I saw that an adviser said Romney was shellshocked at the loss, but didn’t pay much attention to a single, unattributed quote. Apparently, it was true.
I’m quite enjoying the article I quoted in another thread:
How any campaign could be so inept simply boggles the mind. Trusting internal polling and FOX News? Unbelievable.
OTOH, from the same link in my last post:
Turns out science trumps the fuck outta faith.
My husband was trying to tell me last night that Republicanism is more like a religion than a political orientation, in that people don’t require evidence to believe it works. I’m wondering if thinking of Republicans this way will make me a more tolerant person.
I don’t know if it will make you more tolerant, but it will definitely make you more tuned into reality. In the 80’s, it was the democrats who were the faith-based political party, believing strongly that America would vote for true liberal candidates if they were just good people and stuck to liberal principles. Of course, that was a faith-based stance, not borne out in any evidence.
Now the exact opposite is true. Obama and Clinton have been extreme centerist presidents, and the republicans keep chanting to themselves that if only they would run true conservatives and stick to their conservative values, they will win the elections. This is why Lindsay Graham said he would throw up if he kept hearing republicans say that they weren’t conservative enough. He knows that’s not the problem. He’s one of the few possibly reality-based republicans left.
The Rebublicans’ denial about their national reputation is certainly a good example of faith-based lunacy, but I was commenting more in terms of the actual tenets of conservatism. It’s an ‘‘it works because it works’’ or even worse, an ‘‘it works because it should work’’ attitude. All the shoulds in the world cannot change the reality that deregulation of corporations and tax breaks for the rich fucked over our economy in a massive way. The reason I liked the religion analogy is that I’m generally very cool about different faiths, as long as people aren’t obnoxious about it. If it really is more about emotions than reason, well, I can live with that - as long as extremists stay the fuck out of my way. The problem is, the whole time, I’ve been fighting this ideology as if they could somehow be reasoned out of it.
Thank you for pointing this out to me.
I would like to add my own schadenfreude to this thread:
Numbers 1 and 2 are what I and other kept arguing with OMG, adaher, and others who didn’t believe the polling data. These were proved by the election results, which were very close to a certain NY Times writer’s projection, amongst others, and with straight polling in general. I believe it was OMG who said something along the line of ‘I don’t care what Nate Silver has to say.’
Yeah! Math, bitch! /Jesse Pinkman
Maybe this will be an eye-opener to the right, they will start taking a closer look at evidence based science, and a revolution of acceptance of evolution and climate-change will take place. Maybe they’ll realize they can’t just ignore evidence when it doesn’t conform to their beliefs. It’s possible, right? 
Oh, haha, yeah. No, there’s no reasoning with these people. Glad you’ve realized that.
You can get away with ignoring the evidence on the reality of evolution and climate change and immunology and economics and still succeed in politics. But when you’re a politician and you start ignoring the evidence on political realities, you’re on your way out the door.
For a while; but reality tends to catch up with people in the end anyway. Ideological purity won’t stop a plague or famine or economic recession.
I still think the election was fixed, and I will tell you why: Chuck Norris is a Republican and wanted Romney to win. Honestly, when was the last time Chuck Norris wanted something and then didn’t get it? Right? Never.
From Fiddle Peghead’s post about the “66,000 electoral simulations every night”: what happens when Karl Rove or somebody starts doing that, too? Lots of computer nerds in the GOP.
One can only hope.
See, when they start acknowledging reality and make decisions based off it, that’s a huge step up from lying constantly.
I don’t want Democrats to win, necessarily. I just want sensibility to win. Obama has that in spades and the Republicans barely remember what it is.
Not sure of that.
An example out of history. During World War II, the Japanese navy wanted to finish the job of destroying the USN started at Pearl Harbor, so they decided to lay a trap for them, by invading Midway.
But some of them were nervous about the whole prospect. To appease their fears, they decided to wargame the operation.
Lo and behold ! The results were that the USN won a strategic victory
“Impossible”, said the umpires and proceeded to change the results to “prove” that they were wrong.
So, when the IJN sailed for their rendez-vous with history in 1942, they believed that they were headed to a glorious victory. They ended with an ignominious defeat.
So, they can run any amount of simulations they want, but if the results they get don’t agree with their pre-conceived notions and they choose to ignore them, history might repeat itself.
I dunno, a scientifically sophisticated RW could be . . . dangerous. And I don’t mean electorally . . . We’re talking 2020s-Style Death Rays . . .
Those would fall into the lying constantly bucket, even if only to themselves.
Creating my own bit of schadenfruede, my daughter and I painted a “Congratulations Mr. President” sign and stuck it in our front yard yesterday. I posted some pics on my FB page and you may be able to see them here.
Mark Morford’s column: The Great Obamagasm of 2012.