As we start to dig out of the rubble of Tuesday night, the post-debacle conversation is coming into focus. There are a couple of debates emergingÂ…

1. Did RomneyÂ’s vaunted ORCA get out the vote program crap the bed?

2. Have the demographics of the country changed so much that, at least in Presidential elections, the Republican coalition simply doomed as presently constructed?

3. Related to number 2Â…is America still a center-Right nation?

Taking them in order, my initial thoughts:

1. Early anecdotal evidence is that yes, RomneyÂ’s get out the vote plan/program failed miserably. I donÂ’t have a link yet but IÂ’ve heard from several people involved that it didnÂ’t work as planned. ItÂ’s something that a lot of people will be talking about in the weeks to come.

ItÂ’s pretty clear though that whatever technical merits of ORCA may or may not have been, barely getting back to McCainÂ’s vote total (if Romney does) is not what one would call a rousing success.

ItÂ’s also clear that the GOP had nothing like what Team Obama did.

The biggest point of the demographic discussion is Hispanics. They reached 10% of the electorate for the first time and they went to Obama about 70-20. (There are other groups we need to address (young voters, Asians((!) and blacks but we can save them for another day.)

Of course there will be calls for the GOP to embrace “comprehensive immigration reform” immediately as if that will solve the GOP’s problem with Hispanics (put aside for the moment that "Hispanic" and "Latino" are gross oversimplifications of that group. Mexicans aren't Cubans and Cuban aren't Dominicans but it's the term of art for this kind of discussion).

If people want to make the case for amnesty based on morality or compassion, fine. Let’s have that debate. If you’re a Republican and you’re saying it’s a political based move to get these “natural conservative” voters, you’re going to have to prove your claim.

Right now all the evidence seems to be Hispanic voters are voting for Democrats because as a groupÂ…they tend to be liberal.

And California is the wave of the future. A March 2011 poll by Moore Information found that Republican economic policies were a stronger turn-off for Hispanic voters in California than Republican positions on illegal immigration. Twenty-nine percent of Hispanic voters were suspicious of the Republican party on class-warfare grounds — “it favors only the rich”; “Republicans are selfish and out for themselves”; “Republicans don’t represent the average person”– compared with 7 percent who objected to Republican immigration stances.

I spoke last year with John Echeveste, founder of the oldest Latino marketing firm in southern California, about Hispanic politics. “What Republicans mean by ‘family values’ and what Hispanics mean are two completely different things,” he said. “We are a very compassionate people, we care about other people and understand that government has a role to play in helping people.”

And assimilation over time doesnÂ’t seem to change that.

As for social issuesÂ…

more...

Posted by: DrewM at 06:27 AM | Comments (553)
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People telling themselves that we had an insufficiently conservative candidate, that having a more conservative candidate would have made a difference, are kidding themselves. We didn't lose because of conservative or even liberal issues. We lost because of cultural issues -- binders, Big Bird, birth control, and blame Bush. Those four issues would have dogged ANY Republican candidate, regardless of their conservative bonafides.

That, if you want to skip the rest of this post, is the point. Republicans didn't lose a policy debate. They lost a PR contest. And the hardest part is that we insufficiently understood that we were even fighting on cultural grounds and not for political issues.

Binders, Big Bird, birth control, and blame Bush are not conservative or liberal issues. They're cultural issues. And the Left seized them and never let them go for the final two months of the campaign. Romney stood up and said "it's the economy." Swing voters answered: "but how are you different from Bush?" They weren't listening to our argument. They were listening for those cultural signifiers that would reassure them that the candidate was like them.

If there's one thing to take away from this loss it's that you can't force voters to pay attention to political issues. Remember now, swing voters are already a "special" group of people. They don't want to take sides. Politics is icky for them. So trying to persuade them on political grounds is not an efficient use of time. You have to persuade them on cultural grounds.

Swing voters really didn't want to think about the economy. But they sure had lots to say about Sandy clean-up. About Big Bird. About birth control and, God help us, rape. Those cultural issues that Democrats seized -- binders, Big Bird, birth control, and blame Bush -- went largely unrebutted by Romney.

To be honest, they were ignored by just about all the conservative commentariat too. I mean, they're ridiculous topics. Binders? Really? I'm as guilty as anybody else. I was standing here in my office complaining about having to write about something as frivolous and stupid as binders. But it turns out that swing voters are pretty ridiculous people. Go figure. Boy, don't I wish I'd paid more attention to binders now. The people who were frivolous enough to think binders was important were exactly the swing voters we needed to talk to, but didn't.

We should have suspected it after the foreign policy debate. I mean, these men are so close together on foreign policy as to be almost indistinguishable. All that was left was the *cultural* policy: how do we relate to other countries. And Obama's great at being the Great Relator. In the cultural consciousness, he's still bouncing off the Bush years, reassuring everyone that he's different. Romney didn't do that except very briefly right at the end of the campaign.

When I talk about rebutting these cultural issues, I mean a campaign of rebuttal. Almost every Obama ad on TV and radio I heard in the last two days of the election was about abortion and birth control. And they went totally unanswered. Romney's ads during the same period were about the economy. The war on women accusation went entirely unanswered except a few times at debates or on the stump.

It's because we thought those cultural issues were stupid, and, sure, they were. But we weren't supposed to be convincing ourselves. We were supposed to be convincing the neighbors who don't want to be partisan. SNL nailed that point perfectly in their "undecided voters" skit. It's not precisely that swing voters are dumb. It's that they've got other interests than partisans like you and me.

There was only one time during this election when Romney excelled on a cultural issue. It was in July. It was the response "we built that." That was Romney's rebuttal to Obama's "you didn't build that" gaffe and it resonated. For a brief period, we made the President and his supporters into a cultural punchline. That resonated with voters. Because it was cultural, pre-politics.

But "we built that" happened very early in the cycle and we never offered another cultural issue. Obama had several in the final two months. Birth Control. 47%. Big Bird. Binders. And, briefly (thank you, Candy Crowley), Benghazi. The nearest Romney came to a winning cultural issue after "we built that" was Clint Eastwood's empty chair. But that was a little too hokey for younger folks. The response to that chair cut right across generational lines. Older people loved it; younger people loved to mock it.

Put in the simplest terms: Republicans need to find a way to make fun of Democrats on something other than political grounds. Something to cackle over at the water cooler. It's easy to laugh at Democrats when you're safe among Republicans, though. That's preaching to the choir. "He ate a dog" kills among Republicans. It doesn't work so much among swing voters.

We used to be good at this. Think how we mocked Kerry and turned him into a punchline. We turned his words against him -- "for it before I was against it" -- and riffed on that to stick him with the "flip-flopper" label. That was cultural. Not political. We made Kerry out to be a squish and a traitor (thank you, Swiftboat Veterans) and it stuck. It had nothing to do with politics, or perhaps it was pre-politics.

But we didn't do that this time. This time we kept our eye on the ball: "it's about the economy, stupid." Well, yes and no. We were too busy fighting Bill Clinton. We forgot that Obama excels at this cultural stuff. We scorned the Left for their "Dear Leader" propensities, but we failed to offer a rebuttal to it. We told voters that Obama's politics were wrong, but we failed to offer a cultural alternative.

So we lost.

Now, I'm not saying that we should have been fighting on ONLY cultural grounds. Obviously, we have to fight the Democrats' disastrous politics. But we have to offer some cultural signifiers in addition to politics.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:30 AM | Comments (453)
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Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:06 AM | Comments (365)
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Bitter Recriminations: Day 2

Posted by: andy at 02:51 AM | Comments (321)
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Okay, one more. Treat today like New Year's Eve and make a vow to improve your life, or improve yourself as a person, or as a parent (or a child), in some definite way.

If you have any success stories, advice and encouragement as to general life improvements, offer.

Why am I on this kick? I've said this before but since Andrew Breitbart died I've understood, for the first time, really, we have only one life, and it's pretty damn short.

One thing I noticed was that someone mentioned smoking, and the e-cig.

If you're still a smoker: Dude, you must stop. Come on. It's not a sign of rebellion. It's kind of a sign that you don't like your life very much and don't think much about shortening it.

Now, because I understand nicotine addiction like anyone, I'll mention once again that the e-cig supposedly has no adverse health consequences -- nicotine itself is, allegedly, of the same chemical family as caffeine, and has a similar health effects profile (that is, it's not exactly good for you but it's not cancer-causing). Update: Well, actually, it increases blood pressure. Which is not good. But it's also not cancer.

The e-cig is also cheap. $160 will set you up for about three months or more of heavy smoking; after that, you'll have to pay, say, $50 every couple of months to replenish nicotine liquid and atomizers.

Although you can insert a tobacco flavor into the liquid (or cherry, or watermelon, or menthol, or chocolate, or whatever), I stopped that months ago myself, and so now my vapor smells like... nothing at all.

Although you may occasionally crave a real cigarette, I'll tell this, I keep a pack around for emergencies but it pretty much just sits in a drawer. When I do break down and have one, it's usually half, because halfway through the thing I realize "This has no appreciable benefit over the non-cancer-causing substitute I use, and it kind of tastes nasty, like charbroiled ass." So I stub it out and wonder why I did that.

Quitting is pretty easy. When I first went on it, I was off cigarettes, completely, for about three months. At that point I stared the "just one, once in a while" thing. Which I've now mostly stopped.

Number of cigarettes during and after the election: Zero point zero.

I had one Sunday, though.

Other benefits: You can vape (we say "vape," because it's vapor, not smoke) in your house with no smell. You can vape in restaurants and bars. You can vape on a train. You can vape in bed. You can vape one puff if you wake up in the middle of the night.

You can, actually, vape in airplanes, even though you're not supposed to, simply by doing it on the down low and making sure you mix a lot of air into your exhale so you're not ostentatiously pluming a cloud of gray smoke (vapor, but it looks like smoke).

I didn't tell you that was legal-- I just said you can get away with it it if you're reasonably furtive about it.

You will never say "Oh God, it's 1 am and I'm out of cigarettes and I have to drive to 7-11" again.

If you've tried the ones you can buy at 7-11 and the mall, and found it wanting, that's because those sellers sell cartridges (tanks with nicotine liquid) at such a low level of nicotine as to make you miss nicotine. When you buy online, you buy a jar of nicotine liquid and glycerine to cut it with so you can make it as strong as you like.

You can also start cutting the dosage of the nicotine to slowly wean yourself off the stuff. I, honestly, have not done that yet. I'll do so on my next batch.

Because people don't know what to get, I'll recommend the model I currently have, which is the best I've had so far. more...

Posted by: Ace at 05:02 PM | Comments (1263)
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Well I'm pretty drained and don't feel like talking about politics.

I've been up since 3:30AM, saw Romney lose by 8am, and then had a long busy day. There were a few pangs of sadness (about how you feel a few weeks after a breakup) during the day but on the plus side I saw a lot of people I haven't seen in a while, got some sales leads, was buzzed no less than 3 separate times today on free beer and wine, and got to chat up some cute young Scandi chicks (sub-clade: Finnish).

So all in all not too bad in the micro and macro-micro as post-debacle days go. So that's gonna be my focus for a while: smelling  the coffee, drinking the beer, and enjoying the micro-pleasures of life.

Now I like discussing and writing about politics - but it's not my life. So some political events may piss me off or frustrate me but by and large my daily mood and enjoyment of life aren't driven by whatever happens to be going on in politics. Now some will say this is only because I don't love America or experience emotions as you humans know them - but that hasn't been the case since at least the MkIV Emotion co-processor.

But having struggled with depression a time or three I've learned that the best way to keep the black dog away is to always have multiple irons in the fire of contentment. So if one turns to shit, there are always others ready to give you a little satisfaction on a daily and weekly basis. And these need their occasional share of attention too.

Of course don't forget about the future - I always keep my Virtual Niedermeyer running in the background, scheming and plotting during otherwise idle brain cycles.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 04:56 PM | Comments (416)
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This is not when the battle was fought. This is when the remains of Corporal Elmer Kidd came home to Syracuse NY.

He was 26 years old when he was killed in Korea. His remains were among 208 others, returned to the US in 1993, and having recently been identified now returned to his family for interment near his home.

The Battle of Chosin Reservoir is sometimes remembered as a retreat and a defeat. An American force of about 30,000 was surrounded by Chinese and North Korean forces numbering over twice their strength. In many battles like this, vast armies who are outnumbered lay down their arms, or are chewed up until there is nothing left.

But not Chosin. In this fight, X Corps, comprised of the 1st Marine Division, the US 3rd and 7th Infantry Divisions*, Brits from the 41st Royal Marines and a smaller number of Korean forces broke out of the trap. They suffered 1,000 killed, and almost 5,000 wounded. But in their fight to save X Corps they inflicted 20,000 casualties on the enemy. They engaged and fought their way out, a 17 day battle in freezing temperatures, and preserved their strength to fight again.

If you've never read an account of Regimental Combat Team 31, "Task Force Faith", look it up. It will inspire you.

Welcome home Corporal Kidd. God bless you, and your comrades.

video account of battle below the fold

*corrected more...

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 04:45 PM | Comments (21)
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The most important stuff digested by Allah. It's all important.

So, I never knew where this "Evangelicals didn't show up" meme came from. I seem to remember the same claim in 2008, when it was debunked.

Social cons often get pretty snippy about being scapegoated. I can see why. (But then, I do insist that no abortion even in cases of violent rape, even if it's Plan B at the hospital immediately following a reported rape, is a radioactively unpopular position which will not only never be implemented, it will also destroy anyone suggesting it as their policy preference, in anything other than a safely gerrymandered Republican seat in the heartland.)

Our "missing" 3 million voters might not be missing; they just might not have been tallied yet. (Elections are called with 3 million or more votes outstanding?)

It's possible Mitt won the national popular vote-- we'll have to see, when all the votes are counted. Not saying he did. Just saying we don't know yet.

As I mentioned in a comment in another thread, not only did we lose Hispanics 77-27, we lost Asians by pretty much the same margins. I don't know why this is, but I took my approximation of a first guess earlier.

Posted by: Ace at 04:08 PM | Comments (327)
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You know the War on Tampons thing?

Yeah, someone still thinks that was real.

Bad News: The American Public didn't understand our message

Worse News: This is the American pubic

Posted by: Ace at 03:37 PM | Comments (188)
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Via @danriehl, who notes Allen West isn't conceding defeat and his filed suit. more...

Posted by: Ace at 03:28 PM | Comments (50)
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