Obama’s Campaign Message to Millions of Voters: ‘Don’t Vote!’
To his ever growing list of distinctions, Barack Obama now can lay claim to being the first U.S. president to have been reelected with fewer electoral votes, a lower percentage of the popular vote, and a lower number of total votes than he garnered when first elected. This is hardly a fortuitous achievement. It is the result of a campaign strategy that relied not on getting the vote out but on restraining it, at least for a key demographic. Aware that there was little hope of attracting lower to middle class white voters whose tribulations were exacerbated during Obama’s first term, the Obama campaign decided early to launch an extensive and costly ad campaign that unremittingly drew attention to Mitt Romney’s wealth and characterized him as being unscrupulous and uncaring.
Negative campaigning was not an innovation of the Obama campaign, but what was curious about this approach was that, in effect, no positive message was proffered. At bottom, what was being argued was not that Obama had had a rough first term but should be given a second shot because a Romney presidency would be even more deleterious. Rather, the argument was that while Obama had done nothing, and evidently could do nothing, to mitigate your misfortunes, Romney did not even care about those misfortunes. The choice was between an inept candidate and an insensitive one. In the end, there was little sense in voting for either.
It proved to be a winning strategy. As Sean Trende and Jay Cost both documented, there was a substantial decline in white voter turnout in the 2012 election. The message conveyed relentlessly by the Obama campaign evidently was received. For those who orchestrated that campaign and those who supported its objective, there is reason to celebrate.
But when a president’s victory depends on a campaign message that for millions of voters effectively amounts to saying, “Don’t vote!” there is, or ought to be, reason for alarm.This scenario should be alarming wherever government derives its authority from the will of the people, but especially so in the context of American democracy, which at heart is, or at least was, deliberative.
At the time of the American founding, Alexander Hamilton famously wrote that
[I]t has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.
That observation was spelled out in the first paper of The Federalist, a series of essays that were penned and published with the express purpose of persuading the people of New York to approve the proposed Constitution. The seriousness with which the authors of The Federalist treated that important question is made plain by the attention and deference they accorded the views of their opponents on the one hand and the judgment of their readers on the other. “I shall endeavor to give a satisfactory answer to all the objections [to the proposed Constitution] which shall have made their appearance, that may seem to have any claim to your attention.” Their readers would not be misled nor their opponents maligned. “My arguments will be open to all, and may be judged of by all. They shall at least be offered in a spirit which will not disgrace the cause of truth.” It was for the people of New York to read those arguments, to weigh them and to decide for themselves. What they were being afforded, in short, was an opportunity for reflection and choice.
That opportunity was not exclusive to the people of New York. The document drafted by the Constitutional Convention was submitted not to the Continental Congress and the state legislatures as the Convention had been instructed to do, but to “a Convention of Delegates, chosen in each State by the People thereof.” The understanding was that the Constitution would enjoy legitimacy only if the people themselves supported, that is, chose it. And that choice would be legitimate only if it was reasoned, only if it was realized through genuine reflection.
The deliberative spirit was not universal. Rhode Island refused to call a ratifying convention and instead held a popular referendum on the matter. By a vote of 2,711 to 243, the Constitution was rejected. In Pennsylvania, unwilling legislators were dragged to the State House to provide the quorum needed to call the ratifying convention. But these instances were exceptions. In conventions across the states, delegates met to discuss the proposed Constitution, article by article, section by section. Debates were protracted and oftentimes acrimonious, but the virtues of the deliberative approach were undisputed. The Constitution’s proponents and opponents alike understood that human judgment was fallible, but corrigible, and that the surest way to determine the verity of an argument was through collective deliberation.
The sentiment expressed by John Jay at the New York convention was one that would have been shared by many of his compatriots:
We did not come here to carry points. If the gentlemen will convince me I am wrong, I will submit. I mean to give my ideas frankly upon the subject. If my reasoning is not good, let them show me the folly of it. It is from this reciprocal interchange of ideas that the truth must come out.
This deliberative spirit did not arise spontaneously out of the constitutional moment, but was woven into the fabric of American civil society, most notably in the township governments that so captivated Alexis de Tocqueville. It not only preceded the convention debates, but survived them as well, a phenomenon the young Frenchman readily descried.
What one understands by republic in the United State is the slow and tranquil action of society on itself. It is a regular state really founded on the enlightened will of the people. It is a conciliating government, in which resolutions ripen for a long time, are discussed slowly, -and executed only when mature.
Tocqueville was no idealist. Even if this portrayal was embellished, its basis in reality was plain. No one who applied this picture to America today could contend the same.
In the present context, it would be unreasonable to count the 2012 election as a watershed moment. The deliberative spirit in American democracy has been ebbing for some time. Nor would it be judicious to ascribe to Obama more responsibility than he actually merits. His triumph was the effect of a system already in decline, not the cause of that decline. Moreover, one cannot overlook the other parties whose participation, or non-participation, made such a denouement possible, namely a sycophantic media and an uninformed citizenry.
But the recent election should serve as a dim reminder of what the state of democracy in America is today: when leaders are eager to obviate debate, the press is bent on skewing it, and the people are happier not to have it, there is little hope to be gleaned in the future of American democracy.
The Obama campaign is 100% guilty of trying, and succeeding, in winning an election. What unAmerican animals!!
But perhaps we should give him a bit of a pass on the “voter suppression” and “depressed turnout” stuff – after all he received more votes for his re-election than any other Presidential candidate not named Barack Obama has ever received before. And votes are still being tallied, he’ll end up with around 64 million by the time it’s all done.
Watershed? Let’s examine the evidence: A 332-206 electoral drubbing and the 2nd most total votes of all time, accompanied by gains in both the House and Senate.
Yep, watershed.
And now the voters will get what they voted for and we’ll get to watch the country burn.
I’m bringing popcorn, weenies, and marshmallows.
You?
“I’m bringing popcorn, weenies, and marshmallows.”
“You?”
Silly Question!
He will be bringing his famous General Tso’s Chicken!
Well we know Obama’s bringing a fiddle…
You do realize you did not at all prove your candidate did not in fact do as the article suggested?
Obama barely won the popular vote (they’re still counting in some places but lets not pretend 99.99% of them are going to be for Obama, meaning the gap between obama and romney is not going to widen), but the only reason he did was he did EXACTLY as he said in the past. “If you can’t run on your record, you make your opponent out to be someone to run FROM.” He did that, and succeeded.
So lets look at the different groups of voters.
Democrats? They knew he had failed miserably the last four years. So why did they vote for him when they were so unenthusiastic about him? Because he made Romney out to be someone to fear, someone who would strip their entitlements over night so he could give tax breaks to the wealthy.
Conservatives? They knew he had failed miserably as well! So why DIDNT they come out to vote for Romney? Again, same message, he painted Romney to be a fat-cat who would strip the nation and drive it into the ground under the heel of big businesses.
Women? What has Obama done for them? The ledbetter thing about being able to sue if you aren’t paid equally or whatever it was? You do know the wage gap is a myth right? It doesnt exist anymore. Sure there may be a few cases here and there of women like that being paid less than men, but really thats her fault for accepting lower pay. No one MADE her take that pay, she could have bargained for more or rejected the offer. A business is going to pay what it has to to its employees, if workers A B and C demand higher pay and are necessary, they’ll get paid more. If workers D E and F DONT demand the higher pay and instead accept the base offer? Hoorah! Working isnt a right, and your pay should be up to you to negotiate between you and the business. Funny liberals claim conservatives are sexist, when liberals are the ones telling women they are to inept and need help getting paid appropriately for their work.
Blacks? “they gonna put yall back in chains,” is all that needs to be said here.
Latinos? Obama has deported just as many or more illegals as any other president in the last two decades. He couldnt run on THAT could he? No, he had to claim Romney wanted a lake of fire to protect the mexico/USA border and to execute illegals on the spot.
Independents? Again, scared by Obama into thinking Romney was going to strip their various freedoms away. Wanna smoke pot? Obama says romney is gonna stop that! Meanwhile the war on drugs has continued under obama just as much as ever before. Gay marriage? Obama insisted Romney would come to your house and pour holy water on you. But what about Obama’s work on gay marriage? Obama did nothing, meanwhile he even said his second term he plans on doing nothing about it.
In short, Obama didnt win like he did in 2008. In 2008 he won on hope and change. he won on the idea that McCain was out of touch with what the future needs, with what we want for ourselves and our children, with the tolerance and respect we give each other, and that Obama would clearly hold true to ensuring our economy was strengthened, our freedoms increased, and our “aggression” in the world ceased. And in four years he stripped more freedoms away, got us into more wars, failed to peacefully solve any issues over seas, saw our economy undergo a false recovery, and has done nothing in the “love and tolerance” category. In 2012? again, he didnt win on the idea of hope and change. he didnt inspire the nation to want him as leader, he scared the nation into fearing the alternative.
Ya know, there have been a few other (just “a few” mind you) leaders throughout history who ran their nations by inspiring fear into the population…. ya ever stop to do any reading about what happened in those nations?
I had a converstation with my sister right around the time of Presidential Debate #3 about why she supported Obama, and her two issues were Romney would take away her right to an abortion (at her age????) and the Ledbetter act, never mind she makes more money than either her husband or me. I’m sure she deserves every dime she gets, but the whole notion she is not paid fairly is ridiculous.
Its a “common knowledge” issue. Its something that USED to be true, women in our nations past were paid less than equally skilled and hard working men before, however this has ceased to be true, but it “was” true before so they like to think it still is. Liberals also like to point to the “wage gap” showing that women in our nation in TOTAL earn less than men, however it neglects things like women not holding an equal number of higher paying jobs (ie: lower skill lower paying jobs), not working as many hours across their entire gender, etc etc. All that results in the total pay of men vs women being different and liberals like to claim this means women are paid less.
But its really just a farce, another tool of the left used to divide and conquer, and so many women fall for it.
As for abortion? Well, *shrug*, what can ya say? Romney might have said he was pro-life to get rightwing votes, but in truth he was a social moderate and anyone who paid attention knew that. Not to belittle your sister, but she seriously let herself get played like a fool =\
That was her reasoning, truth is she would have voted Democrat no matter who was running. Ironically last time I visited her she took me to the Ronald Reagan Library. The frustrating thing about the abortion non issue is George Steponallofus set up, the MSM ran with it and, Sandra Fluke expanded it and too many women bought into it. It was a stategy that worked, right or wrong, as did most of Obama’s divide and conquer playbook.
Add to that the gut-wrenching stupidity of the average American, who knows more about “Dancing with the Stars’ than how our government has been running itself for the last four years. To them, “They’re all the same.” No sense of using judgment to come to a logical conclusion. They would rather listen to a rap “artist” or actor tell them who to vote for. A nation of “Honey BooBoos.” I’m sure when Honey BooBoo herself came out and endorsed the Sun King, many followed her advise.
Jose I am surprised by the number of intelligent business people I know who shrug about the debt because the United States is in a position to print more money, we being the world’s currency, no consequences no previous precedence in world history when this has been done many times ultimately leading to disaster for the common people.
As much as I despised Obama’s campaign, there is something to be said for discouraging the people who you know will not vote for you. For example we knew that 95%+ of blacks who voted would vote for Obama, a lot of us hoped that the the fact his presidency has made their condition if anything worse, or maybe his embrace of gay marriage, would just encourage many to stay home. Are we happy when SEIU or ACORN goes out and busses in hoards of illiterate people, then has an operative go in the booth with them to point to which bubbles to fill? Are we happy when they make it almost automatic to register to vote when applying for public assistance? The saying in the revolutionary war went “no taxation without representation”, I would argue that we also need “no representation without taxation”, i.e. those that are consistently on the take and rake in more in handouts than they pay in taxes (with the exception of veterans benefits) ought not to vote since the purpose of government is to decide how the tax money is spent and they have no skin in the game, in fact their vote dilutes down and effectively disenfranchises those who are paying to support the system.
That being said, under the current system the election is decided by who shows up. Buying votes and suppressing others is a very viable strategy. All those conservatives who stayed home are just as guilty as the Obama voters and have no right to complain anymore when he picks their pockets to buy the next round of votes.
“Buying votes and suppressing others is a very viable strategy.”
How flippant, TPM. While those strategies, by definition, may be viable, they are entirely dishonorable and should have no place in American elections. The statement is merely another way of saying “the ends justifies the means”, which, of course, is the excuse of the lazy and leaderless.
In keeping with the ideals of America’s Founding Fathers, purposeful, deliberative reflection on the policy positions of the candidates is what American voters ought to pursue. Without such, America is doomed to continued failure as emotion-filled underhandedness will rule the day, and immoral men using “viable” tactics will further corrupt America’s purpose.
The term “viable” is an objective term, not subjective so the statement wasn’t flippant. The strategy is indeed dishonorable, dishonest, and manipulative but it works so it is indeed viable.
Do you really think one side can afford to just sit back and play nice while the other side acts on their belief that the ends justify the means? The liberals played dirty in this election, our candidates meekly let them set the narrative. However important it may seem to maintain honor, that serves nobody any good as the country slowly slips into the hades of one party rule and ruin. The Democrats viciously slandered Romney on everything, and we didn’t fight back. For example, when they tried to paint Romney as being a bad person for traveling with a dog kennel on the roof, why was it so taboo to run the clips of Obama admitting to eating dogs? Why couldn’t we ask him in the debates why he once proudly proclaimed not to grasp 8th grade math, to try and make him seem like an idiot worthy of ridicule? When Harry Reid lied in front of congress that he “knew” Romney hadn’t paid any taxes for the last 10 years why didn’t someone from our side release a faked transcript showing Obama with a 2.5 average in college. Force him to release the real one. Lies, deceit, slander, fraud, are all tools of the left and I’m about ready to start fighting fire with fire. At the very least if it’s done correctly, i.e. tit-for-tat, lie-for-lie, slander-for-slander, it may make a nice opportunity to make clear the media’s double standard.
I understand where you are coming from but rather than lie for lie, the better strategy would be truth for each lie. One problem is that the MSM was firmly supporting Obama for the last four years and they reported his lies as truth and would not report the truth to rebut the lies.
The internet has made a difference because now the truth is out there for anybody who wants to look for it. The problem, as we learned, is that many people do not want to go to the effort of looking for it. Don’t bother complaining that they should be willing to look. Conservatives are supposed to deal with the world as it is. Leave it to leftists to insist that the world should be as they wish it to be.
How do we get the message to low information voters (notice that I did not say low intelligence voters). One clue might be Rush Limbaugh and the success of AM radio. Before Rush Limbaugh, AM radio was an overlooked and dieing format. It was cheap to get into and he became the success that we know today. Let’s look for other cheap methods to get out the message that the networks will never tell. One place to start might be cheap commercials on low viewership cable channels. PJTV produces excellent pieces that can be seen either on PJTV or youtube. Can they produce pieces that are only 60 seconds, 30 seconds or 15 seconds long yet which convey information about voter fraud in Philadelphia, Fast and Furious, Benghazi or what ever new scandals the Democrats are going to generate over the next few years? Can they create make the case to end the Eisenhower movie tax cuts so that Hollywood pays its fair share of taxes? That is a message that will be reinforced every time there is video of Scarlett Johannsen wearing a dress that costs more than your car or George Clooney wearing shoes that cost more than your car payment. They want class warfare? They have some of the most visible members of the 1% spouting their party line. How long do you think before they start using the megaphone of Hollywood to explain the damaging effects of taxes and why it is wrong to punish success when they are on the wrong end of that public sentiment?
” those that are consistently on the take and rake in more in handouts than they pay in taxes (with the exception of veterans benefits) ought not to vote since the purpose of government is to decide how the tax money is spent and they have no skin in the game,”
Let’s expand this to the state level. Any state that takes back from the federal government more than it pays gets no electoral representation. Ooops, there goes the south and most of the republican states! I don’t mind providing welfare to poorer states that might need it, but they ought to at least be thankful.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/04/the_red_state_ripoff.html
If you just let them, I’m sure many of those Red States would be happy to leave the union. You can keep your money, just give us back our freedoms. It’s a win for everyone, you blue states are free of the burden of payments going to the red states, and we’re free of your cultural marxism and prying nanny-state ways. What’s not to like?
In fairness,
let’s remember that many Republicans had based their election hopes for Romney this year on the assumption that fewer blacks and young people would vote for Obama in 2012 than they did in 2008. We knew that Obama had a massive GOTV drive to try to get those voters to the polls–and we were hoping that he would fail.
And Obama was not the first incumbent President to try the strategy of discouraging voters from voting for his opponent. Jimmy Carter tried the same ploy: “We know things are bad–but if you elect Reagan, things will get worse.” And Carter pandered to minority voters just as much as Obama did.
Why such tactics failed with Reagan but succeeded with Romney is a discussion worth having.
There are a lot more minority (and other different “tribes” not based on race/ethnicity) voters around to pander to now, though.
When you offer crumbs to birds they will flock.
Right; Putting out a saucer of milk for a stray cat attracts vermin.
“Why such tactics failed with Reagan but succeeded with Romney is a discussion worth having.”
Possibilities that come to my mind: IT helping the get-out-the-vote efforts (if Romney’s ORCA had worked, might have made a significant difference), Reagan’s charisma was a huge advantage for him. Also, people were hurting a lot more back in 1980, with sky-high interest rates, etc., than they are today.
Read this and weep.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/11/when-the-nerds-go-marching-in/265325/2/?single_page=true
Despite the gee whiz tone of the piece, nothing they did was particularly novel. They just used methods that are common today for marketing and applied them to politics. The fact that the Republican consultants who Mitt Romney paid millions of dollars to did not do this is a major scandal. It is a rejection of technology equivalent to French generals in 1914 insisting that machine guns were unnecessary but that the bayonet was the crucial weapon.
The Democrats used the well known technology of collecting data into large data bases, analyzing and querying that data and used it to target who they wanted to encourage to vote and who they wanted to discourage from voting. Either Republicans are going to find competent people to do this or we are doomed to Democrats reenacting the 1930s.
“Either Republicans are going to find competent people to do this or we are doomed to Democrats reenacting the 1930s.”
Unfortunately it may well be the 1930s from Germany they choose to reenact.
>>His triumph was the effect of a system already in decline, not the cause of that decline.<<
His win – in 2008 and 2012 – was the effect of a *culture* and *society* already in decline (a decline that started long, long ago). Culture produces political results, not the other way around. Breitbart was right.
President Obama and his staff have an advantage from their experience in the school reform wars and their access, via Bill Ayers and others, to exactly what education has been pushing to fulfill John Dewey’s Social Reconstruction vision using schools. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/are-educators-free-to-plot-mental-insurrections-in-students-with-impunity/ lays out Social Reconstruction and why it matters.
Chicago has always been one of the pivotal areas for using education to affirmatively seek political, economic, and social change. Understanding just how much voters, as students, have been habituated to respond emotionally from the heart instead of rationally from the head is highly useful for a mass political campaign. Knowing that community organizing is now based around the schools in urban areas nurturing the cultivated ignorance and sense of grievance is another useful weapon. Knowing that facts have been deemphasized and what the broad spoon-fed concepts are that replaced your own set of facts is helpful as well as the role of visual input that captivates the senses and works with those emotionally driven minds. Full of beliefs that may well be false but it’s a useful false consciousness wrongfully filtering every perception of daily reality.
We have become less deliberative because education has consciously made that so. For political effects. Because a fluent reader with his own set of facts is an individual and not particularly malleable and not necessarily subject to the her effect.
So a generation that had escaped the assault on the mind through the schools surrendered to an assault on the heart and mind through negative advertising. Only one side is playing for keeps here. And with each federal election more voters will have been subject to years of this deliberate assault. Now going into high gear in K-12 and higher ed with data on whether students have the desired collectivist attitudes, values, beliefs, and dispositions being collected. How useful that will be for the 2016 political campaign and only one side will have access to it.
In this discussion, we should remember that the country as founded did not have universal suffrage. A very wise decision, IMHO. For those that say that’s not fair, my response is that the Federal government was intended to be so limited in power that those who were being denied the privilege of voting were not being harmed, for they had a voice in their state and local governments, where the decisions affecting their lives were being made. Meanwhile the far off Federal government was restricted to things of national importance like international trade and defense. Therefore, it was a very rational decision to make the office holders in the Federal government either appointed, like Senators used to be, or elected by the educated portion of the public.
I’m off to cook some chicken now. Thanks, for the recipe, General.
How did people who were not allowed to vote at all have a “voice” in state & local gov’t?
I am on board with the idea that people who are truly informed on the issues should be the ones voting, but to base who gets to vote merely on gender is unreasonably discriminatory, particularly in this day & age where women are just as likely as men to be property owners, to be educated, etc.
First, no system is perfect. The Founders did their best to create a free republic that would endure, and it certainly was a huge step forward from the previous several thousand years of royalty and dynasties at one end, and peasants, slaves, and serfs at the other. One problem we face today is that so few of our “educated” have any idea what life was like prior to this: Nasty, brutish, and short.
I did not say women should not be allowed to vote. However, at least we are in agreement on the importance of an educated population.
As far as non-voters not having a “voice” without a vote, well, that is what town council meeting were for, and the all-important right of free speech. One can have plenty of influence outside the voting booth. The women’s suffrage movement provides a great example of how this works.
“I did not say women should not be allowed to vote.”
Refer to your statement above: “…the country as founded did not have universal suffrage. A very wise decision, IMHO.” Perhaps you meant that women back then should not have been allowed to vote?
You’re right about the point of town-hall meeting participation. I should have thought of that.
Sorry, but I refuse to believe this meme. The smoking gun for this whole situation is not that Obama got more votes than Romney but that MCCAIN in 2008 got more votes than Romney in 2012. Every single poll, every single bit and piece of on-the-ground evidence clearly indicated that enthusiasm for Romney was orders of magnitude greater for Romney versus that for McCain.
Am I the only one out there that is absolutely blown away by the McCain/Romney vote comparison? Am I the only one out there that’s convinced that the reason for this totally illogical outcome has to be massive voter fraud? And that the fraud is of a newer variety. Not just the run-of-the-mill kind that we always see in which votes are illegally given TO a candidate, but ratherin this case taken AWAY from one.
Yes, perhaps some voters stayed away, but I contend that the real culprit- damnit, the real crime- was that absentee/early votes for Romney were “lost”, and electronic votes for Romney/Ryan were simply deleted. To the tune of not a few tens of thousands, but rather in the millions.
Land of the Fee and Home of the Slave
It *could* be that Romney simply got beaten because of reasons you’re not getting, but hey, that’s simply not possible, is it?
Like you I was blown away as well, how all the obvious enthusiasm for Romney that was shining thru the cracks of an MSM in the tank for Obama did not translate into an election day victory doesn’t add up; 10,000,000 white voters did not participate? Ten MILLION?? Romney got less votes than McCain, but Obama also go less votes than McCain. This election was easily winnable. Those Ten Million would have made this the election landslide every one was predicting. With so much at stake it just doesn’t make any sense. Ten million hard working conservatives stayed home while the pot smoking slacker welfare army of illegals came out in droves to protect their rice bowls. Does not make sense.
Ten million hard working conservatives stayed home while the pot smoking slacker welfare army of illegals came out in droves to protect their rice bowls.
And “conservative” messaging like this is how you lose, sparky. Way to show all of that superior christian love for your fellow man. With friends like you, does the GOP require enemies?
Who said anything about Christian? Or are you taking exception to the criticism of pot-smoking hippies? Cartman warned you. If you don’t get then in the stoner stage, you’ll end up with an infestation of College Know-It-All hippies. Then you’re hosed.
Who said anything about Christian?
Pre-emptive snark. At least half of the commenters here seem to think they’re superior specimens due to their belief in their deity. Not due to their abilities, but their beliefs. Fascinating, really.
If the snark doesn’t apply to you, just ignore it. Carry on.
Correction, I forgot to include the Union demographic; should that be Unionized pot smoking slackers or army of unionized illegals?
Maybe I am just a pollyanna but I think that if there was any real substance to the notion that voter fraud occurred on the scale that you are describing, Republican officials would be on it like white on rice. Obviously, that is not the case. I don’t doubt that there was some fraud coming from both sides. Romney lost, IMO, because his ground game was not up to par helping to get out all those people who sat the election out.
Unless the magnitude of the fraud were simply too big to be believable. I forget which Nazi official said that the bigger the lie the less it’s questioned, but they were right. It’s one thing to jump on a few hundred ballots found in the someone’s trunk during the final stages of a really close election. That’s the typical sort of amateur hour stuff that people expect. Suppose for the sake of argument that voting machines really were altered on a truly massive scale, many millions instead of a few thousand votes. How would you go about proving that? People would denounce you as crazy simply for asking. Furthermore anybody committed, and powerful enough to pull that off would be perfectly capable of eliminating anybody who got uncomfortably close to the truth. I doubt there was really fraud on that scale, but the question you need to ask yourself is: “If there were fraud on a scale massive enough to steal a landslide election, how would the aftermath look different from today?”
Like this? http://conservativebyte.com/2012/11/programmer-under-oath-admits-computers-rig-elections/
And like these Chicago presicts with zero…ZERO votes for Romney:
http://nalert.blogspot.com/2012/11/in-37-chicago-precincts-romney-received.html
There IS work to be done to achieve honest elections.
I have no doubt.
I thought the basis of the pjm commentariat and pundit prognostications of a Romney win at + 50EV was based on the notion that the failure of Obama was a given and that there would be massive turnout to get rid of him, that even a sock monkey would beat Obama.
‘Day after’ articles herein seemed to agree that the election results were the result of fraud and/or evidence of educational system malfeasance.
Does this article now indicate a backing down from the fraud claims? Seems to me that the underlying tone is now that the Obama win was the 47% ‘takers’ out in force — aided and abetted by a “less deliberative society” — which seems predicated on the notion of idiot voters (idiots don’t deliberate, hence this article seems to fall in the ballpark of educational system failure.)
So idiot voters is still the operational meme? This article purports to be an examination of how we lost and lazily devolves to the meme du jour. This variant is that the idiots outnumbered the deliberative smart types.
Deep, dude.
(Alternately I could have done the rhetorically snarky “seriously?” thing here but I doubt the humour in it is as self-evident as one would hope.)
It is interesting isn’t it, rand, that all the libruls and their representatives fought tooth and nail any attempts to clean up voter rolls and take other measures, such as voter photo ID, to ensure that only those legally entitled to vote, and to vote but once, were in place. Yet, they offered no alternative plans of their own to prevent illegal voting. One would almost be tempted to believe that they wanted illegal voting. Hahaha. But that couldn’t be the case now could it. No, of course not.
For every person (like randomengineer), who offers reason and self-examination, “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken.” there are a dozen who want to separate him from his head.
The lack of deliberation isn’t an indictment against just liberals or progressives.
The right attacked one hundred and forty million Americans as being moochers, shiftless, and lazy, at best (most of your comments were much, much worse). So…after you’ve alienated, demeaned and dehumanized half of the people you claim your policies will help, you lost the election. …and you can’t understand why?
It had to have been fraud, right? It couldn’t be your treatment of other human beings or of other Americans? No. Surely not!
It had to be incompetent campaign staffs. People didn’t vote for a Mormon! Yeah. That was it!
It was probably bad mechanics of some sort. Our ground game sucked. We didn’t get out the vote. Yeah. That was it!
You just didn’t deliver your message very effectively. That’s it, isn’t it!
Yeah, I’ll admit, that last one was a problem, really. Insulting voters wholesale is a pretty ineffective way to win votes. (…and you think the left has the monopoly on class warfare??)
Lack of deliberation, folks. Both sides are guilty.
Warren: “The right attacked one hundred and forty million Americans as being moochers, shiftless, and lazy, at best (most of your comments were much, much worse).”
I have to understand that your use of the second-person pronoun, singular and plural, means you are addressing me. So you are acusing me of insulting half of America, just as Obama insulted the people of Pennsylvania as being bitter clingers to religion and guns. He also insulted people who work at Wallstreet, U.S. surgeons, corporations, and users of private aircraft. I suppose I could lenghthen the list but I hope the point is made. I would love to improve myself, so if you would quote me on the subject of moochers, the shiftless, the lazy, and worse I would really appreciate the chance to recant. Don’t look to Benghazi Barack to recant though, he won, though he didn’t build that election campaign.
…and try a second person interpretation of my comment above. It’ll make more sense.
So, you’re (first person) saying that attacking one hundred and forty seven million Americans is a winning strategy. ‘Cause that’s the position you’re defending – the anti-deliberation position.
Instead of engaging American citizens, and fellow human beings, in a more positive fashion, conservatives should continue to attack them at each and every opportunity? That personally attacking millions of people like the good engineer is going to win votes and support for the policies proffered by the right?
Those are the tactics and strategies you, as conservatives, are defending, here.
“So, you’re (first person)…”
That would be second person (you, you’re); first person refers to I, me.
Warren: “Instead of engaging American citizens, and fellow human beings, in a more positive fashion,…”
Oh, so that’s why Obama won. He engaged humans in a more positive fashion, like, oh, say Kos Mulitsas and all the rest of the Journalistos. Sure, you convinced me with that one.
Hey, Warren, rand used punk expressions on his opponents. He called one a dude. He called another sparky. Is this a way for a conservative Romney voter [FB: pardon the oxymoron] to treat fellow human beings?
Many of the replies have made my point for me.
What happened to optimism about America and the future? What happened to inspiring the American people, instead attacking them as well as one another, including attacking those who agree with you on many, if not most, issues?
Is this the party of Reagan…or not? Did he win by embracing negativity, by attacking the poor? …by personally -and viciously- attacking everyone who disagreed with him? …or did he win by embracing and sharing the American dream in a positive fashion? Was his vision of America fully internalized, or was he just spouting something he really didn’t believe to be true?
Currently, many of you are denying that other Americans should have the opportunity to share in this dream. Whether you realize it or not, or admit it or not, this is what you say -and from the context of related conservative statements and policies, that is exactly what you mean – in the attacks you level against the poor in America. You’ve internalized and expressed destruction and division even among yourselves. You even attack one another when you’ve got no one else to attack.
Attack them for being poor, while offering them no hope for the future? Threaten to destroy what little hope they do have? Then, expect them to vote for you and support your policies?
You lack a vision for the future. You offer no vision for the future for others to share. Your ‘message’ is, at best, uninspiring.
You’ve got to find a vision for the future of all Americans. Then, you must inspire others to invest themselves in that vision.
what dream?
what specifically about this “dream” are we talking about?
You’re projecting.
And it’s disgusting that you’re trying to play the “How DARE you insult anybody!” card when _your_ side just shouts “RACIST!” “MISOGYNIST!” “HOMOPHOBE!” “ISLAMOPHOBE!” into the wind at anybody and everybody who won’t toe the Progressive line.
Fred
Dems would be wise to get voter ID in place just to put an end to the easy allegations of cheating. If I were eeevil and bent on cheating voter ID wouldn’t be the way; you just build a fast enough chunk of multiprocessor petaflop hardware running codebreaking software like the NSA has and intercept/modify packets as they come from the machines. A university recently built the required hardware out of playstations, so it’s not as expensive as you would think. The DNC could afford this. At the same time I’d also be all over voter ID laws just so the low hanging fruit allegations would be stymied.
That leaves us with two probabilities here: a) any cheating is local in scope and requires thousands of minions to throw a national election, and b) the DNC hasn’t figured out how to cheat via software. Being the suspicious type I tend to think (a) is unlikely. Hard to keep that many minions quiet.
If you look at a national red/blue map with a county level breakdown it’s clear that cheating isn’t required: rural counties tend to be red and urban ones tend to be blue. No mystery there. It’s been that way for a long time now. There are more people in the urban counties. Math suggests that this by itself is enough to explain the election results.
In short, Fred, I tend to think cheating is overrated, and you’d get better mileage per mental calorie expended trying to understand the urban voter.
rand: “In short, Fred, I tend to think cheating is overrated, and you’d get better mileage per mental calorie expended trying to understand the urban voter.”
Actually, I understand the urban voter fairly well, I used to be one, was born and raised on Chicago’s South Side. And if you libruls think the cheating problem is overrated, could you explain why the librul media and their new media worked so hard to make sure nothing was done about it and why librul lawyers actually spent the time and money to take voter ID and other efforts to clean up voting roles to court in several states?
As voting is considered a right, many believe that voter ID is utilized as a means to disenfranchise those who, for whatever reason, don’t have a photo ID. Perception is 99%……..
bob: “…many believe that voter ID is utilized as a means to disenfranchise those who, for whatever reason, don’t have a photo ID. Perception is 99%……..”
Those many who believe that way all seem to be libruls. Not only that but the last big NAACP meeting could not be accessed without a photo ID. Strange? No, not really. ‘Hypocritical’ would be a more apt word I think. And I wonder why the libruls don’t complain about why those who want to fly commercially must present a photo ID. One must suppose they don’t consider the freedom to travel important. (Now if you say there is no freedom to fly, I’ll refer you to this 99% perception rule of yours.
Fred. Flying is a privilege, not a right. Agreed, these are liberals I’m talking about. I know of no conservatives who object to voter ID laws. Again, these people are convinced that the right wants to disenfranchise minority voters despite valid arguments to the contrary. Liberals are many things, being reasonable on this particular issue is not among them.
Owning firearms is also a right enshrined in our constitution. If liberals think it’s their right not to have to show ID when they vote, then I demand not to have to show any form of ID when purchasing a firearm. They are after all both just exercises in different forms of violence. If the concern of voter fraud destroying the legitimacy of our elections is not enough to warrant ID for voting, then clearly the possibility that I may be a wanted felon on the run, or an operative of the Mexican drug cartels, should not be enough to warrant showing ID when buying firearms right?
Fred — And if you libruls think the cheating problem is overrated…
Since when has idle speculation by the uninformed internet commenter become the gold standard of all things republican? I’m a Romney voter; not drinking the “o.m.f.g. it’s fraud” koolaid doesn’t make one a marxist. If the RNC figured there was actionable fraud, don’t you think this would be pursued? Frankly, I think there’s more adult conversation to be had in a boy scout camp. Better leadership, too.
rand: “I’m a Romney voter…”
OK. If you’re a Romnmey voter then I’m a Benghazi Barack voter. I was surprised how many times Romney passed up the chance to take off his 16-oz. gloves to land a solid blow on his opponent. This was also the unsuccessful tactic of McCain. Both your candidates did Barack a big favor that way. Next time you may want to consider nominating not just a very decent man but a real conservative person.
As to ACORN’s videod attempts to aid people who wanted to cheat at the polls and subsequent reported activity in Philly, the Congressman’s son, etc, well, they speak for themselves. If there was no significant cheating, it seems it was not for lack of trying.
Fred — R ticket in the past 8 presidential cycles. There’s a number of reasons to vote R. Being socially conservative or koolaid drinking ain’t part of the equation. Typically it’s defense, foreign policy and energy; it’s the vector that’s important. Most of the rest is politicking nonsense. Reagan promised to increase defense spending. Way good. Not because we needed grunts but because the spending was largely about toys, and the tech for toys trickles to the civilian economy. We have GPS etc due to Reagan; it was early 80′s spending that allowed that execrable moron Clinton to claim the internet business boom as his. Heh. The only thing that fool did was push business policy that allowed online dog food sellers to be equated to real Intellectual Property developers and owners and hardware providers like HP and set up the conditions for the inevitable bust. Liberals are idiots where it concerns business and technology. They’re luddites, they’re IDIOTS. (One cannot stress this enough.) Do you see the larger picture here? You vote R because R policy generally makes things better for everyone in the longer term and partly because business experts are consulted (i.e. they’re adults who try to get it right.) If you like idiot regulation causing business regression (thus causing recession) and lots of taxes to fund inner city basketball courts you vote D. None of this is rocket science, and like I said, none of it has a damnn thing to do with drinking the so-called “conservative” koolaid that seems ubiquitous on this site. Frankly if the reasons to vote R were limited to what is usually portrayed on this site (being a bible thumper, armchair constitutionalist dipshit, etc) the R ticket would get about 3 states in an election.
Re Benghazi and gloves etc I reckon you’re wrong. Not enough meat, not enough hard actionable evidence to work with, too much speculation. Obviously Obama was wrong and we all know it. Proving it is another matter. No proof and Romney looks like a whinging fool. He played the hand he was dealt. He did fine. He was undone more by the Akins and general teabagger stupidity (the koolaid) than anything else.
Back to work for me. I’ll catch your next round of insults later on.
Fred
One last thing. I too support voter ID laws. Sorry if that doesn’t square with the image you created of me.
I understand the “Urban voter” all too well. They will be the death of this country. Fortunately when the collapse brought on by the profligacy of their elected officials comes and the EBT cards stop working they’ll be the first ones murdering and eating each other.
sinz54,
Romney’s Mormonism is what did him in among white voters. Reagan would have lost too is he would have been Mormon.
I do take all other explanations (speculations) in consideration, especially fraud.
Orwell was off by 28 years…..
It is my understanding that there was never much hope for the future of any Democracy, the history of most of which ended after about 200 years, which was why our Founders designed our nation as a Democratic Republic, not a Democracy!
“It had been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience had proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.”
- Alexander Hamilton
“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting that vote.” – Benjamin Franklin
During a great deal of the later half of the 20th century and beyond, what has passed for an intellectual has really been a sophisticate. A true intellectual would seldom be confused with a sophisticate, for sophisticates seek attention rather than truth. An intellectual feels passionate about truths, and seldom lets the cart precede the horse, never long lets his passion, beyond the quest for and expression of truth, rule his thought.
Call me a skepic, but what I fail to grasp is why this election has not been contested. Considering: Romney won in the few states that require voter I.D; in a number of states after Republicans voted for Romneny the machines recorded Obama; that Obama “won” in too many precincts in too many states by statistical improbability, if not impossibility; that absentee ballots in some places were uncounted; that the military wasn’t allowed to vote by absentee ballots at all, it’s strange, very strange, that Obama’s “win” is passively uncontested.
When too much of a population lacks principles, and/or too many with principles fail to insist that they be universally applied, it seems there’s little point in holding elections at all. When a nation has a Constitution built on principles, but those principles are ignored by the men and women elected and sworn to uphold them, what we have is not a government. What we have is anarchy.
“Call me a skepic, but what I fail to grasp is why this election has not been contested.”
Lack of proof, perhaps? On a really dark, tinfoil-hat perspective, they don’t want to fight it because of the imagined disaster that would ensue in the wake of going after our first affirmative-action POTUS which would make the first Bush 43 election debacle look like a picnic. Surely you can imagine the scope & nature of said disaster, can you not?
Put your thinking hats on folks. There is absolutely no way that Romney got fewer votes than McCain and everyone with sense knows it. Romney was drawing crowds of 30,000 to 40,000 people while Obama couldn’t even fill a stadium and we are to believe that he somehow magically got more votes than Romney because people stayed home. Are you kidding? Everyone I know couldn’t wait to vote in this election and they got to the polls. The lines were miles long and two thirds of those people were waiting in line for a Romney vote. Now the votes were counted in Spain and there were also precincts with over a 100
% of the vote. This whole thing stinks and two and two do not make five.
What is the point in getting all worked up over something we cannot control? Did you pay any attention at all to what I posted above? It would seem that no one in this forum but me wants to entertain the possibility that Obama is being given a pass due to affirmative action. It’s the only angle that makes any sense at all if one is going to take the idea of this widespread voter fraud seriously.
Everyone I know couldn’t wait to vote in this election and they got to the polls.
“So how did Nixon win? Nobody I know voted for him.”
“The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty.” – John Steinbeck
If you believed what you wrote, would you deny Mr. Eisenberg his right to say what he thinks? What you apparently feel is, “It’s a democracy, and my side won; so now all you dissenters have no right to say what you think!” Do you quarrel because you have no valid arguments?
Furthermore, are you showing stupidity or dishonesty when you say “it’s a democracy.” We have a Democratic Republic, not a democracy. “There is no dignity in wickedness, whether in purple or rags; and hell is a democracy of devils, where all are equals.” – Herman Melville
“We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.” – Patrick Henry
Romney Shut out in 37 Chicago precints
http://www.cdobs.com/archive/featured/really-romney-shutout-in-37-chicago-precincts/
“………. reciprocal interchange of ideas……….” is precisely what the Democrat Party has successfully blocked, and will continue to sabotage. It’s their way, or no way, as Harry Reid has so plainly laid out for all to see.
Does anyone seriously think that Obama will make any concessions to such a weak minority?
The Obama Regime and the main stream media have the Republican Party on the ropes, and the referee (Holder) will not step in because he is engaged in racial politics, and is being paid to give Obamby the advantage.
Unless the Republican Party gets a second wind, and a sustainable one, it’ll be carried out on a stretcher and given the Last Rights.
This is ideological warfare, and the Republican Party looks like they haven’t been trained how to fight.
The only viable contender left to effectively combat this corpulent street fighting gang is the TEA Party.
Romney shriveled up and pulled his punches when Obama has left himself wide open with a plethora of delusions.
Yes; Romney failed miserably in using the negative material that was abundantly supplied by his opponent.
To his ever growing list of distinctions, Barack Obama now can lay claim to being the first U.S. president to have been reelected with fewer electoral votes, a lower percentage of the popular vote, and a lower number of total votes than he garnered when first elected.
If that’s all true, it is remarkable.
But any and all of this can be read two ways, as Obama’s victory, or as Romney’s loss.
Rather, the argument was that while Obama had done nothing, and evidently could do nothing, to mitigate your misfortunes, Romney did not even care about those misfortunes. The choice was between an inept candidate and an insensitive one. In the end, there was little sense in voting for either.
So how does that favor Obama? You need another argument to explain.
Also, say Obama tried exactly what you say. And that, though we haven’t quite said how or why, it favors Obama. OK, good for him. Now, what about Mitt? What did he do on his side, nothing? Did he do anything to argue with this narrative, that he was insensitive? Well, not much. His own campaign was famously negative about Obama without impressing anyone with much of anything he wanted to do himself. The knock against Republicans and conservatives is always that they want to let “vicious capitalism” (if not the even more bogus “economic Darwinism”) be their policy. There is of course some truth to this, so it needs to be explained to the public, contra the Marxist, communist, progressivist narrative, that freedom is good, freedom works, freedom is the American tradition, and you’re really going to miss it when it’s gone. That is the politician’s duty when he runs, you have to recite the catechism. Mitt didn’t do it. Oh, he threw up 57 points, later reduced to 5, but he didn’t have any good soapbox, tub-thumping lines. THAT IS WHAT IT TAKES TO BE ELECTED. He didn’t try.
So I’m not going to blame the voter, and I’m not going to say Obama cheated. Both sides were cynical, and Obama was more effective.
The worst you can say about the electorate is that they judged the campaigns rather than the men or the policies, and they voted on that basis. I held my nose and voted, but I can certainly understand the position of those who didn’t.
I think I meant, “Obama’s achievement or Romney’s failure”.
For a too significant percentage of the voters (who are low-info & don’t pay much attention to much of anything at all outside of their own spheres), presidential elections are popularity contests. Symbolism outweighs substance. I am sure Obama helped himself quite a bit by just showing up on Jay Leno, Letterman & The View. Romney, OTOH, did very little to appeal to the shallow, fashion-oriented sensibilities of this type of voter who, again, exists in very large numbers. JMO.
The deliberative spirit in American democracy has been ebbing for some time.
You can’t have a deliberative process when the nation’s population consists of so many ill educated and under-educated, so many empty minds susceptible to vapid rhetoric.
Holding their hands out.
You mention de Tocqueville. He did presage the Obama administration, writing in the 1830′s in Democracy in America:
“Thus, taking each individual by turns in its powerful hands and kneading him as it likes, the sovereign extends its arms over society as a whole; it covers its surface with a network of small, complicated, painstaking, uniform rules through which the most original minds and the most vigorous souls cannot clear a way to surpass the crowd; it does not break wills, but it softens them, bends them and directs them; it rarely forces one to act, but it constantly opposes itself to one’s acting; it does not destroy, it prevents things from being born; it does not tyrannize, it hinders, compromises, enervates, extinguishes, dazes and finally reduces each nation to being nothing more than a herd of timid and industrial animals of which the government is the shepherd.”
To lead your nation for the next 4 years, you have re-selected a gaggle of liars and dissemblers, individuals who have no problem using stealth and deception to effect an ideological agenda.
The lying on Benghazi alone should revolt you.
51%.
Romney lost for one reason: Democrats control ABCCBSNBC. Period.
ABCCBSNBC controls the narrative for 95% of America’s media. As such, ABCCBSNBC controls 100% of the public whose opinion is subject to irrational, fact variant, emotion based mob manipulation.
Irrational, fact variant, emotion based manipulation and agitation of the deludable mob is how ABCCBSNBC beat Romney. Period.
“Whoever controls the media, controls reality” — Peter Jennings
Obama and his Fraud Media have proven that 51% of the 2012 American electorate are fully propagandable, that is, they can be agitated into an irrational deluded mob, driven, not by fact, reason or principle, but by pure delusional hatred of white male Republicans.
By the shear brute force of 95% of America’s microphones hourly daily weekly repeating the mob agitating Democrat Talking Point lies that Republicans are: racist, homophobic, bigots at war with women, the Fraud Media managed to convince 62 million to “save America” from the white-Republican-racist-homophobic-bigot-at-war-with-women BOOGIE MAN.
The electronic sewage pipes of ABCCBSNBC and their cable spawn, CNN and MSNBC, spewed the fraudulent Democrat talking points 24/7 since the summer of 2011. MSNBC literally repeated the term “Republican Racists”, on average, every ten minutes since September 2011, sustaining their fabricated mob instigating crescendo non-stop once Herman Cain began leading the GOP primaries.
Led by ABCCBSNBC, the Fraud Media has made Hating Racist Homophobe Misogynist Republicans the national sport for 60% of women, 95% of blacks and 70% of mexicans and 73% of asians.
Until Democrat control over 95% of America’s microphones and 100% of America’s gullible deludable morons is stopped, America’s information-immune morons will continue to vote against Republicans, ergo, for acceleration of America’s death spiral into financial, intellectual and social bankruptcy.
TakeBackOurMedia.com
Despite, as the author says, having run the dirtiest campaign in history to suppress the vote Obama believes he has a mandate and that it is just a matter of time before he uses it to cajole and threaten Congressional Republicans into voting for their own destruction.
We were bound to get an Obama sooner or later. Mistakes made by a few well-meaning, but less than adequate, predecessors and then someone like O comes along. The only good news is that it isn’t likely someone as bad as Obama will get into the WH any time soon. But O will do enough damage through Obamacare alone to make people wish he never got anywhere near it. Any dem coming after him that wants more of the same will be a one termer or have to find a lot more Philadelphias somewhere to win reelection.
But there is the distinct possibility that there will be some pushback against O coming as early as next year. It could come from Republicans in Congress, but it could also come from average citizens finding ways to resist the soon-to-be onerous Federal Government–people always find ways to fight back when their backs are up against the wall.
Obamacare Summed Up in One long Sentence
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdnY8r7_fLw&feature=player_embedded
My constitutional amendment in waiting;
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number counties, parishes, independent cities existent within the state, each elector resident of the county/parish/independent city they represent and whose vote is bound to the majority vote of their county/parish/independent city: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.
I’ve got another one about lame ducks, as in, there aren’t any more. Every elected official takes office the day the state AG certifies their election. Losing incumbents take no further part in governmental activities starting on election day except that necessary to hand over their office and appurtenances to their successor.
What happened to optimism about America and the future? What happened to inspiring the American people, instead attacking them as well as one another, including attacking those who agree with you on many, if not most, issues?
Is this the party of Reagan…or not? Did he win by embracing negativity, by attacking the poor? …by personally -and viciously- attacking everyone who disagreed with him? …or did he win by embracing and sharing the American dream in a positive fashion? Was his vision of America fully internalized, or was he just spouting something he really didn’t believe to be true?
Currently, many of you are denying that other Americans should have the opportunity to share in this dream. Whether you realize it or not, or admit it or not, this is what you say -and from the context of related conservative statements and policies, that is exactly what you mean – in the attacks you level against the poor in America. You’ve internalized and expressed destruction and division even among yourselves. You even attack one another when you’ve got no one else to attack.
Attack them for being poor, while offering them no hope for the future? Threaten to destroy what little hope they do have? Then, expect them to vote for you and support your policies?
You lack a vision for the future. You offer no vision for the future for others to share. Your ‘message’ is, at best, uninspiring.
You’ve got to find a vision for the future of all Americans. Then, you must inspire others to invest themselves in that vision.
Of course, what did Reagan know, anyway. It’s not as if he won by a landslide or anything…
Cluebat: Conservatives didn’t need any help ‘suppressing’ the vote. They were doing quite well, all on their own. (You went from attacking politicians and policies to attacking the American voter and the American Dream.)
Another Concern Troll who just also happens to be a Obamabot low-info-voter poster-child.
“Currently, many of you are denying that other Americans should have the opportunity to share in this dream. Whether you realize it or not, or admit it or not, this is what you say -and from the context of related conservative statements and policies, that is exactly what you mean – in the attacks you level against the poor in America. You’ve internalized and expressed destruction and division even among yourselves. You even attack one another when you’ve got no one else to attack.
Attack them for being poor, while offering them no hope for the future? Threaten to destroy what little hope they do have? Then, expect them to vote for you and support your policies?”
Really that’s what you think Conservatism is? “Threaten to destroy what little hope they do have?” is equating hope with government. Sick.
The very fact that the “poor” reside in this country means they have “the opportunity to share in this dream. In many cases Affirmative Action laws mean they are “more equal than others”.
Another Concern Troll who just also happens to be a Obamabot low-info-voter poster-child.
So… anyone who doesn’t agree with you is a liberal troll. You can’t even have a discussion with fellow conservatives or politely disagree. This is what passes for adult conversation where you come from? Good heavens. And you wonder how the democrats won. *sigh*
On one hand, you’re right if we’re talking about strategy: the 47% remark was all negative and not smart considering an election, even when it was true.
On the other hand, Mitt showed he was not taking sh!t and had clear eyes to see and call the thing by its name. It was a reaganesque moment, like when Reagan called the Soviets an Evil empire. The difference, of course, is that the inhabitants of the evil empire were not part of his electorate; otherwise, Reagan would have lost.
Unfortunately, the enemy is domestic now, it has to be dealt with more diplomacy, but it has to be recognized as it is. Being poor is bad but not an immoral thing. Being a looter is immoral, whether poor or rich.
I can see four reasons Obama won:
1. As Rush said, people will not vote against Santa Claus. Even though Santa simply distributes what is made by elves, most people do not consider the elves, only that Santa brings the goodies. As Santa, Obama has been great about distributing the taxes he takes from the productive, as well as money borrowed from our children, to the deadbeats, looters and moochers. This is why the population, with their entitlement mentality, are loathe to give up their free birth control, obamaphones, 99+ weeks unemployment, welfare, food stamps, etc, and will fight tooth and nail to prevent that from happening.
2. The media is in the tank for the democrats. If Hurricane Katrina happened in October of 2004, you think Bush would have been re-elected? Numerous scandals in the Obama administration, such as Fast and Furious, Major Hassan, the “green jobs” bankruptcies, and Benghazi, would have sunk any republican running for office. But the media paid little attention to these. In addition, the memes put forth by the media, that republicans want to “put blacks in chains,” are racist, homophobic, woman-hating, bible-thumping, greedy, materialistic anti-science bigots comprising reactionsry old white men who want to take us back to the 50′s, outsource everyone’s jobs and prevent women and minorities from having their civil rights. I remember an MSNBC pundit in 2008 saying that the RNC was as white as a Nuremberg rally. So the media essentially conflates republicans and conservatives with Nazis. Speaking of Nazis, Goebbels said that the bigger the lie, repeated often enough, the quicker the people will swallow. If educated Germans were brainwashed by Hitler so thoroughly, how easy is it to brainwash the uneducated celebrity-obsessed dolts in this country whose attention spans are less than that of a gnat?
3. Republicans have mastered the role of the gentlemanly loser. They excel at ripping each other apart, but when faced with a democrat and his army of propaganda, they become discombobulated pansies who want to reach across the aisle and compliment their opponents. They refuse to take the fight to the enemy, and fear looking mean-spirited. Romney was AWOL all summer when he was being demonized by the democrats and gave no effective response. Obama could have been hung out to dry on so many issues, but aside from the first debate’s mojo fix, Romney seemed doubletimed by Obama and the “moderator” and acted like he had been slapped down each time with no effective comeback. The foreign policy debate could have been a strong suit for Romney, but he folded quickly.
Finally, reason #4: massive voter fraud. When a computer touch screen registers “Obama” when you pick “Romney” (you ever have your iphone launch google maps when you touch angry birds?), busloads of illiterate foreigners shipped to the polls, and given cards by democrat operatives on whom to vote for, republicans being thrown out of election precincts, disenfranchisement of those serving in the military and precincts reporting 99.9%, 100% and 104% votes for Obama. Even third world dictators don’t do that well at elections! Saddam Hussein got only 97% of the Iraqi vote! And you can be sure, with all the voter fraud, republicans know how to concede, leaving their supporters high and dry with no recourse.
For the first time in my life, I have thought it best to forswear voting. If you’re a conservative/republican, your vote doesn’t count. Not only will it be cancelled out by fraud, the republicans you support have no intention of fighting the demonrats to defend the sanctity of your vote.
BINGO!!! Especially reason #4. The Republicans are as useless as balls on a bishop.
Voter fraud- very possible- http://conservativebyte.com/2012/11/programmer-under-oath-admits-computers-rig-elections/
‘A Republic IF you can keep it”.
American people, meh, to busy watching TV.
You get the government you deserve, good luck with that, you will need it.
I don’t think the Obama campaign message was “don’t vote”. It was “vote for me”. Duh. This article is idiotic and it pains me to read such ill-considered nonsense.
Isn’t it obvious that Romney lost because he alienated everyone but the republican base. You don’t win elections by trying to be further right than 85% of the country.
Except, Romney largely won the Independents. It was largely the base that did not turn out this cycle.
If anyone gets the “extremist” label, it’s going to be Obama himself, through winning by turning out his own base, at the exclusion of everyone else.
How Do You Kill 11 Million People?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EH_Izul6J5M&feature=player_embedded