It’s What You Can’t See
The polls also have a hard time making numbers out of “broken glass voters.” These are folks who (like me) voted for Bob Barr four years ago, or held their nose and grudgingly voted for McCain, or just stayed home. This year they’d crawl naked over broken glass to vote against Obama. There are even a few BGV types who voted for Obama last time around. They can also be filed under “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” They feel betrayed, and rightly so.
Let’s not forget the few principled civil libertarians on the left. They were all kinds of enthused by Obama’s promised to be Not-Bush on foreign policy. Circa 300 drones strikes later, and they aren’t quite so enthused anymore. While we’re at it, let’s rub Gitmo and expanded wiretapping into that wound, shall we?
So it’s safe to say that there are two undercurrents in this election. One is from the center and towards Romney. The other is from the left and away from Obama. There is no current — none — moving in Obama’s direction. The only reason this is a race at all, is Blue State Lock-In. The ruined husks of CA, IL, NY and others are safely blue and carry lots of electoral college votes. It will take a wave, not an undercurrent, to paint them red — a wave which might just come in 2016 if a President Romney can govern in his first term like Reagan did in his.
Even a wave election in and of itself won’t paint IL, CA, and NY red. That requires the collapse of the patronage systems that keep people voting blue out of fear.
Of course, 2016 may very well be the target date for that collapse.
Reagan in 1980 and 1984 suggests otherwise.
Reagan wasn’t contending with a cascade of near-retirement Baby Boomer government employees and pensioners. Back then, the Yuppies had just discovered that “to get rich is glorious”. Now they’re terrified.
The current trends will engulf the boomers’ “prosperity” rather quickly with Obama at the helm. Perhaps a change is in order?
Confounding your narrative, Neil, is that Yuppies who succeeded gloriously at gettting rich are bankrolling the left wing of the left wing Democrat Party.
For example, a whole lotta damage in California has been done by millionaires and billionaires, including and especially the Silicon Valley ones – and that’s been going on since the 1980s.
Steve, I think you underestimate how concentrated the hard core liberal mentality has become here in CA. Most everyone to the right of Obama has left this state.
Indeed, I’m stuck here because my wife has kids here and doesn’t want to leave. It is painful to live in an area surrounded by people that don’t share your values. Anyone that isn’t a hard core liberal here is considered evil. Even among my own family I get that.
I can’t imagine any scenario in which a Republican could win CA. I’d love to be proven wrong about that.
The fault lets go and Calipornia slides into the Ocean? I’m a Fallbrook boy that left 60 some years ago. Ain’t missed it for a minute.
Let’s draw a distinction between an election that is one-sided enough to tip states into an unfamiliar column, and an election that leads to realignment. Reagan in 1984 was certainly the former, but not so much the latter.
“Of course, 2016 may very well be the target date for that collapse.”
Anytime after November 7 2012 will suffice. Fire up the SEP* drive!
* Someone Else’s Problem
I actually agree with you, Neil. A near shut out cannot occur in 2016. Not even a Romney boom would pull them into the red column. A combination of demographics, public employee unions and an indoctrinated Left-Lib-Prog-Dem elite largely immune from crass economics makes these impossible nuts to crack.
If I held any hope for those three, I would bet on Illinois.
I’ve been polled 8 times in last month (ohio). I ans that I’m repub and will vote for The Obama and that i voted for The Obama last time. Others i’ve talked too are skewing polls the same way.
omg, that’s so funny … and mean … but kinda well deserved
Exactly. The conservative activist community in Massachusetts (don’t laugh) talk about “occupied territory.” We know that something like 40-45% of Bay Staters are actually moderately or very conservative. But it’s just Not Done to talk about conservatism or the good ideas Republicans might have in public because the occupation will hear of it and shun you, or worse.
There is such social and institutional pressure to stay Democratic that it takes a hell of a lot to break out of the one-party cycle. But it’s something we’re working on diligently, and we believe its possible to fight back against The Democrat machine much like a guerrilla army can make life tough on an occupying force.
These things take time. Years; numerous election cycles. But most of all, it takes time to enact a cultural shift away from the idea that “this is (California, Illinois, New York, etc), the Democrats always win.”
Interesting post, Truman. Good luck to you conservatives in MA., and please don’t let “Sitting Bullsh*t” (Warren) win! We’ve gotta take back the Senate, and throw Reid out on his lyin’ arse.
And people will have to go to prison for IL to change. A LOT OF PEOPLE !!!
Issa’s committee investigates Chicago USAO
http://illinoispaytoplay.com/2012/10/30/issas-committee-investigates-chicago-usao/
As a resident of California, I can tell you that the folks here don’t appear as if they will ever get it. They complain about the results of our Leninist legislature – high taxes, abusive unions with their goons, unflinching bureaucracy, failing schools, environmental extremist nihilism, bullet train boondoggles, water shutoffs, yet continue to vote for the same people. When you speak to them about issues – really break it down into what they feel in their gut, they are as conservative as the next guy in basic principles, but they’ve always voted democrat, so they continue to do so. Don’t try to confuse them with the facts. The future is not bright for the golden state.
The future is not bright for the golden state.
Pyrite state?
Granola State — a collection of fruits, nuts & flakes.
At least they will have government funded abortion on demand and free contraceptives.
So….what you’re saying is the problem will eventually solve itself?
The problem in CA is that the republican party here is too squishy. Afraid of appearing conservative because that might offend some moderates. Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina were the perfect standard bearers for the squish establishment.
Yep, and the girls got squashed.
Somehow the squish Republicans just can’t figure out that Democrat voters already have a party that will deliver on the squish agenda that they’re perfectly happy with.
There’s a theory that the 1964 Goldwater campaign, even though it got crushed, laid important groundwork and seeded an activist base that made Reagan’s big win (and national swerve away from the soft-core leftist path America was on) in 1980 possible.
Maybe the hard core free-market, traditional American values Republican campaign that the squish among us keep bawling will forever doom the GOP in California is a necessary testing that must be endured and passed – even if in that year’s election the Republican campaign crashes and burns like Goldwater in ’64. Only until the vision is put before the voters then argued and campaigned for clearly, logically, factually and forcefully will Republicans be able to convince Californians there is a freer, fresher, fitter and faster alternative to our present bloated, lazy jerry-rigged Nanny State.
There’s a theory that the 1964 Goldwater campaign, even though it got crushed, laid important groundwork and seeded an activist base that made Reagan’s big win (and national swerve away from the soft-core leftist path America was on) in 1980 possible.
I don’t put much stock in that theory. IMO, Goldwater’s campaign laid the groundwork for what happened in Congress in the 90s.
The guy who laid the groundwork for what happened in the 80s was Jimmy Carter.
Presidents matter. A bad President will taint the party brand for a cycle, possibly longer. We saw it with Nixon, again with Carter, and yet again with Bush.
I hope Mitt is as good a President as he is a manager.
When I lived in California, voting was nuts. A ballot would ask things like, Do you want the road fund to go to taking care of the roads? Eventually, I left and returned to the East Coast. The Californians I’ve known with conservative leanings eventually leave the state and take up somewhere else where the cost of living isn’t so high. They did this with abandon before the housing bust, selling their “shoebox” houses for $0.8M then bidding up on affordable housing in their new adopted city, making housing unaffordable to locals overnight (places like Cedar City, Utah, got hammered). At first I thought it was great that they left, but their attitudes turned out to be so much more liberal than locals — they are used to being kept in a city, they actually like HOAs and try to install them, they don’t understand why others can’t think like they think. So, not so conservative at all. And not so welcome after all.
Undertow? Maybe another analogy is dark energy. You know, the 90% plus of the universe that is hidden to astronomers. Since only 9% of people contacted even bother to respond to pollsters, their pronouncements are not much better than divinations from the entrails of chickens.
I think the chicken entrails are probably more unbiased than the pollsters could ever hope to be. The chicken just doesn’t want to be eaten. It knows that the Democrats and Republicans are largely lying when they say “we won’t eat you.”
double, double, toil and trouble,
fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Two other alternative analogies for “undertow”:
“quicksand”
“sinkhole” (as any Floridian will attest)
There was an article on HotAir (I think) today. Apparently, Obama cannot get above 47%… in OR! That seems to be his cap in lots of places. Seems Romney was right about the 47%. I don’t think it is an undertow. I think it’s a tide. Obama’s house is just a sandcastle, due to be washed away. However glorious was the sandcastle, people have had their day at the beach, and it is time to go home. They are now packing the car or are on the road already.
I live in Portland, OR. And I haven’t responded to a single poll. I too notice fewer Obama signs and even bumper stickers than 4 years ago. But I will be utterly flabbergasted if the bull headed leftists in this city pull their heads out and vote for Romney. Salem is the state capital. Tell me which way they’re voting. Eugene is the University of Oregon and hippie central. Ditto on which way they’ll vote. Washington County has gotten more blue, not less, in the last decade. And among my (almost exclusively) blue friends, I doubt a single one will vote for Romney. I have one friend who is convinced we’re going off the fiscal cliff, has physical gold in a Canadian bank vault and rants and raves all the time about suicidal government spending, destruction of the dollar and so on. I asked him who he’s voting for. Obama. I have chastised him plenty, but he won’t budge. It’s a religion to these people. They are beyond reason.
Hippies didn’t do away with religion (Imagine there’s no heaven … no religion, too), they just swapped it for something else.
I’m a BGV – in fact, I just voted a couple of hours ago. In person, on a paper ballot, because I’m kind of a Luddite
You’ve got me nailed, exactly. I did, just for the heck of it, early on decide to hold out on an electronic poll (thinking if I didn’t answer, a human would get on the line). Second question, “OK, you’re voting for Barack Obama. Would you say that you’re…” What? I hadn’t said anything or touched a button.
Got a second call from the same source about a week later. This time I *firmly* (but not hard enough to induce a squawk) pushed the #2 for Romney. Second question, “OK, you’re voting for Barack Obama. Would you say…”
What’s the point? They’re rigged. (That’s the reason I use a paper ballot, also. If I leave an office without a vote, and there’s no write in line, I put a line through the person’s *name* and write “no vote for this office” underneath. Because I know that when people dislike both choices, and leave the thing blank, somebody else will come in and fill it in for them. I did Minnesota politics for years. The county that had the biggest “oopsie” in Franken’s favor when he got elected *always* had less votes for Senate or President than for local offices. Always. Except, miraculously, when even people voted Republican for everything else voted for Franken, and there were *no* ballots with the Senate race left empty.”
Used paper ballot, as did my guys. Voted straight rep and appeased the inner anarcho-libertarian by letting her vote to legalize pot. I have to let her do something! I couldn’t let her vote for national (or state) offices!
Would have voted on the day, but I’m volunteering. So.
Funny. That sounds like my ballot in WA. Straight R, but voted for the pot initiative. I want the hopenchangenjungen too stoned to find the mail box.
“Der Hopenchangenjungen”
I am so stealing that!
What the hell is BGV?
Broken Glass Voter
By the way,my wife and I are BGCZ voters. We would crawl over broken glass through a hot combat zone to vote. Snipers and high explosive mortar rounds would not deter either one of us from trying to get to the polls.
My wife has been conservative for a long time, but has never done more than voted.This year she contacted local Republican authorities and they asked her to canvas a local neighborhood in our New England state, 28 houses, Republican and independent voters. I drove the car. She tallied 20 strong votes for Romney, 1 Obama vote and 7 people who would not reveal their choice. No one wanted an absentee ballot and all the strong voters indicated they would get to the polls, no matter what. One woman sheepishly admitted to voting for Obama and then said “…but this isn’t what I wanted.”
I like to think that those results might be an indicator.
“This year they’d crawl naked over broken glass to vote against Obama.”
BGV here.
Is the GOP putting its best and brightest in CA, NY and IL? I think they could take these states, but every report seems like the state leaders are nigh incompetent, and don’t even try.
Those states will only go R if we are talking a 450+ EV landslide. Either they are irrelevant or they are window dressing. Save your campaign money/manpower/materials for easier picks.
The people in these states have let the far left control the government and they have not awoken to the financial folly that awaits. Until the pain becomes unbearable, things will remain as they are. The pain became unbearable in Wisconsin and the people there sought a restructuring. When industry packs up and leaves, then some people will wake up. Not enough of that has happened yet. When the people figure out that the unions and government workers have rigged the game in their favor, more people will catch on. They haven’t yet, but they will.
Eventually.
Tough to say which came first, lame GOP candidates that the public gave up on, or a state painted such a deep shade of blue that any viable GOP candidate gives up.
It’s telling though that Feinstein might as well be running unopposed, the opponent couldn’t even get her to a debate and outside of one dude no one in the media has even pressed her on it.
I’ve done an informal poll amongst my social circle and not one of them could name her opponent. (It’s Elizabeth Emken I think).
I’m afraid I don’t know what a Broken Glass Voter is. Is it someone that doesn’t vote electronically?
I said what they were right in the piece, but I’ll repeat myself. A BGV is someone who would crawl naked over broken glass to vote against Obama.
I made the same mistake as Skyhawk did. I read your reply then went back and clicked “next page.” D’oh, there it was.
When oh when will you get rid of the multiple-click pages? Grrrrr…..
(And, yes, I know about the “view one page” button but it doesn’t always work.)
Carry on…
Early voter in Florida.
I didn’t have to crawl over broken glass, but I had to drive to the polling place twice, since the first time, it was so crowded that there was nowhere to park. Finally got in and voted for Romney.
People are coming out in droves in this election, and they ain’t votin’ for Barry.
Principled libertarians on the left?
If they were both principled and libertarian, they would surely have abandoned the left long ago, no? Otherwise they value their leftism over their principles.
related reading(titles that do not exist):
“Greatest Moderates in History” and “The Principled Left: Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot”
On hindsight, “principles” can be either good or evil, aina?
lol
Think Nat Hentoff, formerly of the Village Voice. He was always for civil liberties and non-aggression in foreign affairs, which is why he could be for George McGovern against Richard Nixon. Haven’t read him in a few years, so I don’t know if he has in fact drifted conservative, or if the Left, which used to be for things such as free speech, has gotten so marxist that his views, once on the left, are now on the right.
I voted for W. in 2004, because we were in a couple of wars and Sept. 11, first time I voted for a major party candidate (I voted Libertarian in 1980 & 84), voted for Palin (& her sorry excuse for a running mate) last time because of the “spread the wealth” and “the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties” comments. Yikes how could people be so blind to The Whine’s hardcore leftism. I’ll be a BGV for Romney, and long for the day when I can get back to voting Libertarian.
Hentoff’s still writing. I read him often at Jewish World Review. (Don’t know how to insert a hyperlink, sorry: http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/hentoff1.asp)
Still principled as ever. They’ve broken the mold and guys like Hentoff are few and far between.
Hentoff is still writing. I read him at Jewish World Review.
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/hentoff1.asp (Don’t know how to insert a hyperlink, sorry.
Still principled. Still a good guy.
Contradictions are unsustainable; when created in a man or an ideology, the logic of it works until one side or the other of that contradiction is jettisoned.
The unstable and contradictory mixture of liberalism and the Left, begun with the Progressives, resolved itself in the 1960′s when it became clear that the schools were no longer minting anyone with even a trace of the old liberalism. It’s socialists all the way down now.
If Hentoff is a principled civil libertarian, he’s not a principled Leftist, and vice versa. He and others like him are a small minority, and no longer politically relevant (though the Left will continue invoking them when it’s politically necessary to appear “moderate” for a time.)
If you want to know what a principled Leftist looks like, see Eric Hobsbawm.
Thank you! You are one the few rational libertarians who know the stake of the election.
Try Normblog in the UK for a leftie who surprises with the quality of his critiques of boneheaded leftist dogma and, although an atheist, takes Dawkins to task for his one sided views. I think he makes me a more clear thinking conservative.
Well said! Thanks for the thoughts and summary.
I live in semi-rural territory, outside of Portland, OR, after having moved out of the city in utter frustration, a little over 2 years ago. My husband and I have needed to head into town several times in the last few weeks (we never go there now without compelling reasons), and we have been keenly observant of the political signals we’ve observed everywhere we’ve gone. In 2008, Portland was aflame with Obama fever. Signs and bumper stickers everywhere! In 2012, after multiple trips through the city, on highways, main roads and side streets, we have yet to see a SINGLE Obama bumper sticker or yard sign. Not one. It’s not to say they don’t exist, but the masses have clearly lost their exuberant enthusiasm. Almost makes being there tolerable.
Kat,
Simmilar situation here. I’m in Bucks County PA, suburbs north of Philly….
Not AS many Obama signs as last time, but the really smug, guilty white liberals (a lot of them are Teachers @ 100K?) have them on all their Lexuses and in front of their “McMansions in the Cornfield”
They actually seem to ENJOY their minority status this time around…that exclusive club of know-it-alls far removed from the repuslive unwashed racists that support Romney.
I live across the puget sound from Seattle in a Navy town. It went Obama the last time, but not so sure now. Then there were lots of Obama yard signs and bumper stickers. Now I see more 08 bumper stickers than Forward? stickers and nary a yard sign.
I took a class at U Wash this fall, even in Leningrad there are very few Obama signs, only signs for gay marriage and legal pot. In the paper there was an article where a GOTV worker tried signing up voters on Red Square (the busiest plaza on campus) and she only got 35 to sign up after a full day. No enthusiasm.
WA is rather blue, I think we have the longest D Gov streak in the country – 1980 was the last R gov win. We might get a R this year with Rob McKenna, who has won election as our AG twice.
I think there are a lot here that are not talking politics this year, I think because they will be reported to the PC police if not for Obama. I must say the GOP primary was the best turnout I have seen in 16 years. But I hope there are a lot of BGV’s here.
Cross your fingers, but Bremerton (or Port Orchard) is a Navy town and thus much redder than the rest. Take a tootle up to Port Townsend if you want to see some Obama signs.
I am resigned to King County pulling the state down with it again, as usual.
King County will come up with the ballots (real or “found”) to turn the state blue, but the enthusiasm isn’t here either. I’m seeing very few Obama signs in anybody’s yard. Far more energy around the governor’s race. In that one the Inslee people seem to be desperate.
Yes King county always reports their ballot results so they can determine how many votes are needed. I swear they have boxes of ballots predone to be 75% D in all races so they know how many to add to count.
In the last Gov race, heck 2 boxes in the trunk of a car suddenly had not been counted, added to the recount. We really need a cleaning of our voter roles in this wonderful all vote by mail paradise.
Same thing here in Austin, TX.
2008, Obama crap everywhere.
2012………nary a sign, bumper sticker, or rally. Even the local radio DJ’s hate him.
I love it.
Many fewer 0bama stickers on Orange County, CA. Actually saw my first Obama sign in Irvine, CA yesterday. Would love to have Cali. go red, we have some pretty unpopular local initiatives that may bring the Romney voters out.
And the state Republican party is idiotic. No hope for us until we get a party that is willing to fight. They seem to be happy to go along to get along for the most part.
The dirty secret is that by now one person in eleven responds to polls–there’s no way for them to be accurate. An even dirtier fact that is less secret is that polls give progressives the illusion of controlling information, and they gravitate there, as pollsters and politicians and skew the results. What’s to stop them? They can only be judged for accuracy on their final poll.
Insiders use voter models, and those have been showing a GOP landslide since before Romney was the nominee. Voter models are the reason Obama had his billionaire cronies house hunt over the summer for his new beachfront Oahu mansion with a move-in date early in 2013.
But it’s been even more obvious than that. Having lived my adult life in Austin and then Silicon Valley, I know progressives. I predicted in June of ’08 that Obama would lose this election in a landslide. Why? One, with government grown to this size, there’s nothing to be done to improve the economy until we scale it back, and Obama would not do that. Republicans would rally and oppose Obama. Two, progressives are repugnant people and not easily pleased. Their time in the limelight would expose them and put pressure on the bizarre amalgam of Democrat constituencies. The Democrats would fracture. That prediction is more than four years old, but it couldn’t have been more obvious, and it’s exactly what we’re seeing today.
I’ve been doing calling into a swing state with a simple “yes, no” question on Obama and the economy. I don’t know how they generate the phone list. I’m sure we’re not calling registered Democrats. I *think* that we were calling anyone *not* on a political list. (I’d get answering machines for, oh, the regional FBI office and stuff like that.) I’m just on the phone end.
For what it’s worth, just *my* calls seemed to go 4 to 1 on bad numbers/hang ups, but out of the (ball park) 1 in 5 answers it ran maybe 2 out of 3 or better negative to Obama.
People were pretty emphatic, too.
So it just matters who votes, and emphatic is probably a good indication. I mean, the computer never asked for data input on how *firmly* did the person answer. And there wasn’t a place to enter data for “Oh My Gawd! He DESTROYED the economy!” Just “yes” and just “no.” Or how often someone said “I’d think that was obvious!” instead of answering yes or no, when they mean no. (I never assumed.)
In any case, I hope that’s vague enough because I’m pretty sure I signed something saying I wouldn’t reveal certain things, etc., or use the data. But I don’t have any data only my impressions.
I live in a suburban area in the New Hampshire seacoast area. Every day I drive through Main Street to get to work. There were very few (two to three) Obama signs along the route, until one day last week. The same Obama sign appeared, overnight, in about 15 to 20 yards along the street. I said to my husband it’s almost as if Obama campaign workers knocked on the door of each registered Democrat and asked if they could plant a sign in their yard. Just too coincidental to be anything else. I just don’t get the same sense of enthusiasm among these O voters as in 2008.
Nate Silver doubled down on his prediction of an Obama victory. So, until proven otherwise, I am going to assume that every vote counts.
In my opinion, the single greatest side benefit of Romney winning this election will be dispatching with Nate Silver as some sort of demographic genius.
The FLA polls are tightenting?
“Tea Party voters are, I can tell you from many firsthand accounts, probably the least likely to respond to pollsters.”
My wife and I love to give erroneous off-the-wall responses to telephone polls and surveys. We refuse to reveal our true opinions to anonymous callers.
The comment on Tea Party activism is spot on. In NE Ohio, the Tea Party Patriots brought in coal miners to do door-to-door canvassing in Reagan Democrat areas. Real coal miners who are losing their jobs because of Obama’s war on coal. How smart is that?
That’s flippin’ awesome. Do you have a link?
Broken Glass Voters. yes.
I was so opposed to Romney that I told some peoplo I might sit out (being from a solid red state), but never meant it. I would break the glass and then crawl through it to hammer the Fraud.
And as I paid some attention to Romney’s lifetime of good deeds, I’ve come to at least situationally tolerate his shameful negative campaigning against the more conservative Republicans, and the certain knowledge that he is going to be disappointing in many regards.
It’s clear that he is smart,capable and experienced, able to adjust to changing conditions, an admirable person, and far most importantly…someone who does not despise the country and people he is asking to lead.
I consider myself a Tea Partier. I live in Northern Minnesota. I was polled after receiving a call on my cell phone. I thought about not participating but then thought better of it. I suspected that perhaps Minnesota was in play and it is.
I’ll tell you why I don’t respond to pollsters. Because I have a pay-by-the-minute phone. I spend $100 a year on phone calls. I’d guess, when it comes to fashion-conscious personal items like iPhones, conservatives are a lot cheaper than people with supposedly lower incomes.
The people who will decide this election have just gotten interested. The campaigns that counted just ended, and got started. Up until last week, they were laser focused on the Giants, or Detroit. They know the economy is in the toilet; they just do not trust or believe any politician. My guess: they will break for Romney, a tsunami (small) is building. This always happens; America is a center – right nation.
The big question to me, is how long will it take to blame hurricane Sandy on climate change and those dirty coal loving Republicans? Expect these scientific findings before the end of the week. There are some 60 million soggy voters on the East Coast. Fear of the unknown drives people to harm themselves. Will their sufferings alter the vote?
If you consider this science, Al Gore met the prediction, before the storm ended, “dirty energy makes dirty weather.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2012/oct/30/picket-al-gore-blames-hurricane-sandy-global-warmi/
All bad things are due to you dirty guys, either George Bush or carbon combustion. Once it was Jews, or blacks, or huns.
The ignorance of what passes for science, informing our political discourse is appalling, truly frightening.
I’m a BGV. Voted on the first day of early voting in Texas so I could tell conservative friends that I had already voted, encouraging them to go to the polls and send a message too. Also sent them the early voting poll locations so they wouldn’t have to hunt for them. I want President Romney to enter office with a comfortable popular vote “win” along with winning the electoral college with several states to spare so lawyers contesting any one state couldn’t flip the result. I want an unambiguous defeat of Saul Alinsky!
I was also happy to vote for Ted Cruz for the Senate. Looking forward to one more conservative voice in Washington.
I would crawl five miles through broken glass while naked in the snow uphill both ways to vote against Obama.
And I’m a liberal Democrat.
As I’ve written here before, I can get along with a liberal — make deals, compromises, save the world over cocktails, etc. It’s the vile progs, such as Obama & Pelosi, who have ruined so much of the Democratic party. (I don’t include Reid because he’s not really a vile prog; he’s simply incredibly corrupt pol. Plenty of those on both sides of the aisle.)
This libertarian is crawling right along with you — even if there are snakes on the way. Actually already voted. (I’m volunteering on the day.) It felt GOOD.
I’m a BGARBV. Broken Glass and Razor Blades Voter.
Obamaism Delenda Est.
I do not favor either candidate. I was toying with the idea of voting for Obama, because the damned Repubs gave us another moderate. However, I decided to vote Libertarian, this time. Why? Because I do not want Obama to get any votes. When he’s gone, I do not want him to have any cachet, whatsoever. I want him to be thoroughly embarrassed, a laughingstock.
I think your viewpoint captures perfectly my impression of Libertarians. You don’t want to aid the Republicans in toppling Obama. You would rather punish the Republicans more than you would securing a defeat for Obama. Is that correct? When I read Libertarian blogs, I can see how deeply they hate Republicans. Still, I read them.
I’m also the BGUSFAMRIAFPWN voter type…
the one that would crawl over broken glass under sniper fire and mortar rounds in a freezing polar winter night
I am a lonely red pixel in frothing blue neighborhood in the bluest city (San Francisco) in the People’s Republic of Californistan. Even here, the brave, brave, oh-so-brave Obama fever of 2008 appears missing. A limousine liberal “Forward” bumper sticker here and there, an occasional Obama/Biden flyer in the gutter, but not much else. In 2008, it was all homemade flags and painted garage doors. The house near my bus stop still has the faded “Hope” poster, but it looks more sad than anything else.
San Francisco will surely be blue, but I sense a real lack of enthusiasm this year; it’s more like the drones being marched to their “duty”. I’d like to think that the enthusiasm doldrums here, of all places, is an indicator of even more conflicted “buyer’s remorse” in other blue zones.
It was a pleasure to mail in my R/R ballot last week. A real pleasure.
I used to live in San Francisco, so I feel your pain. I still remember the “chickens coming home to roost, America” signs plastered in the business district right after 9/11. Anyway, I now live in N. Va., and there is real enthusiasm for Romney, though the place has strong liberal pockets. Thing is, when a Romney/Ryan sign goes up, within a few days, it’s sliced, torched, spray-painted or stolen … then replaced with a new crop of Obama signs. I do have some anecdotal evidence that Romney will win. I spotted a Prius, the car that tilts demographically left, with a prominent Romney/Ryan sticker. Good sign No. 2: I was listening to NPR Monday and a reporter said Mr. Obama throughout, not President Obama followed by Mr. Obama, but Mr. Obama. I stopped what I was doing to make sure I heard it correctly. Weird, a reporter showing what I considered clear disrespect; even weirder, it was NPR. Yeah, Mitt’s got it. But just like a track coach will tell you, you have to run ALL THE WAY THROUGH the finish line. Don’t slow down till the race is run.
” But just like a track coach will tell you, you have to run ALL THE WAY THROUGH the finish line. Don’t slow down till the race is run.”
Absolutely. While I think my vote will do next to nothing for the CA electoral college count, I had the good fortune to spend my college years in Iowa and have kept in contact with many friends there. I spent last week calling them and urging them to use their swing-state votes asap. Fortunately, most of my previously not-very-political friends told me they were already determined to do so, and to do so hard and red.
Another good sign. Still, let’s not get cocky!
The media is a tiny bubble with a giant megaphone. They say whatever makes them feel good within their own little bubble. Furthermore, they think themselves infinitely superior to those outside the bubble. But in the end, the votes of the people inside and outside the bubble all count the same.
I live in Illinois. Pat Quinn lost all but two counties and still managed to win his race. There simply isn’t enough of us outside Cook County to outvote them.
I’m in eastern North Carolina, a depressed rural area with a lot of racial tension. I am a federal employee with daily personal interactions with all kinds of people. Here, the black population, educated and uneducated, young and old, is staunchly loyal to Obama. They are just so proud to see a black man in the White House, when not so long ago this area was so effective in resisting integration of schools. However, the Obama fever of 2008 is gone. They are just going through the motions. The young people are not mobilized. In private, most whites admit to supporting Romney, including those who voted for O in 2008 or didn’t vote at all. But no one wants to appear racist.
I myself never liked Obama, and wasn’t too sold on Romney until Denver.
The mood is different now….it feels like when Carter lost to Reagan.
I think you are right.
Interesting viewpoint from an interesting area. I noticed that the debates made a lot of Romney voters ‘come out’ in the open, but I have suspected that there are still a lot of people who are quietly preparing to vote for Romney but are playing possum because they don’t want to be seen as racist. I also have the theory that all the genuinely racist Republicans voted against Obama last time but that a lot of genuinely racist Democrats probably sat out 2008. Some of those in the latter category may decide to break their life long inability to vote Republican in 2012, like Joe Sixpack back in the day. And then there are the Black folks who are genuinely religious and Jacksonian as any Appalachian coal miner who are playing possum – in spades. For every outspoken Black man like Tea Partier Alan West of FL18, or outspoken Republican woman like Mia Love, there are all them possums who just don’t like postcolonial Eastern Intellectual Establishment types.
I have serious doubts about the polls too, but the RCP average has been remarkably accurate in previous elections so i am working on the assumption that Romney has his nose in front, but nothing more. Make sure you vote, no excuses. My absentee ballot went in to Florida last week and i had the honor to vote for the AfroAmerican – Alan West – and the Mormon Mitt Romney and his Catholic running mate. It feels like there is an undertow fueled by dissatisfaction with Obama and the realization that Romney would probably make a competent president. That would be a relief if it happens. I don’t think either party can back off the ‘buying 1.5% growth with trillions of deficit spending’ but I sure know who will try to dig the hole more slowly! It is almost always better to start trying to go in the right direction than persisting with the wrong one. For me when Romney picked Ryan he showed he sees the deficit threat clearly.
I’m not early voting. I want to stand in a line with people voting for Romney. I want the victory-bliss boogie. I want stickers on my shirt saying I voted. And, honest to goodness, I want to see what sort of head-case eyes-open votes for Obama. It’s a neighborhood precinct at an elementary school. People will tell you who votes.
I know, last time, at the Democratic nominations, all the tee-shirts in line were for Hillary. Obama out and out stole that pre-election selection. And then, on the real election day, one dad was saying his wife had been sent by her union to another state to campaign for Obama- a public employees union rep. So, theft and corruption, rot and decay, from day one. The people at the park- the ones in public housing voted for Obama, after saying things like they were proud that their daughter had aborted a child, to continue in a job as a check-out clerk. So homicidal freaks on the public dole voted for him. And people who had never voted in their life.
I want to enjoy seeing decent, upstanding, engaged, knowledgeable citizens making their own true choices.
Romney may just scrape through, although if it is very close, the Dems will steal the election. It will not be like 1980, and 2016 won’t be like 1984, simply because of demographics. Ideology aside, Obama is easily the worst president the country has seen in 100 years. Romney, a decent, if not remarkable fellow, should be ahead by 10 points. The reason he isn’t is demographics. It is a squeaker election with Romney (if the polls are correct) at 58% of the white vote. That may not be enough to get it done. By 2016 it will be even worse.
Why are people in this country so blind?
I could see right through Obama’s left-wing
agenda in 2008, and didn’t buy into his
fairy-tale and hype one bit! He is arrogant,
and he lies. DO NOT forget Benghazi when
you vote! Please HONOR the 4 we lost with
your vote for Romney; a good man, who I
really feel would NOT in his good conscience.
have told them to STAND DOWN; he would have
sent help. 3 times they asked for help, and
were DENIED! SHAMEFUL! NEVER FORGET!
My son, who lives in Chicago, reports enthusiasm for Obama is way down from ’08. Illinois outside of Chicago is very red, if Obama’s Chicago base doesn’t turn out like they did in ’08 Illinois is in play. I believe Romney has a good chance to take the state.
Talked to a libtard yesterday about Benghazi asking “given all his incompetence on Benghazi are you still voting for barry” and he replied “yes”. I followed up with “would it take barry personally putting the bullet in one of our people’s head (like he did obl) to vote against him? Again, “yes”.
These people are obamabots. Unthinking, unwavering, a cult.
When obama called the SEALS they got osama bin laden. When the SEALS called obama they got left behind.