Following up on the media - It greatly exaggerated the number of battleground states. Nevada +6, Iowa +6, Minnesota +8, PA +5, Wisconsin +7. Those were not close. Also, Obama won the "toss-up" state of Colorado by more than Romney won his "lean" state of North Carolina, and Obama won the "toss-up" state of Virginia by as much as Romney won NC. So the media coverage of those states was biased in favor of Republican projections. As was the notion that the popular vote being a coin flip. Obama won by a modest but solid 2.2 points. The only areas where the coverage fairly stated Republican chances was in Ohio being close, and in Florida being neck and neck. So let's be clear for the record. The "liberal" media sold the Republican viewpoint. It was not accurate and unbiased pre-election coverage.
I don't totally disagree with you, but in hindsight I'm not sure some of those states were considered that secure - and I'm not sure I really mind erring on the side of who knows. Way too much focusing on polls and who will win, in my opinion. I think we may need popular vote to make it a whole lot more uncertain.
Losers: Hispanics, who will spend the spend the next four years at the equivalent of a party where some creepy old drunk white dude is trying to hit on you. Man - Dick Morris throwing Christie under the bus, big time: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/11/07/dick-morris-explains-why-was-wrong-about-2012-election/
Liberal partisans were invested in this narrative. The goal is to get out the vote. The idea is that complacency could result in a point or two loss which could of flipped Florida, Virginia and Florida.
I'm not sure - I'm raising the question of whether it would be better if we didn't know with such certainty and if success weren't tied so closely to one or two states - whether we'd all do better about participating and being engaged in the process and the actual issues. When it's about one or two states, for most of us it becomes a football game where we are just cheering our guys strategy in certain markets as opposed to what he/she thinks is best for the country.
I don't much care (I'm too relieved and, frankly, operating on too few hours sleep), but has the 'unskewed polls contingent' (Quayle et al) made any appearances on these boards in the last 24 hours?
They're busy getting orders on how to start a "rich people throw a temper tantrum on the stock market" thread.
A byproduct of this is that Ohio wasn't as critical as everyone (including Nate Silver) seemed to think. Two of Obama's other alternatives both turned out to be more comfortable, Colorado and Virginia.
An added loser, then: the arts. One of the Koch brothers ponies up big for classical music, opera, and dance. Would've better spent his money there, IMO.
As a slightly related question, which candidate's policies would make it easier to write off the losses from owning a moneypit soccer team?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/07/brian-williams-donald-trump_n_2087878.html “Donald Trump, who has driven well past the last exit to relevance and peered into something closer to irresponsible here, is tweeting tonight,”
To be fair - I don't think that was Nate's position: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/27/arizona-is-probably-not-a-swing-state/
That link is from back in April. More recently, he was saying things like Oct 23: "The supposition that Ohio is the most important state in presidential elections is not always true ... But this year, all the clichés about Ohio are true." Nov 1: "The argument we’re making [for Obama being ahead] is exceedingly simple. Here it is: Obama’s ahead in Ohio."
Losers - The American people. Not because of the result yesterday, but because of what was discussed in the campaign, or more precisely what wasn't discussed and is now the new consensus. It's scary. I will save that for later. Winners - Gay marriage (4-0) and drug legalization (2-1). So, that's something. Sorta Winner - Gary Johnson. He got 1.0% of the popular vote, the most by a Libertarian in quite a while. Expect to see him again in 2016, though without the benefit of being in a couple Republican debates.
This might be the first and last time I'm saying this, but I can cosign this post, at least until you get to whatever you're saving for later.