[Official Thread] OBAMA WINS RE-ELECTION

[Rogue 9]

Santorum wins the expectations game, which is a real pity if he can't keep himself flashing in the pan until New Hampshire. Or maybe I'm over-estimating the fickleness of the current GOP voters. Either way, Romney funneled money into that state like crazy and only came eight votes ahead.

Ron Paul, well, I expected him to win. While, technically, he gets the same number of delegates as Santorum and Romney, third place for the man with the built-in organization advantage means he'll be discounted soon, and likely won't remain in the primaries very long.

Ron Paul never really dropped out of the primary four years ago even after he never really stood a chance. He was on the ballot in Indiana when I was the inspector for one of the polling precincts, and excepting truly extraordinary nominating contests like Clinton vs. Obama that year, we vote way the hell too late to be relevant. I expect him to stay in regardless of the odds, because that's just how he campaigns.

Spoke too soon:

Michele Bachmann halts presidential campaign

Well, so much for her, then. This might be bad for Mittens, since it will help concentrate the Not-Romney votes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHJoj9IqeKg

[Darth Wong]

Bachmann's poor showing was inevitable, now that it's clear that Santorum is a male version of her.

[DPDarkPrimus]

Remember that Iowa is generally a very conservative state, so it's not really surprising that they would be more on Santorum's side than the country as a whole.

A very conservative state that votes Democratic in the general election most years. More accurate to say, the Republican Primary has one of the highest amounts of evangelicals out of anyplace in the country. I'm surprised by Pauls relatively poor showing as he generally out-preforms his polling since his voter base is far more dedicated than the norm.

While Iowa has been leaning socially conservative even harder lately (a digression for another time), we are a state relying on agribusiness, and the Democrats end up making the pledges that appeal to the blue-collar working-class here. But with the GOP making statements that are outright contrary to what they are doing in Washington lately, I don't know if a lot of folks here are swallowing it and will buy into it to November - I suppose it'll become more clear when the actual candidate is selected. I don't have cable or a land-line, so I've actually been in somewhat of a rhetoric vacuum compared to most Iowans, who were seeing ads every commercial break and getting robo-calls every few hours for the past month. I just kept up with the primaries on Iowa Public Radio.

I don't know how you can call Paul's showing "relatively poor" as it's a pretty solid second place, with two people tying for third. Then again, commentators have been saying the whole time that Iowa is an exception when it comes to liking Ron Paul - but then again, when do commentators have anything to say about Ron Paul that isn't completely dismissive?

[Lord Zentei]

I get the impression that Santorum is an even more hardcore Christian Taliban than Bachmann is.

[DPDarkPrimus]

I get the impression that Santorum is an even more hardcore Christian Taliban than Bachmann is.

He's got a long-standing record of being a homophobic bigot of an evangelical. Bachmann is the female Santorum, if anything.

[Sea Skimmer]

He lost his PA senate seat in 2006, to the same guy he had defeated earlier to win the seat no less, precisely because he was a evangelical bigot, asshole and generally incredibly stupid. That worked fine when he was in the house representing a chunk of far western PA pennsyltucky territory, did not work for half the state. Evangelical 'family values' are the ONLY thing he cares about. Its kind of telling that this other guy, Bob Casey who nobody likes either, is the only Democrat Senator PA has elected since the early 60s.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Well here we go into another over early over hyped Primary for the GOP.
Was abit suprised to find out we already have return.

Apparently there is an area of New Hampshire that votes at Midnight each election
With all of NINE people voting, Mitt and Huntsmen have thus far tied for 1st at a whopping 2votes each!!!

...

Ok getting a tad serious, with what I have seen of the crazies running, my BIG prediction isn't who the runner is, not even who the looser is. But simply that whatever happens, NONE of the canidates will drop out.
That no matter how poor or how few votes some get, they will keep goign to the next primary. Why? Because more and more, I feel that many arn't running for president, but running to get cushy jobs afterwards. So even if they know they have no chance in hell, they will still keep going.

Santorum! Paul! I'm looking at you!!

[The Romulan Republic]

Not surprisingly, it looks like Romney has taken it.

Edit:

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/?emc=na

[LadyTevar]

Earlier today, Nitram informed me that of the two districts first reporting in, there were 3 write-in votes for OBAMA

[TimothyC]

Earlier today, Nitram informed me that of the two districts first reporting in, there were 3 write-in votes for OBAMA

Not write-in, but votes in the democratic primary.

[Zinegata]

Huntsman only gets 3rd. Sad.

[Knife]

Huntsman only gets 3rd. Sad.

Pretty big victory for him actually.

[Flagg]

Maybe daddy will write him a check for SC and FL.

[Zinegata]

Huntsman only gets 3rd. Sad.

Pretty big victory for him actually.

Yeah, but Ron Paul still beat him, which is gonna hurt fund-raising. Particularly since Huntsman's dad apparently isn't willing to foot the whole bill, and the Jr. doesn't want to press for the money anyway:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/15/us/po ... .html?_r=1

[Gandalf]

None of the Tea Party guys got anywhere.

After the last four years of grandstanding conservatives and concerned liberals, the Teeps can't yet seem to win in their own party.

[Broken]

None of the Tea Party guys got anywhere.

After the last four years of grandstanding conservatives and concerned liberals, the Teeps can't yet seem to win in their own party.

IIRC, the Tea Party vote is pretty well scattered at the moment. Romney has his machine and the Republican hierarchy working for him, Ron Paul has his slavishly devoted followers, and the others are fighting over the Tea Party votes (who are still looking desperately for the "One, True Conservative" by looking at everyone but Romney), the social conservatives/fundamentalist votes (who are looking for their, different "One, True Conservative" who also isn't Romney), and whoever else votes in Republican Primaries (who don't like Romney, but hate Obama more).

[UnderAGreySky]

None of the Tea Party guys got anywhere.

After the last four years of grandstanding conservatives and concerned liberals, the Teeps can't yet seem to win in their own party.

Is this not because NH is far more liberal in an American manner than either Iowa or South Carolina? It does not surprise me that the less conservative guys took 50% of the vote. And Ron Paul may not be a pure tea party candidate but he got 20+ too. NH just doesn't have the fundies in numbers I suspect.

Lets see how SC goes.

[Zed]

It can be (and, indeed, has been) argued that the fact that the Tea Party guys didn't get anywhere in New Hampshire has less to do with a lack of influence of the Tea Party but rather the increasing irrelevance of New Hampshire as a benchmark for Republican political campaigns.

[Alphawolf55]

I mean, it might be interesting to see how things would have been if there was a primary contest on both sides. NH is an open primary, I mean I know if there was a real Democrat primary going on, I would have voted in that instead of the Republican one yesterday but because there wasn't, I ended up voting for Huntsman

[UnderAGreySky]

Haven't We Lived Through This Primary Before? By David Weigel

I'm thinking of a Republican primary. It starts with a candidate (John McCain/Mitt Romney) who ran once before, came in second place, and won over the party's elite class without winning over its base. Other candidates, understandably unwilling to accept this, line up: An under-funded social conservative (Mike Huckabee/Rick Santorum), an elder statesman who's walked to the altar three times (Rudy Giuliani/Newt Gingrich), a libertarian who wants to bring back the gold standard (Ron Paul/Ron Paul).

The conservative base is displeased. In the year before the primary, it pines for a perfect candidate. At the end of summer, on (September 5/August 13), it gets him: (Fred Thompson/Rick Perry). The dream candidate immediately rises to the top of national polls, but collapses after lazy, distaff debate performances. When the primaries arrive, he's in single digits and reduced to attacking the front-runners. But in Iowa, he does just well enough to justify staying in the race.

The social conservative (wins/almost wins, depending on what math you believe) Iowa. Flush with victory, eager to prove himself in all battlegrounds, he spends most of the next week in New Hampshire. But the surge can only take him from the margin of error to (13/9) percent of the vote. The old dream candidate, now a national laughingstock only known for a debate moment ("I'm not doing any hand shows"/"Oops") has already moved on to South Carolina. He flies to New Hampshire just to participate in a debate, deeply annoying the supporters of (Ron Paul/Buddy Roemer), whose candidate had worked harder there. He polls a pathetic 1 percent, but stays in the race. The field is crowded enough that a horrified base sees how the front-runner, who's won the endorsement of (Lindsey Graham/Nikki Haley), can win South Carolina with a plurality of the vote.

[bobalot]

I think Romney's got it pretty much sown up. He's comfortably won New Hampshire and looks like he will win the next two primaries easily. Newt looks like his main competitor, but I can't see the Republican party getting behind him because he is an obnoxious douche. He has too much baggage and Obama would slaughter him in an general election.

With some luck Ron Paul fans will stop spamming every fucking board on the Internet. They have more or less taken over reddit.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

I think Romney's got it pretty much sown up. He's comfortably won New Hampshire and looks like he will win the next two primaries easily. Newt looks like his main competitor, but I can't see the Republican party getting behind him because he is an obnoxious douche. He has too much baggage and Obama would slaughter him in an general election.

With some luck Ron Paul fans will stop spamming every fucking board on the Internet. They have more or less taken over reddit.

Agreed. Assuming there are no major surprises in South Carolina and Florida, the GOP primary season will become a mere formality in the nomination of Romney by the end of the month. I was somewhat surprised at the predictions that Gingrich will turn in second-place finishes in both states, but he's Establishment enough to draw in more than just the asylum wing of the GOP.

I think we're at Peak Ron Paul right now. Neither South Carolina, nor Florida seem to be real big bastions of lolbertarianism; so his particular brand of passive-aggressive crypto-racist insanity will soon be swept off the national stage along with the rest of the trash.

[Skgoa]

What I find really wierd is that most of the "anyone but Romney" candidates would stand to gain much more in the long run, if the all put their support behind one of them. But then again, many of those might only be in it for the book deal/FOX job.

[Crossroads Inc.]

As far as I'm concerned, we are seeing a repeat of the 2004 election in reverse.
Obama is the new Bush, and Mitt has taken Kerry's place.

My prediction is once Mitt takes the nomination, we will see once again, why 'Anyone but X' doesn't work. The far right is all about "Anyone But Obama" but the fact that they have been running '"Anyone but Obama... And anyone but Mitt" means once Mitt does get the party nod, support will be all the more lackluster for him.

As the NC election comes up, my prediction is that unless Santorum does FANTASTIC and blows the others out of the water, he may finally drop out, Perry perhaps as well.
If they DON'T drop out, well it just further confirms the theory that they are in it more for book deals and fox news spots then the actual election.

[Dalton]

I predict that we WILL see a third-party candidate, maybe even a Tea Party candidate.