Today’s topic: dispatches from the firing squad.
Welcome to the Daily Sausage.
Today we’ll be delivering reports from deep inside the conservative firing squad that is currently taking aim at anyone involved in Tuesday’s electoral debacle, as well as a look forward to what’s next.
For starters, if you didn’t watch last night’s Daily Show, you probably should, as it was so, so good. Nate Silver was on, taking a much-deserved victory lap for stats nerds.
We’ve talked about demographics a lot, and the media will talk about them even more going forward. Here’s two things to consider: Romney lost Latinos by FIFTY points, and the GOP’s efforts to depress minority voters, especially African-Americans, drove minority turnout UP.
Latinos, by the way, are one of the fastest growing demographics in America, and were decisive in helping Barack Obama win re-election.
Florida, by the way, is still deadlocked. Fortunately, it doesn’t matter, thanks to Obama victories elsewhere. Of course, it does beg the question “What’s the matter with Florida?”.
I had the pleasure of watching Fox News on election night, and let me just say that seeing Karl Rove melt down on national television is even better live than it is when it’s recorded. It does beg the question as to how pundits like Dick Morris, Ed Rollins, Charles Krauthammer, and Turd Blossom himself managed to fuck up so royally.
Any good drug dealer will tell you that rule number one of dealing drugs is “Don’t get high on your own supply.” Welp, the conservative media is the world’s #1 jenkem dealer and breathed a little too deeply from the brown paper bag. Or, as Ed from Gin and Tacos notes, “BREAKING NEWS: DATA IS MORE ACCURATE THAN MAKING SHIT UP.”
As Paul Krugman notes, this has given us a view into the psyche of the right. These are people obsessed with power. It has little to nothing to do with policy; it’s about being on the winning team, running up the score, and the perception of being on top. Unfortunately, reality has a rather cruel way of bringing people like that back to Earth in the most humiliating way possible.
Let’s take a jaunt over to Politico, where they have some choice quotes in the aftermath of the Romney Campaign:
They ran a 20th century campaign in the 21st century,
I’d call it a 1970s campaign in a 2012 world, but that’s me.
“There were a lot of Republicans who were on calls that the campaign was having led to believe we had shots in Pennsylvania and Minnesota,” one Republican operative supporting Romney said. “I think Republicans are split right now between confused and shocked, and also I think they are wondering did the Romney campaign have numbers we didn’t have.”
In starker terms, the source questioned: “Was last week a head fake, or were they just not that smart?”
And now to the Huffington Post, to continue our post-election whirlwind reaping:
“I don’t think anyone on our side understood or comprehended how good their turnout was going to be,” said Henry Barbour, a Republican committee man from Mississippi. “The Democrats do voter registration like a factory, like a business, and Republicans tend to leave it to the blue hairs.”
You know who’s really good at making stuff in factories? Union members.
Erick Erickson, founder of RedState.com, a conservative blog, said Republican candidate Mitt Romney’s approach to Hispanic voters was “atrocious.”
“Frankly, the fastest-growing demographic in America isn’t going to vote for a party that sounds like that party hates brown people,” Erickson said.
Good luck reconciling an immigration policy that makes sense with your rabidly xenophobic base, you terribly named fuck.
The real lightning bolts being thrown on Wednesday were by the party’s super donors, who played a historic role in this election after a 2010 Supreme Court decision allowed them to give unlimited amounts to outside groups.
Many of the lightning bolts were aimed at none other than Karl Rove, the former Bush administration political genius who oversaw the deployment of nearly $400 million in campaign spending through outside groups American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS toward the presidential race and toward numerous Senate and House races.
“The billionaire donors I hear are livid,” one Republican operative told The Huffington Post. “There is some holy hell to pay. Karl Rove has a lot of explaining to do … I don’t know how you tell your donors that we spent $390 million and got nothing.”
The GOP spent a billion dollars and lost the Presidency and the Senate when they had a better than even chance to take both. If I’m the Koch Brothers and Sheldon Adelson and all those other conservative billionaires that bankrolled the GOP this cycle, I’m putting my checkbook away. They’re a bad investment, and these guys didn’t get rich by tossing good money after bad.
However, not all is lost. GOP figures like Juan Williams, Brit Hume, and even Jabba Gingrich all acknowledged that the party had to change.
Of course, there are just as many nutbags that think that the only solution is a MORE conservative candidate like Bachmann, Palin, or Santorum. These people should be ignored, for the good of the country.
This is the twilight of the GOP Establishment.
So, let’s talk about the future.
First up, the GOP retained control of the House, and is likely to do so for a few more cycles. Why? Because the 2010 Tea Party wave election swept Republicans into control in thirty some-odd states which got gerrymandered within an inch of their lives. Consequently, you end up with a state like Pennsylvania, where President Obama won by five points, but Democrats control only 5 out of 18 congressional seats. A bright spot: the next Census is in 2020, which would coincide with a Presidential election year, which typically favors Democrats, especially if we’re re-electing an incumbent Democrat.
However, there’s still the issue of 2014, specifically the Senate. 2012 was expected to be brutal: it wasn’t. 2014 is also expected to be brutal, but that’s to GOP incompetence, it may not be. Long story short: by giving Democrats two additional seats in the Senate, the GOP may have cost themselves their best chance at retaking the Senate in 2014. There are vulnerable Democrats in Red states up for election, but they’re almost all incumbents and fighters, and won’t go quietly.
We saw Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington all have strong pro-LGBT victories on Tuesday. ThinkProgress has some theories on what might be next for LGBT rights:
- Colorado: a 2006 constitutional amendment bans gay marriage, but the new House Speaker is an openly gay Democrat, so civil unions in 2013 are a strong possibility.
- Minnesota: defeated a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, replaced Republican-controlled legislature with Democrat-controlled legislature, with strong polling for equality. 2013 move possible.
- Rhode Island: last state in New England without marriage equality. Strong pro-LGBT polling. Openly gay House Speaker has promised a marriage equality bill in 2013.
- Illinois: popular support for full marriage is polling well, with a Democratic governor and legislature. Also too, Chicago.
- Delaware: Democratic governor and legislature, expects legislation in 2013.
- Ohio: repeal efforts underway for the 2004 marriage inequality amendment with 2013 pro-equality language.
- New Jersey: strong pro-LGBT polling, dependent on 2013 elections.
- Nationally: DOMA will make its way to the Supreme Court and potentially unmake a lot of the anti-LGBT legislation on the books, depending on how things go. This is, potentially, the breakthrough piece of legislation that breaks the back of the anti-equality movement.
