News Obama Reelected: Republicans Feel the Schadenfreude

[micromass]

301 to 201 is close?

60,038,554 vs 57,361,032 is close. I don't care whether the popular vote doesn't really matter in electing the president, I feel that the popular vote best represents the sentiment of the population, so I base myself on that.
Furthermore, I find the results in the swing states to be quite close as well.

When watching the republican primaries, I expected Obama to win by a landslide. When watching Romney screw up, I didn't think Obama would be challenged at all. But I still think it got dangerously close.

 

[arildno]

I see. I thought 100 electoral votes was a big difference. It's about 20%.

No, it is not.
Because in "winner-takes-it-all"-systems, slight consistent edges make for massive overrepresentation.
The UK election system is the archetype of that dynamic.

 

[russ_watters]

301 to 201 is close?

In a game where small differences get magnified by the scoring system, yes.

 

[Pythagorean]

Ah yeah, I wasn't thinking of popular vote. It's basically just an elaborate poll with strings attached.

 

[Pythagorean]

I see what you mean.

 

[russ_watters]

I see. I thought 100 electoral votes was a big difference. It's about 20%.

We could also argue that a 1-0 baseball game was won by infinity, but that would be misleading too.

 

[SW VandeCarr]

Ann Coulter's voice in your head? Sorry to hear it - I think there's good drugs for that.

No. This requires brain surgery.

 

[russ_watters]

Meanwhile, the Dow is down about 300 points right now.

 

[arildno]

In a game where small differences get magnified by the scoring system, yes.

And, it is not necessarily "unfair" or "broken".
In a strictly representative system as we have in Norway, we have basically no choice in voting for INDIVIDUALS, our vote goes to a PARTY, so that my vote in Oslo (in Southern norway) might be (in effect) shifted up to Northern Norway to count into a candidate's total count there, in order to make the landwise representativeness closer to the popular vote.

 

[arildno]

No. This requires brain surgery.

Not exorcism??

 

[Pythagorean]

All the banks just lost there bet and none of them even hedged with Obama as far as I saw. (in terms of campaign funding). I wonder how that affects things.

 

[SixNein]

Meanwhile, the Dow is down about 300 points right now.

I doubt it had anything to do with an Obama election. And I think wall street was likely expecting an Obama victory. In addition, not everyone on wall street was anti-obama.

 

[arildno]

I see. I thought 100 electoral votes was a big difference. It's about 20%.

With Obama winning 61% av EVs in 2012, his majority is among the lowest 20 out of 50 elections

 

[Jack21222]

By the way, Russ asked for a pundit saying the word "landslide." Here you go:

http://www.dickmorris.com/prediction-romney-325-obama-213/

Prediction: Romney 325, Obama 213
By Dick Morris on November 5, 2012
Published on TheHill.com on November 5, 2012
Yup. That’s right. A landslide for Romney approaching the magnitude of Obama’s against McCain. That’s my prediction.

Conservative pundit Dick Morris said 325 electoral votes for Romney would be a landslide. So by that logic, Obama's 332 would also be a landslide.

BUT WAIT! http://www.dickmorris.com/why-i-was-wrong/

I’ve got egg on my face. I predicted a Romney landslide and, instead, we ended up with an Obama squeaker.

So, 325-213 Romney is a landslide... 332-206 Obama is a "squeaker."

I'm hearing something similar from this thread.

 

[arildno]

Doesn't that tell you more about Dick Morris' incompetence than anything else??
The fact is that a 325 win for Romney wouldn't have been a "landslide", by any historically meaningful comparison.

 

[dipole]

The republicans possibly put up the most inept challenger available in an election that was theirs to lose. Obama was perceived as the lesser of evils, not the great hope for the future. I'd have loved to seen a sincere and pragmatic fiscal conservative as an option, but, americans have an ingrained and historic ability to ignore reality. Assuming we recognize the EU template is not the road to prosperity, politics may change for the better after another 4 years of the less than thinly disguised path toward socialism.

What's this all about? Mitt Romney was nominated the presidential candidate by American voters...

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Meanwhile, the Dow is down about 300 points right now.

Buy on the rumor, sell on the news?

 

[Jack21222]

What's this all about? Mitt Romney was nominated the presidential candidate by American voters...

By Republican voters. So he was nominated by Republicans.

 

[George Jones]

"Obama is reelected"

Don't be so fast on the draw:

http://freakofnature.wordpress.com/2012/11/07/particle-physicists-unwilling-to-call-election/

 

[Pythagorean]

"Physicists say that they will continue to monitor the election closely."

 

[Borek]

"Obama is reelected"

Don't be so fast on the draw:

http://freakofnature.wordpress.com/2012/11/07/particle-physicists-unwilling-to-call-election/

 

[arildno]

"Obama is reelected"

Don't be so fast on the draw:

http://freakofnature.wordpress.com/2012/11/07/particle-physicists-unwilling-to-call-election/

Is it still rational to think that Sasha may have hacked the computers in order to rig the results for her Daddy?
Or maybe Bo is the culprit?

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Evo will be pleased. I think she voted for Harrison.

 

[AlephZero]

Meanwhile, the Dow is down about 300 points right now.

No surprise there, given the continuing gridlock in the system as a whole.

Either that, or the "1%" are forced sellers covering their losses on spread bets on Romney

 

[arildno]

Evo will be pleased. I think she voted for Harrison.

Aah, now I know why he undressed at an inappopriate moment for too long.

 

[lisab]

I doubt it had anything to do with an Obama election. And I think wall street was likely expecting an Obama victory. In addition, not everyone on wall street was anti-obama.

Yes, I think an Obama victory was built into the markets for a while.

The market drop was probably more affected by this:

Mario Draghi May Have Just Dropped A Hint About Tomorrow's ECB Interest Rate Decision

 

[Angry Citizen]

I'm very glad Obama won. Very glad. But I fail to see how "landslide" or "butt kicked" characterize these elections. In my opinion, Romney got very close to beating Obama, closer than he should have come. If the republicans elected a better candidate, then they probably would have won.

Romney was a good candidate. And he didn't get very close to beating Obama. He got very close to causing an EV/PV split. Major difference.

 

[SixNein]

actually young southerners are much less racist than us oldsters, or maybe it is just the ones in my neighborhood.

My state wanted Rick Santorum for president. They even voted for a wife beater for state representative over a democrat.

Needless to say, I think it'll be a few more generations.

 

[Angry Citizen]

Doesn't that tell you more about Dick Morris' incompetence than anything else??
The fact is that a 325 win for Romney wouldn't have been a "landslide", by any historically meaningful comparison.

Yes, it would have been, because the electorate is such that Texas would never (in its current state) vote for a Democrat, and Massachusetts would never vote for a Republican, at least at the Presidential level. The "blue wall" and the "red wall" are nearly impenetrable provided each candidate has a brain. If you measure landslides by Reagan's standards, then there will never be a landslide again. But a 325 Romney win would have meant eating significant margins into traditionally blue territory. And that, frankly, is what a landslide is all about: eating into the opponent's territory. Like Obama with Colorado and New Mexico and Virginia.

 

[arildno]

Yes, it would have been, because the electorate is such that Texas would never (in its current state) vote for a Democrat, and Massachusetts would never vote for a Republican, at least at the Presidential level. The "blue wall" and the "red wall" are nearly impenetrable provided each candidate has a brain. If you measure landslides by Reagan's standards, then there will never be a landslide again. But a 325 Romney win would have meant eating significant margins into traditionally blue territory. And that, frankly, is what a landslide is all about: eating into the opponent's territory. Like Obama with Colorado and New Mexico and Virginia.

Obama won with the 20th lowest (out of 50) percentage of EVs in US history.
Landslide?
A SLIGHTLY more rational idea might be to be in the top half of that list. That would have required roughly 360 mandates.

But even though YOU are not an idiot, you have deranged this thread with idiotic redefinitions of words, merely, due to your vanity, in order to prove yourself right.
I have had enough of your nonsense, and complete detachment from reality.

 

[Angry Citizen]

Obama won with the 20th lowest (out of 50) percentage of EVs in US history.
Landslide?

See sentences one, two, and three in the post you quoted, yet either did not read or did not assimilate.

 

[micromass]

Yes, it would have been, because the electorate is such that Texas would never (in its current state) vote for a Democrat, and Massachusetts would never vote for a Republican, at least at the Presidential level. The "blue wall" and the "red wall" are nearly impenetrable provided each candidate has a brain. If you measure landslides by Reagan's standards, then there will never be a landslide again. But a 325 Romney win would have meant eating significant margins into traditionally blue territory. And that, frankly, is what a landslide is all about: eating into the opponent's territory. Like Obama with Colorado and New Mexico and Virginia.

This entire thread is silly. It is turning into the following:

"It was a landslide victory"
"No, it wasn't"
"Yes, it was"
etc.

Let's try to set some objective criteria on the term landslide victory, like the following:

• Has won by a significant margin in the popular vote.
• Has won a significant portion of the electoral college.
• Political commentators and news stations are using the word landslide victory.

None of these are satisfied. So, what objective criteria do you have to talk about a landslide victory?? I don't find "eating into an opponents territory" to be a very convincing definition.

 

[arildno]

Roughly 400.000 votes the other way, out of some 100 million (0.4% of the voting total), could have given Romney EV victory.

 

[micromass]

Sigh.
Thread locked pending moderation.

 

[Evo]

This thread is out of control and going nowhere.