of reaction and analysis.

The liberal advocacy groups U.S. PIRG and Demos have one of the most striking numerical comparisons: 1.4 million to 61.

That is, it took more than 1.4 million donors for President Obama and Mitt Romney to raise $285.2 million through one traditional fundraising avenue — the campaign's small, unitemized contributions of $200 or less.

It took 61 wealthy donors to give the same amount of money through a new player — the unregulated superPAC.

Specifically, the $285.2 million came from a minimum of 1,425,500 donors, most of them giving to the Obama campaign. But it would be matched by merely 61 of the 132 donors who gave at least $1 million to superPACs involved in the presidential race, like the pro-Romney Restore Our Future and the pro-Obama Priorities USA Action.

The U.S. PIRG-Demos report says those 132 largest donors gave an average $4.7 million each to superPACs.

On Friday, George Washington University Law School assembles some of the mavens of the political money world for a post-election assessment of the hot-button issues of political money and voting rights.

And a few groups already are using the numbers from the just ended election to launch efforts to change campaign finance law: The watchdog group Common Cause wants a constitutional amendment to undo Citizens United, the 2010 Supreme Court ruling that, more than anything else, uncorked the big money; and the liberal United Republic, which says it is "dedicated to ending the corrupting influence of money in politics," unveiled a proposal on Tuesday seeking online "citizen co-sponsors" of a plan to overhaul political finance and lobbying laws.

[nathanm]

Mr. McConnell said Republicans were making a "good-faith effort" for a deal and were "open to new revenue in exchange for meaningful reforms to the entitlement programs that are the primary drivers of our debt."

You had me all optimistic, but then I saw that McConnell still isn't acknowledging reality. The dedicated taxes for our "entitlement" programs have been funding much of our deficit spending since 1986 or so. Maybe the clue by four needs to come back out for a few more whacks upside the head.

[Townsend]

Senate GOP Largely Retains Leadership Team

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2012/11/14/senate-gop-largely-retains-leadership-team/?mod=WSJBlog&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas) will become the second-ranking Republican in the Senate as the GOP decided to largely keep their leadership team intact despite a failure to gain a majority in the chamber in last week's elections.

Senate Republicans meeting Wednesday chose Sen. Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.)to remain as the Senate's minority leader, while Mr. Cornyn will take over as minority whip, a senior Senate GOP aide said, succeeding Sen. Jon Kyl, who is retiring. Sens. John Thune (R., S.D.) and John Barrasso (R., Wyo.) will remain GOP conference and policy committee chairs, respectively, and Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt will again serve as conference vice chair.

[Townsend]

Good advice:

Earth to GOP: Get a Grip

By BRET STEPHENS

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324894104578114791679213644.html?mod=wsj_share_tweet

In January I was rebuked by some readers for predicting that the GOP would lose, and for saying it deserved to lose, too.

"It doesn't matter that Americans are generally eager to send Mr. Obama packing," I wrote. "All they need is to be reasonably sure that the alternative won't be another fiasco. But they can't be reasonably sure, so it's going to be four more years of the disappointment you already know."

I quote these lines less to boast about my prescience than to establish some credibility for what I'm about to say.

Fellow conservatives, please stop obsessing about what other adults might be doing in their bedrooms, so long as it's lawful and consensual and doesn't impinge in some obvious way on you. This obsession is socially uncouth, politically counterproductive and, too often, unwittingly revealing.

Also, if gay people wish to lead conventionally bourgeois lives by getting married, that may be lunacy on their part but it's a credit to our values. Channeling passions that cannot be repressed toward socially productive ends is the genius of the American way. The alternative is the tapped foot and the wide stance.

Also, please tone down the abortion extremism. Supporting so-called partial-birth abortions, as too many liberals do, is abortion extremism. But so is opposing abortion in cases of rape and incest, to say nothing of the life of the mother. Democrats did better with a president who wanted abortion to be "safe, legal and rare"; Republicans would have done better by adopting outgoing Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels's call for a "truce" on social issues.

By the way, what's so awful about Spanish? It's a fine European language with an outstanding literary tradition—Cervantes, Borges, Paz, Vargas Llosa—and it would do you no harm to learn it. Bilingualism is an intellectual virtue, not a deviant sexual practice.

Which reminds me: Can we, as the GOP base, demand an IQ exam as well as a test of basic knowledge from our congressional and presidential candidates? This is not a flippant suggestion: There were at least five Senate seats in this election cycle that might have been occupied by a Republican come January had not the invincible stupidity of the candidate stood in the way.

On the subject of idiocy, can someone explain where's the political gold in demonizing Latin American immigrants? California's Prop 187, passed in 1994, helped destroy the GOP in a once-reliable state. Yet Republicans have been trying to replicate that fiasco on a national scale ever since.

If the argument is that illegal immigrants are overtaxing the welfare state, then that's an argument for paring back the welfare state, not deporting 12 million people. If the argument is that these immigrants "steal" jobs, then that's an argument by someone who either doesn't understand the free market or aspires for his children to become busboys and chambermaids.

And if the argument is that these immigrants don't share our values, then religiosity, hard work, personal stoicism and the sense of family obligation expressed through billions of dollars in remittances aren't American values.

Here's another suggestion: Running for president should be undertaken only by those with a reasonable chance of winning a general election. It should not be seen as an opportunity to redeem a political reputation or audition for a gig on Fox News. Mitt Romney won the nomination for the simple reason that every other contender was utterly beyond the pale of national acceptability, except Michele Bachmann.

Just kidding.

Though conservatives put themselves through the paces of trying to like Mr. Romney, he was never a natural standard bearer for the GOP. He was, instead, a consensus politician in the mold of Jerry Ford and George H.W. Bush; a technocrat who loved to "wallow in data"; a plutocrat with a fatal touch of class guilt. His campaign was a study in missed opportunities, punctuated by 90 brilliant minutes in Denver. Like a certain Massachusetts governor who preceded him, he staked his presidential claims on "competence." But Americans want inspiration from their presidents.

Mr. Romney was never likely to deliver on that score. And though I have my anxieties about the president's next term, I also have a hunch the GOP dodged a bullet with Mr. Romney's loss.

It dodged a bullet because a Romney victory would have obscured deeper trends in American politics the GOP must take into account. A Romney administration would also have been politically cautious and ideologically defensive in a way that rarely serves the party well.

Finally, the GOP dodged ownership of the second great recession, which will inevitably hit when the Federal Reserve can no longer float the economy in pools of free money. When that happens, Barack Obama won't have George W. Bush to kick around.

So get a grip, Republicans: Our republican experiment in self-government didn't die last week. But a useful message has been sent to a party that spent too much of the past four years listening intently to echoes of itself. Change the channel for a little while.

[DolfanBob]

If Obama is such a fantastic President. Why then are there so many States up in arms about wanting to secede from the U.S.?
And also. What other President was so despised that would make a human being want to kill himself?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2232845/Man-killed-saying-wouldnt-Obama-elected.html

[Townsend]

If Obama is such a fantastic President. Why then are there so many States up in arms about wanting to secede from the U.S.?
And also. What other President was so despised that would make a human being want to kill himself?

Lack of intellect and mental illness.

[Hoss]

If Obama is such a fantastic President. Why then are there so many States uninformed citizens up in arms about wanting to secede from the U.S.?
And also. What other President was so despised that would make a depressed human being want to kill himself?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2232845/Man-killed-saying-wouldnt-Obama-elected.html

FIFY.

[Conan71]

Senate GOP Largely Retains Leadership Team

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2012/11/14/senate-gop-largely-retains-leadership-team/?mod=WSJBlog&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Wow, that's a lot of John's.  I wonder if they also engage in the services of those who work in the oldest profession.

[Townsend]

                 Nov 5th                                                                Nov 14th


"I'm gonna wash that gray right outta my hair"

[guido911]

Good advice:

Earth to GOP: Get a Grip

By BRET STEPHENS

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324894104578114791679213644.html?mod=wsj_share_tweet

Wow Townsend. Thanks a lot. We all know you have the best interest of the republican party in mind. Especially because you were telling the right to get a grip just 2 years ago when the left got throttled.

[Teatownclown]

                 Nov 5th                                                                Nov 14th


"I'm gonna wash that gray right outta my hair"

2016

[Townsend]

Wow Townsend. Thanks a lot. We all know you have the best interest of the republican party in mind. Especially because you were telling the right to get a grip just 2 years ago when the left got throttled.

You're very welcome Guido.  I hope the article helps you realize how lost the party has become and allows you to do your part to make it better.

[DolfanBob]

I think he would look better bald. That would speak volumes to his demographic.