Picket Fence Apocalypse

[Exile]

Picket Fence Apocalypse

By CHARLES M. BLOW No, you cannot have your country back. America is moving forward.
That’s the message voters sent the Republican Party and its Tea Party wing Tuesday night when they re-elected President Obama and strengthened the Democrats’ control of the Senate.
No amount of outside money or voter suppression or fear mongering or lying — and there was a ton of each — was enough to blunt that message.
President Obama and his formidable campaign machine out-performed the Republicans, holding together a winning coalition that is the face of America’s tomorrow: young voters, urban voters, racially and ethnically diverse voters and women voters.
According to exit polls, Obama won 60 percent of the 18 to 29 year old vote and 52 percent of the 30-40 vote. He won 69 percent of the vote in big cities and 58 percent of the vote in mid-sized cities. He won 93 percent of the black vote and more than 70 percent of both the Asian vote and the Hispanic vote. He won over half of the female vote. And he won 76 percent of the gay, lesbian and bisexual vote.
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Mitt Romney won the white vote, the male vote, the elderly vote, the small cities vote and the high-income vote.
The base of Democratic support in this country is expanding. The Republican base is shrinking, becoming more racially homogenous, more rural and older.
Reality made for a great rending of garments and gnashing of teeth among conservatives.
On election night, Bill O’Reilly said :

It’s a changing country, the demographics are changing. It’s not a traditional America anymore, and there are 50 percent of the voting public who want stuff. They want things. And who is going to give them things? President Obama.

O’Reilly continued: “The white establishment is now the minority.”
Ann Coulter, who activates my gag reflex whenever I type her name, said Wednesday:

If Mitt Romney cannot win in this economy, then the tipping point has been reached. We have more takers than makers and it’s over. There is no hope.

Rush Limbaugh took to the air to say that “Mitt Romney and his family would have been the essence of exactly what this country needs” and that Romney “did offer a vision of traditional America.” Limbaugh went on:

I went to bed last night thinking we’re outnumbered. I went to bed last night thinking all this discussion we’d had about this election being the election that will tell us whether or not we’ve lost the country. I went to bed last night thinking we’ve lost the country.

You would think that the world came to an end Tuesday night. And depending on your worldview, it might have. If your idea of America’s power structure is rooted in a 1950s or even a 1920s sensibility, here’s an update: that America is no more.
Republicans are trying to hold back a storm surge of demographic change with a white picket fence. Good luck with that.

[Islandman]

I just hope the Dems don't take it for granted that the Obama coalition automatically becomes the Dem coalition. It can, it should, but once the dust settles the opposition will try to adjust.

The Obama machine is nothing short of amazing, a generation more advanced than 2008. I got a glimpse of it through my wife volunteering for them again in the last few days of the election. They have information like you wouldn't believe.

Romney system crashed on election day apparently, lol.

[Exile]

Islandman, please don't fall into the trap with these Broadcasters and Reporters in calling the Obama's supporters a 'coalition'. I earlier wrote elsewhere:

However, I think the term is a misnomer as a coalition suggest some sort of joint action or agreement between the various stakeholders or voters to collectively vote for Obama. This was certainly not the case. So while they all had their self-interest and reason for voting for Obama there was no political agreement.

[Islandman]

LOL, I hear you, I agree it is a misleading term.

It's not new to Obama though, it has often been used to describe the successful Reagan-built Republican base of white evangelicals, small government fiscal conservatives, big military warmongers and a sprinkling of good old racists.

This Reagan formula is now no longer viable as it is a shrinking population. Obama's base is a growing one.However I don't think it is assured yet for Democrats in future elections, if they can lock in the Hispanic population then that will be it.

[Exile]

Another misleading one is the 97% black vote and % of gay vote etc. when the actual electorate percentages are low...

I like your description of the Reagan years though:

base of white evangelicals, small government fiscal conservatives, big military warmongers and a sprinkling of good old racists.

[Islandman]

The black vote % in particular is frequently used in a way to suggest that black people voting based simply on race, when Clinton Gore and Kerry already were getting more than 85% of the black vote.

That's the kind of thing they like to use to mislead their ignorant viewing audience to get them angry.

[Don1]

The Obama Campaign’s Technology Is a Force Multiplier
By STEVE LOHR

President Barack Obama visits with volunteers in the call center of a Columbus, Ohio, campaign office Monday.Carolyn Kaster/Associated Press President Barack Obama visits with volunteers in the call center of a Columbus, Ohio, campaign office Monday.

Technology doesn’t win political campaigns, but it certainly is a weapon — a force multiplier, in military terms.

Both sides in the presidential contest mined click-stream data as never before to target messages to potential voters. But a real edge for the Obama campaign was in its use of online and mobile technology to support its much-praised ground game, finding potential supporters and urging them to vote, either in person or by phone, according to two senior members of the Obama technology team, Michael Slaby, chief integration and innovation officer for the Obama campaign, and Harper Reed, chief technology officer for the Obama campaign.

A program called “Dashboard,” for example, allowed volunteers to join a local field team and get assignments remotely. The Web application — viewable on smartphones or tablets — showed the location of field workers, neighborhoods to be canvassed, and blocks where help was needed. “It allowed people to join a neighborhood team without ever going to a central office,” said Mr. Slaby.

Another ground-game program was a tool for telephone canvassing from people’s homes instead of having to travel to a campaign office and work from a telephone bank. The call tool was a Web program that let people sign up to make calls and receive a list of phone numbers, names and a script to use, noted Mr. Reed.

Often, the profiles of volunteer callers and the lists they received were matched. So the callers were people with similar life experiences to those being called, and thus more likely to be persuasive. Here is a YouTube video of a 91-year-old World War II veteran, who joined the Obama phone corps.

In 2008, there were some remote callers in the Obama campaign. But this year, there were ten times as many, Mr. Slaby said.

The sheer scale of the online outreach and data collection dwarfed the effort four years ago. For example, the Barack Obama Facebook site had 33 million “likes,” compared with 2 million for the previous campaign. A Facebook like, Mr. Slaby noted, is the “just the first rung on a ladder of engagement” but it is a starting point.

Another truly important change was in the technology itself. “Cloud computing barely existed in 2008,” Mr. Slaby said.

This time, the Obama campaign’s data center was mainly Amazon Web Services, the leading supplier of cloud services. The campaign’s engineers built about 200 different programs that ran on the Amazon service including Dashboard, the remote calling tool, the campaign Web site, donation processing and data analytics applications.

Using mainly open-source software and the Amazon service, the Obama campaign could inexpensively write and tailor its own programs instead of using off-the-shelf commercial software.

“It let us attack and engineer our own approach to problems, and build solutions for an environment that moves so rapidly you can’t plan,” Mr. Slaby said. “It made a huge difference this time.”

[Willi]

They say if Reagan ran now and got the same demographics share he did in 1980, he would have lost.

[Karl]

LOL, I hear you, I agree it is a misleading term.

It's not new to Obama though, it has often been used to describe the successful Reagan-built Republican base of white evangelicals, small government fiscal conservatives, big military warmongers and a sprinkling of good old racists.

This Reagan formula is now no longer viable as it is a shrinking population. Obama's base is a growing one. However I don't think it is assured yet for Democrats in future elections, if they can lock in the Hispanic population then that will be it.

Islandman?
You are always more 'coldly rational(?)...analytical than the above.
...and you never usually 'speak against yourself'...seem to be conflicted in such a manner (Remember you earlier said the Republicans will adjust?). I have just above highlighted some of what you said. Please read as highlighted and in the context of your earlier statement/post which rightly claims the GOP will adjust (Time always marches on!...and as it has been said: Change is the only constant!).

Aside: Sure the GOP shall adjust...but questions remain on the period over which that adjustment reaches the point where a presidential election is won as the Dems will not remain fixated on their/this current 'coalition', the pace of their adjustments...as adjust to the then realities they shall.

btw - On another matter: The reduction in poll numbers/number of voters is being 'talked up'. It brings in further focus question on the degree of success the GOP had in suppressing the vote.

My impression (on the ground as Obama canvasser - Port St Lucie, FL) was the GOP enjoyed too much success on their vote suppression efforts - (fraud that limiting of early voting time and reduction of number of early voting precincts) - It was very successful. Too many Dems could not find/afford the time it was taking and were forced to leave. I would be interested in what your wife saw...your observations and that of any others of the Massive.

[World Fan]

Turning point historically, maybe?

[Islandman]

I really think we would need to know the state by state breakdown to determine who the missing voters are. I heard an argument that many absentee votes were still being counted so the 2008-2012 difference may not be as big as originally thought. We wil see what the final figures are soon.

Doesn't appear to be a lot of minorities in the missing voters as thier percentages were larger this time around, so the dropout in white voter turnout is what made the difference. That suggests that the suppression efforts largely failed.

Re the GOP and Hispanics, they will surely adjust to make themselves more attractive to Latinos, but I don't expect the Dems to sit around watching them do it, so we will have to see how it evolves. I expect to see some major moves on the immigration issue from both sides in the next 4 years as they try to bring the Hispanics to thier side.

[Karl]

The sheer 'size' (read that any which way) - use of technology, ways being used, offices, individuals, etc. - was awesome. Frankly I am sure I never saw or came into contact with or heard about all facets of the organisation but what I 'knew' pointed to vast, detailed market penetration...with messages varied yet targeted. Blows the mind...

Guess someday a book on this 'groundgame' thing shall be written!

[Exile]

Island..the immigration issue is not the major issue for Hispanics as some would like us to believe..it is just like others, jobs, healthcare, etc. Yes, immigration is an issue...the Repubs allowed their party to be hacked by Tea Party and Super Pacs...and got lost with the issues..

[Karl]

Just really, really interested in final figures.

Aside: Product (The candidate) and message (total offerings)?
I think Obama was far better product and therein lies his win.

I think the real interesting 'trend watch' could be whether or not the Dems can replicate 'the product' and turn some of the entrenched GOP voting states to 'Blue States'. That old GOP 'product' of candidate selling racist talk and uncaring 'geared only to the monied class and the crazies' rhetoric = failure!

2016 - Can I say for the Dems, Hilary Clinton?

[Islandman]

i believe its the big one, the one that could be generational in terms of thier politics. Affects all age groups.But it's more than the policy itself, it's the tone and attitude of the repubs as well.

When they question Obamas birth certificate and then how real an American he is, they are effectively saying no immigrant or child of a recent immigrant is a legitimate American, well unless they are European I suppose. So for them its not going to be as simple as, ok here are some green cards, now all is well.

They have some potential stars in Rubio in FL and Cruz in Texas, but will their base accept them as nominees? Only time will tell.