I spoke about what I believed and I think that there was a period of time when the Romney campaign was falling apart, people were not optimistic, nobody thought there was a chance of victory and I felt that it was my duty at that point to go out and say what I said. And at the time that I said it, I believe I was right.Fox News analyst Dick Morris • Speaking to Fox News host Sean Hannity last night, on the matter of his woefully optimistic pre-election prediction that Mitt Romney would defeat President Obama in a landslide, with 325 electoral votes. Of note, right there in his explanation, an overt admission that he felt obliged to promote the idea of a Romney landslide (which was profoundly statistically unlikely) out of a sense of “duty.” He’s essentially admitting he’s more activist than pollster, which is fine — so long as your job description accurately reflects that. Otherwise, as an analyst, you’re doing anything but. source
We are glad that so many voters made their voices heard in this election, but as we go forward we must see improvements in our election process. I have asked Secretary of State Ken Detzner to review this general election and report on ways we can improve the process after all the races are certified.Florida Gov. Rick Scott • In a statement regarding the state’s massive lines on election day. Scott plans to have his secretary of state investigate what happened — and to make improvements in the process. “We need to make improvements for Florida voters and it is important to look at processes on the state and the county level,” Scott continued. “We will carefully review suggestions for bettering the voting process in our state.”
And if another Republican man says anything about rape other than it is a horrific, violent crime, I want to personally cut out his tongue. The college-age daughters of many of my friends voted for Obama because they were completely turned off by Neanderthal comments like the suggestion of “legitimate rape.Karen Hughes, former George W. Bush adviser • Voicing her frustrations with the rhetoric on rape and women’s rights from some members of her party leading up to last Tuesday. As both a woman and Republican, Hughes comes by the intensity of her disdain naturally — no less than two GOP Senate candidates in eminently winnable races, Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock, had their chances derailed by high-profile, tone-deaf and offensive comments on rape and pregnancy. The Obama campaign maximized its advantage with female voters to staggering effect this cycle, beating Mitt Romney among single women by 38%. source
Which voters waited on long lines to cast their ballots on Tuesday? According to a survey by the AFL-CIO, Obama voters were much more likely to wait on lines longer than 30 minutes than Romney voters, with blacks and Hispanics especially vulnerable.
The long lines were so bad, it took just two minutes for President Obama to mention them in his victory speech on Tuesday, with a rare flash of anger: “By the way, we have to fix that.”
It’s hard to believe that with forethought, planning, and some sort of standardized elections system, our country couldn’t ensure that voting lines and snafus of the kind we saw on Tuesday won’t happen again. It’s a big deal.
The problem with the Republican leaders is that they’re cowards, not that they’re fundamentally mistaken. The real locus of the problem is the Republican activist base and the Republican donor base. They went apocalyptic over the past four years, and that was exploited by a lot of people in the conservative world. I won’t soon forget the lupine smile that played over the head of one major conservative institution when he told me that our donors think the apocalypse has arrived, that Republicans have been fleeced and exploited and lied to by a conservative entertainment complex.David Frum • Offering his particular dissection of the Republican dilemma, following a deeply unsuccessful general election season, on MSNBC yesterday. Frum also spoke with conspicuous disdain of the GOP’s current slate on policy, calliing their message “no longer relevant to middle-class America.” source
A good thought from my friend Dave Beard, who suggests that Obama and Romney donate some of their leftover campaign money to help victims of Hurricane Sandy. What do you think? — Ernie @ SFB
It’s been a long long slog these past five years of backing the skinny guy with the funny name. But this election, to my mind, is immensely more important than the breakthrough of 2008, after the catastrophe of Bush-Cheney. What it has done is rip open the complete epistemic closure on the Republican right about what America now is. It has revealed that Fox News, Drudge, and the rest have been engaged in a massive propaganda campaign to create an alternative reality and get the rest of us to go along.
But this president has never been a radical; he has always been a moderate; he has been immensely skilled at foreign policy, ended one war and won another, killed Osama bin Laden and saved the American auto industry, deflected a Second Great Depression and initated universal access to healthcare. He has presided over a civil rights revolution and the beginning of the end of prohibition of marijuana. He has created the new and durable coalition that was once Karl Rove’s dream.
Americans saw this. They were not fooled. And they made the right call, as they usually do. What was defeated tonight was not just Romney, a hollow cynic, but a whole mountain of mendacity and delusion. That sound you hear is the cognitive dissonance ringing in the ears of ideologues and cynics. Any true conservative longs for that sound, the sound of reality arriving to pierce through fantasy and fanaticism.
We are the ones we have been waiting for. And now we have entrenched it deeply in the history of America and the world. That matters. May the next four years make it matter even more.
That said, the reaction by Ace of Spades HQ was pretty rich.
(Source: twitter.com)
If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.The infamous remarks, by GOP Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin, which may indeed have been the irreparable deathblow to his candidacy. Despite calls from prominent Republicans for his withdrawal, Akin stuck it out, and tonight, has been defeated by Missouri incumbent Senator Claire McCaskill, as projected by NBC News.
Wrote a thing.
Hat tip to this headline writer.
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Don’t screw this up Yahoo.
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Residents of Rockaway Beach, NY stand by a fire listening to the election on a radio.
The people of Rockaway Beach have been hanging tough lately, and tonight some are hanging on an election as well. A simply great photo.
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