Campaign Stops editors invited contributors to react to the elections and discuss the day's events. Check here for updates.
12:40 a.m. | Updated
Alexander Keyssar: Something Has Changed About Election Night
Timothy Egan: The Boss Delivers the White House
Thomas B. Edsall: Obamacare No Albatross?
Ann Beeson: Texas Could Become a Swing State Sooner Than You Think
Thomas B. Edsall: Memo to Candidates: Don't Bring Up Rape
Timothy Egan: Revenge of the Polling Nerds
Alexander Keyssar |Something Has Changed About Election Night
I'm old enough to remember when the drama of election night was just about who won the election. We paid close attention to see who won the early-reporting eastern states and stayed up late enough to make sure nothing too surprising had happened on the West Coast. Often there wasn't much drama about the outcome. I campaigned and voted for the late George McGovern in 1972, but no one thought that he would win. Long before election day in 1984, Walter Mondale – and everyone else in the United States – knew that Ronald Reagan would have a second term in the White House. Even when there was drama, as in 1976 or 1992, the spotlight was focused entirely on the election's outcome – with a presumption that the popular vote and the electoral vote would roughly match one another.
Now there are so many other, subsidiary dramas to pay attention to, many of them not about the preferences of voters but about the act of voting and the counting of votes. What happened to those people who were standing in line to cast early ballots in Florida? Will the provisional ballots in Ohio matter, and if so, who is going to count them – and when? Are people being turned away from the polls because they do not have required ID documents? Whose lawyers are going to court and where? Will there be a split between the electoral vote and the popular vote? The subplots thicken with each election cycle; occurrences that seemed strange and anomalous in 2000 have now become routine.
It is indeed the normalization of these issues and conflicts that is a cause for worry. The years before 2000, to be sure, were no golden age of democracy, and many of the electoral problems that now loom so visible were present, if largely unseen, 30 years ago. But we, as a nation, do seem to have turned a corner: our polity now seems divided into two tribes, one of which voices the fear that elections will be stolen by fraudulent voters, the other convinced that legitimate votes will be suppressed. All of us now expect elections to be not only competitions between candidates and parties but also conflicts over voting rights and electoral procedures; we expect the legal and procedural wrangling to begin weeks before election day, and we fear that it will go on for weeks afterward. It is hard not to think that such expectations, over time, will undermine the legitimacy of electoral outcomes and corrode our confidence in democratic processes. Surely we can do better.
Alexander Keyssar, a professor of history and social policy at Harvard, is the author of "The Right to Vote: the Contested History of Democracy in the United States."
Timothy Egan |The Boss Delivers the White House
The kingmaker in the 2012 presidential election? Why, The Boss, of course. In the way that the first flutters of a butterfly's wing in Africa can set loose a chain of events that leads to a hurricane, Gov. Chris Christie's long odyssey to meet his idol Bruce Springsteen may turn out to be the thing that decided the race.
Stay with me here: Christie worships Springsteen, and has been to 130 concerts, but his fan love has never been returned. As a lifelong pilgrim in the Church of Bruuuuuce, he cites lyrics at the oddest of public occasions, does air guitar riffs in his down time, and swaps fetishist stories of bootleg tapes.
When he was elected governor in 2009, he so wanted the Springsteen soundtrack to be a part of his triumph – but he was spurned.
When Christie, to the surprise of right-wing absolutists, embraced and praised President Obama for his quick response to the devastation of Hurricane Sandy, many conspiracy theorists thought he was playing for 2016. The idea was, it would be better to have an open race for president than to wait out the second term of the man for whom he has been a chief surrogate, Mitt Romney.
And yet, there seems to have been another more complex (and more obvious) motive in play.
I told my friends, only half in jest, that Christie was really after a chance to meet Springsteen. That he would do anything, even kill the momentum of his party's nominee, for a bromance with Jersey's favorite son. This would explain why he was playing nice. Sure enough, on Monday, during his now-daily call to Christie, the president handed the phone off to Springsteen. The governor may never clean that ear again.
A few days earlier, he had met Springsteen at the benefit concert in New York. Afterward, Christie went home and wept.
"We hugged," Christie said at a news conference on Monday. "He told me it's official: we're friends."
So the Boss loves the new Big Man. "I'll treasure it forever," Christie added.
Now: the exit polls show the hurricane had only a minor effect on voter attitudes. But if, as many believe, the chance for Obama to appear bipartisan and presidential in the last week of the campaign with one of his most strident critics was just enough to tip independent voters in swing states — well, I rest my case.
In that case, it wasn't Sandy that determined the election. It was the man who wrote "Sandy."
Of course, this embrace may doom Christie among the party base; those elephants never forget. Rush Limbaugh, the most mean-spirited among the knuckle-draggers, called Christie "fat" and "a fool" last week. I have a feeling Christie would say that's a small price to pay for the chance to meet Springsteen.
Timothy Egan is an Opinionator columnist.12:40 a.m. | Updated More From Timothy Egan below
Thomas B. Edsall |Obamacare No Albatross?
The early exit polls provide some findings that will warm the heart of Democrats.
One surprise: the survey of voters as they leave polling places around the country suggests that Obamacare was not the albatross for Democrats that many thought it would be. Forty-seven percent of voters said they would like to see the law remain as is on the books or expanded, two percentage points more than the 45 percent who said the law should be fully or partially repealed.
Less surprising: Voters think that Romney favors the rich. Asked who would benefit from Romney policies, 52 percent said the rich and 36 percent said the middle class. Only 2 percent said Romney policies would benefit the poor. For Obama, a plurality, 43 percent, said the president's policies favor the middle class. Just 10 percent said Obama favors the rich, and 31 percent said he favors the poor.
Meanwhile, in the actual vote counting, the Virginia Board of Elections gave both Mitt Romney and George Allen, the Republican Senate nominee, leads over Barack Obama and Tim Kaine.
A close examination of the local results suggest that many more votes were yet to be counted in populous counties strongly backing the Democrats. Arlington County, for example, backed Obama over Romney 35,689 to 18,411 for Romney, but only 36 of 53 precincts had reported by 9:30. Similarly, in Fairfax County, Obama led Romney 65,283 to 45,872, with 71 out of 244 precincts reporting. The same pattern applied to the count in the Senate contest. Update 12:03 a.m. | More From Thomas Edsall below
Thomas B. Edsall, a professor of journalism at Columbia University, is the author of the book "The Age of Austerity: How Scarcity Will Remake American Politics," which was published earlier this year.
Ann Beeson |Texas Could Become a Swing State Sooner Than You Think
What's at stake today in Austin, Tex.? The sky is clear, the temperature reached 80 degrees, the Ladybird Lake trail is full of people, and lines were long all day at the polls. Thirty-seven percent of registered voters in Travis County cast their ballot during early voting, and voter turnout may inch towards 50 percent by the end of the day.
Out-of-staters assume that Austin, with its legions of music-loving and tech-savvy young people, is a liberal outpost in a sea of red. That's misguided for a couple of reasons. It's clear that Texas isn't a swing state (yet), and that our 38 electoral votes will go to Romney. But residents of the state's largest cities, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Austin – three of them among the top ten largest cities in the country – will collectively cast more votes for Obama than Romney. It's rural Texas and the suburbs that Romney is counting on.
And though a clear majority of Austinites will vote for Obama, the city's surface progressivism masks serious structural barriers that continue to disenfranchise voters here, particularly Latinos and African-Americans. Austin residents will decide today whether to end one of those barriers – the at-large election of Austin City Council members.
Austin is the fastest growing city in the country, and the population is increasingly young and diverse. Yet most Latinos and people of color still live on the east side of Austin, the legacy of a 1928 City Master Plan that institutionalized racial segregation. That legacy, coupled with the at-large method for electing the city council, has meant that residents in Central and West Austin have dominated the City Council and the Mayor's Office for the past several decades.
At a recent community forum, Carmen Llanes, an east Austin resident and activist, encouraged more people to get involved in local issues. But she noted that many feel their voice doesn't count because "Austin is the largest city in the country without geographic representation."
It's no wonder that so many residents of east Austin are disconnected from politics, particularly if they're progressive. Their vote for Obama won't count because the state's electoral votes will go to Romney, and no one from their neighborhood represents their interests on the City Council. Darrion Borders, a young African-American hip hop artist and student at Austin Community College, told it straight, "Coming out of East Austin, I've never seen elected officials. Not even running into somebody at the library or at the grocery store. They aren't around."
After literally decades of organizing and failed attempts, a consortium of grassroots community groups finally succeeded in getting Proposition 3 on today's ballot. Prop 3 would create 10 geographic district seats along with the citywide mayor. Proposition 4, an alternative proposal favored by Mayor Lee Leffingwell and council insiders, would create eight districts, with two seats and the mayor remaining at-large.
If either proposition receives a majority of "yes" votes, east Austin residents – and all those in communities outside of Central and West Austin – will finally have a voice in City Hall. That should be a boon to civic engagement and voter turnout in Austin, which has lagged behind state and national averages.
Peck Young, the director of Austin Community College's Center for Public Policy and Political Studies, says that the outcome of the ballot measure has clear implications for fair representation in Austin. "If Proposition 3 wins we will have provided Hispanics with 2-3 Council seats immediately and ended the paternalistic Gentleman's Agreement that allows Anglos to select which Hispanics are allowed on the Austin City Council. If it fails then we will have proved that minority representation cannot be left to majority vote in Austin."
What will a win on Prop 3 mean for Texas and the nation? It will strengthen the Latino engagement that could, one day, make Texas a swing state.
Ann Beeson is a senior fellow and lecturer at the Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Life at the University of Texas.
12:04 a.m. Thomas B. Edsall |Memo to Candidates: Don't Bring Up Rape
It would not be at all surprising if the National Republican Senatorial Committee sent out a memo next year to all prospective candidates warning them: "Any time you are about to say the word 'rape,' stop, take two deep breaths, and change the subject."
Strange ideas about rape appear to have doomed chances of a Republican take-over of the Senate, fatally wounding two of the parties Senate candidates, both of whom had appeared to be on track to win: Todd Akin in Missouri and Richard Mourdock in Indiana.
Aiken, who has already conceded to Democratic incumbent Claire McCaskill, was first, declaring on television in August that pregnancy as a result of rape is rare because: "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."
Mourdock, who was running for an open seat against Democratic nominee Joe Donnelly, called and raised Aiken, declaring last month, "I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that's something God intended to happen."
The big question arising out of the defeat of Mourdock and Akin is whether this will take the wind out of the sails of the Tea Party, factions of which strongly backed their candidacies. The outcome in these two contests is a repetition of key Senate fights in 2010, when Tea Party backed Republican nominees lost to highly vulnerable Democrats in three states, Nevada, Delaware and Colorado.
In the House, the Republican caucus is likely to shift further to the right with the retirement of some of the older, most centrist members and their replacement by younger, more radical freshmen.
Thomas B. Edsall, a professor of journalism at Columbia University, is the author of the book "The Age of Austerity: How Scarcity Will Remake American Politics," which was published earlier this year.
12:40 a.m. Timothy Egan |Revenge of the Polling Nerds
In the last days of the election, Peggy Noonan had a "feel" that things were moving Mitt Romney's way. George Will was more cerebral: his brain told him it would be Romney in a rout. And Michael Barone, who used to have a good divining rod to go along with an encyclopedic knowledge for all numbers political, also predicted a Romney landslide.
What they had in common, aside from putting up a brick Tuesday that completely missed the electoral net, was a last-hurrah push for the old-fashioned prediction by gut.
This was the year the meta-analyst shoved aside the old-school pundit. Simon Jackman of Stanford, Sam Wang at the Princeton Election Consortium and, of course, our colleague Nate Silver, all perfected math-based, non-subjective models that produced predictions that closely matched the outcomes.
People who are surprised by the election – and Sarah Palin looked like she was close to tears as the obvious became obvious even to those who live in the Fox bubble – were probably listening to people who are paid to fantasize.
Karl Rove is Exhibit A. Until the very end, he confidently predicted a Romney victory, though he seemed to give himself some weasel room in bringing up Hurricane Sandy at the end as an excuse. But Rove, who collected millions from deep pockets for his independent expenditure groups, had to predict a Romney victory. Otherwise, why continue to give him money? These donors would have been better off reading the In-trade prediction model – based on real money bet on the outcome. They put the odds of an Obama win at 72 percent on election eve.
Newt Gingrich, who has a preternatural ability to slide out of whatever he said in the past, said without blinking or blushing that Romney would win the popular vote by six percentage points and rack up more than 300 electoral votes. "I base that on just years and years of experience," he said. And it's taught him – what?
And we have to mention Dick Morris, who has been assuring Fox listeners for months that Obama was a one-term president. He said Romney would end the night with 325 electoral votes, a number about equal to Glenn Beck's stellar forecast. "It will be the biggest surprise in recent American political history," Morris said.
The surprise is that people like Morris – Jon Stewart called him "The King of Wrong Mountain" – continue to find work.
Little wonder then, that so many people turned to the math-based prediction models this year. Moneyball has finally beaten down the old scouts. Not romantic, by any stretch, but more reliable. Now, if only the Republican Party would follow suit, on the major issues of the day, into the reality-based community.
Timothy Egan is an Opinionator columnist.
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
Campaign Stops: Election Day
Dengan url
http://opinimasyarakota.blogspot.com/2012/11/campaign-stops-election-day.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
Campaign Stops: Election Day
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar