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45240. arkymalarky - 11/12/2012 2:07:29 AM How many House seats did the Dems gain? 45241. judithathome - 11/12/2012 2:37:05 AM Copy of something from my forum:
This is interesting. Think of all the stories behind the election.
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Mitt Romney's disastrous ground game and 7 other behind-the-scenes revelations
Romney's get-out-the-vote operation was comically inept. Obama barely prepared for the first debate. Romney spent $25,000 on victory fireworks. And more!
The presidential election is over, but the real story behind the race is only just emerging. After months of enough spin to make a washing machine envious, members of the campaigns are starting to let down their guard and dish some dirt to media outlets. From Mitt Romney's embarrassingly ineffective get-out-the-vote operation to President Obama's peevish attitude toward the debates, post-election autopsies have given political junkies a lot to mull over before they, yes, turn to the 2016 race. Here, eight behind-the-scenes revelations from the campaign:
1. Romney was shellshocked by Obama's victory
Romney genuinely believed that he would become the nation's 45th president, and was "shellshocked" by his landslide loss. "I don't think there was one person who saw this coming," one senior adviser told Jan Crawford at CBS News. Why was Team Romney so certain of victory? They simply did not believe that younger voters and minorities would turn out the way they did in 2008. "As a result," says Crawford, "they believed that the public/media polls were skewed" in Obama's favor, and rejiggered them to show Romney with "turnout levels more favorable to Romney."
In essence, Romney "unskewed" the polls, mirroring widely mocked moves by conservatives to show their candidate with a lead, epitomized by the now-infamous website UnskewedPolls.com. Romney's defenders say he had plausible reasons to believe Obama's turnout would be lower; less charitable commentators say Romney and his aides were stuck in a conservative media echo chamber at odds with reality.
2. Obama's get-out-the-vote operation was amazing
Obama's ground game relied on "an extraordinarily sophisticated database packed with names of millions of undecided voters and potential supporters," says The New York Times. The database allowed Obama's army of field workers to target new voters, register them, and get them to the polls. On Election Day, it became clear that the Obama campaign had altered "the very nature of the electorate, making it younger and less white," says The Times. "The power of this operation stunned Mr. Romney's aides on election night, as they saw voters they never even knew existed turn out in places like Osceola County, Fla."
(cont'd)
45242. judithathome - 11/12/2012 2:38:07 AM (cont'd)
3. Romney's get-out-the-vote operation was hopeless
The Romney campaign "came up with a super-secret, super-duper vote monitoring system that was dubbed Project Orca," says Byron York at The Washington Examiner. The so-called "mega-app for smartphones" was supposed to "link the more than 30,000 operatives and volunteers involved in get-out-the-vote efforts," in a bid to coordinate everyone's efforts and maximize turnout, say Maggie Haberman and Alexander Burns at Politico.
But Project Orca was a complete and utter failure. The program crashed on Election Day, which meant that "workers on the ground didn't know what doors to knock on," say Haberman and Burns. The campaign was flying blind, relying on CNN and other media outlets to track turnout. "The end result," says John Ekdahl, a Romney campaign worker, at Ace of Spades*, "was that 30,000+ of the most active and fired-up volunteers were wandering around confused and frustrated when they could have been doing anything else to help."
4. Obama underestimated Romney's debating prowess
In the run-up to the first presidential debate, Obama "displayed little concern" about the challenge ahead of him, and "his impatience with the exercise was evident," says The Times. He ended up walking "into a trap that Mr. Romney's advisers had anticipated: His antipathy toward Mr. Romney — which advisers described as deeper than what Mr. Obama had felt for John McCain in 2008 — led the incumbent to underestimate his opponent as he began moving to the center before the debate audiences of millions of television viewers." As a result, the president spent the rest of the campaign making up for "what was arguably the most dismal night of Mr. Obama's political career."...
The Week
*Ace must be flipping his lid! 45243. Wombat - 11/12/2012 4:51:07 AM Take a gander at the Ace of Spades web site to get an idea of the horror. 45244. thoughtful - 11/12/2012 6:23:08 AM From Dowd today on the Gopers echo chamber....
Until now, Republicans and Fox News have excelled at conjuring alternate realities. But this time, they made the mistake of believing their fake world actually existed. As Fox’s Megyn Kelly said to Karl Rove on election night, when he argued against calling Ohio for Obama: “Is this just math that you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better?”
Their inability to appreciate fact over fiction has really come to a head. Their belief that everyone thinks as they do is pushing the radicals to reveal themselves, with total blindness to how that is impacting the voting public. Romney's willingness to lie is evidence of that. The fact that they can blithely talk about the 47%, or magic vaginas, legitimate rapes, or the evils of IVF, and then be stunned when they are called on it, reveals just how far out they are.
Get on the clue train, Gopers. The voting populace is no longer just old white males... 45245. thoughtful - 11/12/2012 6:26:24 AM If the Gopers are truly concerned about the fiscal cliff, then they should get real about fixing the deficit and passing tax increases. But of course they will continue to be as partisan as ever....damn the country...just do whatever you have to to make sure Obama fails....that's how they behaved for the last 4 years...I doubt they will change now. 45246. alistairconnor - 11/12/2012 12:43:37 PM Con :
the US's balance sheet is significantly worse than that of the European countries in economic crisis
Indeed. Fortunately for the US, it has a relatively sane central bank which isn't afraid to roll over debt on behalf of the government, a.k.a. monetize debt. Europe is in desperate need of that right now, but is being held to ransom by Hayekian terrorists, aka the ECB.45247. robertjayb - 11/12/2012 3:37:04 PM Too early/lazy to look up...
What was Nate Silver's forecast/estimate/guess for Obama's electoral vote total? 45248. iiibbb - 11/12/2012 3:54:28 PM He nailed it. His most likely scenario, with over 20% of the outcomes in his model, was 332 to 206; 332 his that high signal. The second most likely outcome was losing Florida which would have given him 303; that's the second highest peak at just over 16% of outcomes.
The mean outcome was 313 to 225 45249. judithathome - 11/12/2012 10:20:40 PM But...but...Nate Silver is a "short, pasty nerd"! How can he possibly be correct in his calling of the race?
The Right is so encapsulated in the bubble, they can't even tolerate the slightest hint of reality. 45250. concerned - 11/13/2012 8:20:03 PM I didn't post anything about Nate Silver either way. Guess he's what passes for a 'silver lining' for the Left's perfect storm cloud of an economy, more on which in my next post. 45251. concerned - 11/13/2012 8:25:37 PM With 0bama victory, the private sector is voting with its feet
excerpt:
The National Manufacturers Association forecasts 6 million layoffs and an 11% unemployment rate as a result of Obama's pending tax hikes and regulatory siege.
If JAH and iiibbb weren't encapsulated in bubbles of their own, how come they didn't see this coming if 0bama won? And how about the US taking on $6 trillion dollars in debt while the economy grew less than $1 trillion in four years? How is that anything to be re-elected for?I guess the only question for them now is how to blame Republicans for this without sounding like morons. Not possible, IMO.
45252. concerned - 11/13/2012 8:27:32 PM And I live and work and interact in a very integrated environment. Not that I owe you any explanation as to why I find racial stereotypes obnoxious.
I doubt that you find them as obnoxious as I do. Your work environment is not as integrated as mine is, either. Is that supposed to be some figure of merit among the brain cell and a half crowd?
45253. Wombat - 11/13/2012 8:29:22 PM Concerned lives in a bubble called the Investors Business Daily. Or rather, the editorial page of the Investors Business Daily. 45254. Wombat - 11/13/2012 8:31:59 PM If Concerned had a brain cell and a half, he'd be smarter than he is now. 45255. concerned - 11/13/2012 8:32:00 PM "0bama just 'needs more time' to fix all the damage he inherited (from Republicans)." That's a Big Lie that 0bama rode all the way to a second term.
How are the stupid Lefties going to defend a likely 11% unemployment as part of the plan to fix the economy?
Looking for answers here. 45256. concerned - 11/13/2012 8:37:11 PM Wombat -
Were you so stupid that you didn't forsee this downturn in the economy if 0bama was re-elected, or did you simply not care?
Don't think your cheap insults will cover this up.
45257. concerned - 11/13/2012 8:54:22 PM Say, 'smart' guy - why don't you contact the National Manufacturer's Association and tell *them* they're living in a bubble? 45258. concerned - 11/13/2012 9:33:52 PM It's laughable, but pathetic that most of the Lefties that will be joining the unemployment lines as a result of their own electoral choices will be busily spinning anti-Republican conspiracy theories to explain their problems. Just more proof that you really can't fix stupid. 45259. winstonsmith - 11/13/2012 9:52:56 PM I think we will not have anything like 11% unemployment and that the economy will continue to slowly improve. There may be some republicans and republican leaning groups that are unhappy about Obama winning who will make statements about layoffs and maybe even accelerate layoffs they were already planning, as a form of protest.
Over time though, it will become obvious if things are tanking or continuing to improve. I will wait to see actual, official jobs numbers to decide how things are going.
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