[graycat]

With your "the 'warm and fuzzy' image of the Obama administration" you may have some answers I don't have to some questions I do have.

In simple terms, I didn't and don't 'get it', why Obama was elected in 2008 and even more why he was elected in 2012. And I don't 'get it' why so much of the MSM seemed to be part of the Obama campaign.

And in the 2012 election, looking at the map and the states and the counties and the voting in those places, Obama won big on the two coasts and the upper Midwest, that is, heavily in the more wealthy parts of the country. Just why the wealthier people liked him more is beyond me.

If you have some good explanations, maybe start with the MSM and their bias, e.g., pictures of Obama wearing a halo. Then continue with the TARP program: Remember there was TARP I that Paulson did and then TARP II which was very different. For TARP I, that apparently was designed to make a statement to the world that the banks were too strong for a 'run'. So, Paulson stopped massive runs on the banks. And TARP I was paid back in full, or nearly so, ASAP. Wells Fargo didn't want or need the money, but the high interest rate cost their stockholders $2.5 billion. TARP II was very different, a big give away to many small parts of our economy. Yet the MSM never made an issue of the give away and kept talking about TARP I as a Wall Street 'bailout' -- Wells Fargo and others might say that they were ripped off, not 'bailed out'. Besides, everyone who paid back the money can object to 'bail out'. Then there was the $92 billion or so for 'clean, green, pure, pristine' energy, that was almost entirely wasted. $92 billion here and there, and after awhile it adds up to real money. Then there was the real cause of The Great Recession, that is, the housing bubble. The real cause was Congress trying to please the CBC with the CRA and Fannie, Freddie, and FHA backing junk paper and ignoring the bubble and trying to 'spread the home ownership around', and Obama was one of the main leaders in that effort. Then there's the Obama AG .... And there's more. So, the NYT, Time, WaPo, ABC, CBS, NBC, SAI, and more were totally in the tank for Obama. Why?

I'm not trolling or joking or playing politics. Instead, I know I don't understand what happened, e.g., why the MSM and the two coasts and the upper Midwest went for Obama, and want to know why. If I had bet, then I would have lost. I read it wrong, all wrong. You have an explanation?

[AnthonyMouse]

>You have an explanation?

I can explain it. Obama is no saint but the Republicans are ten times worse. They go on TV and pander to religious extremists, deny evolution and climate change, take absolutist positions on taxes while decrying deficit spending but refusing to touch social security or military spending, adopt comprehensively anti-liberty positions on social issues while paying lip service to small government, use the filibuster and confirmation hearings as bargaining chips against totally unrelated policies, start a bunch of unnecessary wars and promote a police state where the federal government is listening to everyone's conversations without a warrant and I can't even get on a plane without taking off my shoes.

Obama was supposed to have done something about all that. That's why people voted for him. The fact that he hasn't has been sorely disappointing to a great many people -- and the tragedy is, now what do we do to stop it?

[graycat]

Thanks for your response. Maybe we are close to a boundary of what HN will tolerate. So, I shouldn't try to comment on all you mentioned.

In effect, commenting on the Republicans, what is crucial is simpler than your list -- they lost!

For a politically neutral response, all I wanted was good gumment. I'm registered as a D but try to vote just for good gumment. I like my Congressman, and he's R.

But as you will see below, I learned a lot from the two links from antoko.

At times I was shaking my head or screaming or both at some of the Rs talking about 'abortion': Why? Because Roe has been the law for 40 years, and no matter what anyone wants about Roe, there's zip, zilch, zero chance Roe will be changed. So, talking about it is just to get some people up on their hind legs for nothing.

Then the political strategy question is, what were the R gains from the people up on their hind legs? My guess was, negative: The Rs had those people anyway, and talking about abortion just cost the Rs a lot of votes otherwise. E.g., a lot of single women were scared. Then look at the two links and see how the women voted, scared. Maybe talking about abortion got some Rs some $ donations, but I have a tough time believing that that was an issue. Net, I just didn't 'get it' why so many Rs talked so much about abortion. Sure, maybe Rove helped W win an election in Texas that way, but in national politics? Gads.

Places where I wanted better gumment: Fighting two foreign wars for 10 years each. Gumment backing junk housing paper and, thus, blowing the housing bubble that crashed, wiped out financial assets and bank reserves, much as in The Great Depression. Our gumment did it to us. Gumment should have seen it coming and executed a soft landing. Supposedly both Clinton and W saw the problem but concluded that politically they couldn't do anything about it and, then, just hoped for the best. Bummer. What will gumment do next? See a big flu epidemic coming and not tell anyone because gumment leaders don't want to be blamed for the sting of a flu shot needle? I believe that we should be doing more with fission nuke power, but apparently we're not. I just don't think we have gumment nearly as good as we should.

Your question of what to do about it is on target. Of course the short answer is, have people demonstrate, have some politicians take up the positions, and have the voters vote them in. I thought that somewhere between 2008 and 2012 we would have had a few million people on the Mall in DC screaming for better gumment, but we didn't.

On Obama, if take some of his positions, e.g., his SFC interview of his intention to shut down all the coal fired electric generating plants, then 49% of our electric power and 23% of all of our energy (in a DoE report), then I was outraged. But he hasn't done it. To me there is a pattern: He says a lot of things; some of the things please some people, outrage some others, and get ignored by others. Then when that issue is out of the news, he says more things. Next to none of what he says actually leads to corresponding action. So, net his actions have not been nearly as bad as I feared. I still believe that he is a poor president. Then I have to conclude: I'm in the minority or nearly so -- he is still relatively popular. I don't see just why, but he is. Then this comes back to your issue of how to get better gumment: As long as Obama is as popular as he is, I don't see much hope for big demonstrations for something better. If nothing else really bad happens, then he will be able to have served for 8 years and leave often regarded as at least an okay president. So, our chances for something a lot better don't look good.

Then for the Rs, from the noise I hear from them on how to do better next time, I don't hear much that looks like it will win elections. Instead, the Rs are still talking to themselves about what their right wing dreams of and ignoring everyone else. I don't think that what they are saying is really good gumment, and I think it will lose in elections.

For the biased MSM, I don't have a clue what they will do.

To me, the saving grace is our founding fathers and our Constitution and, in particular, that the Rs have the House and the Ds have the Senate so that there is 'grid lock' and not much gets through and there's lots of talk that doesn't mean anything. In particular, Obama can ask Congress for anything he wants, but he will have a tough time getting back even a resolution in favor of apple pie. So, such grid lock is not good gumment but not the worst thing that could happen.

[antoko]

wow lots to address here and I generally have a policy of avoiding political discussion on HN, so I'll refrain.

However I'd just say rather than looking at maps and guessing about wealth distribution you can just look at the exit poll data.

http://imgur.com/tzToXpv

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2012-exit-poll

Google gave me fox news, but exit polls are exit polls so I'm willing to go along with it. :)

[graycat]

Thanks.

http://imgur.com/tzToXpv

Nice data. Basically Obama won only among people with less than $50 K a year.

Wow! The exit poll data is amazing -- the poor, the non-whites, the women, the less educated except Obama also won the postgraduate crowd! Amazing.

Partly you are correct about my error in geography. But there is still an issue: Romney won in a lot of the less wealthy geography -- as I recall, Kentucky, Tennessee.

Maybe the Romney 49% comment was a more serious torpedo below his waterline than I estimated.

In simple terms, the Republicans were too happy with themselves and 'conservative principles' and just seriously failed to 'please enough of the real customers'.

But I still don't quite get the MSM bias: The MSM, especially the 'good demographics' the advertisers want, and from the data in your two links, should have an audience that voted for Romney. My only guess about the MSM is that it is populated by people who are totally interested in gumment and, thus, want to see more gumment and gumment do more and, thus, are for the Democrats. But at least for much of the campaign, Fox News had ratings that no doubt meant that the biased MSM outlets lost a lot of money, and I'm surprised that the biased MSM 'suits' upstairs would put up with that.

Looks like the Republicans have to get out of conservative country clubs and get with more of the real people, and some investors can do some MSM takeovers and make some big bucks.

Thanks.

[downandout]

Sorry guys, I wasn't trying to start a political debate on HN. I was just stating the fact that most of the media sources mentioned in the comment I was responding to are very much pro-Obama administration. That could conceivably affect their decision not to report on cases like this that simply can't be spun in a positive light. Regardless of what party is in power, if they are committing acts against US citizens that are wrong, they need to be publicly called on the carpet for it.

[rhizome]

They aren't pro-Obama, they're just pro-whoever's-in-power. It's called "access journalism," and is both inherently political and super lame.

http://threads2.scripting.com/2012/december/cynicismAmongRep...