Yeeeeeaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!

It Looks like Nate Silver’s map was accurate across the board!

There wasn’t much doubt President Obama would win among those living outside the Faux News/Limbaugh bubble, BUT LOOK AT ALL THE ANNOYING REPUBLICANS WHO WERE DISPOSED OF!!!! Many of the worst of the worst!!!

… and so many more of the potentially horrid lost as well!!

Not certain about this, but I believe congratulations are in order to Liz Warren in her Senate race.  Very encouraging, getting someone with her integrity into the congress.

VA for Obama last nail, its a landslide!

Maybe now the DNC will stop spamming me for another $3 donation.

Sing it with me now….”Oh happy day…” This victory buoys my spirit in so many ways. Citizens United did not lock politics down for the likes of Sheldon Adelson, the Koch Brothers, and the rest of the oligarchs and plutocrats. Not to mention women are in a much better and safer place today than they would have been. Grover Norquist’s “hand with a pen” did not grab the highest office in the land. Elizabeth won, and moronic Todd Aiken got his whole thing shut down. Oh happy day, indeed.

Does the republican party retool, or double down?  Will it be the party of Jeb Bush, Susan Colllns and the departed Richard Lugar, or is Paul Ryan the face of the party going forward?  That, to me, will be the most interesting outcome of this election.

As for guys like Boehner, McConnell and Cantor, they have to ask themselves a question.  Is it politically fruitful to continue to try and obstruct the presidents agenda more or less blindly, or do they get ahead of a potentially retooled republican party, and start exercising some pragmatic compromise?

By 2020, or sooner, the GOP will lose Texas, Arizona, and Georgia to Dems due to rising Hispanic vote. The GOP is now functionally extinct. So what will replace it? 

The Corporation lost. Long live the Democracy.

What a great election!  Obama.  Warren.  Historic win by Tammy Baldwin.  Marriage equality wins in Maryland and Maine.  Teabagger primary voters threw away two senate seats (Lugar would have easily won). 

I don’t mean to gloat. But I for one (of many from the popular vote) am happy. And for a blue voter in the middle of rural, redneck red voter country it’s a wonderful day.

The house is up for reelection in two years. Late next year, the President should concentrate on tax reform with a combination of tax hikes (for which polls suggest he has a clear mandate) and alternative tax breaks for people who invest in companies that actually grow their employee pool because increasing employment, might actually be the best way to jump start demand. He should sell his proposals on the road, as he failed to do with healthcare. If house republicans double down on obstructionism at that point, I think they’re toast.

Chris, Baltimore MD

At least the Supreme court didn’t decide the election this time.

The #1 issue of our time is the plutocrat-righty class warfare that is redistributing all the wealth and income to the top.

With this election we avoided a massive escalation of those policies, but we sure have a long way to go toward reversing them. If Obama goes all conservadem on us in the name of bipartisanship it will still be more class warfare, just less violent. We need some real liberal leaders: “Rockefeller republican” conservadems can’t be our version of “leftists”.

That’s why I love SENATOR ELIZABETH WARREN. She sees the takeover of the USA by the romney types and their financial  institutions more clearly than anyone but the plutocrats themselves, and she will fight back harder than anyone.

Otherwise, it was great to see the TeaOP circular firing squad. They got so far out in their primary they couldn’t come back. That c**p may fly in kansas, but ti’s toxic nationally. Fernstrom described the romney strategy accurately with “shake the etchasketch” after the primaries. Too bad some people have memories, huh? And they lost senate seats that would be easy wins with non-crazy candidates.

SENATOR ELIZABETH WARREN hahaha. All Scott “nasty Ken doll” Brown did with his nasty campaign was destroy his nice-guy image. Stupid, and I’m glad.

It will be interesting to see how much Obama wants America to work together if and when he gets the chance to appoint another liberal ideologue to the Supreme Court.  Thank goodness for filibustering!

Romney’s concession speech–gracious? He referred to the President as “another candidate.”

I thank the Latino votes to save America from going backwards.

President Obama won this election with no clear plan for the future of the nation. Or at least none stated.

He and his supporters attacked Mitt Romney personally, in what has turned out to be a successful campaign, based not on unity, healing and bipartisanship, but rather on hatred, divisiveness and “revenge”.

Barack Obama is the most divisive President in the History of this nation, I don’t expect that to change.

The Republican party platform is condemning enough- too much Christian theocracy and potential for oppression of women in my opinion

Of course some Republicans (the old guard leaders like Rove, McConnell, and Boehnor in particular), are going to resist what happend. The current party has a history (as conservative think-tanker David Ornstein says) of denying fact, science, history, and experience.  

So Mitch McConnell effectively failed in his attempt to make this a one term presidency.
How did he get away with that two years ago and what happens to his reputation?

I think we did, or should have seen this coming. 

Nate Silver has been predicting this exact result for weeks.

Pundits lie but the data does not.   

Most shocking thing about this multibillion $ election:  White house, same, Senate, same, House, same!!

Time to come together, somehow, someway.  I agree with Lanny Davis, first three calls Obama should make are to John McCain, Orrin Hatch and  Lindsey Graham.  Let’s sit down and see where we can actually move Forward.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/11/07/president-obama-should-make-effort-to-compromise-with-republicans-in-second/

Lindsay Graham had it right, the GOP is running out of angry, old, white guys.

Wow, Mona is really doing some serious pivoting.

False equivalency, Mona.

Dear Caller,
No one cares about swing voters anymore.
Yours Truly,
The Voting Public

Mona, like McConnell’s statements read on NPR this morning, is crying sour grapes, and yet another example of a Republican in denial. 

The Republicans, like Charon and George Will, keep saying that the majority of Americans are pro-life. The fact they’re deliberately ignoring is that it’s only that way if you take it as a black & white issue.  But many of those pro-lifers are pro-life only for themselves, and don’t want to inflict their view on someone else that doesn’t feel the same way; and they ignore that the vast majority of Americans want it in cases of rape, incest, or it threatens the life of the mother.  Then the numbers swing widely back to pro-choice.

The economy was improving until mean ol’ Obama put the breaks on the ‘recovery’ that W engineered. Mona Charen, you are clueless. As I said before we’re not as misguided as we’ve been led to believe.

Lies are what did the Republican Agenda in this go round. Ideology, lies, misogyny, and racism. Face up to your failures or don’t, I could care less. If The Republican Party won’t crawl out of the Dark Ages it can do Americans a favor and proceed to the next step of its evolution: Extinction. 

Is this woman serious? What about all those ads that were using fear aired by Romney, and payed for by Karl Rove and a few billionaires. 

God Bless America…as a person who started working literally on the bus for Ronald reagan in 1976 and 1980-with a fading elephant tatoo to prove it-to a person who served as a delegate from SC to the DNC is 2012 I am so happy that the American people have voted to reject the teaparty right wing fringe rapacious GOP.  President Obama deserved re-election and Mr. Romney couldn’t win by being Myth Romney.

Jim in Fort Mill,SC

Refer to someone’s youtube project that never played in the media. Yeah, that’s left wing extremism.�
Does Jon Stewart balance “Fox News?” No, they can’t make enough stuff up.

Mona Charen demonstrates the ongoing cluelessness of the Republican Party when she continues the myopic position that only Romney was attacked as if the neo Republcans and Romney were not relentlessly attacking Obama with the suggestion he was handed a perfectly healthy economy and ruined it.  She forgets or purposely refuses to acknowledge that under the last Republican White House administration, the news at the end of that administration was about the second worst financial crisis this nation has experienced on record.  

After this Democratic White House administration, that crisis was stemmed, and the news at the end of those 4 years is a recovery is under way, albeit sluggish.

I much prefer a slow recovery to another financial crisis.

I was once a Republican, I left the party because of the total cluelessness, delusion, denial or purposeful deceit Mona Charen has just epitomized.

I turned off my radio after listening to Mona Charen. I know that there are more rational Republican points of view. Why give give her a platform? At least Tom tried to get her to respond to the caller’s question – which she refused to do.

This election was important because it was reversal of the Tea Party wave of 2010. Obama needed to be re-elected to protect the supreme court from more conservative appointments, fully enact the ACA, pursue climate change legislation, and allow Obama/Dems/Keynesian economics to take credit for the economic recovery. The GOP needed to be humbled and they have been. McConnell and Boehner will still pursue gridlock, but they wont be as successful.

I was heartened by the concession and the victory speeches of Romney and Obama, and by Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren here in Massachusetts. They treated their former opponents with respect, and the winners pledged to reach out in a spirit of bipartisanship.  It seems incredibly hopeful and constructive.  Perhaps it is a turning point.

Republican or Democrat, let’s not forget that in many many parts of the world, this debate, the existence of this type of radio program let alone our ability to make these choices by voting is not possible. 

Latinos have moved into the status of important minority group.  Despite what Carl in Nashville says, blacks are also increasingly irrelevant.

The guy saying that we can solve everything by raising taxes on the rich is in denial two. We have two extremists on the show that only exemplify the inability to admit that nobody, and no party, is all right or all wrong.

Mona Charen claims that we will never get paid back for the auto bailout. But isn’t it true that at least one carmaker (GM?) has paid back the debt owed the American people? Methinks Mona doth protest too much..

Tom - 

Could you please stop having “political hacks” like Mona Charen (speechwriter to Nancy Reagan) on your program in some attempt at balance. 

The middle class sees a role for government in protecting its citizens:  FEMA, social security, medicare, etc.  

Europe is in trouble because of the collapse of international banking system due to deregulation.  America is NOT Greece; the deficit in this country can be brought under control if taxation were more far and if we impose fair trade standards.

How could Mona belittle Romney’s flip flopping by comparing it to Obama ‘changing’ his mind about gay marriage? Romney blatantly lied about every single issue of importance in the election, even got caught on tape at the fundraiser essentially calling economically disadvantaged people lechers. What kind of political analysis is that????!!!

Tom, Mona was great as always.  I appreciate that you invited her and let her speak.  It was a refreshing change from the past several months of slanted panels.

I will be encouraging my representative and senators to do whatever they can to prevent Obama’s tax and spend policies from legislative success.

I was watching PBS most of the night and they turned to their journalist at the Romney camp who said, “Romney supporters are deflating as they watch Fox News.”  That was one of my favorite moments of the night.

P.S., for the conservatives: David Brooks is the real deal when it comes to conservative analysis.  Might want to check him out and get off the crazy drugs.

Listen to Mona speak. That’s what I am afraid. We need good ideas from the Republicans, yes, but listen to her. She refuses to see the good that Obama has done or at least tried to do, she refuses to listen to the vote, she refuses to concede that the government should not tell women what to do with their bodies, that each woman should decide, and that religion should not be determining government policy. Let’s hope that influential republicans in congress do not behave like her.

m a lifelong Republican and agree that the Party… no longer the GOP, but something else that I can no longer support. There are many fellow party members in my circle that haven’t for a Republican presidential canditate since Regan. 

I find it funny that Mona keeps talking about how harsh the Obama campaign pounded on Romney. As always Republicans can dish it but can’t take it. Politics are harsh…for Mona to say that Romney lost because of character assassination is an example of the conservative inability to look at the big picture. Romney himself was uninspiring; his policies were from the 1800′s; he was declared that half of the population didn’t matter… these are some of the nails for Romney’s campaign coffin. Even voter suppression couldn’t keep the will of the public down.

I’ve heard neocons today blame the election results on everything from Gov. Christie and women, to Hurricane Sandy…If this were yesterday, I wouldn’t have been able to make this stuff up if I had been joking…

Give me a royal break!  The Big Lie must die.
Let’s talk givers and the takers, shall we?
From US News:  “Obama Supporters Subsidize Romney Supporters With
Their Taxes” By DAVID BRODWIN, September 18, 2012
“Studies show that states that elect Democrats contribute the most in federal taxes relative to what they consume in government services. Conversely, many states that elect Republicans contribute the least in taxes relative to the services they consume. This is true even though many Democratic states contain large, poor, urban populations of color.
“Here’s the evidence: The 10 “Tax Producing States” listed below, left, contribute the most in tax revenues relative to the services they consume. They usually vote Democratic. The ten “Tax Dependent States” listed below consume the most in government services relative to the taxes they pay. And they usually vote Republican. (Each state’s name is shown in blue if voters there lean toward Obama, and red if they lean toward Romney, as per Nate Silver’s 538 blog.)

“More detailed analysis confirms this pattern. Even the libertarians at the journal Reason acknowledge this so-called  “Red/Blue Paradox.”
“Blue Counties Subsidize Red Counties
“The same imbalance prevails within states, at the county level. The Blue counties contribute the most state taxes relative to the services they consume. The Red counties consume the most services relative to the taxes they pay. For example, a recent study documented the pattern in Washington state. King County, the solidly-Democratic county that surrounds Seattle, provides “nearly 42% of the state’s tax revenues, yet receives only 25% of the money spend from Washington’s general fund.” Conversely, five counties that require the most in services relative to the taxes they pay are largely Republican.”

Mona’s vacuous, talking head bimbo-isms are only a minor symptom of a systemic problem. If the Republican party is committed to spinning this crap to explain their loss, they will  lose at an ever-accelarating rate in the future. I’d welcome a return to sane, old-school conservativism; it could do nothing but benefit the country. But that would mean a purge of the religious nutbags, the anti-science and anti-intellectual segment, the bigots, the pseduo-fiscally-conservative Tea Partiers, the big-money Koch brother types, the Grover Norquist trickle-down fantasists, the sociopathic Ayn Rand cultists, the Neocons, the mindless jingoists, and on and on.

But if they purge the crazies, they are left with principles almost indistinguishable from those of the modern Democratic Party (currently positioned a hair left of “Saint” Reagan’s in terms of practical governance). Many sane conservatives are probably hoping that the party has hit rock bottom with this election, and can take an honest look in the mirror and remake itself. Into what, remains unclear.

Personally, I predict we have at least another couple of election cycles of bug-shagging, mouth-foaming insanity in the offing before that happens. If it ever does.

Wow, that was a BRUTAL show.  Mona did not answer one of Tom’s questions.  She avoided every single one, Tom attempted to reel her in, but to no luck.  Nice try Tom.

Until hearing this I was feeling very good, that it was time to work together, but this sounds like the right is just digging in for another 4 years of NOTHING.  I sure hope Mona is a on off in the party, but I’m terribly afraid not.  Will someone please save our politics!

Understanding fallacies provides insight into typical political tactics.  Framing the argument as if there were only two side of a political argument is called a false dichotomy or a false dilemma.   I’m not exactly how to categorize Mona Charen’s heretic behaviour which is typical of many damning the American political landscape. Maybe pin the tail on the donkey. 

“Blaming others for the worst of one’s own actions to gain political influence.”

Has anybody noticed this behaviour?  Please help provide a better understanding of the types of fallacies Mona Charen’s is using.  Though the word hypocrite is not typically thought of as a fallacy, maybe it should be added as a category.

Karl  Rove… So much for the elusive “permanent” Republican voting majority that he has been salivating over for the past 20 years.     

Mona Charen is nothing but a lying cunt that is from the worst of the fascist right wing noise making machine, nothing that she said made any relevance and nothing Ashbrook asked put that bitch in her place which has no place on public broadcasting!  Fucking n-p-r is FOX!

As an independent voter, I’ll tell you why I voted for Obama…first, Obama comes across as trustworthy because he answers questions, Romney appeared slimy and willing to say whatever it took to get what he wanted, without ever really answering questions.  Second, in the state of Michigan, we have experienced the Republican agenda full force…a Republican Governor, House, and Senate have resulted in an abuse of power that has affected everyone I know and myself detrimentally.  Republicans refuse to allow Democrats to speak on the floor, refuse to acknowledge motions made by Democrats, lied and deceived the public and then say “but we’ve done nothing illegal”, pass laws that are found unconstitutional by the courts which they waste taxpayer money fighting, refuse to compromise or even review Democrat ideas, and overall revealed their belief that the general citizen is inferior and ignorant.  As a public servant I am disgusted and concerned by the elitist and extreme agenda of the Republican party.

       Congratulations to the media who must have made more from political ads in one campaign than I as a former teacher for 40 years (now retired in the lower middle “class”), and 200,000 other teachers with similar length’s service collectively made over their entire teaching career.
       $6,000,000,000 would have dug us out of a good portion of our deficit. Maybe next time?

     �
�
      

Listening to Mona Charen you can hear exactly why the Republicans are fading, gradually at first, but at an ever increasing rate. The Democrats must have been thrilled to let her rant on about where the country is heading, since that rhetoric is exactly why everyone voted for Obama. It was a vote against people like her by those of us from all races who see the future not the past. Her comment that the 90% of African Americans who voted for Obama did so because of race was particularly revealing as to why she and those who think like her have become irrelevant to the increasing majority of this country who have moved beyond her way of thinking. How come no one argues the flip side of that coin, that the 60% of the whites who voted for Romney did so because of his race? No question a significant amount of the white vote Romney received was because of race, but no one brings that up. No one brings up the fact that Obama is still 50% white as well. The fact remains that for some in America, only pure white is “one of us”. Also note – 40% of white voters voted for Obama – and that’s a huge number of votes! For many of us, race has become unimportant, and that’s something Mona will never understand or feel.

There were two references on the show that were factually incorrect; I am not certain if they were uttered by the same or different speakers. In any case, this is a storyline that I have heard repeated across MANY media channels.

It is NOT correct that the giant contributions by people such as Sheldon Adelson did not have an effect. They had a HUGE effect.

1. They prompted EQUALLY GIANT CONTRIBUTIONS by the other side! This is money that was effectively “threatened” out of people’s pockets who feared the success of leaving those contributions unmatched. In a sense, this is a form of extortion.

2. The giant contributions might not be matched next time around; this potential imbalance is a huge story in itself. Indeed, the defeat of California’s initiative to label GMOs was defeated due to very heavy spending on the part of Agribusiness [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michele-simon/prop-37-defeated_b_2087782.html].

3. Six billion dollars of spending between the two campaigns doesn’t just vanish! The media conglomerates absorbed ENORMOUS profit during this campaign season!

Each of these angles presents a real story, and it is disappointing for your guests to have written off that the unlimited spending in this election was inconsequential.