U.S. 2012 Election

[cupper]

Yup - he won because he carried Arlington County Virginia,

Arlington County alone would not have been enough to flip Virginia.

The thing you need to know about Virginia is that it is really a purple state, but only on overall outcomes. There are distinct areas of the state that fall one way or the other.

Northern Virginia, Hampton Roads / Norfolk and Richmond are the three major urban areas, with large growing immigrant populations. Add to that the transient nature of the a portion of Northern Virginia's population of government and gov't related workforce. This is where the Dems had their votes come from.

The remainder of Virginia is mostly rural and conservative. GOP country.

There has been a long history of division between these areas at the state level when it comes to tax base vs funding and services. Northern VA and Hampton Roads both complain that they do not get back in government funds what they pay out in taxes.

Also, the State Democrats tend to be politically moderate or even right of center, so GOP tends to be more to the right on the scale.

 

[cupper]

One interesting sidebar to Tuesday's results:

Maryland voted to uphold the same sex marriage amendment the legislature passed earlier this year, 52% to 48%.

In every county in the state except Montgomery County, the results were opposite, with the No side winning. Montgomery County voted to uphold. And the margin of victory was large enough to negate the results of all other the counties.

 

[Edward Campbell]

One interesting sidebar to Tuesday's results:

Maryland voted to uphold the same sex marriage amendment the legislature passed earlier this year, 52% to 48%.

In every county in the state except Montgomery County, the results were opposite, with the No side winning. Montgomery County voted to uphold. And the margin of victory was large enough to negate the results of all other the counties.

And that's exactly what I meant a few minutes ago when I said, "the popular vote eluded the GOP in several key, mainly urban, areas," and earlier when I said that the US Census is not a SECRET document. Political professionals know where people are and they know what they think - but the party faithful, who vote in primaries, impose wholly unrealistic positions upon candidates ... and I agree with GAP when he says that the Democrats will face problems soon, in 2016 when their candidates have to appeal to a party base that is too far to the left, just as Romney was saddled with positions he took to appeal to a party base that is too far fright of the mainstream.

 

[dapaterson]

just as Romney was saddled with positions he took to appeal to a party base that is too far fright of the mainstream.

Perhaps the best typing slip-up of the day.

 

[Edward Campbell]

:rofl: Yep, I'll leave it there ... because some of those positions frightened the jebeezus out of voters.

 

[FJAG]

Political professionals know where people are and they know what they think - but the party faithful, who vote in primaries, impose wholly unrealistic positions upon candidates ...

And therein lies the problem for the GOP.

Many of the positions their candidates take are not based upon winning the general electorate to their side at the election but instead at winning their party's primary.

The down side of democracy is that the middle of the road hard working folks who are the electorate aren't drawn into the day-to-day nuts and bolts of party politics. That is left to a few faithful who do the daily work and who are too easily hijacked by a handful of extremists who have an axe to grind and who are prepared to put in the work at the grass roots level to advance their cause.

Once entrenched, they're hard to get out of there.

 

[cupper]

Not sure where I heard this anecdote, but the interviewer / interviewee were discussing the Obama Campaign machine, and how they had been working up to this for the last two years. They brought up the point that ERC makes, that they used the 2010 Census data and subsequent reports on the electoral demographics. They spent $250,000,000 putting together and implementing their "get out the vote" machine.

Then the interviewee told a story about a neighborhood campaign captain who he met during the Dem's convention. She had been running the local office for at least 2 years. She was from that neighborhood, knew who voted and who didn't, what it would take to get those who didn't to go out and vote, and how the vote broke down through out the area she worked on. She then pointed out the fact that the Romney campaign had only just opened up their office and were still putting their people together. She said that there was no way that the Romney Campaign was going to win in her area because they just didn't have a grasp on the voters in her neighborhood like the Obama Campaign did.

 

[cupper]

Alec Baldwin made an interesting Tweet that says a lot about the GOP's candidates.

It's a bad sign when you ask if the "rape guy" won, and someone says "which one?"

 

[Jed]

[Finger problem inserting a quote from Cupper)

So, does money, spent in the right place, buy an election? (refering to the $250,000,000 spent by the Dems in strategic areas)

 

[cupper]

Another interesting take:

Obama had 9.4 million votes less than he did in 2008.

But Romney was 2 million less than McCain's 2008 numbers.

And Romney's pollster said that they really didn't expect the Obama 2008 electorate to be the same, and basically ran a campaign similar to the 2004 demographics.

 

[cupper]

[Finger problem inserting a quote from Cupper)

So, does money, spent in the right place, buy an election? (refering to the $250,000,000 spent by the Dems in strategic areas)

Actually, the $250 Million was on campaign resources and infrastructure only, and didn't include ads, mailers, and so forth. Just hiring consultants, buying and mining data sources, building up networks of people and so forth, renting office space and equipment.

 

[mariomike]

So, does money, spent in the right place, buy an election? (refering to the $250,000,000 spent by the Dems in strategic areas)

Reminds me of an interesting quote. 

"I have just received the following wire from my generous daddy: 'Dear Jack -- Don't buy a single vote more than is necessary -- I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for a landslide.'" (Address by Senator Kennedy before the Gridion Club, Washington, D.C., March 15, 1958.)
http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Ready-Reference/JFK-Quotations.aspx

 

[Kirkhill]

I have been trying to put my finger on the root of the American problem ERC.

I think I have found him.  Reese Witherspoon's GGGGGDad apparently.  Worse than that he is from Paisley.

John Witherspoon

He ran away from both the "men on white horses" and the "shopkeepers" and followed the Puritans west.  There he did two things:  Coined the term "Nation on a Hill" and established a training school for politicians and bureaucrats.  Princeton.

Curiously both the Democrats and Republicans can claim him as a forebear.  Republicans for his "godliness".  Democrats for his "morality".  They used to be one and the same thing......

 

[Brad Sallows]

The US doesn't have 10 years for the GOP to reform.  When the PC self-destructed, Canada's expense:income ratio was 1.3 and falling - interest rates (cost of servicing debt) were falling, revenues were climbing faster than expenses, the operating balance was a surplus, and the provinces could at least tolerate some downloading even if they screamed about it.  Debt as % of GDP never got above 70%.

The US expense:income ratio is somewhere around 1.4 or 1.5, cost of servicing debt has nowhere to go but up, the economy (thus revenue) is recovering only sluggishly, the provisions of PPACA which require money to be paid out will start to kick in, the operating balance is an emphatic deficit, and most states are too hard pressed to pick up any slack.  Debt as a % of GDP is over 100%.

I guess the moderate, fiscally prudent Democrats, who have set their desired spending bar at around 24% of GDP (Ryan's proposed target would have been at the high end of the historical range of revenue, somewhere near 20%) will overcome whatever it is that has kept revenues in the 17-20% band despite income tax rates all over the map, and fix everything in a jiffy.

California and Illinois have been "blue" locks for a long time, where the Democratic Party and their supporters can pretty much implement any of their ideas they choose.  They're really smart, reality-based, data-driven people, so those states are models of fiscal prudence and flexibility.  I assume that's where they plan to take the federal government, since that's what their capability is.

 

[Edward Campbell]

The irony is that many immigrants are culturally and fiscally conservative.  That a party which claims to embrace that same conservatism is unable to reach out to growing communities with shared interests should lead to some fundamental questions.

I'm not holding my breath, though; it was the same story in Canada until the reborn Conservatives made deliberate, concentrated efforts to appeal to immigrant communities.

According to Politico The GOP have got this exactly backasswards. In 1992 George W Bush got 55% of the Asian vote, in 2012 Romeny got only 27%. Dumb!

 

[cupper]

Three charts that clarify what ERC and I have both been pointing out with respect to knowing the data better than the other guy can put you over the top.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/obama-better-or-worse/?hpid=z3

 

[cupper]

Something else that the GOP did that helped the Democrats and the ground game: The state level attack on labour unions.

In states like Wisconsin where recalls were held last year over anti union measures, or Ohio where unions orchestrated a partition drive forcing the GOP Governor to pull anti union measures, they did two things.

First, they galvanized the electorate. It gave them a reason to turn out at the polls.

Second, it provided a frameworks and necessary infrastructure to build on for the presidential campaign.
For example, even though Walker defeated the recall, it left in place an organization which the Obama Campaign was able to to utilize.

If the GOP had left the issue alone, would things have gone better?

 

[Infanteer]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/supergrid/run/

Nice 10 minute summary of the 2012 election campaign for those who didn't care to wade through the 80 or so pages of this thread.

 

[a_majoor]

Timing is everything. Imagine the different thread we would have if these pieces of information (along with a lot of other stuff) was being covered by the media or information released before the election?

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-07/treasury-issues-fresh-batch-10-year-bonds

Treasury Issues Fresh Batch Of 10 Year Bonds
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 11/07/2012 13:18 -0500

The first day of the "next 4 years" is starting in a very auspicious fashion. First, the market crashes. Then, a major blue chip company, Boeing, just announced it would cut 30% of management jobs from 2010 levels. And finally, the US Treasury just added $24 billion in debt, or enough to fund Greece for over one year, sending the total debt load (the US is now at 103% debt/GDP) ever closer to the debt ceiling breaching $16.4 trillion. But don't worry: over the next 4 years, the US government will add another $6-8 trillion in debt, so those who didn't get their allocation in this auction will have more than enough opportunity. As for this one, the yield was 1.68%, the lowest since August (but, but, what happened to the great rotation out of bonds and into stocks?), the Bid to Cover was 2.59, the lowest since last November and only higher compared to August' 2.49. And finally, the take down breakdown was uneventful: 46.2% for Dealers (to be promptly flipped back to the Fed - keep track of CUSIP 912828TY6), 39.7% for Indirects, or below the 12 TTM average of 41.28%, and Directs got 14.1%, also below the average, and lower than last month's 22.9%. As noted: uneventful. As also noted: there will be many, many more such auctions in the future, so those who wish to convert one paper into another will have ample opportunity to do so.

and

A reader who works at Yale emails:
I found it interesting that this email came out today from Yale benefits:

Dear Colleagues:

We would like to make you aware of a significant federally mandated change which will impact Yale’s healthcare flexible spending account benefit. Effective January 1, 2013, as a provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the annual contribution limit will be capped at $2,500. Currently, the maximum amount of pre-tax dollars you can set aside in a healthcare flexible spending account is $12,000.

As a participant who contributed $2,500 or more in 2012, we encourage you to keep this in mind as you begin to plan for your 2013 out-of-pocket medical, dental and vision expenses. You will soon have an opportunity to re-enroll in the flexible spending account benefit plan during Annual Benefits Enrollment (December 3-17). As a reminder, you have until March 15, 2013 to incur expenses against your 2012 contributions, and until April 30, 2013 to submit claims those for reimbursement. We hope that this grace period is helpful for maximizing your flexible spending benefit for 2012.

If you have any further questions, please contact an Employee Services representative.

What interesting timing! I did know about this, as a former CPA/tax accountant, but how many did?
Today my husband came home and told me that his boss informed him today that a layoff is planned. Small aerospace/manufacturing plant.
We are worried. We were worried before the election that if the direction didn’t change, we’d face an ugly economic future. It may already becoming true for our family.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Market trading was positive until around 7 a.m. EDT. Then Mario Draghi announced that the economy is stagnating in Germany, where the data is worse than predicted. That's when FTSE and STX 50 crashed.

Hell, intrade.com had Obama winning at 80%, his win isn't a surprise to investors. While a dip in high dividend stocks might be able to be blamed on the election results, which would cause the market to go down some, to try to blame the velocity in the market on the election is a joke, it's primarily Europe.

Pointing to short-term fluctuations as a result of this election sounds eerily like something that would come out of the Fox News scare machine. Correlation isn't causation, yada yada yada, etc.

Both Mark Carney and Larry Summers said, at a Canada 2020/TD seminar in Ottawa, that:

1. The Fiscal Cliff has the very real potential to drive the US back into recession; and

2. The uncertainty caused by the reelection of the status quo ante is being felt in the markets, right now.

Maybe correlation isn't causation but, in this case, it - political uncertainty - is real and investors are hedging their bets, assuming that Obama, Boehner and Reid cannot make the requisite deals. The DJIA is headed down again, for a third day in a row; Germany isn't the only problem.