Score Card - 2012

As we anticipated here:

Obama/Biden won by more than 290 votes in the electoral college.

Tim Kaine won a senate seat from Virginia.

The Democratic Party retains control of the US Senate.

The 2016 election season begins tomorrow.  Does this mean that Virginia is now a blue state?  No, it does not.  pl

Comments

[YT]

Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and a house divided against a house falleth.

[Medicine Man]

A swing state maybe. Or a state where the candidate has to make a good argument on his own behalf. Either way, not a bad place to be.

[Jill]

I'm not a Virginian but I'm pleased and relieved that George Allen didn't win that seat!

Tammy Duckworth won her House race over that peculiar Joe Walsh. Things are looking up.

Jill

[turcopolier]

YT

This is just an election. Let us hope that some fool does not seek a catastrophic outcme. pl

[Grimgrin]

It's been interesting to watch this election as a spectator.

Just looking at the maps, as of this writing, Nate Silver over at Five Thirty Eight seems to have called every state correctly, other poll aggregators had Florida and Virginia as tossups, but all the calls they made were called right.

So score this one a win for the number crunchers over the guts and momentum crowd.

Also:

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/11/06/romney-ive-only-written-a-victory-speech/

Hubris meets nemesis; usually one doesn't get to see it happen in real time.

[Patrick D]

We are spared a return to a deranged Republican foreign policy for now. Given how close the popular vote seems to be, I doubt they have learned. The neo-cons will retreat to their think tanks and re-emerge in 2 years.

[agin' cajun]

Could you drop me a line the next time you are picking ponies.

On the serious side, let us hope for the best. Many of the Senate races gave me a smile. Fruitcakes are for the Holidays not the US Senate.

[eakens]

I'm just glad Sheldon Adelson lost

[confusedponderer]

I am sort of relieved.
Did Romney concede defeat?

[Pirouz]

Colonel, was thinking of you and your forecast when the TV posted returns from Virginia. Good call.

[Fred]

I think this prove that math works.

[NancyK]

Col Lang, you were spot on with your predictions, thank goodness. My state NC seemed to buck the trend, but the ball is now completely in the Republican court and if they blow it there is another election in 2 years. I am really so happy that Obama won. My husband said he would love to be a fly on the wall in Netnayahu's office.

[r whitman]

Entertaining:

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-victory-spells-trouble-israels-netanyahu-124053396.html

[Cal]

And Netanyahu...lol.

[Anonymous]

I was heartened to see the result of the returns from Northern Virginia. The Fairfax County numbers did surprise me a bit by the wide margin Obama and Kaine had. Fairfax is now definitely solidly blue. It also made me happy to see Loudoun and Prince William go blue as the hours ticked through the night.

[turcopolier]

Anonymous

IMO you are really kidding yourself. Except for Arlington County and Alexandria City no part of Virginia is reliably blue. pl

[Alba Etie]

Col Lang
To listen to my lefty liberal family & friends you would think that President Obama was some type of moderate pragmatic leader in the same model as President Eisenhower .
Certainly many moderates now support BHO - I believe this bodes well for our comity .

[Anonymous]

Pat,

I've lived in FFX Cty for about 20 years and have witnessed the demographic transformation in the county and its politics. While I think a centrist Republican can still win if he/she adopts true centrist positions, the current GOP will not allow such candidates to get elected in the primaries unless they are already incumbents. I would agree about Loudoun and PWC in that there exist enough reliable red voters to make them interesting. But the margin in FFX last night was pretty stunning.

[Harper]

The big issues that were challenging our political leadership going into the elections all remain. We have, more or less, the same balance of power in the legislative branch, a hopefully humbled re-elected president, with five million fewer votes than he got in 2008, and a mountain of problems to be solved. I suspect that the sequestration can will be kicked down the road, but that other big challenges, including the economy, the looming next phase of the crisis in Europe, the pending Syrian and Iranian issues, etc. are all on the table. Two leading members of the Obama cabinet are presumably leaving in the weeks ahead--Hillary Clinton and Tim Geithner. Hopefully her Benghazi gaffe will eliminate Susan Rice from the running for Secretary of State, but Larry Summers' name is back in the hat to replace Bernanke, or perhaps Geithner. That would be a disaster to have the guy who pushed through the repeal of Glass Steagall back in the administration. Since Col. Lang's blog is one of the most informative sources of informed and spirited discussion, I look forward to these issues being taken up in the immediate days ahead. Maybe with the campaign silly season over at last, the President will stop prancing about claiming he defeated al-Qaeda. The expansion of the neo-Salafi problem is a genuine challenge, that is going to plague us in Africa and the Middle East and South and Central Asia. We need a real strategy to deal with this problem and I welcome thoughts.

[William R. Cumming]

$2B spent on election? WOW! MSM must be happy!

[Clifford Kiracofe]

The Republican Party was taken over by the "New Right" and the "Christian Right" and the "Neocons." Those who self-identity as members of the "Conservative Movement" are not Republicans in the traditional sense. These so-called "Movement Conservatives" and the others penetrated the party beginning with Goldwater, got a head of steam up with Reagan, then took over with W, and now dominate it. They could care less about the traditional Republican party and old fashioned moderate Main Street values.

Many old school Republican Ike and Taft folks vote Democrat now. They are an aging and fading cohort. So what is the future of the party on its present extremist course?

A cousin of mine in Ohio is a distributor of specialized industrial equipment mostly to the steel industry although some to oil and gas. He has had the best year this year in over three decades since starting his company. Obviously O's auto industry support has worked. He voted for O the first time and O the second time. His father worked for Bob Taft....old school Republicans have nothing in common with today's ideological crazies it would appear.

[Al Spafford]

Obama as a "moderate Republican" in the tradition of centralist politics!
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/frame_game/2012/11/obama_the_moderate_republican_what_the_2012_election_should_teach_the_gop.html
He copied health care from Repub Romney/copied stimulus from Repub Bush II/copied military "surge" from Repub Bush II/ etc.

[Al Spafford]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/frame_game/2012/11/obama_the_moderate_republican_what_the_2012_election_should_teach_the_gop.html

[fanto]

Colonel, last night I was telling my wife that "colonel Lang is right on target with his prediction" - she is sick and tired of me reporting what "colonel Lang thinks" - But, how did you know so precisely? (actually you underestimated the final tally on the presidential race)

[turcopolier]

fanto

I was being careful on the presidentil EC vote. Better to safe side it a bit. I analyse everything the same way. I seek to know the context in the broadest and deepest way I can manage and then decide on this future event as the product of that context. Part of the context has to be that you do not assume that "straight line" progresions will occur. pl