Saturday, November 10, 2012
I find it absolutely amazing that Mittens and Robin were surprised by the outcome of the election, but apparently that's the case. What this suggests to me is something more profound than mere denial-- it looks more like a refusal to acknowledge science. I mean, I knew it was going to be close, but I was also reading Five Thirty Eight. Didn't Romney or the RNC have polls of their own? Did they reject that polling data as well? If this is the way Romney analyzes data, how come he was able to make so much dough? I've always thought that he was every bit as wrong on everything as Bush, but smarter. Does this mean that he was stupid and wrong? Of course, another possibility is that they reckoned the fix was in. Watching Karl Rove on Election Night it is hard to avoid thinking that he thought he knew something that nobody else was in on.
Come to think of it, what kind of campaign did they think they were running? The 47% thing was an accident-- we weren't supposed to hear that-- but to come right out and say the stuff that they were saying about women and Hispanics was nuts. (It was also a good example of what Republicans think bipartisan means. "Don't let's fight over this, do it our way". Then they are surprised when Hispanics don't want to self-deport, and women don't vote for them.) Oh, and where did Ryan disappear off to? Guess that pick didn't work out so well-- as soon as it happened I called Florida for Obama.
Here's my takeaway: Right-wing true believers accept as an absolute article of faith that Conservationism can never fail, it can only be failed. Bush was a trainwreck because he wasn't conservative enough, and likewise Romney. While it was certainly true that mercurial quality of Mittens' beliefs presented a problem for some people I doubt that many Republicans stayed home on that account. Even so, a Republican Party that is even now carrying on the way I'm reading and hearing is unlikely to take a clear-eyed look at the data at this late date. They are going to double down on the crazy, mark my words.
Come to think of it, what kind of campaign did they think they were running? The 47% thing was an accident-- we weren't supposed to hear that-- but to come right out and say the stuff that they were saying about women and Hispanics was nuts. (It was also a good example of what Republicans think bipartisan means. "Don't let's fight over this, do it our way". Then they are surprised when Hispanics don't want to self-deport, and women don't vote for them.) Oh, and where did Ryan disappear off to? Guess that pick didn't work out so well-- as soon as it happened I called Florida for Obama.
Here's my takeaway: Right-wing true believers accept as an absolute article of faith that Conservationism can never fail, it can only be failed. Bush was a trainwreck because he wasn't conservative enough, and likewise Romney. While it was certainly true that mercurial quality of Mittens' beliefs presented a problem for some people I doubt that many Republicans stayed home on that account. Even so, a Republican Party that is even now carrying on the way I'm reading and hearing is unlikely to take a clear-eyed look at the data at this late date. They are going to double down on the crazy, mark my words.
// posted by Bill @ 8:01 AM 
|
Comments:
<< Home
From day one we heard that Rmoney couldn't win because he wasn't GOP-enough or he wasn't TEA-nough, or whatever, but we were hearing that from what should have been his base: the Repugnants just didn't ever really want him, and Ryan was just trying to ride coattails to Galt's Gulch, because he'd never get there on his own.
The Repugnants have been walking the edge of a precipice for a long time now. They misread Reagan, really, and Clinton, for that matter, and thought they could push that outside edge just that much further
But politics isn't the same as pure science, N. Silver notwithstanding, and the kinds of assumptions Mittens and Robin made were never going to work.
I think the best math-based analysis to review is that the GOP tried for a Electoral College win - and that's their documented strategy - and completely screwed up their focal States. Such bad math is precisely what underlies both Ryan's budget proposals and Romney's "I've got a plan" lack of planning.
The Repugnants have been walking the edge of a precipice for a long time now. They misread Reagan, really, and Clinton, for that matter, and thought they could push that outside edge just that much further
But politics isn't the same as pure science, N. Silver notwithstanding, and the kinds of assumptions Mittens and Robin made were never going to work.
I think the best math-based analysis to review is that the GOP tried for a Electoral College win - and that's their documented strategy - and completely screwed up their focal States. Such bad math is precisely what underlies both Ryan's budget proposals and Romney's "I've got a plan" lack of planning.
I'm hoping that they can't resist the bait and start their inevitable charade of impeaching the President (which I'm pretty sure is going to happen) sooner rather than later, so that when it fails miserably it's fresh on voters' minds when the midterms roll around.
Playing golf 2 days after the election with 3 other ladies, one of them commented on the election (which the other 3, including me had not even mentioned). Wha t she said was, "Did you notice that the stock market crashed (sic), yesterday? Didn't we know it would. The rest of us just sort of stared for a second and then each of us just smiled and told her we'd all voted for Obama. so she stepped up to the tee and hit her best drive of the day. Guess she was mad.
It is, as your commenters have all said, these people simply can't believe that most of us don't thin as they do. they find that almost impossible to believe even with the evidence before them. People really prefer social security, health care, oversight and regulation on the whole and are very reluctant to trust military action to solve world problems. Most of us don't think deeply on these topics but confronted by the probably too simple plans of tax rich people and corporations more to pay for stuff that works or get rid of stuff that works because it costs too much and everybody should just take care of himself, even the simplest of us chose the first plan. Personally, I think it's a laugh riot that Republicans are so clueless.
It is, as your commenters have all said, these people simply can't believe that most of us don't thin as they do. they find that almost impossible to believe even with the evidence before them. People really prefer social security, health care, oversight and regulation on the whole and are very reluctant to trust military action to solve world problems. Most of us don't think deeply on these topics but confronted by the probably too simple plans of tax rich people and corporations more to pay for stuff that works or get rid of stuff that works because it costs too much and everybody should just take care of himself, even the simplest of us chose the first plan. Personally, I think it's a laugh riot that Republicans are so clueless.
I'm hard pressed to think of what the Electoral College strategy they thought they were following might have been. I suppose they might have thought that Wisconsin was in play, and that Ryan might have helped there. That wasn't what the polling data that I saw looked like, but okay. I was pretty sure Fla would go Blue when Ryan was tapped-- you can win Fla without old people, and you can win it without Hispanics, but you are never going to win it without one or the other. People think of Nevada as a Red state, but it is one of the most unionized states in the union. Just because there are a lot of Mormons there isn't reason to think it wouldn't vote true to type. Ohio? Only if there was some sort of fix put in. A thinks to this day that this is what happened to Kerry, and who am I to dispute it. Ohio is a manufacturing state, and Mittens was always going to have to depend on racism to get past that. It was close, but I had Ohio in the win column since August.
I've had a couple of people comment to me about the market falling: "but it's never fallen this far after an election", they say; still, it always falls, doesn't it?
<< Home
Post a Comment