Romney just conceded Florida. It was all but blue/done on Tuesday night but due to long lines n’ late nights in (Democratic heavy) Broward and Miami-Dade counties the complete tally took a bit longer than expected.
Finally electoral count:
President Obama: 332
Governor Romney: 201
That's LESS than what Obama got in electoral votes from '08 @ 365
I don't see it as a mandate at all. Recall that the Republicans retained control of the US House. That doesn't give them a "mandate" either.
I'm starting to think the best chance to get anything done in the next four years will happen in the next six weeks. The lame duck session of the last Congress was actually quite productive. This one may be too, as some incumbents who aren't coming back to the next Congress may feel more free to vote constructively without worrying about the next election.
If the Democrats do nothing at all of the Bush era tax cuts will expire on 12/31/12. Period. Done and done.
I suspect The President is perfectly willing to let us fall of the fiscal cliff and let sequestration take affect should the GOP House failed to have received the message that he won re-election. If they want to play chicken, they’re going to find a Democratic caucus uninterested in turning the wheel.
It's not a matter of it being a "mandate" or not.
It's a matter of he (Obama)specifically campaigned on, among other things, allowing the tax rates on the upper percentile income earners go back to the rates of the Clinton era. Elections matter. The majority of the people have spoken. Despite what some utterly foolish people may opine to the contrary, obstructionism is not governance. Compromise is.
What give many liberals fits, and I’m not among them in this regard, is that President Obama is and has always been willing to negotiate and strike a so called “grand bargain” with the House Republicans. It was only their intransigence to give anything in return that caused it to fall to the wayside last time around. He (Obama) may very well end up offering concession that will send the far left wing of the party into fits. But the idea that it’s business as usual/nothing has changed/same ole’ GOP is not a prospect I’d want to bet on right now. I think exactly the inverse is far more likely.
I agree. It will be further damage to the GOP if they hold on to the notion that their job is to protect individuals/families making taxable incomes over 200k/250k.
Sort of an "at your own peril" circumstance.
Well, I'm not a "liberal," so I guess that's one reason I am NOT upset at Obama's attempt at the "Grand Bargain." I want Medicare and Social Security to be around and viable when I need them, but that doesn't mean I think they are completely untouchable. Some reform is probably needed in Medicare and Medicaid. I trust Obama not to see them gutted.
Although I personally would like to see all of the Bush tax cuts expire (except perhaps the 10% was 15% bracket), Obama has promised not to let that happen. I would like to see him start mentioning at every opportunity his eagerness to sign a bill immediately to extend those rates below $250K permanently, and if Republicans refuse to pass one, blame them. I say, just pass them as two separate bills: under $250K, over $250K. Let Obama veto one of them. That completely gets the GOP off the hook in their promise to Grover Norquist not to raise any taxes. All Republicans could say they voted not to - blame Obama. Now that he's not running again, he has nothing to lose for taking the blame for raising rates on incomes over $250K.
Andrew, the gutting of Medicare is already underway.
In the next four years, Obama will turn out to be the biggest piece of shit we've ever had in the White House.
Andrew, the gutting of Medicare is already underway.
It started with the Reagan administration.
Deane, it's nice to see your true colors.... YOU radical extreme righties are unbelievable.
It's good to see you bitter!
@Andrew:
Yeah, I don't disagree. It's fun to say MANDATE! though. After all, W did it with impunity.
What I find more interesting is that squeeze going on right now noted by LG and others here, and the idea that they could pass separate bills for Obama to Veto.
However it goes, it should be very clear that the GOP got spanked a couple times here, meaning actually getting something done is the priority, and doing that thing shouldn't screw the middle class.
Also a priority, or we would have seen much different election results.
Citation to have a potty mouth...
Deane's just a bitter UNAmerican human being....
If you want the information, do your own research. Talk to your local hospital. I can tell you the services are being cut due to ObamaCare while Liar Obama says it isn't happening, and while you Obamatrons whistle dixie.
I can too, Deane...my daughter is an ICU/PCU nurse..in a hospital in North Seattle...she has told me about what she sees with many patients that are chronic or ' frequent flier types'..and how decisions on services (Insurance companies) are being made now relative to 2 or 3 years ago...
Deane: Andrew, the gutting of Medicare is already underway.
In the next four years, Obama will turn out to be the biggest piece of shit we've ever had in the White House.
Given that what you post here about politics is usually 180 degrees from reality, that sounds like great news to me! Thanks, Deane!!! Looking forward to an even better next four years than I anticipate.
kennewickman: I can too, Deane...my daughter is an ICU/PCU nurse..in a hospital in North Seattle...she has told me about what she sees with many patients that are chronic or ' frequent flier types'..and how decisions on services (Insurance companies) are being made now relative to 2 or 3 years ago...
Do you think private insurance companies are making decisions about what services Medicare patients can get? Please explain.
Andrew, the hospitals are cutting services due to the Medicare reimbursement cuts that are coming to pay for ObamaCare.
My Mother is over 100 years old and needs an epidural shot for her back. The local small town hospital has cut out that service due to the Medicare cuts. Our choice is now to transport her 75 miles in each direction to a hospital that is still doing them. It will be an exhaustive and debilitating trip.
Here in Omaha, our major medical center just announced 100 layoffs due to ObamaCare Medicare cuts.
You Obamatrons were fed a long green weenie by the First Liar and you bought it hook, line and sinker. We'll all suffer for your mistake.
I think it might transcend Medicare...even..My daughter tells me that proceedures..tests etc seem to take more trips to the Hospital..or the ER first maybe then to the upper floors....to get certain proceedures that were ordered more readily before..she and her other contemporaries have noticed this in the last 3 years she has been at this Hospital.
Belt tightening going on , seems to be..on the part of the insurance companies. And it seems to be rather universal..not just Medicare...I have noticed this at my own doctor's. a few years ago..getting , say , a referal for a colonscopy or a Cat scan ..were handed out like funny money to the county fair, no problem, go get it done....now days seems like those referals are taken under much more scrutiny...
Well, thats ok with me as long as no one is getting jerked around unnecessarily or at peril to their health and well being...
Which I suspect is not always the case..as you can see from Deane's post.
No question but that the health care system in this country was broken and needed fixing. Obama care is going to worsen it. Don't believe me, just wait and see for yourself.
ObamaCare didn't even address one of the major issue and that's lawsuits, the fear of which drives all of these expensive unnecessary tests.
"AFL-CIO union leaders, a day after claiming credit for Barack Obama's re-election, staged events across the nation and in Omaha Thursday to press Congress not to cut Medicare, Social Security or Medicaid benefits."
I agree with Andrew. If anything is going to happen, it'll happen in the next 6 weeks. Boehner and Obama can pull out their previous agreement (the one Boehner distanced himself from after he was Teabagged) and put it to a vote in Congress. The Senate will certainly pass it.
We'll see.
Deane, are you talking about the same $816 Billion cuts to Medicare Advantage and Medicare providers that Paul Ryan had in his budget? I have no doubt that had President Romney signed the Ryan Budget with those same exact cuts, you'd be praising him for his effort to reduce the deficit. Of course, Ryan used the cuts not to pay for closing the Medicare Part D "donut hole" or free preventative tests that are mandated as part of the Affordable Care Act - Ryan used them to pay for more big tax cuts for the wealthy.
As most of us know, that infamous $816B cut didn't cut Medicare benefits to recipients at all. But I think the AFL-CIO is a bit naive to think that the Republican Congress isn't going to insist on big cuts to Medicare and Medicaid as part of any new budget deal. (which out of partisanship you will no doubt praise.) I find it sadly amusing that anyone is naive enough to believe Republicans would be the champions of Medicare, given that one of their big agenda items it getting RID of it.
If you want the information, do your own research. Talk to your local hospital. I can tell you the services are being cut due to ObamaCare while Liar Obama says it isn't happening, and while you Obamatrons whistle dixie.
Hey RomneyDONG, my wife is a trauma nurse at St. Vincent and at this time NOTHING is been cut or talked about being cut! Where are you getting your info FAUXNews and LimpBLAH? Talk to anyone that works in the healthcare industry?
PULL YOUR HEAD OUT DEANE!
PLUS, you have NO idea what things will be changed int he bill as Obama has talked about. When it finally takes effect in 2014 things could change YOU HAVE NO F'IN IDEA.
Go pound sand old man!
Deane, are you talking about the same $816 Billion cuts to Medicare Advantage and Medicare providers that Paul Ryan had in his budget?
Don't ask Deane complicated questions....
While it is a forgone conclusion that Obama will win Florida, it is not yet "done". It is not official as of 10:02 pm PST tonight. Probably more of a Florida problem, and it will come true, but no, Florida has not officially gone for Obama despite Romney's concession. Makes no difference in the outcome, but it isn't exactly "done" either. The final electoral count is yet to be officially decided.
One more thing: I hear a lot of misery expressed by the GOP. Get over it. The country will survive. We will continue to be a great democracy, but the way some Republicans are reacting, I just want to go and throw-up. Again, get over it. End times are not near because of this election...just a little of my perspective for what it's worth. Please, Hannity, Limbaugh, and some of my local conservative friends and broadcasters, GET A GRIP! (And that includes you, Neal).
I actually thought Limbaugh had a fairly lucid moment or two. He was doing his thinking out loud thing, which he does well, if morbidly at times, when he paused and said, "There are now two schools of thought on what prosperity means." This followed shortly with, "We have lost control over that discussion..." Also followed with some less lucid and rather ordinary lists of things we've heard many, many times.
He's right about both of those things. Prior to this election, the idea that we had to go to Austerity was fairly solidified in Washington and among many substantial people. It was not entirely welcome, or cool, or appropriate to mention otherwise.
That has changed.
It actually took two times to change it, but it has absolutely changed.
I don't think very much of Limbaugh, but I do recognize he gets it. A whole lot of them don't, but he does, and he did so quickly. Right now, he's hard at work in his own mind framing that his way, the results of that to be aired over a considerable time, but in that moment he realized the shift, said it, and said so unabashedly, and with great concern.
Great radio, I might add. He does so much better at that, such as it is, than he does attempting to denigrate women to feed a large and painful ego.
Edit: And here's the thing about Limbaugh that I have always thought set him apart from the many others out there running the formula, lacking what he has, and that is he gets it, then he decides that's not how it should be and then he bends things until they are how he would decide them to be and takes people along on that ride, bit by bit, careful to nudge, push, frame, blur, until it works again, and that is a bit of magic he does and does extremely well. Always has.
Paul, the GOP can't get over it any more than someone who is claustrophobic can get over their fear of small spaces. They have elevated their hatred of this president to the level of a neurological disorder. Or more accurately, to the level of an addict grown accustomed to the high they get from hating Obama. And like an addict, they would rather keep mainlining this shit than go through the pain of withdrawal.
You're asking a group of people to completely disavow their entire sense of reality, where the nation is solidly center-right and the "real" America still looks like 1957.
By the way, I totally agree with edselehr on this.
And again to reference Limbaugh, it is that magic I wrote of that makes him such a significant pain in the ass.
He will take that genuine moment of perfect clarity, then bend it, distort it, quite literally weaving an alternate reality one segment at a time, to the point where a regular listener can and will be convinced of the altered state of reality, because it's genesis is actually something entirely clear and rational.
Those that have gone down that road have the same issues a cult member would have --and the cults do the same thing, in the same way, difficult to undo, potent, gripping a person right to their core where fear rages underneath that, the same kind of fear one experiences with total loss, or a life crisis or worse.
The real question here is whether or not it's possible at all! I see a case where just a few too many people can't let it go. They are cooked, solidified, having to be dealt with, coddled and managed. It's going to take some time to see what happens, but I've already seen the Tea Party people begin to congeal, thrashing about, clearly bent toward the idea that any impurity at all is the problem, and that signals precisely the kind of mental state we are writing about.
Will that fracture the party, or will they double down AGAIN, for lack of serious options?
...or will they crack, a few able to take that same path back to a more moderate place, able to bend the "cultists" for lack of a better word, into a more generally workable state?
Highly entertaining times afoot, if you ask me!
edsel sez: They have elevated their hatred of this president to the level of a neurological disorder.
Amen!
The Grand Old Party has turned into the 'Gigantic Odd Poop'....
..and the FLORIDA hold-up appears to be Miami-Dade County, which is one of the
last counties still adding up a substantial number of votes....
I don't want to shock you guys too much, but I was just as nervous about what the GOP might do as I am about what Obama might do.
I'm not that disappointed that Obama was re-elected. What I am pissed about are his lies and naivete about some of his actions.
I'm counting on the GOP to continue to block him from getting too far out of hand.
Deane - what makes you nervous about what the GOP might do? What do you think the Republicans are going to do, that makes you nervous?
GOP
Guntoting
Old
Poopers
Well the positioning has started. The House says entitlement cuts have to be on the table, but so is new revenue. The Senate says they won't fuck with social security...
Everybody knows deep ass cuts and new taxes are a given, barring some action.
The political calculations are going on right now. I am nervous too.
I do not believe the Dems will seriously entertain austerity. I know the GOP is no where near acceptance that austerity isn't the only way to prosper.
Who will crack? Will something actually new be proposed?
I'm not that disappointed that Obama was re-elected. What I am pissed about are his lies and naivete about some of his actions.
What about Romney?
I dont know how anyone can sit in here straight faced and lack the understanding that given our economic system, that some kind of austerity wouldnt be in order .
There is no other way..either something gets cut...or we print MORE money..what else is there ? Print more money and raise the deficit. Look at the revenue side..raise revenue..get more money..pay down the deficit..what else is there ? Find Gold on the Moon ? Get divine interference ? What else ?
We can keep kickin' the can down the road..and go over this so called fiscal cliff at some point , or not..and fix it enough not to go over..but somehow this is going to involve CUTTING something..enough to make a difference ....
It doesnt matter who the President is ...the problems have to be handled effectively, not just delayed
Yes, Kennewickman, there is another way: grow the economy so you increase tax revenue. What's the best way to do that?
If you want to cut - WHAT do you want to cut? Medicare? You want Deane's mother to have to drive 150 miles each way to get her epidural shot? Military? The Republicans have been screaming we need to spend MORE on defense. Medicaid? Throw some a bunch of sick kids and seniors off of their health care?
I'm tired of people claiming we need to "cut spending." There IS no such thing as "spending" - there's defense, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and everything else (which doesn't add up to nearly as much as anything else). Tell us where you want to cut?
Growing the economy as a fix for all our deficit woes is another myth..
NOT now..the deficit is to damned big...it only works when you dont have trillions and trillions trillions of dollars of overspending..and you can talk all day long about what or whom are to blame, how we and much of the western world got here in the first place...
This is going to take many avenues to fix this. And one avenue is going to be some kind of austerity. Or it isnt going to happen at all. I guarantee it ....
Great!
Let the 1 percenters see austerity first. We can measure that, understand where all the key dynamics are, make investments, and only then when it's entirely necessary, roll that back onto ordinary Americans.
kennewickman: Growing the economy as a fix for all our deficit woes is another myth..
You do understand that this was Romney's plan, right? Massive tax cuts to grow the economy - so much new economic activity that not only would the deficit come down from all the new tax revenues, we'd have extra left over to build a new navy.
The problem with Romney's plan was that permanent tax cuts do not pay for themselves. They only make the deficit larger.
Clinton did it right: he cut some spending and raised taxes on the wealthy in 1993. And sure enough, the economy DID grow massively enough to erase the deficits.
NOT now..the deficit is to damned big...it only works when you dont have trillions and trillions trillions of dollars of overspending..and you can talk all day long about what or whom are to blame, how we and much of the western world got here in the first place...
As I asked above: WHAT do you want to cut? "Overspending" on what? Defense? Medicare? Medicaid? Social Security? Beyond those things, there isn't much of size left you can cut to have any meaningful effect on the deficit.
Some spending should definitely NOT be cut. Not every penny of government spending is wasted - it can have big impacts on economic activity. Did you drive today? Was it easier because of the roads? Did you use your GPS? That was only possible because of billions of government investment - so companies like Garmin could come along and make a business.
This is going to take many avenues to fix this. And one avenue is going to be some kind of austerity. Or it isnt going to happen at all. I guarantee it ....
Can you give me an example of even ONE time when "austerity" led a western nation to solvency and later economic prosperity?
Our debt is unprecedented !! Never in American history have we overspent so mightly. Dealing with it will take unprecedented measures to correct it.
I dont know what gets to be cut..that is up to my betters in DC and in other advisory places...All I know is that austerity will be a reality for some in or out of Government...and if it isnt dealt with ..it will be forced Austerity in the formm of a depression the likes of we have never seen..
Well, that's what the EU is doing. See it working well over there?
What can you say is different when the debt is smaller?
Our debt as a percentage of GDP is about the same as it was right after World War II. So no, it is not "unprecedented."
But thanks for having no constructive responses to anything I asked above. You haven't given us a clue as to WHAT we are overspending on or what we should be cutting...or WHEN austerity has ever led us to economic prosperity.
Hysteria.
OH...
Florida finally went for Obama...(in case anyone missed that)
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