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2012 US Presidential Election

Chris Christie has copped a bit of flak for his positive response to Obama's handling of Superstorm Sandy though, not sure how much effect that'll have on his presidential prospects, or if it will be forgotten?

I was over there and Chris Christie did cop flak but he basically told everyone to go jump and that the lives of the people in his state and the aftermath of the storm are way more important than politics. I couldn't have agreed more. He said that if he thought Obama was doing a crap job in responding to the storm he would have said so. I don't know how it would affect his prospects but it would be an interesting race.
 
I found this article interesting about the "blue wall" vs the "red wall", which says there are 242 electoral college votes in strongly Democratic states, but only 177 in strongly Republican states:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/12/politics/blue-wall-democrats-election/index.html

What I'm wondering though is how the change in electoral college vote distribution due to population change factors in. I was reading up on the electoral college system on Wikipedia last night and there seems to be a slow drift in favour of Republican states and away from Democratic states. Eg, after the 2010 census, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Michigan all lost electoral college votes, whereas Texas, Utah, South Carolina, Georgia and Arizona gained votes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_(United_States)#Current_electoral_vote_distribution
 
Survey: Religiously unaffiliated, minority Christians propelled Obama’s victory
By Dan Merica, CNN
November 15th, 2012
02:24 PM ET

Washington (CNN) – President Barack Obama’s victory relied largely on two dramatically different religious coalitions – minority Christians and those with no religion – according to a survey released Thursday.

“This presidential election is the last in which a white Christian strategy will be considered a plausible path to victory,” said Robert P. Jones, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute, which conducted the survey. “The American religious and ethnic landscape is becoming increasingly diverse, and any campaigns relying on outdated maps are destined to lose their way.”

One-in-four Obama voters were religiously unaffiliated, the second-largest “religious” demographic in the president’s coalition, according to the study (PDF). Minority Christians – consisting of black, Asian, Hispanic and mixed-race Americans – made up 31% of Obama’s coalition, the largest religious group.

Among major religious demographics, Obama struggled most with white Christians, including Catholics, mainline Protestants and evangelical Protestants. When these three groups were added up, they accounted for just 35% of Obama’s religious coalition. In comparison, Republican challenger Mitt Romney’s coalition was overwhelmingly white and Christian, with 79% of Romney voters identifying as such.

The Public Religion Research Institute numbers flesh out exit polls released after Election Day. According to those numbers, 70% of the religiously unaffiliated supported Obama, compared with 26% who backed Romney. Ninety-five percent of black Protestants voted for Obama, according to the exit polls, while 75% of Hispanic Catholics supported the president.

Romney, according to the exit polls, overwhelmingly won white evangelical Christians (79% voted for him) and white Catholics (59% voted for him).

The rise of the religiously unaffiliated has been a major recent trend. A survey by Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released this year found that the fastest-growing "religious" group in America is made up of people with no religion at all. According to the survey, 20% of adult Americans have no religious affiliation.

At an event announcing the Pew results, senior research adviser John Green said the growing political power of the unaffiliated within the Democratic Party could become similar to the power the religious right acquired in the GOP in the 1980s.

The 2012 election results have some political experts questioning whether the religious right’s influence is fading.

The Rev. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, tweeted after the election that the results show “we are witnessing a fundamental moral realignment of the country.”

Conservative evangelist Franklin Graham, CEO of Samaritan’s Purse and son of the Rev. Billy Graham, told CNN that while he doesn’t believe the movement is fading, “there is a lot of work we need to do.”

“I just think there are a lot of conservative Christians who did not vote for whatever reason,” Franklin Graham said.

Like Graham, Jones said the legalization of same-sex marriage by ballot initiative in three states last week shows that America is changing.

“For the first time tonight, same-sex marriage has been passed by popular vote in Maine and Maryland,” Jones said last week. “The historic nature of these results are hard to overstate. Given the strong support of younger Americans for same-sex marriage, it is unlikely this issue will reappear as a major national wedge issue.”

The results of the Public Religion Research Institute survey were based on 1,410 telephone interviews in both Spanish and English conducted between November 7 and Sunday. The poll's margin of error is plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

– CNN’s Dan Gilgoff contributed to this report.

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/...ed-minority-christians-propel-obamas-victory/
 
Rouzer concedes House bid after recount in North Carolina race
November 28th, 2012
10:19 PM ET

(CNN) - In the final race deemed too close to call, Republican David Rouzer conceded Wednesday after a recount in the race for North Carolina's 7th Congressional District showed incumbent Rep. Mike McIntyre won by a razor-thin margin.

"Now that the recount has been completed and the tally of votes is official, we can move forward satisfied that each vote was counted properly and accurately," Rouzer said in a statement.

"I have called Congressman McIntyre to congratulate him on a hard-fought victory, and I wish him well as he joins a new Congress that will be dealing with very difficult issues facing our country," Rouzer continued.

Last week, Rouzer called for a recount after the original margin fell below one percent. He also cited a voting machine "irregularity" in Bladen County as a reason for his recount request. The state began the recount process on Monday and finished Wednesday.

Despite facing a newly-drawn district that appeared to have been created to end his career, McIntyre showed strong signs of life in the race and ran a competitive race in the district that skews heavily Republican. He led in fundraising over Rouzer, a state senator, and kept even with ad spending by pro-Republican outside groups and the national Republican Party. Rouzer, however, stayed off the airwaves.

The contest was considered the final unresolved House race from Election Day that could make a difference in the makeup of the 113th Congress. (Another unresolved race in Louisiana will go to a runoff on December 8, but the contest is between two Republicans, guaranteeing a win for the GOP.)

McIntyre's victory gives Democrats a net gain of eight House seats from the November election, and the next Congress will consist of 234 Republicans and 201 Democrats.

– CNN's Ashley Killough, Robert Yoon and Allison Brennan contributed to this report.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.co...ouse-bid-after-recount-in-north-carolina-race
 
The electoral college votes have been officially counted:

Friday ceremony makes presidential results official
January 4th, 2013
02:12 PM ET
Posted by
CNN's Gregory Wallace

(CNN) - President Barack Obama has officially won re-election.

Vice President Joe Biden, in his capacity as president of the Senate, made the unsurprising announcement after a bit of official pomp and circumstance in Congress on Friday. The House and Senate convened a 23-minute joint legislative session Friday to perform the official task of receiving and counting the Electoral College votes.

The results were as expected.

"Barack Obama of the state of Illinois has received for president of the United States 332 votes. Mitt Romney of the state of Massachusetts has received 206 votes," Biden said. "Joseph Biden of the state of Delaware has received for vice president of the United States 332 votes. Paul Ryan of the state of Wisconsin has received 206 votes."

"This announcement of the state of the vote by the president of the Senate shall be deemed a sufficient declaration of the persons elected president and vice president of the United States, each for the term beginning on the 20th day of January 2013," he said.

The votes are typically counted on January 6, which falls this year on a Sunday, so Congress' first act Thursday included a provision to move the count to Friday.

The Senate "tellers" opened the official Certificate of Ascertainment and Certificate of Votes from the states, which are prepared by governors and submitted to the speaker of the House and president of the Senate.

Senate pages carried in mahogany boxes carrying the certificates.

The process is laid out in the Constitution, which says after the electoral votes are submitted, "the president of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted."

The process is typically ceremonial and smooth. In 1877, however, a special commission including members of the House, Senate, and Supreme Court reviewed challenged ballots, according to the House historian. That year Rutherford B. Hayes was elected president.

Source.

Inauguration Day is on January 21.
 
Photos from last night's private swearing in ceremonies:

130120124035-07-inauguration-0120-horizontal-gallery.jpg

130120124031-08-inauguration-0120-horizontal-gallery.jpg

130120105841-biden-oath-getty-horizontal-gallery.jpg
 
The coverage has started, we just saw Michelle Obama come out. - 11:42

Obama just came out and hopped in his car. - 11:44

At Capitol Hill, Obama entering building. - 11:57

The Clintons, now the Carters. - 12:01

Michelle Obama coming out towards the stage. The daughters and Jill Biden already have. - 12:17

Obama coming onstage. - 12:24

Biden's oath. - 12:48

And Obama's. - 12:53

Starting his speech. - 12:53

Speech finished - 1:12.
 
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^ Thanks Pecan.
The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir made my hair stand on end with their rendition of the Battle Hymn of the Republic.
 
obama declares war ... on reality

From here: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100199161/obama-declares-war-on-reality/

When George W Bush declared war on an abstract noun – "Terror" – he was widely and inevitably mocked by the left for his foolishness. Not to be outdone, Barack Obama has used his second inaugural address to declare war on an even more nebulous threat to the security of the world: reality, itself.

Here's how he put it in his inaugural address: (H/T Theo Spleenventer; Bishop Hill)

We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations. Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms.

The first sentence is a blatant untruth. Concerted global action so far to deal with the threat of climate change has resulted in: higher energy prices; more deaths from fuel poverty; more intrusive regulation; the destruction of rainforests and the squandering of agricultural land on biofuels; higher food prices; famine and food riots – as a result partly of the drive for biofuels; the entrenchment of corporatism and rent-seeking to the detriment of free markets; the ravaging of the countryside with ugly solar farms and even uglier wind turbines; the deaths of millions of birds and bats; the great recession. How any of this has in any way benefited either our children (who are going to find it far harder to find a job) or future generations is a complete mystery.

The second sentence is a devious combination of the junk factoid and the non sequitur.

That "overwhelming judgement of science" is a reference to the comprehensively discredited Doran survey: the one where the "97 per cent of climate scientists" turned out to consist of just 75 out of 77 climate scientists who could be bothered to reply to two silly and dubious questions.

As for the idea that "science" ever has such a thing as an "overwhelming judgement": this would be news to Galileo, Newton, Einstein and indeed all the great scientists of history, all of whom made their names by advancing theories which completely overturned the "overwhelming judgement" of their contemporaries.

It's probably true, up to a point, that "none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms". But only if you accept that everyone lives in a region susceptible to fires, drought and powerful storms, which not everyone does.

What Obama is presumably trying to slip into that weasel sentence is the notion that "science" is overwhelmingly of the view that raging fires, crippling drought and more powerful storms are increasing as a result of "climate change" (note incidentally how he's careful not to say whether or not it is man-made, thus enabling him to cover all eventualities). But if this is the case, I'd dearly love to see the evidence that this is a) anthropogenic b) controllable or c)historically unprecedented. Certainly, according to this graph at Watts Up With That?, there is nothing particular weird or alarming about recent weather activity. On an index of "Extreme Weather" in the US since 1910, last year – 2012 – ranks a very modest 54th.

Still, for all that, I applaud the President's chutzpah and ingenuity. If you want to expand the size of government as much as he obviously does, there's really no better way than to declare war on reality. Reality is a slippery foe; it has many heads – and no sooner have you cut off one than a thousand more grow in its place; it's everywhere, at all times, and there's no escaping it, meaning you have to mobilise unimaginably large resources if you are to have a hope of defeating it. Which, of course, you never will. Obama's glorious war on reality will be a war without end. Bad luck, America.

Also see: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/21/the-climate-fools-rush-in-at-the-inaguration/#comments

So, in the totalitarianism prone twisted minds of the like of the current POTUS as well as Oz's EMILY lister fabian socialist greenazi PM, it isn't "betraying our children" to basically bankrupt our nations and enslave our children to servicing debt that will last for more than a generation ?

That the kind of tyranny they are working towards jackbooting upon us all ASAP isn't "betraying our children" ?

For how much longer will you turkeys continue to vote for Christmas and think it is a good and wise thing to be doing ?

[ADIT] ... and you lot seem to be fast running out of people to pay your debts, too: http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/...ments/running_out_of_people_to_pay_our_debts/

In other news, LSCP and I visited Nimbin today (on the way to somewhere else). What a waste of tax payers money is THAT place !

regarDS
 
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