Stimulus money to unions = 4 years worth of "walking around" money. Question is, stimulus was allocated when (D)'s held the House. Does that gravy train from 2008 -2009 finally dry up between now and 2014 or 2016?
FReegards!
Posted on 11/21/2012 4:42:38 PM PST by neverdem
A funny thing happened as I was looking at the political map of this year's presidential election: It began to look like the map of the presidential election of 2004.
I'm not talking about the superficial similarity, the fact that in both elections an incumbent president beat a challenger from Massachusetts by a 51 to 48 percent popular vote margin.
I'm talking about the fact that the large majority of states voted just a little bit more Democratic in 2012 than they did in 2004.
Enough to give 2012 nominee Barack Obama 332 electoral votes, far more than 2004 nominee John Kerry's 252. But not enough to change the political balance of the nation or the various regions very much.
At current count -- the numbers may change a bit as California and a few other states waddle in with late tabulations -- Barack Obama's 50.73 percent of the popular vote exceeds John Kerry's 48.26 percent by 2.47 percentage points. (Eerily, George W. Bush's final percentage was 50.73 percent).
Using rounded-off whole percentages, Obama ran 1 or 2 points ahead of Kerry in nine states and the District of Columbia with 81 electoral votes. They include target states New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, which Kerry won, and Ohio, which he lost.
Obama ran 3 or 4 points ahead of Kerry in more states, 20. These states have 243 electoral votes. They include 2012 target states Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada and Wisconsin.
George W. Bush carried all of those target states in 2004 except Wisconsin, which he lost by 11,384 votes. Clearly, Hispanic voters, and the differences between Bush and Mitt Romney on immigration and in attitude, helped move Colorado, Nevada and, by a very narrow margin, Florida from the Republican column in 2004 to the Democratic column in 2012.
But Obama's winning percentages in these three states -- 50 percent in Florida, 51 percent in Colorado and 52 percent in Nevada -- don't suggest that Republicans will never be competitive there again.
As for Iowa and Wisconsin, they were both exceedingly close in both 2000 and 2004, both were solid for Obama in 2008, and this time they gave him 52 and 53 percent of their votes.
What about the other 21 states? Some produced big increases for Obama over Kerry -- 17 points in the president's birth state of Hawaii, 8 points in increasingly liberal Vermont.
Obama also improved on Kerry's percentage by 6 points in Maryland and Virginia, the two states most positively affected by increases in federal spending. His percentage went up only 2 points in the District of Columbia because it's hard to improve much on Kerry's 89 percent there.
The Democratic percentage also went up 5 points in California, where high taxes are driving out middle-income families, and in North Carolina, which the Obama campaign shrewdly targeted in 2008. Obama carried it by 1 point then and lost by only 2 points this time.
The Republican percentage increased by 8 points in coal-country West Virginia and in the now Clintonless Arkansas. It also increased in other states with the warlike Jacksonian tradition -- Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Louisiana and Oklahoma.
Obama ran 1 point lower than Kerry in the latter's Massachusetts and in Utah and Wyoming. His percentage was almost exactly the same as Kerry's in Arizona, evidence that its increasing Hispanic population is not tipping the state Democratic.
I draw two conclusions from these figures, one with some certainty and one tentatively.
One is that Democrats have a structural advantage in the Electoral College. An extra 2.46 points of the popular vote netted Obama 80 more electoral votes than Kerry. Obama won 58 percent or more in 11 states and D.C. with 163 electoral votes. He needed only 107 more to win.
In 2004, the 16 states Bush won with 58 percent or more had only 130 electoral votes. He needed 140 more to win and barely got them.
My tentative conclusion is that we may be back to the nearly even balance between the parties we saw between 1995 and 2005. Since then, we've been in a period of open-field politics, with big swings to the Democrats in 2006 and 2008 and a big swing to the Republicans in 2010.
Both sides hoped those swings would prove permanent. 2012 suggests both sides were disappointed. It looks like we're back to trench warfare politics at the national level.
Michael Barone,The Examiner's senior political analyst, can be contacted at mbarone@washingtonexaminer.com. His column appears Wednesday and Sunday, and his stories and blog posts appear at washingtonexaminer.com.
Michael Barone?
Didn’t he used to be somebody before he fell to earth?
Another GOPe trying some math for the next fake presidential election. Don’t be a sucker.
That number should be nearly 5000
Good God that is all we need. That financial expense alone makes it not possible.
I disagree.
Sure Obama is a big problem we can see that.
But there are plenty of big problems on our side also. That is the bigger problem.
How many Republicans support outsourcing and sending jobs overseas?
Now how many can be BLAMED for this economy. Leaving Obama in office.
That is my point. Sure Obama is the problem, but the GOP is likewise the problem so Obama does not get the blame he deserves.
Bring back US jobs now. LOTS of US jobs. Get aggressive and launch trade wars if necessary, but do it now.
Once we are fighting for US jobs, then when US jobs are not found, we cannot be blamed - and we get elected.
Until we stop outsourcing everything, we are the bigger problem and will continue to be (rightly) blamed for the problem and remain on the outside looking in.
I do not like being outside looking in.
I prefer to be in charge.
How about it GOP? Fight for jobs.
US Jobs.
I once gave states allocating proportional electoral votes by congressional district short shrift. Now I think it is the only way to fight big city corruption and 120% voting tallies.
If you look at the red blue map of this country, red lands far exceed the blue coastal areas and major cities. We can never win all of California’s electoral votes, but we can take a chunk under a proportional system.
We have 30 GOP governors. They should be looking at an electoral college proportional voting system to fight against demorat vote stealing.
With a proportional system Philadelphia can vote 200% of their registered voters; they will only win Philadelphia.
I would like Barone to do a study. I’m sure we can take more electoral votes from them in such a system than they can take from us.
Agree. I think this makes 2 elections in a row that red counties outnumbered blue, but blue won.
Libtards are never happy. Even when they had super majorities in both houses of congress from 2009-2011, they weren't happy. Remember?
Even when the GOP was locked out of all negotiations on ObamaCare, they weren't happy. Even in states like New York, Illinois, Massachusetts and Maryland, where they have super majorities, they still are unhappy.
Proportional allocation is my preference. I’m tired of having my vote drowned by the hive cities and WTA allocation.
It’s simple, it’s constitutional and it’s morally correct.
Furthermore, it should be fairly easy to get through R controlled state legislatures with R Governorships.
The fact that this doesn’t even seem to be on the GOPe’s radar indicates why they are the stupid party.
Trade wars lead to real wars. Not a good plan.
They need to quit eliminating conservatives.
“I have one of those “independents” at work. She owns a gun...she’s married - to a guy...she is far from a flaming liberal. But she saw one commercial that said that Ryan supports no exceptions to banning abortion, and that was it - Obama got her vote..”
She’s a “ladyparts voter” (new term which I take credit for coining).
Obama won them to the tune of 68% and the Pubbies are going to have a VERY hard time ever winning their votes in the future.
They’re going to be amongst the toughest nuts to crack...
Stimulus money to unions = 4 years worth of "walking around" money. Question is, stimulus was allocated when (D)'s held the House. Does that gravy train from 2008 -2009 finally dry up between now and 2014 or 2016?
FReegards!
Yep. Then he blew the election as bad as any shavetail fortune-teller. He has a lot of ground to make up before he enjoys the credibility he once had. This effort here won't move the ball very far.
Barone was pretty confident Romney would win. I guess he was using the old models of Democrat cheating. The new model features enhanced ballot stuffing and ballot destruction.
I also think this is a good solution to the problem.
Republicans did nothing absolutely NOTHING about illegal aliens voting in 2012.. 2016 will be worse.. the only fact missing is illegal aliens voting in 2008..
Republicans (at the Top) have been complicit in aliens voting by DOING LITTLE OR NOTHING.. since Reagan..
ALL republicans need a re-think on THEIR OWN complicitcy..
Illegals have been voting for decades.. and felons as well.. even the dead..
Nothing to brag about “being a republican”..
The Nasty GOP? For some conservatives, the labels “nasty” and “mean” are well earned.
Some noteworthy articles about politics, foreign or military affairs, IMHO, FReepmail me if you want on or off my list.
The Nasty GOP? For some conservatives, the labels “nasty” and “mean” are well earned.
Some noteworthy articles about politics, foreign or military affairs, IMHO, FReepmail me if you want on or off my list.
The Nasty GOP? For some conservatives, the labels “nasty” and “mean” are well earned.
Some noteworthy articles about politics, foreign or military affairs, IMHO, FReepmail me if you want on or off my list.
Romney didnt sit on his lead, he was still building it when crowley snatched it away from him in the 2nd debate. Remember? When she backed up the obama lie about benghazi? And then the next day admitted that Romney had been right? Romneys momentum was broken by that debate, and that LIE! Had she not backed up obamas lie, Romney would have been pronounced the blowout winner of the 2nd debate, just like the first debate, and obama would have never stopped his momentum.
Ever wonder how obama KNEW that crowley would have that misleading transcript? They had it PLANNED! Had to!
The only way to get back to sanity is to go back to requiring that one has to have something tangible to offer to society in order to vote. If you’re on the dole - no vote / if you pay net 0 in taxes (or get a refund even though you paid no taxes) - no vote / if you don’t speak English - no vote / if you came into the country illegally and then became a citizen - no vote for 10 years after becoming a citizen and you have to renounce your former country / I would get into thoughts on the disaster that Women’s Suffrage caused on our electoral system, but I love my wife...
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