Election 2012: Post-Game Analysis Thread

For Romney that is classy compared to the shit he pulled at Bain.

Looking forward to the HBO movie a few years from now.

Hahahhahahaha

Lizard_King - not to push back on what you're saying, which on the whole I agree with, but to try to add to the discussion and, hopefully, to clarify what (I would characterise as) some people's discomfort with emphasising race, ethnicity and so forth:

This long and nuanced paper by Kwame Appiah outlines some reasons to be wary of rushing to embrace racial (and other) identities on a social level, without denying that these categories must (and should) necessarily be acknowledged, much for the reasons you gave. I don't agree with everything he says, but his objections to what might be called "identity politics" resonate with my intuition (which I suspect Ryslin and others might share) that there is a tension between embracing racial identity, for example, while repudiating the myth of substantive racial distinctions that are inherent:

In other words, while I agree entirely with your warning that a "colorblind" approach will be a form of prejudice and reinforcement of existing privileges by stealth, there are also difficulties with taking the opposite approach, which is to assume serious racial and ethnic distinctions in the form of cultural and personal identity. This assumption is vastly superior to denying these distinct identities exist along with the historical realities which formed them, but what it does do is hoist an identity on to others. Assuming serious racial and ethnic distinctions on a cultural level is to inescapably project one's conception of these identities on to the individuals who nominally make up the racial and ethnic groups in question.

I say inescapable because this assumption, when widely accepted, makes up the social context in which individuals exist. Within this context those individuals who would rather see themselves through a different lens, or indeed just as "people", will have difficulty.

More generally:

To put it another way, if we are serious about rejecting race as a meaningful distinction outside of a cultural context, and I'm sure we are, it's worth considering whether the cultural distinction entails a degree of threat to individuals, albeit one which pales in comparison to the harm done by outright discrimination.

It could be argued that this is beside the point, because we have to live with these distinctions for contextual reasons. I would say of course, but this is a matter of degree, and our choices within that context should be taken seriously.

I bet they didn't start that way. I suspect anyone with the suggestion there was a problem was drummed out of the team a long time ago.

Someone needs to get Trump on this immediately.

Reminds me of a Jamaican friend at university, who had also been educated in US for a while. He preferred the class system of UK (this was 20+ years ago), because in UK, his being an Oxford graduate was more important than being black, which he felt would not be the case in US. (i.e. in the UK, class signifiers like accent and culture are more powerful than race/ ethnicity. Of course, it is just another way to pigeon hole people, but they are more fluid)

I kind of feel like Romney ran his campaign just like he runs a business. Some rich consultants made a shitload of money and everyone got fired at the end.

It's like we've never told them they're out of touch before!

Romney's Whiz-Bang Electronical Get-Out-The-Vote system blasted him in the ass.

Its the Incompetence Stupid.

IT has a liberal bias.

Project Orca? More like Project Fail Whale.

Wow! That is a description of failure on every level. As someone who performs IT analysis, release and user documentation, testing, post-release support... how did any of that happen to a billion-dollar campaign? In light of the narrative of Mitt being a business superman who will run the government like a business to business away all of America's problems with the power of business, I guess he should have done that with his campaign first.

Like stomach contents said above, the inevitable HBO movie is gonna be very entertaining.

I don't think I knew he was gay. DOUBLE RAINBOW VICTORY!

I remember reading someone in the 2008 cycle responding to the inexperience line levied again Obama that there is nothing like being President, but running a Presidential campaign is a tremendous test of leadership and he seemed to be doing quite well. All of these examples of incompetence fall pretty damn low on the list of reasons I think Romney would have been a bed President, but it's on the list.

I try not to say this too loudly, lest my pay suffer:

HOW DO YOU SUCK AT IT THAT BADLY. It's not actually that fucking hard, people. The lack of a password reset functionality screams "we never actually tested this with a legitimate QA crew or UI designer and secretly it was one bitchy rockstar programmer who did the whole thing" IT is about being detail oriented. Other than that, you're playing with legos and building something. How the shit does the GOP fail so badly at everything involving technology.

"We didn't have enough money."?

I wonder if they farmed it out to Grimoire Systems.

I can't find it right this minute, but I do remember reading a story about a reporter tailing some republican canvassers being sent out with ipads to walk around neighborhoods tracking down potential voters.

The batteries ran out after their 2nd visit. They spent the remainder of their shift at an ice cream joint until the van picked them up.

Maybe the campaign's director of IT was cheifly qualified to judge horse competitions.

Lawlz

There's a lot of truth in that paragraph.

1) The Romney campaign certainly did sacrifice the election, so no argument there.
2) The Obama campaign truly had nothing comparable to... that.
3) I'm totally with them in the hopes that the republicans can repeat this strategy for years to come!

Maybe they hired the guys who built Tagg's voting machines.

Apparently part of the confusion was that they kept calling it an "App" when it was just a mobile optimized web site. It was set up in https but you didn't get forwarded if you went to http instead. The Romney campaign basically shut out existing local organization structures and tried to get everyone to migrate to this new process, and they fucked it up royally. Plain paper strike lists would have been more useful.

When a President takes office, some of the FIRST people in line for important roles are the people who helped him during the election process. All the people who were so grossly incompetent that they couldn't find qualified people to create and maintain what is essentially a basic database would be in charge of handling who knows what in our massive federal government. Sure, there are bigger issues, but this is a pretty major one. If you hire incompetent people to work for you, and they hire incompetent people to work for them, you wind up with Bush-era FEMA shit all over the government.

Obama, on the other hand, seemed to manage big data just fine, according to multiple articles on the subject.

OBAMA SMASH

I really hope that the prospect of never having to run another campaign is enough to let Obama go full progressive this second term.

I am sincerely praying for this.

I hate to be Debbie Downer, but to do what we want - to enact some seriously consequential good legislation - the trick would be to get a legislative majority. Meaning win the house in the 2014 mid-terms, which of course turns everything into a "how can we win the 2014 mid-terms" situation. (Not that being progressive can't be part of the plan there, but the tradition is that policy is hostage to politics when you need some electoral goal in the future.)

That of course would mean, whatever, 'politics first' till 2014, and then, hopefully maybe, assuming somehow the GOP midterm advantage and gerrymandering are overcome, we do what should've been done in 2008-10 in 2014-16.

Inspiring, eh? I know. But the alternative - executive-order the shit out of everything, and expecting that to lead to good policy change whether or not the House is ever won back, is pretty optimistic. Like, 'win the Indy 500 with your parking brake on' optimistic. So I guess the "dreamy dream" is that, burned by endless GOP treachery and wickedness, the Democrats elect to make a decisively progressive stance in the Senate and the White House their plan to win the 2014 mid terms, then do it, with their political posturing in 2012-14 being a stopgap until the US Congress can be rescued from the hostage-takers.

But you may notice how much that sounds like every other fond hope people've vested in the Democrats over the past decade or so. THE DEMOCRATS. "Our centre is advancing, the enemy right is giving way, situation excellent, we are surrendering."

Also, lets not forget that Obama is hardly a radical, despite what the tea party might claim.

He could use his bully pulpit in the meantime to get some less crazy and perhaps forward-thinking GOP to break ranks in the house and senate to do some good.

Remember Linda Lingle, the up and coming Republican governor of Hawaii? The one running for Senate that was supposedly only leans Democrat?

She got absolutely destroyed. Obama won Hawaii 70%-28%; Lingle ran a bit behind, losing 63%-37%. Jesus.

Absolutely! My hopes are not the same as my expectations.

One must note that at this point the Democrars hold a solid advantage in that on some battles they can simply do nothing and win. Let the fiscal cliff come and go, then explain to the American people that their taxes are going up.

"Take a look at your current paycheck. Your next paycheck will be smaller. The Democrats in the Senate have already passed a bill to fix that. I'll sign that bill the second the Republicans in the House pass it. You might want to call them to let them know what you think."

Then just wait. I guarantee the Republican phone lines would light up like fucking Christmas with people from every possible party calling them the second those smaller paychecks come along.

As for getting actual productive legislation done, that's step one. Force them to bend first. Maybe the learn their lesson, maybe they don't. Worst case scenario is gridlock and that's better than the alternative. At that point all you can do is work for 2014.

ETA: Yes I know it's wishful thinking. A man can dream.

I haven't seen a detailed breakdown yet of what eating sequestration means. It's very clear that the Democrats quantitatively "win" the "who gets more hacked off with a cleaver" element of flying off the cliff, but if it means a giant cash crisis for the parts of the federal government that require annual appropriations that could be unworkably messy, like shut-down-the-government messy.

Also, if it becomes clear that the Democrats for once are the ones willing to "play chicken," the rules of IOKIYAR state that the media and public discourse will start to disapprove intensely of Democratic recklessness and ruthlessness.

50 Democrats are on the record for reforming the filibuster. Oh please, oh please.

Meh. A, "reforming" rather than getting rid of, and B, no speculation about what probably needs to happen, a simple majority abolishing supermajorities. The kind of supermajority reform that can get by a supermajority I probably don't care about.

Take what you can get! There's not really any organized pressure groups out there pushing for it, sadly, so hoping they do the right thing is about all you can do on this one.

At a minimum, the original sort of "talking filibuster" would at least put a spotlight onto who is filibustering and make it readily apparently that they are blatantly obstructing the function of Congress. You might see it get employed on absolutely major issues, but I think you'd see a vast reduction in its use over more piddly matters. The abstract filibuster they're using now just makes it so easy and invisible to the public that there's no incentive to not just toss it about willy-nilly. I can only imagine that at the point in time it got adopted Congress was so used to filibustering being a rare last resort sort of thing that they didn't consider the ramifications down the line entirely.

Nowadays, though, with the ability to record and disseminate information so rapidly and broadly, I'd like to see a Senator sit there and read from a goddamn phonebook holding up the Senate for hours and days. Your tax dollars at work. Let's see that go over with our modern media.

Indeed. At heart, the filibuster is just another form of voter suppression. You guys plan to pass something we don't like? We won't let you vote.

Of course, the real solution is to actually eliminate the filibuster, lock, stock and barrel. The division of power between President, House, and Senate provides extremely strong protection against fickle majority excesses already, and it has the virtue of actually being part of the constitution. In contrast, the filibuster was born as, and has mainly been used as, undemocratic rules gamesmanship by the (ex-)slave states.

End the filibuster, and at long last, drive that final stake through the heart of the Confederacy.

I'd like to know more about this, please. Hey Greg Sargent: I know you're just trying to do some blue-sky solutioneering here, but maybe a few actual facts about the process involved would be nice, especially since the thing you hint at in this sentence is literally the difference between this being maybe possible and this being completely impossible.

/sigh

Anyway even if it turns out that rules changes can't be filibustered for some obscure reason, I don't have really high hopes. The article gets its "50 democrats" number by adding up the number of senators who voted to require a talking filibuster with the number of incoming senators who've expressed vague support for the general idea of filibuster reform, including some who didn't vote for the talking filibuster and therefore presumably consider that going too far. Whatever. The talking filibuster is nothing but crass entertainment, and while I admit that the first few would be fun to watch, that's not the change we need. Sure, it might make them stop filibustering every bill and start only filibustering every important bill, but it's still a crappy situation.