Election Day After Discussion Thread
Mostly this is a chance for In Boxers to chew over what just happened, but I’ll kick things off by scoring the wins and losses of our various prognostications, analyses and theories, ranked by wins and losses.
WIN: The In Box predicted a 332-206 Obama win. When the dust finally settles, I think I’ll be pretty close. If Obama holds Florida, he’ll have won exactly that tally.
As I thought he might, Romney came damned close in many, many places without tipping enough of them into the win column. A very tough, raw way to lose.
WIN: The In Box has also talked a lot this year about the possibility of the popular vote and the electoral vote being out of synch. That, too, looks like a significant possibility as of 12:33 Wednesday morning. Take that, Nate Silver!
UPDATE: Looks like the popular vote is also now trending Obama.
LOSS: I predicted a close race for Assemblywoman Janet Duprey in the 115th Assembly race, describing a twilight of the moderates just yesterday. Boy, did I read that wrong. Duprey clobbered tea party conservative Karen Bisso…handily.
UPDATE: Yes, to be more clear, my prediction of a conservative trend this year was clearly, unambiguously wrong.
LOSS: I never came right out and made a prediction, but in the final two weeks I thought Democrat Bill Owens was deeply vulnerable. I described his campaign as quiet and lackluster. Maybe so – but effective, obviously.
STRAY THOUGHTS: The North Country is now officially purple. Yes, there are a lot more registered Republicans here than Democrats, but they’re a rascally, unpredictable bunch of voters.
Three times now, Bill Owens has leveraged a fairly moderate political stance, and a modest persona, convincing those voters to choose him over Republicans and Conservatives.
Now it’s your turn. What do you think about Obama, Owens, Duprey, Stec, etc.?
Tags: election12
It looks to me like Brian M’s essay on the North Country swinging conservative was wrong. It clearly is ‘purple’. Wins by Duprey and Owens, and the uncontested (and surprisingly unremarked) win by Addie Russell show this. I am happily surprised how well Obama has done in this region. Pretty well for a supposed Islamic Marxist (who in reality is mostly a center to slightly left mainstream Democrat).
Nate’s analysis had the popular vote at 50.8 to 48.3.
What data are you tracking that shows the final tally will be far from that? What I’m seeing right now is a slight Obama lead that appears to be breaking more in his direction.
Good news:
1. Saved from a serially dissembling vulture capitalist of the same stripe that twice took this country, along with the rest of the world, into finnancial catastrophe.
2. Huge, Supreme Court-enabled dumps of money from Gecko-crats and their tools could not beat a good, smart, people-powered ground game.
3. Bad news: Nearly half the voters preferred the serially-dissembling, shape-shifting, morally ungrounded, pension-stealing (I could go on but have to catch a plane), candidate.
Needless to say, I feel the defeat. The country is so divided and that is what grieves me more than anything.
President Obama sure has a lot of work to do. If he isn’t successful, at least he can’t blame Bush for what he inherited (hopefully…the excuses get old).
My condolences to our conservative contributors.
Now that they will not be operating under a burning desire to make Obama a one-term President, it will be interesting to see if the Republicans in Congress will continue their obstructionism.
Peace!
Kathy, maybe it’s not as extreme as these numbers seem. We are after all, only given two choices in most cases, and this leaves little room for the free thinkers and their nuanced positions. How many actually voted? Our total voting age population is what? What portion never really made up their minds, and what portion chose to stay out of it? Maybe Brian can fill in some of these blanks to help us all understand.
I think Owens was deeply vulnerable. I haven’t seen all the numbers yet but my gut reaction is that a huge push by Owens’ allies who cared more about him retaining his seat than he seemingly did put him over the top. It looked to me like a tsunami turnout in Democratic dominated Glens Falls.
I think kicking over that bucket of milk did it for Owens. Now there is a severely conservative guy.
How about those “skewed polls”? Someone is eating humble pie for breakfast this morning.
Once again, Hamilton County, NY, managed to prove it has more in common with Alabama than Hamilton County, Ohio.
Except for Butler and Farley, Hamilton County, NY, voted for losers in the State and Federal government.
And they still wonder why the young leave after graduating from high school.
Maybe the problem with Hamilton County is they have no high-speed internet and therefor are about 20 years behind in many ways…of course that also describes the “modern” conservative movement.
re obama victory only: now obama has to live up to the ad campaign which first got him elected. we would be closer to doom had he not won, but his support for illegal wars, targeting u.s. citizens at will, and the ineptness of his financial meltdown response have to be overcome, probably by consistent popular irritation. he is as beholden to the military industrial complex and financial sector as romney. however, he is not, apparently, a member of the tea party. let us hope….
They have a good test coming up. I don’t see them working together though, not on any grand ideas. I predict they will limp through with a temporary fix to the fiscal cliff and no real solutions.
Health care implementation will be the really big and interesting test in my mind. Health insurance is something that many of us have, we can see the hunk of our paycheck that goes out every month to pay for it, will this get better or worse next year?
Election results from Warren County are apparently still not official as of Wednesday night. Owens had the returns sealed and there appears to be a problem with a broken voting machine in a Glens Falls district. I will be interested in seeing the final numbers in the “new” parts of the House district where Doheny seemed to have some strength.