The Watering Hole

Alright, Charger...

So you had mentioned in your response to my Facebook post that you thought it was hilarious that I thought Mitt Romney could be more successful in turning around the economy than the current Administration, suggesting that he would backtrack to Bush Era economic policies.

You know me, I don't like to throw stones and poke peoples eyes in these types of discussions, so keeping this as civil as possible would be ideal :)

I know how much you love figures, so I'm going to throw some up. National deficit numbers as of the end of the fiscal year (9/30) for the time frame of 9/30/2000 - 9/30-2008

9/30/2000 - 5,674,178,209,886.86
9/30/2008 - 10,024,724,896,912.49

A difference of 4,350,546,687,025.63 (I'm not insulting your intellignece here, just thought I'd do the math for you to get the point accross faster)

For an average deficit increase of 543,818,335,878.20/year over an 8 year period. Aside from the last year, the average increase per year was around 500B/year. From 2007-2008 the increase was about 1 trillion. This was the start of the depression. We had wars going in two theaters on borrowed money (Most borrowed from Americans), tax cuts happening, etc...

So of course when Obama took office he KNEW the hand he was being dealt.

But rather than grab the bull by the horns and get tough, and make hard decisions that would be unpopular, he decided to continue to spend an outrageous amount to increase entitlements, offer a trillion dollars to a stimulus package, and push through the affordable health care act that we can't afford to pay for. We STILL have an unecessary and unpopular war going in Afghanistan that is costing us a fortune, we're still handing out money to companies that can't afford to ever pay it back (And some have gone belly up). We still have unemployment rates as high as the day he took office, and extended unemployment benefits to the less fortunate that are costing us a fortune, millions more on food stamps that is costing us a fortune. I mean, the economy is a real mess, by any account.

Instead of farting around with health care and entitlement programs that we couldn't afford, Obama could have and SHOULD have concentrated on finding ways to get the deficit down. Whether that was through tax increases, promoting tourism, removing weed from the controlled substance list and taxing the shit out of it... I mean, there is little evidence to show that he did anything to reduce government spending. In fact, the exact opposite happened, and it would certainly appear as though he was pissing money out the window that we simply don't have.

If your family is in debt to your elbows, you don't make sure the bills get paid by handing out gifts to everyone that asks for one. You buckle down, you get by on bare minimums, and get yourself out of debt BEFORE you become charitable again. We, as a country, need to adopt that mentality, or the deficit will continue to grow...

I'm sure you know the current deficit number as well as the rest of us, and I think you also know that Obama has increased the deficit more in 4 years than Bush did in 8 years. To the tune of around 1.5T/year.

Now, call me crazy but... Isn't 1.5T/year MORE than 500B/Year? If you ask me, I'll go back to the Bush Era right here and now if it will help get this deficit to stop growing so rapidly.

But you and I both realize that's not what Romney wanted to do. At least I understand that. Obama and the media would certainly have you believe that we were going back to 60's policies, but come on that's ridiculous.

You follow this stuff more closely than I do, and somehow I'm the one that completely understands what Romney wanted to do, and exactly why it was going to work. Yet, so many Americans, including the President who is Harvard educated couldn't figure it out? Made claims that it was Bush Era, or from the 60's. That's silly to me...

What he was proposing I believe had a very good chance of working, as long as one major caveat of his plan held water.

Would he have actually been able to lower unemployment and get 20 million people back in the job force... I had "Hope" that he could do just that...

Now the mathematically impossible part that the liberal media didn't understand was with all the increased spending in key areas, and not enough cuts in others, how could we balance the budget in 10 years with tax cuts in play?

They were basing their tax revenue numbers off our cerrent unemployment rate and taxpayer base. The reason it was going to work is we were going to increase the taxpayer base by 20 million.

All that aside, here is one fact that absolutely can not be disputed. In order to stop this landslide deficit and start paying it down, we not only have to come up with a balanced budget, we need to be operating in a surplus... For a LONG ASS TIME.

I think Mitt Romney had the business accumen along with Paul Ryan who is well versed in the US Economy and Government Spending, to start trimming the fat off this government pig, lean the spending down to the bare minimum and get us operating in a surplus. We would have probably done away with a lot of entitlement programs, had to stop buying $5000 hard drives from Seagate, and $15,000 hammers from Snap-On, and a lot of people would be pissed off... But in the long run, I truly believe we would have been better off.

Sorry to be so long winded.

So that's my opinion of course. And a big reason I voted the way I did.

I don't believe President Obama has any plan in place to start getting this deficit paid down and get our credit rating back where it was when he took office.

I honestly hope I can put my foot in my mouth in 4 years, unfortunately I don't think much will be changing. Because as a whole we were dumb enough to vote ourselves into the exact same gridlock we had Tuesday morning...  

I feel compelled to add...

We are so easy to blame Bush for the deficit we're in today. Shame on Obama, or anyone else who takes this stance. When you run for President, the day you take the oath of office, you own everything that comes with it. You don't wussy out and blame it on the guy before you, you man up and take action to fix the problem, regardless of how unpopular it may be.

I'll tell you this right now, I damn near voted Obama in 2008. (I chose not to vote) But I was really on the fence and about to make the plunge. And if he had taken it to the nose like a man and made those unpopular decisions to get this economy on track instead of spending more than we had to go around, and blaming Bush for the problems, I would have voted for him this year without a doubt. Honestly, I think Obama is a great guy. He's pretty damn funny when he wants to be, and I believe he loves America and loves his family. But he's lost a lot of respect from me over the years by playing the blame game, and playing ignorant on a few issues. I have fired quite a few people over the years for less... As a sr engineer, I never want excuses, I want results. If I put you to task and you come back with excuses, don't expect to be around for more than one or two rounds of that crap.

Now, all that said... Let me ask this... One thing Obama threw out on several occaisions during his campaign was the fact that he killed Bin Laden. But you NEVER hear him praising Bush for making the tough decisions to use advanced interrogation techniques, holding terrorist suspects without formal charges or trial indefinitely, having them tried by military tribunal for acts of war... All things which undoubtedly led to the capture and trial of Saddam Hussein and the attack on the Bin Laden compound. Bush opened up so many doors for our intelligence community that have led to the capture / killing of numerous Al Queda "officials" and made our country a lot safer than it was before he took office.

Obama inherited all that too, courtesy of Bush. Yet Obama takes credit for the good that Bush left behind... And blames Bush for the one bad thing... The economy...

You see why I didn't want to type all that on my iPhone? My fingers would be fucking KILLING me right now... LoL!

Like I said before, I probably have more respect for you, Charger, than any other liberal tree hugger I know. I don't know why, I just respect the crap out of you, and Matt, and all the tree huggers here. And I honestly want to understand why you think the way you do. I give credence to so many of your arguments, yet you often discredit most of mine. All I ask, is that you respect my opinion the way I respect yours, cause I think we could all learn a thing out two by being a bit more open to the ideals of our neighbors, even if in principle we disagree with them.

Mitt's plan was:

1. Collect underpants
3. Profit


You are repeating the party line from FOX.  I'm not trying to be a dick.  You need to look into the reality of the last, say, 35 years.  I'm down to talk about the shortcomings of all the characters in the big show, but you made a lot of statements of damn Bammer without much damn other "side".  I'm not a fan of any of them.


EDIT:  Let's see where they go with it from here and we can discuss better as they do what they do.  In a lot of ways the past doesn't matter as much as understanding where we are.  I think it's good that people are looking at the issues more, lately... This may be the best thing about going through a lot of bullshit.

Dave, it's very simple. What you neglect to mention is:

1. Before Bush, the economy was in expansion, and we were actually running surpluses under Clinton. Bush's brilliant response to this was to cut taxes, thus swallowing up the surpluses, leaving us with the "Bush Tax Cuts" that we can now never, ever get rid of, and not improving the economy at all. (By the way, Mitt Romney's plan was also "cut taxes". Stop me when you think you've heard that before.)

2. 10,024,724,896,912 / 5,674,178,209,886 = 76% increase in the budget.
   16 trilliion / 10 trillion - 60% increase

3. You are very quick to blame Obama for the increase from 10 trillion to 16 trillion.  And you spent an awful lot of time trying to get Bush off the hook for the disastrous way he handled the economy. Well, here's some nonpartisan CBO analysis for how we got to 16 trillion (when we were projected in 2001 to be at 5.6 trillion today).

The difference between the projected and actual debt in 2011 can be largely attributed to:

   $3.5 trillion – Economic changes (including lower than expected tax revenues and higher safety net spending due to recession)
   $1.6 trillion – Bush Tax Cuts (EGTRRA and JGTRRA), primarily tax cuts but also some smaller spending increases
   $1.5 trillion – Increased defense baseline budget and non-defense discretionary spending under both the Bush and Obama administrations
   $1.4 trillion – Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
   $1.4 trillion – Incremental interest due to higher debt balances
   $0.9 trillion – Stimulus and tax cuts since 2008 (Economic Stimulus Act of 2008, ARRA and Tax Act of 2010)

Of this amount, I think you can put 900 billion in stimulus and 1/3 of the 1.5 trillion in defense increases on Obama. So of the money he actually controlled, I see him adding 1.4 trillion in 4 years. The rest is already built in to our spending, and a lot of it is the result of horrible policies that we cannot change with our Congress.

It's interesting, Dave, because I see you as pretty moderate, but you are basically arguing that the president who will easily go down as the worst president in the last hundred years was not all that bad at what he did.  You're living in a delusion if you believe that.  Some 35% of people blame Obama for our current fiscal situation--and those people are Republicans.  Almost 60% blame Bush.  The majority have it right, and you have it totally wrong.

What you are failing to address, and what Republicans are failing to address, is that they are not putting together any message people can cling to. They allowed the party, which wasn't friendly in the first place to immigrants, the poor, and women, to be poisoned even further by these idiots in the tea party. They've added a new wing-nut element to a party that already looked like a bunch of wing-nuts.

Republicans didn't give a shit, though.  They looked at 2010, a mid-term election--and by the way, presidents always lose seats in a midterm election--and they said "the electorate has changed."  And then they nominated another 65 year old white guy, with no new ideas, and to add insult to injury, a guy worth a quarter of a billion dollars.  Then, when Romney had a chance to pick a moderate VP, he picked a guy who is not moderate, who is very conservative, who is white, of course, and doesn't have any moderate positions.  In addition, they may have thought that Wisconsin was winnable with Paul Ryan but that just goes to show you how buried these idiots' heads are in the sand.  I don't think Wisconsin is even a swing state anymore.  That's Democratic territory. And so is Nevada.  My lord, the demographics in these states do not point to any sort of possibility of a republican win until they change their positions.

Now a lot of people think "Romney lost" and I agree that he lost, but I think, even more than that, Obama won.  He executed his strategy brilliantly, he turned out the vote, and truly, the country is just more Democratic than Republican. 39 percent Democrat to 33 percent Republican. In a year where Republicans were motivated!  There just aren;t enough Republicans left. He got the same numbers of Dems turning out as in 2008. He killed Romney with women by 12 points.  And among single women he won by 36 points!  He won the black vote by 92%.  He got 75%  of the latino vote.  Romney won only two demographics handily... Republicans, and older white voters. He won independents, but not by the 15 points everyone thought... by 5 points.  And the youth vote, that everyone predicted would be lower, was higher by one percent. And went heavily to Obama.

The country looks at the Republicans now and they don't see anything they can relate to. There's no message to cling to in "we're going to make Obama a one-term president".  There's no substance in a platform that consists almost entirely of undoing everything the last president did.  That's not revolution, that's reactionary, reductive.  It's weak.  Right now, no matter who runs, if the Republicans can't figure out a way to make themselves relevant, they are going to fade out of power as a party. Their path is unsustainable. And good riddance to them. After what they've done with the fillibuster over the last 3 years, they deserve to lose.

BTW Dave, I respect you too.

But I get a little tired of Republicans saying "if he had just come into office and done [x thing that I want a republican to do]".  Obama was not going to come into office and enact Republican policies. All these Republicans feel so let down by him not doing what they wanted. But they didn't vote for him, Democrats did.  The president is elected to do what he runs on, and he did quite a bit of that.  It wasn't what you wanted him to do. But you're a Repbulican.  I'm not sure why you expect him to do what you would want him to do.  

I voted for him and fully expected him to raise taxes on the rich.  That's the only thing he didn't do that I am bothered by.

It's tough though. For some reason the Republican Congress is all bound by one unelected Grover Norquist, who holds no office but more power than any one congressman.  

I am looking forward to the day when all the Republicans at once rise up and reject the Grover Norquist tax pledge.  You talk about a legislator taking it on the nose and standing for something?  That's a whole HOUSE full of idiots who won't stand up for themselves, who sign their legislative power away to one dude.  But here's the thing. If they all stand together and reject the pledge, he becomes irrelevant.  There's no way that his organization has enough money to wage campaigns against every Pub house member. And a strong candidate would survive anyway--look at how much money SuperPACs put into Senate races this year, fat lot of good that did them.

But you and I both realize that's not what Romney wanted to do. At least I understand that. Obama and the media would certainly have you believe that we were going back to 60's policies, but come on that's ridiculous.  

You follow this stuff more closely than I do, and somehow I'm the one that completely understands what Romney wanted to do, and exactly why it was going to work. Yet, so many Americans, including the President who is Harvard educated couldn't figure it out? Made claims that it was Bush Era, or from the 60's. That's silly to me...

What he was proposing I believe had a very good chance of working, as long as one major caveat of his plan held water.

Would he have actually been able to lower unemployment and get 20 million people back in the job force... I had "Hope" that he could do just that...

Now the mathematically impossible part that the liberal media didn't understand was with all the increased spending in key areas, and not enough cuts in others, how could we balance the budget in 10 years with tax cuts in play?

They were basing their tax revenue numbers off our cerrent unemployment rate and taxpayer base. The reason it was going to work is we were going to increase the taxpayer base by 20 million.

No, Dave, I think that bothered a lot of people. I had NO IDEA what Romney wanted to do. He kept his plans secret. He said "I'm going to cut marginal tax rates by 20%, then offset those cuts with reduced deductions."  Essentially, no change.  Then he had a plan to further make things better by ... cutting corporate tax rates?  

And you say 20 million jobs... Romney said 12 million jobs.  Out of those 12 million, how many would pay enough to even pay taxes?  And what was his plan to add thos jobs? I  heard him say "I know how to do this. I have a plan" a number of times.  I read his website.  I still couldn't find the plan.  Was it the Ryan budget?  He disavowed that.  In fact, he went after Obama repeatedly for saving $700 billion in Medicare.  What was his plan, then?

You say you knew and I knew that it was different than Bush's plan.  Sorry... I don't and didn't.  I think tax cuts are stupid, and they have never worked to jump-start an economy.  And especially tax cuts in a good economy, like Bush did?  Tax cuts in this economy? why, so we can cut taxes for people who don't have jobs and thus don;t pay any taxes?

Sorry, it didn't add up for me, it didn't add up for many, many analysts who know a shitload more than me, and it's not good when you're already viewed as "secretive" (won't release tax returns, 47% comments at secret fundraiser, etc) to keep a huge plan that you supposedly have a secret.  That's good strategy if you think you have the election in the bag.  And that may be what happened, Romney actually believed that the polls were wrong, that people were like him and couldn't vote for Obama again.  It;s fine to not tell anyone what you are going to do if you are sure to win.  Romney, however, fucked himself by presenting no credible plan, and a whole bunch of things he wanted to undo.  It's very flattering for you to tell me that I know how it was all going to work, but you're blowing smoke, Dave. NO ONE KNEW HOW IT WOULD WORK.  I mean, you say 20 million jobs, which is 8 million more than Romney said.  So even you have no idea what the plan was.

You're right, I'm repeating the party line from Fox... Why would you think that? That's exactly the kind of rhetoric I attempt to avoid in these conversations. The only figures I looked up in these posts were the fiscal year close out deficit numbers straight from the treasury department. The rest was my own rational thought. Some 54 million other American voters agree with me so I can't be all that off in my thinking... And Fox ratings aren't that high. Point is, Fox isn't the only place where conservatives get their information. And they are certainly not an organization I would be quoting, especially around here. Unless, of course, I wanted to get lit on fire... If you don't like Mitt Romney, that's fine. I don't much care for him either if I'm being honest, but I do trust his judgement with regard to fiscal policy and job creation. And as simple as his tax cut plan was for a simpleton republican like me to understand, it's just shocking that more people don't get it... We could easily look back 35 years... Not even that far, all the way back to 1980... When President Carter got us into a big fat mess similar to that we're in now, and Reagan swoops in with an overwhelming win, and implements a lot of the same principle economic policies, and our economy turned around. Historical data has great value. We already know that lowering taxes can be a huge boon to the economy. Why not even consider the possibility that it could have been wildly successful? Lower taxes and relieve regulatory hardships from businesses and the jobs will start popping back up... Which puts more tax payers in play, as well as more consumers. Retail sales go up, economy starts to recover, and more jobs start popping up to build new stores, more entrepreneurs start new small businesses... It's a huge snowball effect of economic growth. We tried throwing a huge stimulus check in the pot and things got worse... Why not try going back to what we KNOW works, based on historical evidence to prove it?

Instead of berating me for being an idiot republican, explain to me what Obamas plan for economic recovery is, why it will work, and what historical evidence is out there to support your claim?

If Romney said 12 million then I was mistaken there and I apologize. I thought I heard him say 20 on several occasions.

Regardless, he did lose...

Now, I like raw numbers... Obama only won by 2 million or so votes... Perhaps less if you look at the differences in the tight swing states. It was probably closer to around 3-500k that he won by. 110 million people came out and voted. 54 million voted for Romney. All the demographic numbers look great, but really the raw numbers look pretty even to me.

Now, I'm easy to sway... So I'll be paying attention to how things go these next few years. If Obama is able to get this economy in check, color me impressed.

Don't get me wrong here guys, I'm not a sore loser or anything. I just have some apprehension that we may have gotten this one wrong. I surely hope not. Only time will tell...

2 million votes? Try 3 million... 2,897,214 as of this moment.  

I still remember when Al Gore *won* by a couple thousand votes.  Did you make an issue of how close it was then? Or how Bush actually should have lost?  The margin of victory is not the point-- 1.9 million of that difference came from California, and hell, the election's over by the time our polls close, we have no motivation to get out the vote.  But it wasn't really a close election at all.

So I don't know if you remember this or not... But in 2000 when Bush "won" and Randy was gloating about it, I did indeed stick up for ole Al Gore and tell Randy that Bush didn't really win that election, he just won the electoral vote.

Let me break down just how close this was, in the key states, Obama's margin of victory wasn't as epic at all...

Should be pretty obvious, but I have these listed by State name, Margin Of Victory, and finally the number of electoral votes on the line...

Ohio - 103,533 votes - 18 electoral
Virginia - 112,884 votes - 13 electoral
Iowa - 88,501 votes - 6 Electoral
Florida - 50,868 - 29 Electoral

So these 4 states... 355,786 votes... That's the difference between Romney having 206 Electoral votes, or having 272 and winning this election.

Total votes cast - 118,672,460... Margin of victory 355,786...

Obama's Epic Win was actually around 0.29%, in accordance with our current Electoral College rules... That is DAMN close... How anyone can suggest that this was a landslide for Obama is simply not acknowledging how close he was to losing.

If those 355k had gone the other way, we'd be having a much different conversation right now. So excuse me for using 2 mil instead of 3 mil... 2,896,453 is the number I'm seeing... Even at that number it was still only a 2.4% margin of victory. This is a huge victory? That's within the margin of error of every poll there is... I think that would classify this as a "marginal" victory... And as long as you classify the data above as accurate, without discrediting it, then this was about as close as elections get.

I'd like to point out once again, just so nobody is confused... I am not upset that Obama won. I acknowledge that he won, if even by the slightest of margins, a win is a win... I am concerned about the state of the union, but not upset about Obama being the President.

Divebomb — Nov 08, 2012You're right, I'm repeating the party line from Fox... Why would you think that? That's exactly the kind of rhetoric I attempt to avoid in these conversations. The only figures I looked up in these posts were the fiscal year close out deficit numbers straight from the treasury department. The rest was my own rational thought. Some 54 million other American voters agree with me so I can't be all that off in my thinking... And Fox ratings aren't that high. Point is, Fox isn't the only place where conservatives get their information. And they are certainly not an organization I would be quoting, especially around here. Unless, of course, I wanted to get lit on fire...

You are repeating FOX reasoning on the numbers and using their "logic" in general.  FOX repeats the general right wing narrative, they aren't innovative or anything, just parroting the party line.  Like now it's a white people lost the election line.

You asked why Bush is quick to be blamed on the economy.  Bush and the right wing narrative at the time was that the economy was sound.  At the end of the pres campaign he came out and said that not only was the economy not sound, it was about to be super fucked...  Then he was out of there.  When you set the table for a shit buffet and jet out during the pre-meal drinks, leaving the bill for your guests, yer still the host of the party.  

Divebomb — Nov 08, 2012If you don't like Mitt Romney, that's fine. I don't much care for him either if I'm being honest, but I do trust his judgement with regard to fiscal policy and job creation. And as simple as his tax cut plan was for a simpleton republican like me to understand, it's just shocking that more people don't get it... We could easily look back 35 years... Not even that far, all the way back to 1980... When President Carter got us into a big fat mess similar to that we're in now, and Reagan swoops in with an overwhelming win, and implements a lot of the same principle economic policies, and our economy turned around. Historical data has great value. We already know that lowering taxes can be a huge boon to the economy. Why not even consider the possibility that it could have been wildly successful? Lower taxes and relieve regulatory hardships from businesses and the jobs will start popping back up... Which puts more tax payers in play, as well as more consumers. Retail sales go up, economy starts to recover, and more jobs start popping up to build new stores, more entrepreneurs start new small businesses... It's a huge snowball effect of economic growth. We tried throwing a huge stimulus check in the pot and things got worse... Why not try going back to what we KNOW works, based on historical evidence to prove it?

Instead of berating me for being an idiot republican, explain to me what Obamas plan for economic recovery is, why it will work, and what historical evidence is out there to support your claim?

Reagan spent insanely and raised taxes many times.

What do you think the idea behind the stimulus check was?  What were the three parts of the stimulus?  I thought they should have kept the infrastructure spending in but they stripped it in favor of more tax breaks.  Do you think that was a good idea?



I'm seeing you run figures to "prove" that BamBam only barely won this election.  The rightwing narrative before the election was that Mitt would "win big" by getting over 300 electoral votes.  BamBam got over 300 and now they switch to the popular vote number as evidence of a squeeker.  This is one of the main pub problems, they can't face reality.

Divebomb — Nov 08, 2012
Ohio - 103,533 votes - 18 electoral
Virginia - 112,884 votes - 13 electoral
Iowa - 88,501 votes - 6 Electoral
Florida - 50,868 - 29 Electoral

In Ohio, that result was 2% more than Romney won.
Virginia, 3%.
Iowa, more than 5.5%.
Florida is close, but Obama didn't need Florida.  In fact, toss out Ohio and he still wins.

I take it your point is that it was a close election.  I agree it was much closer than the first one, but in the recent history of elections, not that close.  Bill Clinton had higher electoral margins, but because of Ross Perot, low percentages.

Much more interesting, if you look at Wisconsin, Nevada, Colorado.  Currently considered swing states, but Obama won them by between 5 and 8 percentage points.  If these are truly Democratic states (which I believe they are) that means the Republican electoral map has shrunk. They have to win Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and Iowa to win. The only "swing" state the Republicans can lose is New Hampshire.  
Oh and by the way, Obama had a 6-point margin over Romney in Iowa too.

Just to set it straight, I never thought in a million years that Romney would get 300+ electoral votes. That's a load of shit. I don't agree with Fox on everything, and I choose many news outlets. Admittedly Fox is one of them, but I also look diligently to CNN, New York Times, huffington Post, NPR, etc. Like Charger mentioned, I am fairly moderate, but I do tend to lean conservative on most issues. I'll be fine with all this madness next week, and we can switch this discussion over to why my recordings of DI bass sounds like ass crack. :)

Divebomb — Nov 08, 2012Just to set it straight, I never thought in a million years that Romney would get 300+ electoral votes. That's a load of shit. I don't agree with Fox on everything, and I choose many news outlets. Admittedly Fox is one of them, but I also look diligently to CNN, New York Times, huffington Post, NPR, etc. Like Charger mentioned, I am fairly moderate, but I do tend to lean conservative on most issues. I'll be fine with all this madness next week, and we can switch this discussion over to why my recordings of DI bass sounds like ass crack. :)

That's the funny thing with the pre-elecetion Mitt "big win" 300+ narrative they threw down.  They set rules of what a "big win" would be, then when Bammer got 330+, not Mitt, they change the rules of reality as they see it.  No one ever said Bammer was gunna get 300 or that if he did it would be a "big win", they defeat themselves.

The legislation that went through was mainly right leaning centrist policy.  Just because the pubs didn't vote for 'em doesn't mean they didn't work on 'em.

I'm down to talk about this stuff.  I mainly get to talk politics with a cat who believes the CIA picks the president, so talking with people about the "overt" information is interesting. heh heh

Charger, you mentioned in an earlier post that Bush raised the deficit by 76% in 8 years, and Obama only 60%. What YOU neglect to mention is that he did that in just 4 years. Are you going to be okay with it 4 years from now if it jumps another 60% and our credit rating drops another notch or two?

And just to reiterate, I would still like to know what Obama has in mind to get the economy back on track? Or are you okay with the economy the way it is now?

Obama lost NC. You forgot, right? What about Virginia?

If we are gonna count all votes, we need to go by the popular vote.

OK, go by the popular vote.  Who won the popular vote?

Popular vote needs to decide the outcome always

I agree in that it would have kept Bush Jr. & Company INC. out of there.  

BamBam won the popular vote. Mebee not a majority of certain demographics, tho...

Hookbender — Nov 09, 2012Obama lost NC. You forgot, right? What about Virginia?

If we are gonna count all votes, we need to go by the popular vote.

I consider North Carolina a Republican state, and I think it was a fluke that Obama won it last year, like Indiana was a fluke.  Basically, for a Democrat to win those states, he's got to be crushing and outperforming.  The "new normal" is the map we see this year, and the only real swing states are Florida and Ohio, which the Democrat doesn't need.  With just the states that Obama won by 5+ points this year, he's at 263 electoral votes.  Throw in Colorado, where he won by 4.7%, and he's at 272, and the election is over.  That to me means Obama wasn't a fluke in 2008--Democrats have shrunk the electoral map.  With this map, the Democrat can lose Ohio, Virginia, and Florida and still win.  That they won all three was just icing on the cake.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/08/as-nation-and-parties-change-republicans-are-at-an-electoral-college-disadvantage/

Will see how you brag on this dude in 4 years! My prediction is you'll say shit about Obama being the better of the 2 choices. Some junk like that. I predict things will be worse in 4 years than they are today, much worse. People voted for stagnation and don't even know it.

Hookbender — Nov 09, 2012Will see how you brag on this dude in 4 years! My prediction is you'll say shit about Obama being the better of the 2 choices. Some junk like that. I predict things will be worse in 4 years than they are today, much worse. People voted for stagnation and don't even know it.

Stagnation is better than going backwards. Romney was a step backwards.

And it'll only be stagnation if the GOP decides not to govern and just tries to be obstructionist for the rest of his presidency.

I'm looking forward to seeing what Barack Obama will do when he doesn't have to worry about being elected again. You might see more of "Luther" and less "Barack".

(anyone who has seen Key & Peele will get that)

Tripper

Hookbender — Nov 09, 2012Will see how you brag on this dude in 4 years! My prediction is you'll say shit about Obama being the better of the 2 choices. Some junk like that. I predict things will be worse in 4 years than they are today, much worse. People voted for stagnation and don't even know it.

Predicting Obama will fail. At least Dave is pulling for us, man. You are a total bummer.

Republicans predicted a lot of things over the last four years, and blew it on all calls. I'm going to bet that your prediction will also fail.

charger — Nov 08, 20122 million votes? Try 3 million... 2,897,214 as of this moment.  

I still remember when Al Gore *won* by a couple thousand votes.  Did you make an issue of how close it was then? Or how Bush actually should have lost?  The margin of victory is not the point-- 1.9 million of that difference came from California, and hell, the election's over by the time our polls close, we have no motivation to get out the vote.  But it wasn't really a close election at all.

And it gets bigger... right now the difference is 3,013,088...