Open Thread

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Hope that all of you are safety ensconced with your family and/or your friends -- watching the parades, watching football, cooking, eating and drinking. And giving thanks. We here at Delaware Liberal are thankful to be among so many committed political junkies and activists who share so very much of their commitment, passion and knowledge with the rest of us. We are, of course, grateful for our families and friends who sometimes don't quite get this passion for politics, but today we ask you what you are thankful for this season. Let us know in the comments if you drop by today.

This is from David Simon, but go read the whole thing:

"Change is a motherfucker when you run from it. And right now, the conservative movement in America is fleeing from dramatic change that is certain and immutable. A man of color is president for the second time, and this happened despite a struggling economic climate and a national spirit of general discontent. He has been returned to office over the specific objections of the mass of white men. He has instead been re-elected by women, by people of color, by homosexuals, by people of varying religions or no religion whatsoever. Behold the New Jerusalem. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a white man, of course. There’s nothing wrong with being anything. That’s the point. This election marks a moment in which the racial and social hierarchy of America is upended forever. No longer will it mean more politically to be a white male than to be anything else. Evolve, or don’t. Swallow your resentments, or don’t. But the votes are going to be counted, more of them with each election. Arizona will soon be in play. And in a few cycles, even Texas. And those wishing to hold national office in these United States will find it increasingly useless to argue for normal, to attempt to play one minority against the next, to turn pluralities against the feared “other” of gays, or blacks, or immigrants, or, incredibly in this election cycle, our very wives and lovers and daughters, fellow citizens who demand to control their own bodies."

Another late Open Thread! There is too much Thanksgiving preparation going on here. Buzzfeed reports that Obama campaign manager Jim Messina is expecting the Obama political organization will stay alive this round, rather than be put into mothballs as he did the first term. And that organization's first job might be to organize around the fiscal cliff discussions:

Messina said the campaign will not immediately turn over the operation to the Democratic National Committee, but he also suggested Obama will not repeat what is widely seen as a mistake of his first term: switching off his grassroots operation at the behest of Congressional Democrats, who bridled at its organizing in their districts. This time, Messina suggested that the campaign's vaunted "Dashboard" social media system would be helpful during the fiscal cliff, allowing Obama supporters to call members of Congress. "People just spent five years winning two presidential elections together, now they’re not just walking away," he said.

This is good news.

YIKES! No Open Thread! Sorry about that, gang. Apparently we are all on holiday or trying to get on holiday already.

The Republicans don't want to retool their message, which is excellent news for us:

"Two weeks after their presidential election defeat, Republican Party leaders are falling into roughly two camps as they struggle to explain what happened and devise ways to broaden the party's base. Some top GOP officials worry their message is wrong for a rapidly diversifying population, and that fundamental shifts in policy may be required. But the more dominant voice, and the one gaining currency within the center of the party, says such drama isn't necessary. It asserts that Mitt Romney's loss to President Barack Obama was primarily a tactical failure, a combination of poor articulation of GOP positions and a weak effort to register voters and move them to the polls. Better execution on both, they say, would have swung the few hundred thousand votes in a few states that would have tipped the presidential election the other way."

Maybe they will learn in 2024, after two terms each of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, while facing Texas Governor Julian Castro.

On Facebook, I got into a little fight with a friend of a friend who of course is a little upset that his chosen candidate did not win. And of course, like most conservative idiots, he is now contemplating treason by talking of secession of his state from the United States. Now, of course, most conservative idiots are uneducated, and thus it is not surprising that they don't know that the issue, or question, of secession has long been settled. Indeed, we as a country fought a Civil War over that question and hundreds of thousands died after the Confederate states seceded from the Union and the Northern States said "Oh no didn't." And as a result of the Northern victory, or the victory of the United States over the traitorous Confederacy, the notion that a state can leave the US on its own volition died a bloody death. This friend of a friend also mentioned that the election results were somehow not valid since only the cities and suburbs voted for Obama while vast swaths of sparsely inhabited land voted red. This guy obviously thought we vote by square acreage. To illustrate the point that more Americans live in cities and suburbs, we have a great map from Princeton.

It is now one week since Election Day and there are still races out there that have not been called. Check these out and tell us what you think.

"It won't kill the country if we raise taxes a little bit on millionaires. It really won't, I don't think. I don't really understand why Republicans don't take Obama's offer. Really? The Republican Party is going to fall on its sword to defend a bunch of millionaires, half of whom voted Democratic and half of whom live in Hollywood and are hostile?"

The first map is the population density map of the counties of the United States. To put it simply, it shows where the most people live. The darker the color the county is colored, the more people live there. The second map is another county map showing where Mitt Romney won the largest percentage of the vote. Notice a correlation? Go here for interactive versions of these maps, and also maps showing where Obama won the largest percentage.

Scott Farris. author of Almost President, a history of failed presidential candidates, told the Washington Post that Mitt Romney's concession speech didn't reflect the urgency of healing a divided nation: "While he congratulated Obama, he never really validated the result by saying 'the people have spoken' ... Praying for the president is nice, but it is not the same as validating the election. [...] It was a speech that sounded as if he did not emerge from the election with much respect, let alone affection, for the president. He sounded as if he really expected to win and was immensely disappointed in the result -- even more so than usual." Oh well, the feeling is mutual.

I do kinda feel sorry for Mitt Romney, for you see I am a liberal and we liberals feel human emotions like sympathy. But this description from the Washington Post seemed sad, and I don't know why.

Late Wednesday afternoon, as sleet fell in Boston's North End, Romney visited his campaign headquarters for one final staff meeting. He thanked his aides and said goodbye. His Secret Service detail gone -- and with it his code name, Javelin, after a car once made by his father's company -- Romney was spotted driving off in the backseat of his son Tagg's car. His wife, Ann, was riding shotgun.

We are going to know pretty early how the night is going. If we have early calls for Ohio and Pennsylvania around the 8 pm hour, then it is Obama's night. If North Carolina gets called early for Romney, while PA and OH are not, it will be nail biter.