November 2012 – Page 10 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Looking Ahead to 2014

The Democrats have a lot more uncertain seats to defendÂ than the GOP. I see a potential Dem pickup in Maine, but there are a lot of Southern Dems who will be up in 2014, in states that will likely, by then, by in no mood to be kind to the Democratic Party. We also know the Obama turnout machine doesn’t work for midterms. I get to take 2014 off from Senate races here in Pennsylvania, but there’s plenty of work to do out there. In honor of the perpetual campaign, I guess it’s time to create a 2014 Election category, but hopefully we won’t be using it much until it comes time.

Speaking of election work, I was a bit of a deadbeat this election. A combination of relatively safe local races, just not having the time I did in previous elections, and the feeling of working harder for less money just didn’t put me in the silly season spirit. I also kind of felt like Roger Simon of PJ Media, who notes: “I have to admit something. Unlike most of my PJM colleagues and many in the right punditocracy, deep down I never thought Mitt Romney would win.”

I started looking getting a bit of optimism after Mitt appeared to have momentum, but Sandy dominated the news cycle, which offered a natural advantage to Obama. Chris Christie fawning over the President didn’t help things either. But the fact is that unseating an incumbent president is a herculean task. Only 8 of 44 Presidents have failed to win re-election. While the comparisons of Barack Obama to Jimmy Carter are not without merit, Mitt Romney is not, and was never going to be, another Ronald Reagan.

The Louisiana Victory

The ballot measure adding a firm RKBA provision to Louisiana’s constitution has passed handily, with 75% support. Dave Hardy notes, “With ‘shall-issue having succeeded everywhere it’s likely to, and some places where it wasn’t likely, this may be the next wave.”

I think it needs to be, because the likelihood Heller and McDonald are overturned is much higher now than it was yesterday. In addition to getting stronger protection at the state level, we need to grease the machine for a Federal Amendment should the Supreme Court remove the Second Amendment from the Bill of Rights. I think Pennsylvania would be a worthy state to try this in, because to be honest, I think gun rights is politically doomed in Pennsylvania if we don’t have strong protection from the Courts.

UPDATE: For those who want to know, our process is that an Amendment must be passed in two consecutive sessions of the legislature, and then voted in the affirmative by the people.

Turnout Analysis

Chris Byrne takes a look at the numbers. I’m seeing similar conclusions from other election analysts as well. In the end, Romney didn’t seem to motivate people to get out for him. I actually think Romney ran a decent campaign, and did a lot better than I would have given him credit for before things got started. Certainly it was an improvement over McCain’s 2008 fiasco. But at the end of the day, I don’t think Romney was that strong of a candidate, though he was probably the strongest of the choices we had in front of us.Â Obama has a phenomenal GOTV machine. The big question is can he pass that along to other candidates.

Culture Wars

The only culture wars conservatives need to be fighting is destroying the legacy media. We have some pretty strong evangelical, socially conservative voters in the family, and even they are more worried about the fiscal cliff we’re heading off of rather than whether it’s legal or not to cut a fetus out of your body. One thing is clear: The GOP coalition can no longer win, and it’s time to rethink it. Jim Geraghty made a good observation about this election I didn’t think about:

Ari Fleischer points out the silver lining is that so far, Romney is winning independents. That’s not a silver lining, that’s worse news: Democrats don’t really need independents anymore.

We Weren’t Imagining Things

Late last night, I wondered how on earth what we saw at the polls could be so radically wrong. The primarily Democratic line was 1/3 of the size as 2008. The primarily GOP side was marginally bigger. I know we didn’t imagine that.

Waiting for all of our county returns to come in very late into the night, I checked the numbers from 2008 against this year and our county really did go more red. In fact, it’s the only Pennsylvania county that only barely went Obama – it was a one point race. Every other county that went for Obama went by anywhere from 5-20+ points.

Obama actually lost nearly 20,000 votes in our single county. Romney managed to get more than 5,600 more votes than McCain. Add that loss and gain together, and this was a Philadelphia suburban county that went Obama by only 3,700 votes.

Quote of the Night

From Dave Kopel, who was tracking how the 2nd Amendment fared during this election:

As Barack Hussein Obama, the Juan Domingo Peron of the 21st century, leads America to fiscal collapse, you can at least keep your guns.

All I have to say is: Justice Scalia, Justice Kennedy… is there a health club membership we can buy for you? Feeling OK about your health care? We can help!

I am not in an optimistic mood tonight. I think we lost, and we lost big. Americans want America to be a European style social democracy. Maybe with a Second Amendment, but maybe not. It is not yet written. But one thing is written that that European social democracy is running out of other people’s money, and we will soon as well. Regardless of Romney’s loss, that fact does not change. Germany can bail out Greece for a while, but no one can bail out us. When we hit rock bottom, it will be epic, and with Obama re-election, I think it is coming. Be prepared.

Blocking Out the Media

This is the point where I stop paying attention to election coverage, because to be quite honest, I just can’t stand it. Looking at this video from the 1960 election, however, I see our current media coverage environment is nothing new:

I’m particularly amused by the use of the brand new whiz bang RCA 501 computer, which takes the place of the media pundit in the 1960 election. The amusing thing here is your iPhone or Android phone has many orders of magnitude more processing power than the all knowing RCA 501. I guess it was a lot easier to impress people back then.

h/t to Volokh Conspiracy.

Partisan Voting: Yay or Nay?

Pennsylvania is the first state I’ve voted in where I ever recall seeing a button that will vote for all members of one party. In 2010, I was pissed off enough to use it. But this year, I didn’t press that button. Why? I still voted only for Republicans today, but I have decided after trying it that I really don’t like the concept.

Here’s a look at a ballot for a precinct near us and you can see the partisan voting buttons at the top:

I realize I’m overly idealistic in thinking that it would be nice if people were at least minimally informed voters in every race. The fact is that it just won’t ever be true. However, I don’t think that the state needs to make it easier for uninformed voters to blindly cast ballots. Perhaps not having a partisan button would make them hesitate before casting a ballot in a race where they admit to knowing nothing about the candidates, or perhaps even the office.

Most low information voters would still likely cast ballots for one party or the other, but at least they’d have to make a bit more of an effort. To me, it’s just a matter of making elections a little more principled and a little less about party politics.

Standing Up for Candidates Can Be Dangerous

I stood outside for Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick all day in 2010 at a polling location with lots of elderly folks coming to vote. There was one woman driving a car that had all of us – Democrats and Republicans alike – shuffling down the sidewalk away from the doors to avoid being hit. We also all made sure to have our keys out so we could go move our cars if they ended up too close to any of the spaces (yes, plural) she was trying to pull into. Yes, it was really that bad.

Fortunately for us, it wasn’t this bad.

According to Jan Laverty, a volunteer at the polls, a man was driving slowly into a parking spot along the side of the fire company when he sped into the building, crashing into a side door that led into the polling place. …

Laverty said that people inside of the building believed the noise, and the accompanying smoke through the door, was a bomb.

So be careful, folks headed to the polls to volunteer. Don’t get run over.

What is Philadelphia Hiding?

Folks on the left tell us that actual voter fraud is not nearly the problem that Republicans imagine. I would tend to agree that it’s likely not extremely widespread, but I’ve seen enough close elections in my lifetime that it’s not something I am willing to risk. However, I have to question just how widespread it might be when I see Philadelphia election officials fighting oversight at every turn.

Hours before polls opened today, the Philadelphia election officials booted 75 Republican poll watchers from multiple polling places. The GOP has minority inspectors who were told by election officials that “no Republicans will be allowed in the polling place” at all today. There are some reports that the ban on Republicans in polling places got violent and that GOP inspectors were assaulted. The election officials who refused Republicans entry had to be ordered by the courts not to ban people based on their party affiliation.

Meanwhile, these same election officials set up voting machines right in front of a giant Obama mural promoting his 2008 campaign messages. Somehow, it escaped their notice. Yeah… And it took a court order to get it covered after it had been on display for hours.

This is a city that has unbelievably bloated voter rolls that they know contain dead people and others not eligible to vote. Clean elections advocates admit that their voter registration rolls are ripe for fraud because of how many invalid folks they have on them.

About two of every three residents of Pennsylvaniaâ€™s largest city are registered to vote â€“ more than 1 million of the cityâ€™s 1.5 million residents â€“ and that doesnâ€™t sit well with Zack Stalberg of the Committee of Seventy, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit that works for fair and open elections.

Stalberg said the city has not done enough to trim its voter rolls to remove inactive voters, dead voters and former voters who have moved out of the city. Bloated voting rolls increase the chance for fraud to take place, he said, and in a one-party town like the City of Brotherly Love that can be a particular concern.

â€œThe numbers have been out of whack for some time now,â€ Stalberg told PA Independent. â€œIt just defies logic to think that two out of every three people living in the city can be registered to vote.â€

Yet, the city’s elected officials opposed voter identification measures at every turn. They have even opposed the education efforts to let people know about voter identification laws that will be in effect for the very next election. At some point one has to wonder, what exactly are they afraid Republicans will see in Philadelphia?