Election
Yes. I busted my ass for Obama the first time around.
Opened my checkbook, campaigned, knocked on doors. Did everything I could to see that he carried Florida in the Presidential election.
Not easy in a place where Fred Thompson signs were as common as plastic pink flamingos at the time during the primary and right wing nuts carried Soviet flags outside of local Obama campaign headquarters. Where women thought Palin was the essence of true feminism. I had the lone Obama sign on my lawn in a sea of McCain - Palin cardboard.
But I got the last laugh. At least I thought so at the time.
We had elected a Democratic President and controlled the two Houses of Congress. And we carried Florida.
Maybe something would get done.
Maybe universal healthcare. Maybe peace would come. Maybe a society which would leave behind racism. Maybe repeal of the Bush tax giveaways to billionaires. Maybe we would spend money on people rather than aircraft carriers. Maybe we would stop torturing people. Maybe Gitmo would close.
Maybe. Read more
Watching the House vote on the Senate’s bill to avoid the fiscal cliff last night, I was struck by how relieving it can be to watch our leaders to their jobs. When the votes were tallied, we saw forward movement, with Reps. Boehner and Paul voting in favor of the necessary legislation. A splinter of hope was realized in the middle of the night on New Year’s Day. Rationality won out over ideology.
What has nearly broken our union time and again is a devotion to identity politics: so often we vote for candidates we think are like ourselves rather than the best people for the jobs. President Obama’s administration has been harassed and harangued by politicians and a media outlet obsessed with how his identity is different than theirs- and consequently, they’ve felt him unworthy of their support. At last, we are seeing that strident belief begin to weaken, and a glimmer of logic shines in. Read more
As many might remember in July of this year we released the results of our presidential electoral model to predict the results of the 2012 election. As opposed to many predictive models out there (Nate Silver’s 538 blog being the best known) that rely on publicly available data up to the day of the election, our model is based mainly on past results and demographic changes in the country. We do not use any polling or factor in who the candidates are.
The model not only performed exceptionally well at predicting the national support Obama would receive, but we also predicted the state that would put Obama over the 270 threshold (Colorado). Read more
In the weeks leading up to the 2012 Presidential election it was nearly impossible to not hear the name Nate Silver. His projections of the election came to dominate the news cycle and he himself became the subject of the media zeitgeist. Silver was either lambasted as a charlatan by those who disagreed with his lean towards an Obama win; or he was heralded as a genius by liberals whose fear of a Romney victory he assuaged. This backdrop was the perfect setting to be reading Silver’s first book The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail-but Some Don’t. The narrative in the book described a far different world of projection and probabilistic thinking then what was occurring in the media in the lead up to the election. Read more
We supporters of Barack Obama just won a major election and we are all feeling confident. We should, Obama definitely won a mandate when it comes to raising taxes on the rich, along with passing a comprehensive immigration policy. Then we managed to hold our majority in the Senate and we added two seats, with two Independents caucusing with the Democrats.
However, let us not get too comfortable because 2014 is just around the corner, as far as elections go. Some Republicans from the far right are not going to give up. Some even believe that this last election had to be fixed in some way, and that we Democrats were the ones who suppressed voters, not they.
Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate who lost the election to Barack Obama by a clear margin, discounts his loss in the election, to the president giving gifts to certain minorities. Read more
As many might remember in July of this year we released the results of our presidential electoral model to predict the results of the 2012 election. As opposed to many predictive models out there (Nate Silver's 538 blog being the best known) that rely on publicly available data up to the day of the election, our model is based mainly on past results and demographic changes in the country. We do not use any polling or factor in who the candidates are.
The model not only performed exceptionally well in predicting the national support Obama would receive (only 1/10 of a point off), but we also predicted the state that would put Obama over the 270 threshold (Colorado). Additionally, when looking at the state by state results, the model was only off by an average of 2.3 percent across all 50 states. However, in the 10 swing states it was only off by .8 percent. 538 was off by .7 percent in the same 10 states. Additionally we were closer to predicting the results in 5 of the 10 states, while 538 was closer on 4 and we tied on one. Read more
When President Obama gave his final call to volunteers Tuesday, my kids and I were of the thousands of people listening. Piped in through my laptop, the brief speech was experienced at my house in the kitchen, where I was making dinner. The part that struck me- the sentence I will always remember- was when he said “I love you.” Our president said it three times that I counted.
The leader of the United Stated felt this victory in his heart, which is exactly why he won; this is why we all won in this election. Whether you’re Republican, Independent, or Democratic, you won with the reelection of President Obama. When things are done with heart, they benefit many.
Rep. Boehner is already talking compromise, and the feeling of forward movement towards ending the stalemate in D.C. is growing in the lame duck session. This is because Republican leadership knows they were handed their asses when they tried to figure out how to maintain control, instead of put together a platform that honors the better angels of the American spirit. What the heart knew, GOP brains couldn’t guess at. Read more
The American people spoke on Election Day in support of the top 1% paying their fair share but Boehner & McConnell return to DC & immediately insist tax revenue is off the table. Voters sent the Republicans a message to let Benghazi inquiries run their course but the GOP keeps searching for a scandal instead of searching for the truth -- or searching for a jobs plan!
And John McCain threatens to filibuster Susan Rice if she's nominated for Secretary of State saying our UN Ambassador is ill-prepared...from a man who made Palin a household name. Preserve social security, no austerity, focus on jobs, let Bush tax cuts expire -- the American people have spoken, but the right-wingers aren't listening. Read more
Losing an election can be a very bitter pill to swallow. Some Republicans are refusing to accept their loss and instead have begun beating the war drums of vengeance, promising to fight against not only the election results, but against democracy itself and the will of the People.
Donald Trump is a good example, he tweeted a few incendiary comments after the election results gave Obama a clear win. Here is a list of those tweets Yahoo! News provided for us: Read more
Gen. David Petraeus’s sudden resignation as CIA director on Friday is shocking, but what is more shocking is how the GOP and the media is handling this issues. Not they are wondering if his resignation is apart of some sort of conspiracy to cover up for what happen in Benghazi, Libya since Gen. David Petraeus was to testify in the coming days. I find this laughable. For one while the GOP and the media was blaming the President for what happen in Benghazi. They never once put any blame on the CIA director (David Petraeus) for providing bad intelligence when the attack was classified as a protest gone violent. Where was there outrage at David Petraeus. His name was never even mentioned as a person who was part of the problem. Now, the GOP has a different angel. They think David Petraeus was forced out before he can tell the truth about Benghazi. The great White Knight. What a fantasy! Read more
I haven’t written anything more than an email for a couple days, spent as my writer’s mind is from Campaign 2012. In addition to posting here, I was a regional digital lead for Organizing for America. For many months, I gave my best energy to the cause of reelecting President Obama- and it was worth it. I know all volunteers and staff feel it was worth it following our big electoral win. We are the champions, the victors, the big winners. But what does it all mean, anyway?
What this means is the winning work of the Obama Administration and the Democratic Party continues for four more years.
The first major effort of President Obama’s Administration was the Affordable Care Act, which will be fully realized in 2014. Health care reforms will continue to come online, helping save millions of people’s lives and financial futures. It is an inalienable human right to receive health care, and our nation is closer than ever to achieving full coverage. Read more
I have been going back and forth on this question. And now that Taegan Goddard, author and former policy advisor has published the above screen shot of Mitt Romney's Presidential Transition Website. I think Mitt and his entire campaign did think they were winning/going to win. Now I know what you are thinking, of course they thought they were winning. What campaign thinks they are going to lose. Well John McCain recently said on Morning Joe that they knew weeks/days before the election in 2008 that they were going to lose. So yes, candidates and there campaigns are aware of their fate before the actual election. Read more
A historical, exhausting and costly campaign led to victory for a President who spent 4 years not tackling global warming, taxing billionaires, jailing bankers or reforming immigration. As a dozen toss-up races were decided, the new Senate bolsters the same majority that's been hostage to a filibustering minority, stymied by lethargy, protocol and conservatism.
And after volunteers pounded the pavement to determine scores of tight House races, we still have Speaker John Boehner. The most expensive election in history just maintained the status quo. But with the extreme right-wing alternative, the status quo doesn't look so bad.
Plus with a record number of women in the Senate, our first gay Senator, first Buddhist Senator, our first Hindu member of Congress, votes for marriage equality across the country, as well as for marijuana reform and union rights & names like Sherrod Brown, Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Baldwin & Alan Grayson, the status quo just got a little better. Read more
Election Night was a nail-biter, at least for me. It was not clear most of the night just where the polls would take us. One thing I am sure of; No one, no matter which party affiliation, wanted to see a long drawn-out recount debacle as we did with Florida in the 2000 presidential election.
These last four years has also been frustrating for much of the nation, with a congress divided with the opposing party determined to see that President Barack Obama does not win a second term. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s statement that “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president,” made it clear that nothing was going get accomplished. Read more
Mitt Romney will win the Popular Vote and the Electoral College
19% (10 votes)
Obama will win the Electoral College but lose the Popular Vote
10% (5 votes)
Mitt Romney will win the Electoral College but lose the Popular Vote
0% (0 votes)
Obama will win the Popular Vote and the Electoral College
71% (37 votes)
Total votes: 52
