But the real story underlying this election is one that the media will almost certainly fail to address. Despite the election returns, America hates the Republican Party and its policies. The turnout is estimated to be about 38%. That means that the GOP victory was achieved with a majority of a little more than one-third of the electorate, or about 20%. That is not exactly a ringing endorsement of the Republican agenda.
The demographic makeup of the voters this year was decidedly older and whiter. It was also more concentrated in the South which accounted for 34% of all votes. The rest of the country came in a substantial nine to twelve points lower.
Just two years ago President Obama was resoundingly reelected along with increasing the number of Democrats in both houses of Congress. The turnout then was 58%, or 53% higher than 2014. Exit polls show that both parties are underwater in voter approval, but Democrats are still favored over Republicans 44% to 40%. Exit polling also gives Obama a 41% approval rating, compared to just 13% for Congress.
On the basis of this fractured and biased sliver of the electorate, Chris Wallace of Fox News declared this morning that “The Democratic Party brand is damaged.” But further examination of the exit polls says that isn’t true. On virtually every policy question, voters sided with the Democrats. That includes ObamaCare, immigration reform, increasing the minimum wage, same-sex marriage, legalizing marijuana, abortion, and climate change. And when asked about preferences for president in 2016, Hillary Clinton is leading every GOP opponent (Clinton 42%, Jeb Bush 29%, Rand Paul 26%, Chris Christie 24%, and Rick Perry 24%).
2016 holds more bad news for Republicans and their new senate majority. The GOP will be defending 24 seats, as compared to only 10 for the Democrats. Nine of the those GOP seats are in states won by Obama in 2012. So are all of the Democratic seats. With a larger and more representative electorate it is almost a certainty that the senate will flip back to the Democrats. And with a popular and history-making candidate like Clinton that outcome is even more likely.
Of course all of that is true, and I have been kind of telling myself some version of this since yesterday, but it is still upsetting when you lose like this and have to imagine just how badly the Republicans can damage the country before the Democrats can wrest it out of their hands again.
I mean let's face it Obama is STILL trying to put the pieces back together after George W. Bush not only left the country in shambles but left political IEDs all over the damn place to constantly blow up in the President's face as he tries to clean up the mess.
At this time I can only imagine what sort of booby traps the Republicans will leave for Hillary before they are eventually chased out of office.
The mind reels.
In my opinion 2016 cannot come fast enough.
I think it'll take some time to adjust, but one "loss", in the grand scheme of things, doesn't matter when you consider all this President has done against all odds and mostly on his own. A weaker man/woman would have had a breathless news conference on a lake announcing her impending quitterdom
ReplyDeleteIf you're a Democrat who didn't vote, you have no right to complain, you're today's GOP..
I absolutely agree Anita. We'll do just fine.
DeleteSheesh
If anything, the GOP will be walking into its own booby-traps...and the first one they have to diffuse is named Ted Cruz.
ReplyDeleteI really believe that they rigged the machines, they needed this boost to fool people for 2016. The kochs badly want the Presidency and yes the Dems were too coward. They fell for the media GOP hype and did not fight back. Hope they get their backbone for 2016.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous5:35 PM
DeleteI really believe that they rigged the machines, they needed this boost to fool people for 2016.
***
I totally agree!!!
Did you email your congress/Senator? D or R just do it.
Squeaking wheel....and all that.
I emailed mine.
The Mid-Term Autopsy Report: Why We Lost, and Why it Might be the Best Thing That’s Ever Happened to Us
ReplyDeletehttp://aattp.org/the-mid-term-autopsy-report-why-we-lost-and-why-it-might-be-the-best-thing-thats-ever-happened-to-us/
Unbelievable. Hannity says Obama should have resigned after the midterm elections.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/06/1342588/-Right-wing-chatter-machine-furious-Obama-failed-to-offer-resignation-after-midterm-election
He must be confused and made a Palinesque Freudian slip.
DeleteM from MD
Hannity thinks people should be like half term Sarah Palin
DeleteOMFG! The are totally INfuckingsane!!!
DeleteI don't even want to ask "Why" this should be so?
Its hannity and he looks like a horses ass, literally!
Seriously. I don't understand. Congress has an approval rating of 13% and yet over 90% of the people from Congress who were running for re-election Tuesday won their seats back.
ReplyDeleteI don't get it!
That's like saying you despise your next door neighbor, but you invite him over for dinner every night.
Yes, and it's like Joni Ernst who said on the campaign trail that she "needs a gun to protect her from the government"
DeleteFor Dog's sake, she ran for a very high office in the heart of the "government" that she's afraid of!
Pure pandering to the Ted Nugent/Raphael Cruz TeaTaliban faction who still think 'Murica is the nation god chose, and wrote the Constitution for
She-haw, she- haw. She-halways talks like that.
ReplyDeleteI know, this election is dispiriting, and a low turnout for Democrats, not good news. But maybe there were a lot of districts like my own: we didn't have a lot to choose from. Even the Democrats weren't worth the paper the ballots were printed on. For the first time in 52 years I split my ballot [threw away my vote] to vote for a Libertarian candidate because the Democrat is a dino and a racist idiot. He wouldn't have been any better than the pea-brained Republican elected in a squeaker, barely 1,000 votes between them. What an effing mess we have on our hands.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteGiven the way the Democratic Party handled these elections, nationally, I am left feeling ashamed at their ineptitude. But I'm not yet ignorant enough to see my way toward Rethuglikanism.
Not yet?
DeleteLet's hope you never get that ignorant.
OT.!!!
ReplyDeleteHear that you guys up there got a massive storm headed your way!
Hold on.
M from MD
(former resident of Cordova and Seward)
Not going to be a problem in populated areas but this article is interesting because it shows the fishing fleet and cargo ships that are in the area of the storm.
Deletehttp://www.adn.com/article/20141106/high-seas-hurricane-winds-predicted-storm-headed-toward-aleutians
Right now I am more concerned about having a Republican governor and legislator doing more damage locally than congress. An awful lot of people must have taken the time to split their ballot to get the results we did.
ReplyDeleteMaybe Rove finally got the voting machines "fixed" like they were "suppose to be" last election.
There is no doubt in my mind that this election was stolen, both by rigged voting machines and by onerous voting restrictions, not to mention Koch money.
DeleteAnd too many Dems' shameful craveness and inability to tout their and Obama's actual achievements did not help either. I fault Obama too for, of his volition, falling so far short of fulfilling his 2008 promise that he cost himself and his fellow Dems much needed support.
Politics in this country is a JOKE anymore. The brawl should have ended $arah's input on anything, but no. The media turned a blind eye and promoted her side. I'm done with all this shit, it's all for ratings and money. What a fucked up country,
ReplyDeleteApathy - thanks to the the overwhelming majority that did not vote to keep the Republicans from winning. What the fuck is wrong with people?
ReplyDeleteI am so fucking depressed and disgusted. A "millennial" on another post said that they couldn't wait for the baby boomers and old people to die off - here's one boomer who gives a shit and has voted in 90% of the elections in their lifetime.
The fact that Imhofe will be in a environmental decision-making position is enough to make me consider seppuku.
Oops, not a samurai, well a gun to my temple then.
Our country is so fucked now.
If it makes you feel any better Anonymous at 11:56 the boomers at my church are wonderfully progressive and work for liberal causes and truly care about this people.
DeleteBut as a card-carrying member of Generation X I feel like I have to apologize for the likes of Scott Walker, Paul Ryan, Joni Ernst, Rand Paul, Bobby Jindal, Ted Cruz, Mia Love and Kelly Ayotte.
Jennifer K
all these people saying we can win back the senate in 2 years....what list of seats up for reelection are they looking at? cause i looked at the list and i see only 2 maybe 3 pickups. toomey in pa is definitely getting ousted and a dem, maybe joe sestak, will be elected. there is a lot of buyers remorse over that election in 2010. maybe burr in nc on some very long clinton coattails. maybe rubio in florida but if crist or kathy dent, who keep running over and over again and losing, are the nominees, i have no faith rubio will be replaced and i dont think he has to pick one race or the other (president) the way rand does (as of right now but they may change that rule for him). if he does, i think grimes has been mortally wounded. maybe judd will run. she might be able to ride coattails. what other state is a coattails state? they are almost all red states. and we could very well lose some dems. harry reid for one. bennett in colo for another. i think people need to get it in their heads this is going to be hard as hell in 2016 and we better not leave anything on the field. we need a real 50 state strategy and we need to start listening to people like lakoff instead of people like ....well just about everyone speaking right now. cause they all suck balls.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I am wondering if the Senate will look into ethics violations when Ernst gets there.
ReplyDelete...Republicans don’t care about healthcare, one way or the other. This isn’t about healthcare, affordable or otherwise. This is about beating Obama.
ReplyDeleteThis is about putting the black man in the White House in his place once and for all.
So flush with victory, they’ll send a repeal to the president.
And he’ll veto it.
And why wouldn’t he?
No, really why wouldn’t he? He’s got nothing whatsoever to lose.
It’s not like Republicans would be offering to meet him halfway.
It’s not like spineless Democrats can’t abandon him any more than they already have.
It’s not like he’s running for reelection.
So, why would Barack Obama sign a repeal of his signature accomplishment? UnlessRepublicans offered to replace it with something that’s actually better?
And really, the ACA sucks, so if Republicans came up with something better, well, shit, folks, how’s that bad for us?
But they won’t. Republicans can’t come up with anything better. They are pathologically, ideologically incapable of it. It’s just not in their nature. So they most certainly won’t.
And the president will veto their repeal.
And conservatives might hold both houses, but they won’t hold enough of a majority to override a veto. Not even close.
And there things will stop.
And nothing will happen.
So, naturally, the second thing the new Republican majority will do is attempt to impeach the president.
First they’ll threaten Obama with it, better bow down, admit defeat, boy, or else we’ll do it. We will. We mean it.
Forgetting, of course, that if the last five years have proven anything it’s that Obama isn’t much intimidated by conservative threats.
But Republicans, drunk with their new found power and utterly oblivious to the lessons of history will bluster and beat their fleshy chests and threaten impeachment based solely on the idea that being black and liberal in the White House constitutes “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Saner heads among them will caution that they don’t have a case, Constitution-wise, and perhaps sanity will even prevail. Perhaps. But more likely, when the Republican congress figures out that they actually can’t push Obama around, that those checks and balances go both ways, well, then likely they’ll work themselves up into a suicidal frenzy of blood-maddened rage, and maybe, just maybe, they even go through with it.
They can certainly get the Articles of Impeachment through the House. They could do that right now. All it takes is a simple majority vote.
But the Senate? The Senate would actually have to try the president. Publicly.
The House can act like a lynch mob, sure. But the Senate? The Senate would have to present proof. Legal proof, the kind that stands up in court. They’d have to present facts, actual facts, not made up bullshit from Fox News and conspiracy theorists. They would have to provide actual evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors. Republicans have tried this before. This time? This time they don’t even have a blowjob to hang their case on.
So what it comes down to is this: No matter what, to remove Obama from office, Republicans would have to make their case and get two thirds of the Senate to agree. On record. In front of the nation.
And that’s just not going to happen.
So they’ll do nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Because that’s their whole agenda. Repeal the ACA. Impeach Obama. And if that fails, as it inevitably must, then allow nothing to happen. That’s it. That’s all they’ve got. If you want to see what a Republican led majority looks like, look to the House. They can’t even agree on the stuff they agree on.
http://aattp.org/a-retired-navy-officers-message-to-liberals-on-the-eve-of-the-gops-big-mid-term-win/
this is all well and good about 2016 but can you imagine the damage that will be done in the next 2 years???
ReplyDelete-Ayerishgrl
Ayerishgrl, I share your concern about the power drunkenness of Congress. At this point it might be best if they continue the trend of the past years: sign in and go home, but I think they will not be content with that. They will have their "moment of glory" and wreak as much havoc as they possibly can.
DeleteBut I agree with Gryphen... 2016 cannot come soon enough, even though I fear that there won't be enough democratic (not "democrat") counterweight bubbling up until we have reached the absolute nadir of being ruled by an oligarchy of Church and Commerce. I fervently hope I am wrong.