Sargent writes: "When all the votes are counted, could Mitt Romney really end up achieving perfect poetic justice by finishing with 47 percent of the national vote? Yup."
Mitt Romney addresses supporters during a campaign rally, 04/24/12. (photo: Getty Images)
Poetic Justice: Romney to Finish Election at 47 Percent
21 November 12
hen all the votes are counted, could Mitt Romney really end up achieving perfect poetic justice by finishing with 47 percent of the national vote? Yup. Dave Wasserman of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report says new votes in from Maryland put Romney at 47.56 percent. He predicts with certainty that with all of New York and California counted, Romney will end up below 47.5 percent of the vote.
Rounded, of course, that would put the final tally at 51-47. Anticipating this moment, Markos Moulitsas has inaugurated the 'Romney 47 percent watch.
At risk of piling on, a 47 percent finish would represent a perfect conclusion to the Romney political saga. If Romney ran a campaign of unprecedented dishonesty and lack of transparency, virtually all of it was geared towards misleading people about the true nature of his - and his party's - actual beliefs and governing agenda. This was the case on multiple fronts, from Romney's dissembling about the size of the tax cut he'd give to the rich, to his evasions about the overhaul he and Paul Ryan planned for the safety net, to the obscuring of the massive upward redistribution of wealth represented by the Ryan agenda - the GOP's central governing blueprint for nation's fiscal and economic future.
It was fitting that Romney himself unmasked his own apparent beliefs and the broader ideological implications of the larger GOP agenda and the ideas driving it - in private remarks to those who would likely benefit from his policies most. As Jonathan Chait put it at the time:
This is not a random gaffe, a joke gone bad, or even a terrible brain freeze. It is Romney exposed for espousing a worldview that is at the heart of his party's mania. The idea he summed up at that fund-raiser was a combination of right-wing fever dreams ...the Ayn Randism, the fact-free class warfare, the frantic rage at a changing America. The Republican Party is going down because its candidate was seen advocating exactly the beliefs that make the party so dangerous and repellant.
Romney's widely criticized post-election remarks - in which he claimed Obama won by giving core Dem constituencies gifts - were essentially a reprise of the 47 percent remarks. Romney reiterated in overly blunt terms what many Republicans and conservatives have been saying for years - and got disemboweled by his own party after detailing these views out loud, a fitting coda to his candidacy.
And consider the numbers themselves. The Romney victory was always based on the hope that a whiter-than-2008 electorate would ensure that Obama's victory was a demographic fluke. Yet Obama's constituencies - many of whom make up Romney's fabled 47 percent - turned out to add up to the majority, confirming that these ongoing changes are real and inexorable, a sign of what America is really becoming. If Romney's described electorate - the job creators and the makers of America who were supposed to be enraged at all the moochers and the takers - ends up totalling 47 percent, we will have come full circle.
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And that he lost by 47%; pyrich (sp) justice! Ha!
N.
Huh? Are you referring to a Pyrrhic victory, which isn't?
Not Obama! It was "Pyrrhic justice" in that Romney was victorious enough to even WIN 47% of the vote, but he lost so, so much, just as Pyrrhus did in Ancient Greece (though you are right: Pyrrhus was literally victorious...bu t it was an empty victory as he lost so many lives).
The term "Pyrrhic" is often used in referencing "poetic" justice, too.
Sorry...a bit of a stretch, I suppose, as there was little about what Rommey did or "won" that was victorious, except that he managed to even get 47% and that that number did have, as the author said, some poetic justice to it.
I stand corrected, but I was not referring to Obama's victory as "Pyrrhic justice" in any sense of the word. It was not.
N.
We can do it, WestWinds, but it's not gonna be easy. The 2010 census allowed the party in power in each state to redraw the districts. Now, many of those districts in GOP-controlled states can't be penetrated. But again with the change in demographics it's predicted that even Texas may go Blue in a few election cycles.
The pundits take seriously (?) the phoney GOP Trickle Down economic argument. What makes them think that after the colossal failure of the Bush years, this same philosophy will work? Insanity, right? These guys have been busy directing America's wealth upward where you and I (and the idiots who vote for them) will never get to it. For them, it's about striking while the iron is HOT! They're busy sucking all of the juice out of the Social Safety Net. While the President begs for a measly 4.5% increase on the rich, they're busy squirreling away tons of cash. Social Security and Medicare, which we pay for during our working years, should not even be part of the discussion.
He cannot give in to the people who call themselves the MAKERS, but end up being the real TAKERS!
SECRET REVEALED: For the people who manage the Republican Party and much of the global economy, it doesn't matter if "trickle down" works or not... Hey, we're not talking about blessed saints and martyrs who care about humanity's future... The corporate goal is to ALWAYS increase corporate profits and authority by reducing ANYTHING that stands in the way.... "Trickle down" policies are designed to reduce government influence. It doesn't matter if they help the public or not. When the policies fail, just blame the Democrats, or the "normal business cycle," or foreign competition, or the Muslims, or the 47%, or something else.
"The road to serfdom" starts with Ayn Rand economics.... The goal is put an economic elite in charge of everything. To win a few votes, the elitists talk about "trickle down" benefits. It's just a lot of talk.
The guy is a tax cheat totally. What American President has ever had his money in foreign banks ?? NONE !!!
Bye Mitt....go back to California and supervise the construction of your 4 car elevator...BUTT TT first...Just LEAVE
Romney's a prophet, living in a house-of-mirror s accusing his enemies of his own attributes. Self-delusion is self-fulfilling in that; if one such as Romney is tied in with enough capital resources, they actually can create the vision of their own hell. Romney & Israeli's derogatory attacks upon Palestinians is one such example of living & creating the hell of one's own making. The trouble with colonialism such as Canada, USA, Australia, South-Africa & other occupied territories, is that it take us so long to learn the truth. Considering the hell which we continually create for First Nations & indigenous peoples worldwide, colonists wanting justice or social benefits only for themselves, really do deserve the likes of Romney. Its time to recognize who we are. www.indigenecommunity.info
This kind of person doesn't want to make a profit, they want to make a killing. And that is usually what ends up happening to everyone else but them.
Dutch & other arrivals could have immigrated with honour attaching their fidelity to the rich productive democratic First Nations as the original Two-Row-Wampum treaty welcomed them to do. At the time because of 'indigenous' (Latin = 'self-generatin g') 3-dimensional Polyculture Orchard management practices, food was abundant, rivers were clean, full of rich plant foods & fish, the top-soil was deep, the climate moderated by trillions of huge food trees, great diversity & quantities of all species. This same massively productive abundance was as well present in Europe pre-Greek & pre-Roman invasions, in Greece & Rome pre-Semitic & pre-Egypt as well as in Palestine, Phoenicia, Egypt, Babylon before the advent of 2-D 'agriculture' (L 'ager' = 'field'), which lowered productivity of food, materials, water & energy cycles by 100 fold (10,000%) as well as creating the deserts which we are familiar with. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/design/1-indigenous-welcome-orchard-food-production-efficiencies
Paperless electronic voting should be anathema, as should be all the shenanigans for voter suppression such as local laws to delay counting provisional ballots.
If someone registers for mail-in vote, he should vote by mail, period.
If states want to ID voters (a reasonable concern in my view, although I understand the demographics) the process should be free and expedited, i.e. every voter should get the required ID for free and well in advance.
I don't see why homogenizing elections practices should not be a federal mandate, unless we want to grant Alabama the right to disenfranchise melanin.
The racism in some sections of the Democratic Party (!!!) in West Virginia and in other sections of Appalachia is tragic.... Keep in mind that this is the poorest region in the USA. Appalachia has received massive amounts of Federal aid since the days of the New Deal. While big corporations continue to rape and pollute the landscape.... Appalachia is a very sad place. And very racist.
However, it was Nixon who brought the South and Appalachia into the Republican camp. Racism explains part of the problem but there's more that should be said. Jimmy Carter and Al Gore are white, with Southern connections, but they never had much political support in Dixie.
A right-wing African-America n or Latino candidate for the White House might do very well in the South and in Appalachia.
Politics can be strange...
Billy Graham gave his blessing to a Mormon in the last election.... Conservatives will vote for Blacks, if the Blacks are on the political right.
Obama no doubt lost the vote of many racist Democrats, and there are plenty in the South, but he also energized the Democratic base which includes every minority that's resented by the Republican base. Not only is the south full of racists, like Arizona, Idaho and other places, but it also has a large African American population and a growing Hispanic population. A diversity that's largely absent in 'red' states in the Western US. Almost every urban area in the South votes 'blue' when you look at a detailed electoral map.
Participating in the GOP's culture war does not serve the progressive movement. This doesn't mean that we should give a free pass to bigots but I think we should acknowledge that racism and an extreme form of conservatism are a national problem and that the south is not a hopeless cause. The more we participate in this divisiveness, the more likely the GOP will always win there.
Clearly, the better Wall Street front-man won Nov. 6.
And, right on cue, Israel got the green light for expanded regional war from our re-elected "progressive president."
Russia is likely Barack Mussolini Blair's next target--look at a map--why else are Turkey and Syria in the news...
All types of right wing nut jobs inorgainations who were bigoted against a black man as a president. Plus your average run of the mill bigots not connected to such organizations.
The right to bear arms NRA cranks who want their right to buy their military weapons and carry their hand guns and rifels around in public.
A whole bunch of Christian people who voted Republican for his anti-choice for womens reproductive organs and fetus. And his anti-gay rights and marriage equality position. You could also throw in the Utah Mormons for the same reasons as mentioned above, plus because he's a Morman like them.
Lastly theres the dupes who think Romney Has all the ansers because FOX News, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbereger, O'Riley, and Hannety said so.
Oh, I forgot about the filthy rich Aristocracy.
Yes 47 percent IS too delicious for words.
If we could just put all of the control freak, religious, anti-scientific zealots in one single small territory, maybe they would take care of the problem and do each other in.
The next week Romney started adding in his stump speeches why he wanted to be president, which read like a generic laundry list.
Heck, he might have won if he'd really had an answer in the first place.
The only public persona I can think of who is more vacuous would be Donald Trump.
I think I can see her from my back porch here in Austin with the other vacuous one, Rick Perry.
According to his wife, it was because it was their turn. On another note, remember when she said she feared for his mental stability because of the stress of running? From his statements after his well deserved drubbing, it's apparent she was right fearing for his sanity. Clearly he has none left.
When he joined the church he thought they said Moron, not Mormon. Imagine his surprise. Not as much as when so much of the Republican vote flipping apparatus failed. (Thanks to Anonymous????)
Only two? I think I counted 27.
As with all co-dependencies , the rich are in denial of how much they are dependent on other people for what goods and services they have. Sure, they pay money for them, but if workers had no use for the money, the rich probably wouldn't be able to do much of anything to take care of themselves.
They wouldn't be able to make their own clothes, make or grow their own food, do their own plumbing or electrical work, build their own computers, and so on.
As the quote goes, "When someone tells you they got rich through hard work, ask them 'Whose?' "
That would be the makers of the homes that Romney owns, the makers of the cars he drives and the roads he drives them on. The makers of the health care and medical education that has helped his wife to remain high function with her MS. And, of course, the makers of all those pension funds he and his buddies at Bain Capital raided to become multimillionaires.
The Takers, Romney and his cash-hoarding friends lost out to the real Makers. Another interesting twist on the Romney theme in this campaign.
He made his bed
now he can sleep in it
magic underwear and all.
JH Gordon
Smashwords.com
Couldn't happen to a "nicer" guy!
Karma is a monster.
The great lesson should be that this process is all about citizenship, and that we need to support and grow better citizens as much as possible. Better citizens means better government.
Ignorant and stupid citizens means worse government. The people who want to keep us afraid, ignorant or stupid are the ones we, the people, should never, ever trust.
Unlike Romney, Demographics don't lie. Independent and undecided voters were critical to win the election. But far from offering an argument that would bring them home for the GOP, Romney showed the electorate blatant insincerity, free-castering morality, greed unbound, defiant hypocrisy, an apparent addiction to lying, unabashed shape-shifting, unapologetic, calculated indifference toward the problems of those whose support he needed the most and general shamelessness. All of these taken together raised the specter of, among other things, Gordon Gekko in the Oval Office, and repelled independents and undecideds with hurricane force away from the retrogressive Sirens of the far right and toward the progressive agenda of the Democratic Party.
Thanks, Mitt, and for conducting the most bizarre, wrong-headed, counter-product ive presidential campaign I can remember, it also turns out we owe you one. No, not really. Um, wait, does that sound familiar?
But what sobered me up considerably shortly after the election was when I heard, or read, that only about half of eligible voters had voted. Sorry, wish I could remember who said it, but I'm sure the numbers add up, that is, total votes cast versus total eligible voters. I will try to find out since if true, that means that half of voting Americans didn't think it worthwhile to get themselves to a voting booth or to fill out a vote-by-mail ballot.
Now that really sucks. It means that in real general terms, by that number, Obama won by not 51% of the citizens of the U.S., but by votes of half that. And Romney lost by the same.
And if that's true, then half the voting population of the U.S. is still asleep. That's the real job to come, waking them up.
Now...what about the grand "bargain" basement safety net deal?
In fact, I think if he had told the truth about what his exact plans were, he would have gotten less than the 47% of the vote he supposedly got. My belief is he knew he couldn't win by telling the truth, so he thought he had nothing to lose by lying. To me, that's what the 47% quote really indicates.
The fact that he allowed himself to be candid ONLY with those he believed agreed with him, only supports my theory that he couldn't tell the whole truth outside that kind of group of supporters.
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