ramblinwreck: Le Grand Inquisitor: Free Radical: If Obama wouldn't have won by a landslide it wouldn't have been a mandate.

That election was not a mandate...popular vote was close and the the house stayed GOP. If you expect political capital and change, you are sorely mistaken

House Dems received significantly more votes than GOP Reps. That identifies a significant problem with how the districts are drawn.

All it really indicates is that democratic districts are urban and republican districts are rural. It's much harder to organize rural districts, due to the lower population density.

sdd2000: I wonder how many votes in the right places would have turned the house back to the Democrats?

They did get more aggregate votes for House seats than the Republicans. So, maybe not too many (I haven't looked at the totals).

It's interesting that Romney actually got less overall votes than McCain in 2008, universally considered to have been a very bad year for Republicans. The race was only closer this time around because Obama received several million less votes than he did four years ago. Not a surprise, really; he didn't exactly have the same level of hype going into this race, and the conventional wisdom is that 2012 wasn't supposed to be a great year for Democrats.

Republicans should be really worried, though. If, in an election where they had record enthusiasm levels, they couldn't even get as many votes as the election when they had middling enthusiasm, that's a sure sign of shrinking demographics. Doesn't bode well for the future (well, unless you're a Democrat, I guess.)

And if the Mets had won one more game in 2007, they would have made the playoffs that year.

/yes, I'm still bitter about that, how could you tell?

Thunderpipes: swaniefrmreddeer: And he would have lost the popular vote still by a large margin. The electoral college is a f*cked up system.

Really is, 4-5 states should not decide an election. Candidates not even needing to campaign in the largest states as well is just silly. And it does stifle voter turnout. If you live in CA and are not a Democrat, Texas and not a Pub, you know your vote is thrown out, so why do it? Same here in VT, unless you are a Democrat, your vote is useless.

No reason to have the college, none.

I agree with the thrust here, but 2 points of order

1. You do it because there are other people running for other offices.
and
2. There *was* a reason for the electoral college. Technology has since removed that reason.

If it weren't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college.

Yea, and if Woody had gone straight to the police, this would never have happened.

Thunderpipes: Dems just have the advantage. Mexicans, blacks are all in their corner no matter what and they breed like crazy. That alone gives them elections. Then you have moron young people, who cannot get a job out of college but still scream for Obama's nut droppings.

And this, I completely disagree with. Couldn't get the bites without going completely off the reservation huh?

White people vote harder, indeed.

Pelvic Splanchnic Ganglion: MrVeach: How is it a democracy if half the people want someone else as president? Maybe they should split the term percentagewise based on votes. Obama first 25 months, Romney last 23? Stagger it?

It's not a democracy. It's a representative republic.

You are fooling yourself

The Evil That Lies In The Hearts Of Men: [cdn.breitbart.com image 475x356]
Forever Alone

Don't you think he looks tired?

/Will be commentator on Bain wil buy Fox News.

Thunderpipes: Dems just have the advantage. Mexicans, blacks are all in their corner no matter what and they breed like crazy.



Nos encantan los coches de payaso

Honest Bender: [i47.tinypic.com image 763x427]

332,999 votes....

He might have won the election after all!

Technically, women have external genitalia. They just don't protrude to nearly the same extent.

/Got nothing.

Thunderpipes: Obama's nut droppings.

Again with the male-genitalia obsession.

/NTTAWWT

brobdiggy:

I understand why we don't do national popular voting (recount nightmares... yikes)... but voting should be done electorally be DISTRICT instead of at the STATE level.
In other words, All states should do what Nebraska and Maine do..
It makes the most sense, and it doesn't leave voters feeling disenfranchised like the current system does.

However, it would never pass, because liberals in blue states and conservatives in red states wouldn't allow it.

If it did pass they would gerrymander the shiat out of it.

Obama won PA, VA and OH statewide elections, but the democrats won less than a third of the house seats.

Sgt Otter: If Alabama had just scored six more points, they'd still be undefeated.

Why must you pour salt in the wound?

Why?

It was a very close election with the winner receiving 51% of the vote. Obama is president and we should stand behind him and our congress in the 4 years to come. They can't be any worse than Bush years. Things are looking more progressive as we gradually adopt legalized marijuana and equal rights for gays. Commentary on a close election is a valid observation and completely expected, not butthurt. Not all liberals are evil, and not all republicans are evil. Carry on with the derp and hate.

Thunderpipes: Headso: Breitbart's corpse is right, republicans shouldn't take this loss as meaning anything, the "squeaker" win that Zerobama pulled off shouldn't cause them to change their OP one bit. If anything the votes they did get were because of them and they should double down on the anti-science, morality police, anti-immigration rhetoric and throw in some more fear mongering and promises of military adventurism too all while ignoring any criticism or fact checking from the liebral-leftist-lamestream-driveby-media conspiracy. In short, suck it libs!

Dems just have the advantage. Mexicans, blacks are all in their corner no matter what and they breed like crazy. That alone gives them elections. Then you have moron young people, who cannot get a job out of college but still scream for Obama's nut droppings.

Just going to get way worse before, if ever, it gets better. Math is simple, and we cannot afford this route as a country. Eventually, you run out of successful people to tax because their won't be enough, and the screaming hordes of young unemployed Democrats will never see reality because they are idiots.

This is one of the best trolls in the main tab. No one could really believe this, right? Guys?

I'm surprised the Romney and McCain campaigns didn't send a bunch of volunteers to swing state nursing homes and register a whole bunch of elderly conservatives in key counties. It probably would have made some kind of difference, and they could have chalked it up to being compassionate to the elderly.

brobdiggy: Not protesting Obama or anything, but the Electoral College "winner take all" system is absolutely stupid.

Every election we hear the "your vote counts" garbage. That's not true. The message should be "your vote counts if you live in Ohio or Florida".

I understand why we don't do national popular voting (recount nightmares... yikes)... but voting should be done electorally be DISTRICT instead of at the STATE level.
In other words, All states should do what Nebraska and Maine do..
It makes the most sense, and it doesn't leave voters feeling disenfranchised like the current system does.

However, it would never pass, because liberals in blue states and conservatives in red states wouldn't allow it.

If that were the case in this past election, BO would have lost due to gerrymandering. Republicans that run states that go blue every cycle are trying their damnedest to get that done before 2016 (see OH's Sec of State John Husted's comments). 51% popular vote should not give 6 of 18 EC votes in OH. Basically, what that system does in states with large population centers is make their vote worth less. Not to mention that those folks probably waited 6-8 hours to vote while those in red counties had no lines.

born_yesterday: Perhaps we can talk about the narrow margin by which GW Bush won the popular vote?

Or his first election where he actually lost the popular vote but still won the electoral college. And that wasn't even the first time in history that happened, either.

LOLOLOL.

I remember when the GOP took Wisconsin and Ohio. With margins of far less than 150K each we were told that they had a "mandate" to bust Unions and sell off state, and taxpayer, assets to their Koch buddies. And that was with a 28% turnout.

Guess what, Butthurtpublicans? The Dems, and B-Rock, the Islamic shock Super-Allah Obama actually have a mandate now. A pretty substantial one.

I hope to Tyr he uses it. I hope he shoves it down their throats. And I am going to make fun of crying little whimps like the local shills. They can't handle reality. It's funny.

Cybernetic: Technically, women have external genitalia. They just don't protrude to nearly the same extent.

/Got nothing.

Eunuch?

Sneakernets: "But we derped so hard, how could we lose?"

Something tells me these guys are never going to leave last Tuesday night. They're trapped in time.



Knows a lil' somethin' about being trapped in time
/and low on gas
//and surrounded by evil
///Ash is a republican??

nekom: Does anyone actually have a convincing argument in favor of the electoral college? I don't believe I've ever heard one good reason for it.

The only good thing I thought of during this election is that it only encourages vote suppression shenanigans in a handful of states, so its easier to keep an eye on all the nonsense.

brobdiggy: All states should do what Nebraska and Maine do.

The Nebraska GOP gerrymandered the sh*t out of Omaha specifically to prevent Obama from winning the second district and their electoral vote like he did in 2008. That system favors geography over population.

There's simply no way such a system would not be grossly abused, especially with most state legislatures being run by the GOP -- and such a system would be scrapped once a candidate wins the national popular vote by well over ten million but loses the electoral college by several dozen or a hundred (especially if that popular candidate would have won under the current system where only Maine and Nebraska split their votes)

Pelvic Splanchnic Ganglion: swaniefrmreddeer: The electoral college is a f*cked up system.

Why? It prevents one or two states from completely disenfranchising the rest of the nation. As much as you'd like it to be, the United States is not "California and New York".  The Electoral College isn't a perfect system, but going strictly by popular vote would be a disaster.

The Electoral College instead gives us the United States of Ohio and Florida. NY and CA are

If frogs had wings, they'd be getting pigeon pussy.

nekom: swaniefrmreddeer: And he would have lost the popular vote still by a large margin. The electoral college is a f*cked up system.

I almost wish he'd won the popular vote yet lost in the electoral college. That way, BOTH parties would have a recent memory of being burned by it, and maybe there would be a push to change it.

Does anyone actually have a convincing argument in favor of the electoral college? I don't believe I've ever heard one good reason for it.

Sam Wang makes a good one: Under the current system, when there is a recount, it's limited to one state. Imagine the chaos involved in a 50-state recount after a close election.

I also sympathize with the argument that, under a pure popular-vote system, populous states like New York, California, and Texas would have disproportionate influence. To be fair, if most of the population lives in a few states, those states probably should be disproportionally influential, but smaller states shouldn't be de-facto shut out of the process, either.

What about reducing the number of electors in each state by one, to bring the proportions somewhat more in line with population distribution, but also continuing to recognize that all of the states do matter?

50,000 votes in one state would have given Kerry the election in 2004, what's the point?

Obama won by ~3.3 Million popular votes.


Handle it, Repugs!!

Thunderpipes: Headso: Breitbart's corpse is right, republicans shouldn't take this loss as meaning anything, the "squeaker" win that Zerobama pulled off shouldn't cause them to change their OP one bit. If anything the votes they did get were because of them and they should double down on the anti-science, morality police, anti-immigration rhetoric and throw in some more fear mongering and promises of military adventurism too all while ignoring any criticism or fact checking from the liebral-leftist-lamestream-driveby-media conspiracy. In short, suck it libs!

Dems just have the advantage. Mexicans, blacks are all in their corner no matter what and they breed like crazy. That alone gives them elections. Then you have moron young people, who cannot get a job out of college but still scream for Obama's nut droppings.

Just going to get way worse before, if ever, it gets better. Math is simple, and we cannot afford this route as a country. Eventually, you run out of successful people to tax because their won't be enough, and the screaming hordes of young unemployed Democrats will never see reality because they are idiots.

That right there is the message the GOP should be screaming from the highest mountaintop.

It can't lose.

If Romney had been born a Mexican , his life would have been a lot easier.

Le Grand Inquisitor: That election was not a mandate...popular vote was close and the the house stayed GOP. If you expect political capital and change, you are sorely mistaken

Actually, more people voted to for Democratic representatives than voted for Republican ones. If you think it means something that the popular vote for president was close, then surely it means something that the "popular vote" for the House was beyond close, actually favoring the Democrats. If you say, no, it only matters what the majority was in each district, then the electoral vote is all that matters when discussing the presidential election.

Penguin_named_Nori: Oh, look! More butthurt.


Maximum butthurt is predicted within the next 10 days.

and then a gradual reduction in butthurt is forcast for the remainder of the year.

ThatGuyFromTheInternet: And if he'd not been born rich and spoiled, he'd just be some random Mormon dude.

Whose dad was Michigan's governor for rather a while.

You know, you plan and you hope and you dream, and every once in a while the planets line up just right and and the BUTTHURT is more Epic than you could possibly imagine!

I...I'm so HAPPY....