A reader tweeted Josh Marshall's alertness to Politico's alarming conventionality as embodied, yesterday, in Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen's "analysis" of the 2012 race:
If President Barack Obama wins, he will be the popular choice of Hispanics, African-Americans, single women and highly educated urban whites.... [I]t’s possible he will get a lower percentage of white voters than George W. Bush got of Hispanic voters in 2000.
A broad mandate this is not.
How true. When it comes to choosing a chief executive and head of state, nothing says "un-representative vote" like huge electoral swaths of minorities and women and literate whites.
But back in W.'s day? Ah, yes, those were the days, the days for which Mitt longs; a golden era when being America's chief executive meant representing the real America: bigoted, beer-bellied, subliterate white guys with chronic anger management problems--and of course their connubial harpies, with a redacted Bible in one hand and a "TV Guide" in the other.
I understand how people can want to fire Obama because unemployment is high - even though they know he didn't create this mess. I understand why peoplee who do not have a formal household budget do not want to wade into the weeds of he said - she said about Romney's imaginary budget plan. I understand why people cannot wrap their minds around DoD and foreign policy details. I understand why Obamacare is scary and has too many details to sort out.
Here is what has puzzled. How can people believe Romney's lies about the two Medicare proposals when every credible independent analysis says it it a bullshit lie?
The I figured it out.
Romney simply looks into camera and asks millions of pink people, ""Who are you going to believe - a pink guy like you and me - or that brown guy?"
Sadly, it is that simple and Romney knows it.
It is bittersweet when I point out that in 2016 with a robust economy, the Democratic candiate with be a highly compenent and admired pink woman.
The GOP and neo-Reaganomics will be toast.
Posted by: Robert Lipscomb | November 05, 2012 at 07:51 AM
The good news.
http://www.oddschecker.com/specials/politics-and-election/us-presidential-election/winner
Posted by: Robert Lipscomb | November 05, 2012 at 08:35 AM
What VandeHei and Allen mean when they say Obama winning Hispanics, African-Americans, single women and highly educated urban whites is not a mandate is that Obama wouldn't have won any groups they themselves identify as, just the others. They're not African-American, or Hispanic, or women, or Jewish. You see now why VandeHei and Allen can't say what they mean.
Posted by: mdblanche | November 05, 2012 at 10:46 AM