2012 American Presidential Election

[Strider]

And I do not care what happens in California. Are they part of this country? With that time difference the elections are always over before their votes are counted anyway. This is a SAD SAD DAY FOR A COUNTRY THAT WAS ONCE THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. YOU CAN NOW CALL IT THE DIVIDED STATES OF AMERICA. Look at the map. Two thirds red. Look at the popular vote and the vote of the working middle class. Go rejoice you damn fools that think this was a victory. You will live to see the day when you cry your eyes out and wonder what the hell you were thinking voting for this muslim sympthising, economy burning, liar. The problem is the youth in this country for the most part have no idea of what is going on in the world. I am sure they are partying in the streets in Iran and N Korea. JFK, FDR, and our founding fathers are spinning in their graves. The first two years of his next term will tell the tale. He will be a lame duck like Billy boy after that and who knows where we will be economically or in our foreign affairs? When you look at the numbers of the last 3 elections, one must seriously ponder the possibility of another Civil War. Not like the one in the 1800's but one that can still be fought in a different manner. We have deep divisiion in this country and its not going to go away over night,. It will get worse before it gets better. I an sick over this. Sick.

You lost fdm12 and you do not even know it

The only thing I like from this year's round of elections, is the legalization of marijuana.

Though, even that leaves a sour taste in my mouth, here's why: Throughout history, marijuana has been used as a way to pacifiy the common people in order to have control over them with little to no resistance, so with Obama's re-election and the plans he has for America, it seems like weed is only being legalized to distract the people from the coming four years of terror.

Gee fellas, a little over the top with your hyperbole. "Four years of terror"? This is exactly the kind of scare-mongering that has turned most of the moderate middle off to the GOP.

When you casually throw around words like 'terror', 'Marxist', 'muslim', 'communist', 'death panels', 'forced abortions' in describing people and programs that are in reality fairly middle of the road, most rational thinking people are going to conclude you are nothing more than a raving lunatic.

I really am surprised Obama won...and more handily than I expected, too. The way the economy had been and the debt piling up...no president had ever been re-elected with these economic figures. So I expected a tight race, with Romney eking out a win...pretty much like 2000.

The fact that Romney lost suggests vast amounts of people took a look at the ballot and said, "Yeah, the last 4 years of Obama haven't been great and he hasn't delivered on his promises...BUT these other guys are CRAZY! I'll stick with Obama...at least he's sane."

The Republicans also miscalculated people's memories...but people looked at Romney and his gang and remembered it was these greedy bastards that plundered and destroyed our economy and middle-class in the first place. We weren't letting the fox back in the henhouse.

Of course, now that Obama won, the same Chicken Little's that predicted doom 4 years ago are back. It's a little sad.

Some of the posts I've read here the past couple of days aren't just ignorant or fear-mongering, they're offensive. Some reactions I chalked up to youth or high emotions, but the two posts above are just two random samples of the same kind of overreaction that popped up four years ago.

I have been around for 50 years, been working and voting for at least 32 of those years. One thing I've discovered is that whoever is President, the economy is the economy and it is other forces that have more influence on how it goes.

Truth be told, my best economic years have usually been when a Democrat was in the White House. So this myth that the GOP has created that only Republicans are good for business and the economy is just as ludicrous as the GOP is stronger on national defense myth.

The real story of this election is that most people realized that 1) the economy is not doing as poorly as the fear-mongerers at Fox News and the GOP would like you to believe; and 2) that the economy is really out of the hands of the President anyway...the economy will keep chugging along regardless of who sits in the White House.

So people voted for President not on economic matters, but on the so-called 'social issues', which as fdm12 pointed out, do have economic benefits. People are tired of seeing their friends and family discriminated against. That is something voters can control directly through their vote, whereas the economy is more abstract.

As long as the Republicans nominate scary white guys who want to strap women down and put their reproductive organs under lock-and-key, they are going to lose. Sure, they'll still do well in the primeval south and other troglodyte areas, win a few primaries. But they will lose in the general election.

Wonderful post up there, Strider.

Here's a thought. Would it not be possible to partitiion the USA, so that all the knuckle-dragging, self-interested bigots could inhabit their own territory, and revert to the Law Of The Jungle/Survival Of The Fittest ethos they espouse?

I used to think this same thing when I saw the South vote repeatedly for the same cretins like Jesse Helms and Geoege Wallace every election. Who are these people and why do they think this way?

But as I got out and travelled and experienced the South close-up, I discovered that the Southern States weren't as monolithically backwards as portrayed. That there are pockets of well-meaning, good-hearted, intelligent people in the South. People who love their home and want to see it improve...who work tirelessly to counter the racist, homophobic image a lot of people have of the region.

It's so easy to sit in liberal NYC or San Francisco and talk about gay rights and work for the Democrats. I give the people who haven't fled the South, who have remained to fight the good fight from inside the Bible Belt much more credit...they are the tough ones with true courage, true bravery.

And no, they don't deserve to be cut off from the rest of this country.

It is interesting you bring up the Law of the Jungle/Survival of the Fittest ethos...statistics show that as a region, the South sucks at the Government teat the most. Apparently 'Big Government' is bad for eveyone else but not them.

[Anjin-san]

[ebk]

Strider, anyone tell you that you write really well?

You make good points there, all around!

[LedZeppfan77]

i think Strider is a bit off calling Romney a scary white guy. And do not quote me on those terms the other guy used. You did

[in_the_evening]

Strider makes some good points, but really, some of the best points were made by Republicans:

"If Ronald Reagan were to run for President today, he would not win a single state primary." Newt Gingrich

A remarkable statement about a man many consider to be the saint of the GOP. So extreme has the GOP become, that Reagan would be booed off any GOP convention stage. (Six of the 10 largest tax increases since the 1960s came under Reagan who understood huge budget deficits needed to be tamed, and if that meant tax increases, then so be it. When asked about gays in California, he replied "whatever two consenting adults do among themselves is their own business, as long as they don't do it in the streets and scare the horses").

"We're not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term." Lindsey Graham ® SC

We can do great things together as a country. Let's hope somehow both sides can work together.

[DE12]

We can do great things together as a country. Let's hope somehow both sides can work together.

Great post!

[Strider]

i think Strider is a bit off calling Romney a scary white guy. And do not quote me on those terms the other guy used. You did

Romney, personality-wise, may not be 'scary', but his and some of the GOP's agenda is...and Ryan is definitely scary. Vaginal probing, anyone?

Rick, I know you didn't say all those terms I quoted...that's why I did not attribute them all to you. But you, and the other conservatives on here have used one or more of those terms(and countless others I didn't include) over the last four years. It's all part of this general hysteria that we're heading towards a Commie State, when nothing could be further from the truth.

The United States is stronger than you give credit for being.

Now you've been on here long enough that I know your passion leads you to say things you may not mean, or that you're just looking for a reaction from people. thezepguy is new here, so I don't really know his politics or viewpoint...although judging from the few other posts I've seen from him, he may be just looking to stir the pot.

Strider, anyone tell you that you write really well?

You make good points there, all around!

Thanks, ebk. That means a lot coming from you, but I'm a mere amateur.

Before anyone thinks I'm being too mean to the Republicans, the Democrats aren't off the hook. They have some issues they need to address, too.

For one thing, I'm not looking forward to four more years of Reid and Pelosi. There has to be better reps for the Dems than these two.

And just as the GOP has their wacky extremists, so too, do the Democrats. Obama must guard against allowing them too much influence. The American public is tired of extremists from both sides. It wants CNN, not MSNBC or Fox.

What happened to the Tea Party?

[LedZeppfan77]

Romney, personality-wise, may not be 'scary', but his and some of the GOP's agenda is...and Ryan is definitely scary. Vaginal probing, anyone?

Rick, I know you didn't say all those terms I quoted...that's why I did not attribute them all to you. But you, and the other conservatives on here have used one or more of those terms(and countless others I didn't include) over the last four years. It's all part of this general hysteria that we're heading towards a Commie State, when nothing could be further from the truth.

The United States is stronger than you give credit for being.

Thanks, but the Democrats aren't off the hook. They have some issues they need to address, too.

For one thing, I'm not looking forward to four more years of Reid and Pelosi. There has to be better reps for the Dems than these two.

And just as the GOP has their wacky extremists, so too, do the Democrats. Obama must guard against allowing them too much influence. The American public is tired of extremists from both sides. It wants CNN, not MSNBC or Fox.

What happened to the Tea Party?

Now now Strider. Remember I am a registered Dem. Not a far right conservative that you just painted me as. I was for Hillary. Not this guy. But I will say in four years I will be independant and I will probably chose Rubio over Hillary at this stage of the game. Rubio will be the next Republican nominee in my opinion. He is brilliant. And he can eliminate the racial voting of the Latino's who will never vote for a white man.

[TypeO]

Honestly, what more can be expected from a nation where Honey Boo Boo is a big deal?

The media continued their sheltering of Obama from the most critical issues, Benghazi being first and foremost.

The thing that makes me crazy is listening to them admit it in the immediate afterglow of the call for Obama's win.

NBC commentators Bryan Williams and Tom Brokaw actually said the Obama campaign "didn't want to talk about Benghazi" until after the election.

Ya think?

And the only way they can be allowed to "not talk about it" is by a compliant media who agrees to ignore the issue.

They were more than willing to sit on their hands and act like it was nothing.

And for people who keep complaining how tired they are of negative campaigning, it still obviously works for them.

NBC and ABC both confirmned the Obama campaign was the most negative in recent memory, with NBC quantifying it with an actual percentage - 85% of Obama campaign ads were negative/attacking Romney.

Not the entire 2012 campaign in general, but the Obama campaign specifically.

Yeah, and this wasn't from FOX, either.

I'm not one to start calling for the abolishment of the Electoral College, but it's more than a little disappointing that the entire election hinged on a relatively few "battleground states".

Hard to feel like your vote counts when it's all about the toss-up states.

I'm sad for the country, and beginning 1 January, others will start feeling the pinch when all of the new taxes start kicking in.

The crazy part is how few will recognize the connection.

They're just so happy Michelle is still the First Lady!

[chef free]

Gee fellas, a little over the top with your hyperbole. "Four years of terror"? This is exactly the kind of scare-mongering that has turned most of the moderate middle off to the GOP. When you casually throw around words like 'terror', 'Marxist', 'muslim', 'communist', 'death panels', 'forced abortions' in describing people and programs that are in reality fairly middle of the road, most rational thinking people are going to conclude you are nothing more than a raving lunatic. I really am surprised Obama won...and more handily than I expected, too. The way the economy had been and the debt piling up...no president had ever been re-elected with these economic figures. So I expected a tight race, with Romney eking out a win...pretty much like 2000. The fact that Romney lost suggests vast amounts of people took a look at the ballot and said, "Yeah, the last 4 years of Obama haven't been great and he hasn't delivered on his promises...BUT these other guys are CRAZY! I'll stick with Obama...at least he's sane." The Republicans also miscalculated people's memories...but people looked at Romney and his gang and remembered it was these greedy bastards that plundered and destroyed our economy and middle-class in the first place. We weren't letting the fox back in the henhouse. Of course, now that Obama won, the same Chicken Little's that predicted doom 4 years ago are back. It's a little sad. Some of the posts I've read here the past couple of days aren't just ignorant or fear-mongering, they're offensive. Some reactions I chalked up to youth or high emotions, but the two posts above are just two random samples of the same kind of overreaction that popped up four years ago. I have been around for 50 years, been working and voting for at least 32 of those years. One thing I've discovered is that whoever is President, the economy is the economy and it is other forces that have more influence on how it goes. Truth be told, my best economic years have usually been when a Democrat was in the White House. So this myth that the GOP has created that only Republicans are good for business and the economy is just as ludicrous as the GOP is stronger on national defense myth. The real story of this election is that most people realized that 1) the economy is not doing as poorly as the fear-mongerers at Fox News and the GOP would like you to believe; and 2) that the economy is really out of the hands of the President anyway...the economy will keep chugging along regardless of who sits in the White House. So people voted for President not on economic matters, but on the so-called 'social issues', which as fdm12 pointed out, do have economic benefits. People are tired of seeing their friends and family discriminated against. That is something voters can control directly through their vote, whereas the economy is more abstract. As long as the Republicans nominate scary white guys who want to strap women down and put their reproductive organs under lock-and-key, they are going to lose. Sure, they'll still do well in the primeval south and other troglodyte areas, win a few primaries. But they will lose in the general election. I used to think this same thing when I saw the South vote repeatedly for the same cretins like Jesse Helms and Geoege Wallace every election. Who are these people and why do they think this way? But as I got out and travelled and experienced the South close-up, I discovered that the Southern States weren't as monolithically backwards as portrayed. That there are pockets of well-meaning, good-hearted, intelligent people in the South. People who love their home and want to see it improve...who work tirelessly to counter the racist, homophobic image a lot of people have of the region. It's so easy to sit in liberal NYC or San Francisco and talk about gay rights and work for the Democrats. I give the people who haven't fled the South, who have remained to fight the good fight from inside the Bible Belt much more credit...they are the tough ones with true courage, true bravery. And no, they don't deserve to be cut off from the rest of this country. It is interesting you bring up the Law of the Jungle/Survival of the Fittest ethos...statistics show that as a region, the South sucks at the Government teat the most. Apparently 'Big Government' is bad for eveyone else but not them.

Best, most accurate, non-hyperbolic post so far!

[DAS]

"If Ronald Reagan were to run for President today, he would not win a single state primary." Newt Gingrich

This attitude is why the Republican party keeps losing. If Reagan were to have run against Obama he would have won 50 States as opposed to the 49 he won the last time he ran. The philosophy of the Republican party today is to be as liberal as possible assuming their mindless drones and anyone leaning even slightly to the right will vote for them by default and Democrats and independent liberals will be impressed by how liberal they are and want to vote for them also. The thing is it doesn't work. America is sick of this candidate or that one almost exactly like him. If they nominate a genuine alternative the libs will cry about it (of course they do even when they nominate libs so who cares) but he will take them to the cleaners on election day.

[3hrsoflunacy]

For one thing, I'm not looking forward to four more years of Reid and Pelosi. There has to be better reps for the Dems than these two.

I agree, but Pelosi won in a landslide in her district - 84.7% Those people love her for some reason.

[LedZeppfan77]

To the above poster, yeah, he is just right on the money calling Romney insane. That makes perfect sense. I like Strider but that is nonsense

[Strider]

TypeO: Who is Honey Booboo? I'll have to google that.

Now now Strider. Remember I am a registered Dem. Not a far right conservative that you just painted me as. I was for Hillary. Not this guy. But I will say in four years I will be independant and I will probably chose Rubio over Hillary at this stage of the game. Rubio will be the next Republican nominee in my opinion. He is brilliant. And he can eliminate the racial voting of the Latino's who will never vote for a white man.

You really think Hilary will be the 2016 nominee? I'm not so sure about that...or Biden, either. I think it will be someone else from the Obama generation of Democrats.

Okay...when does hockey season start?

[Bingo]

It's funny listening to the fox news parrots. Some of these posts would be more relevant if the poster(s) had at least one original thought.

[LedZeppfan77]

It's funny listening to the fox news parrots. Some of these posts would be more relevant if the poster(s) had at least one original thought.

It does not have to be original to bear merit

[in_the_evening]

It's funny listening to the fox news parrots. Some of these posts would be more relevant if the poster(s) had at least one original thought.

You know, I'll regret posting this, but w/e.

Remember when George W took office? And when he left...

Budget: $400 billion SURPLUS. we were due to pay off the entire 5 trillion dollar debt by 2012. As Bush hands the keys off, 1.3 trillion dollar deficit. and the national debt had more than doubled to 11 trillion.

Unemployment: 3.8 percent when he comes in, 7.4 percent as he's leaving.

Even W said he was embarrassed to hand off the presidency in the shape it was. Wall St Journal said Bush had " the worst job creation record of any president since Hoover", hardly a compliment from a very conservative media outlet. Net creation of one million jobs in eight years.

Give W credit for one thing, that the GOP ran away from: bailing out the banks. This needed to be done, and it went against everything Bush and Hank Paulson believed in their whole lives. But when the choice was " stick to your ideology or save the country", they chose the latter. Very courageous on their part.

[Walter]

Great post earlier, on page 31, Strider!

[Walter]

I seriously believe this election will be a Romney landslide victory, and I mean landslide on a Reagan-esque level.

I hope you didn't go to Vegas with THAT prediction.....

[JP78]

This attitude is why the Republican party keeps losing. If Reagan were to have run against Obama he would have won 50 States as opposed to the 49 he won the last time he ran. The philosophy of the Republican party today is to be as liberal as possible assuming their mindless drones and anyone leaning even slightly to the right will vote for them by default and Democrats and independent liberals will be impressed by how liberal they are and want to vote for them also. The thing is it doesn't work. America is sick of this candidate or that one almost exactly like him. If they nominate a genuine alternative the libs will cry about it (of course they do even when they nominate libs so who cares) but he will take them to the cleaners on election day.

as a liberal i hope republicans nominate someone like Newt Gingrich, Santorum, some Teabagger etc during the next election.

[TypeO]

It's funny listening to the fox news parrots. Some of these posts would be more relevant if the poster(s) had at least one original thought.

What's funny is how a conservative can't speak without being labelled a FOX News parrot.

I don't even have cable, I watched the returns on NBC, with the usual gang of practically-out-of-the-closet Obama staffers commentators.

Nothing is more endearing than watching Andrea Mitchell pretend to be objective and unbiased while practically achieving orgasm after the call for Obama.

And FWIW, half the liberal comments here are blatant MSNBC talking points, so it goes both ways.

At least FOX News serves a valid purpose.

They are the lone alternate perspective to the fetid swamp of mainstream media outlets.

They were the ONLY channel keeping the Benghazi story alive, and that alone makes them valid.

Without FOX, we'd have nothing more than a wide variety of Pravda channels.

And anyone who thinks Benghazi isn't an extremely serious issue - right or left - is beyond hope of any semblance of objectivity.

This is on par with Iran-Contra and Watergate.

Although with another 4 years of Eric Holder, it will be a major battle to get within a faint whiff of the truth.

[TypeO]

I hope you didn't go to Vegas with THAT prediction.....

Dredging through the older posts for nose-rubbing fodder.

Well-played.

You are correct, sir.

I highly over-estimated the average voter's sense of responsibility taking precedence over their celebrity fascination.

It's a sad state of affairs when people care more about whether Jay-Z and Beyonce might show up at a campaign event than whether there will be new job openings in tomorrow's paper.

Obama's got 99 problems, but whether the average Joe can find a job digging a ditch ain't one.

[DAS]

as a liberal i hope republicans nominate someone like Newt Gingrich, Santorum, some Teabagger etc during the next election.

Love the open-minded attitude there insulting people who disagree with you. The nominee will not be Gingrich or Santorum. It will be Rubio, Jindel or Christie most likely.

[mstork]

You know, I'll regret posting this, but w/e.

Remember when George W took office? And when he left...

Budget: $400 billion SURPLUS. we were due to pay off the entire 5 trillion dollar debt by 2012. As Bush hands the keys off, 1.3 trillion dollar deficit. and the national debt had more than doubled to 11 trillion.

Unemployment: 3.8 percent when he comes in, 7.4 percent as he's leaving.

Even W said he was embarrassed to hand off the presidency in the shape it was. Wall St Journal said Bush had " the worst job creation record of any president since Hoover", hardly a compliment from a very conservative media outlet. Net creation of one million jobs in eight years.

Give W credit for one thing, that the GOP ran away from: bailing out the banks. This needed to be done, and it went against everything Bush and Hank Paulson believed in their whole lives. But when the choice was " stick to your ideology or save the country", they chose the latter. Very courageous on their part.

Please finish your post, no sense stopping before you tell us what Obama did with the debt, deficit, and unemployment rate he inherited. The suspense is killing me.

[mstork]

It's funny listening to the fox news parrots. Some of these posts would be more relevant if the poster(s) had at least one original thought.

The very liberal Howard Stern of all people was remarking this morning on how fair and even-handed Fox's election coverage was last night compared to the blatant over the top cheerleading on MSNBC...