Obama won Blacks by 93% because of racism...I dare anyone to challenge that assertion.
Obama won Hispanics by 71% but they're only 10% of the electorate (right now).
The GOP wil always get older people...always has.

You know the saying "If you're not a liberal in your 20's then you have no heart, and if you're not a conservative in your 40's then you have no brain"
The numbers play that out.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

The problem with the Republican party is simple.

They are insular, and only listen to what they themselves believe to be true. They ignore what the electorate at large wants and thinks. They refuse to acknowledge facts unless those facts comport with what they want to believe.

They can easily put forth conservative ideas while being inclusive of others. If they don't, they'll keep losing elections.

(Fun fact : The right brags about how they kept the House, but when you tally votes in contested House races, Democrats got more votes than Republicans. They kept the majority due to their redistricting efforts.)

Our "entitlement" system is not sustainable, but I don't think much (or anything) of the way the GOP wants to address it.

Here's an idea: why not make medical care affordable? That's what costs so much when it comes to pensions right? Hmm...how could we deal with this?

Only way I see is a government-run single payer healthcare system. Make healthcare affordable by dictating prices. Take the crushing weight of retirement costs off the states and local governments, and off ALL companies. It would benefit everyone EXCEPT the medical, insurance, and pharmaceutical industries. I'll take that trade off.

Ahh, but what about your precious entitlements? Don't you think that the elderly may eventually see that their self-interests are not at all served by pushing "entitlement reform"?

I think I was up for almost 18 hours straight on election day, holy crap. There was so much to follow and most of it WASN'T the presidential election, which I felt Obama would win rather easily. (I think I called 307 or 309, undershooting.)

Maryland, Maine, and Washington all pass Marriage Equality. Minnesota shoots down a Marriage Equality ban, and Democrats retain control of the Iowa senate, keeping a pro-LGBT Iowa judge in his position.

We get the first out Lesbian senator (Tammy Baldwin, WI), first Female Asian American Senator (Mazie Hirono, HI) and first Hindu American congresswoman (Tulsi Gabbard, HI). Elizabeth Warren withstands Scott Brown's vicious smears, and Todd "legitimate rape" Akin and Richard "rape is a gift from god" Mourdock lose. Michele Bachmann and Paul Ryan see their leads cut in half in their districts. (Bachmann losing would have been icing on the cake.)

Oh yeah, and math is a real thing that exists, as we learned.

Marijuana legalization passed in WA and CO, medicinal marijuana passed in MA. How these things are going to jive with federal laws is TBD.

Despite apparently sitting on his thumbs for the election season, it looks like Jay Inslee is going to come out on top of anti-LGBT Rob McKenna.

And the response from a large part of the Republican Party is that they need to move further right! Fantastic! Looking forward to Jindall and Rubio and their FRC and NOM buddies pushing garbage science and encouraging parents of gay children to reject their kids.

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Proud LGBTQQ Individual

With weed and same-sex marriage legal in WA, I think you're gonna see a real uptick of people here in Portland crossing the Columbia into Vancouver, WA for weed, and an uptick in cross-border gay marriage with Portlanders going to Seattle, the San Juans, or the Columbia Gorge to have weddings. Then you'll see both things become legal here in OR in 2014.

I don't think anything in this election came down to the individual issues such as immigration reform, racism (imagined or real), women's rights, tax reform or the like. All of the issues are very important but there are broader strokes here that really turn people away from the Right.

In my opinion this election was lost because of two things.

The first is that the GOP failed to learn that letting the far right wingers voices dominate the party narrative doesn't work. When you run as far away from the middle as possible, assuming the core of your party will just vote for you no matter what, you completely isolated yourselves from the moderates. GOP leaders turn a blind eye at best to most of the Muslim/Kenyan/socialist/terrorist supporter lunacy when what they need to do is quickly and decisively condemn it. I live in the South, this crap works on white America down here but as the election showed, it's not going to win you the election. A LOT of people down here believe the Fox News/Limbuagh/Hannity/Drudge Report garbage but it is seen for what it is by most people in the larger spectrum, turning them away from any message that may have merit coming from the Right. When crazy batshit opinion is swimming neck and neck with facts, the rest of the message is lost. The reason for this shit is simple. The GOP spent the last four years focusing on their main goal of making Obama a one term president when they should have been spending their time doing their fucking job and doing what is in the best interest of the American people, NOT bastardizing the Dems at every turn.

Secondly, get a fucking plan and clearly show us all what it is. Most of what I saw coming from the Romney bunch was a lot of "Tell ya after I'm elected" junk and "We can't have four more years of Obama's failed policies!" What I didn't hear were clear alternatives, solutions and logical steps that can fix the perceived problems. That 5-point plan was a joke and simply saying that you want to do things differently doesn't pan out. Most Americans remember the economy going into the shitter under 8 years of Republican policy and without offering up something that people can understand why would they give the control back? Also, don't send up a one term Congressmen who's opinion seems to change every time he changes clothes.

The GOP has an unappealing party whose biggest voices cry out with Religious zealot-ism, Islamophobia, fear mongering and divisiveness. I for one would have voted for Huntsman in a heart beat but sadly I was left with Obama and Romney. Yeah. I, like most of America believe that four years ago our country was in the worst financial crisis since the Depression and Democratic leadership turned the ship around. I, again like most Americans feel that we are better off now than in 2008. I see that as a Democratic victory. I'm not an Obama cheerleader but when my choices are either him or....whatever the fuck Romney was offering...the choice was clear.

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I thought Romney missed a chance to bring in more independents and moderate democrats. That he felt like he needed to be uber-conservative on some issues to appears his base (after winning the party's nomination) is bizarre. Instead of railing on "the 47%", he should have railed on his own wack-job base. Who were they going to vote for, Gary Johnson, Virgil Goode?

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Proud LGBTQQ Individual

Amen, brother.

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This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.
--Emerson

Who's interests are served by not addressing the fact that we can't afford SS and medicare in their current forms?

What's your grand idea for sustaining these programs?
The left loves them, great, what is their plan?

I don't want to take things away from people.
I also don't want to go fucking broke.

We can't have both so Obama puts his head in the sand and launches a couple more drones.
This will be a productive 4 years.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

I already said what my idea for making those programs affordable is. There really isn't any way other than to make healthcare part of the public good and having the government control it. Otherwise all you can do is ask people to pay a bigger and bigger share of their medical bills until eventually they're paying it all. That's unacceptable. I hate to get all Michael Moore, but there's nothing about protecting profits and balancing budgets in the Constitution, but there is a clear mandate to provide for the "general welfare" of the people.

And for the millionth time Cross, blasting the GOP does not necessarily mean defending Obama. I didn't vote Obama. If I had only two choices I would have, yes. But unlike you and the GOP, I could care less what you say about the Democrats. It's not a zero-sum game.

I should learn more about finance and tax law.l Being a numbers guy, I'd probably be good at it.

I'd lover to offer solutions, but probably can't without having a better grasp of how things work.

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Proud LGBTQQ Individual

Might be of interest to some folks.

With outstanding votes in 15 states still (and I may be a little off as well):
1). Barack Obama (D) - 61,216,203 (50.51%)
2). Mitt Romney (R) - 58,183,724 (48.00%)
3). Gary Johnson (L) - 1,179,063 (0.97%)
4). Jill Stein (G) - 414,815 (0.34%)
5). Virgil Goode (C) - 101,261
6). Rosanne Barr (P&F) - 44,910
7). Rocky Anderson (J) - 25,787
8). Randall Terry (I) - 12,984
9). Richard Duncan (I) - 12,108
10). None of these Candidates (Nevada ballot) - 5,753
11). Chuck Baldwin (Ref) - 4,704
12). Will Christensen (Ind. Am.) - 4,150
13). Peta Lindsay (S) - 2,418

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Proud LGBTQQ Individual

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"Counting all the assholes in the room, I'm definitely not alone!" ~ Michael Poulsen, Volbeat, Still Standing.

Excellent read I saw posted many times on fb. Your self-destruction fuse is burning GOP:

http://www.ericgarland.co/2012/11/09/le ... te-people/

your going to see a much different, more moderate, GOP in 4 years. the social issues will be much less focused on, and theyll be more about fiscal conservationism. IMO.

same sex marriage, and abortion wont be pushed as much.

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I want to believe you, but the GOP has already been trying to "focus less" on social issues. It hasn't worked because they're bad at keeping their mouths shut, and they think they have to bow to groups like NOM just to appeal to their base. (Which they probably do.)

I think the best thing Romney could have done after securing the Republican nomination was coming out as the social liberal he claimed to be in MA and telling his base to grow up or vote for Obama.

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Proud LGBTQQ Individual

It's funny to see the simpletons arguing about these secession petitions on the White House website, and trying to decide that they actually mean anything.

this should have been the case anyways. this is so many people want their state to secede. it's not fair for an entire country to be divided on issues that the government was never designed to regulate. all of these social issues that are a total waste of federal resources and an abuse of federal power should be designated to states in their entirety. marijuana, abortion, gay marriage, etc. everything. it does NOT belong at the federal level. it is dividing a country and creating hatred and mistrust and everything that spells anarchy between states and people based on goddamn lines on an electoral votes map.

it's not fair for anyone to have the middle 2/3s (land wise) of a country all believe one thing and the coasts believe the other. i understand that the popular vote and electoral are to ensure that it is a popular opinion. but with such polarized beliefs it is not healthy with this system.

few people would have issues with republicans if they were to abandon social issues. you would still have the original republican ideals that have since become libertarian - pertaining to defense and fiscal issues. you would still have democrats with their social programs.

the parties would still be different but they would NOT be as polarized. think of how many people (myself typically included) that are socially liberal but otherwise fairly conservative. i have to hate every candidate that ever has a chance to win the office.

i know people will be upset if states get to regulate social issues because then they still feel like someone else is in charge of their bodies, civil rights, whatever. here's the deal. you can choose what state to live in. i'm sick of hearing comparisons of gay marriage and right to choose to slavery. it's not the same, it will never be the same. when the north got rid of slavery....the slaves escaped or moved to the north. then when things cooled off, they went where they wanted to be. no, it's not fair to them. but it's not fair to the millions opposed in a region that people with completely different cultures want to change them. this is all a game of give and take...a marathon. all we see now is that everyone is sprinting to take. it's never going to work.

things won't change overnight. no one should be shoving their shit down the opposed throats. change takes time. if this power were granted to the state, i would imagine that a huge chunk of states would start allowing those things within their borders. then it's a bleeding effect.

I haven't studied europe, but i'm sure alex can comment since i know he's only reading political stuff anymore- but i highly, highly doubt that everyone in each respective country immediately all of these movements at once. it's also fair to point out that the size of our country and historic geographic distribution of wealth dictates that we'd have several very distinct cultures at once. those small european countries that everyone uses as a model are equivalent to getting mass, ny, nj, and ri on the same page. it's not that difficult.

Making a country work is not about polarity it's about working together. Not just the government. All special interest groups. Every. Single. One.


please, for the love of God, do not tell me I hate gays, that I don't get it because i'm an entitled heterosexual white man, or anything like that. it's bullshit.