Month: November 2011

A Further Elaboration On An Obama Electoral College Victory In 2012

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Barack Obama will win the 2012 Presidential Election in the Electoral College, no matter how one wishes to interpret it!

Let the following facts explain that reality.

Barack Obama will win the following states for certain:

Maine-4
Vermont-3
Massachusetts–11
Connecticut–7
Rhode Island–4
New York–29
New Jersey–14
Delaware–3
Maryland–10
District of Columbia–3
Illinois–20
Washington–12
Oregon–7
California–55
Hawaii–4

This adds up to 186 electoral votes, 84 shy of the 270 needed.

Obama has a good chance of wining at least some of the battleground states that he won in 2008, including New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, New Mexico, Nevada, and Colorado. Also, some think he could win Georgia with the growing Hispanic vote there. Also, Missouri is a possible win, only lost in 2008 by a few thousand votes.

With only 84 electoral votes needed to reach 270, can any sane individual believe Obama will not win enough electoral votes from 16 potential states with 198 electoral votes?

He is most likely to win Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, New Mexico, Nevada, and Colorado–a total of 56 electoral votes, leaving him 28 electoral votes short of 270.

The betting is good that Obama would win at least one major battleground state, such as Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina or Florida at the least–with Pennsylvania and Ohio together, Virginia and North Carolina together, and Florida separately capable by themselves in giving him enough electoral votes to win 270 electoral votes. Altogether, they have 95 electoral votes.

That leaves New Hampshire, Iowa, Indiana as more doubtful, and Georgia and Missouri on the outside looking in, both a possibility but more difficult to accomplish for Obama–all together only having 47 electoral votes.

Of course, if by some miracle, Obama was to win all of the above states–30 plus the District of Columbia, he would have won two more states (Georgia and Missouri) and a total of 384 electoral votes as compared to 365 in 2008!

The Electoral College Reality In 2012–Eleven States Can Win The Presidency Theoretically

Ronald 1 Comment

As a result of changes in the Electoral College, due to population growth, in theory eleven states, if won by one candidate for the Presidency, can determine the election, no matter what the popular vote totals.

The eleven largest states add up to exactly the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House lease for the next four years.

In order, these states are:

California 55
Texas 38
New York 29
Florida 29
Pennsylvania 20
Illinois 20
Ohio 18
Michigan 16
Georgia 16
North Carolina 15
New Jersey 14

Therefore, 3 Northeastern states, 3 Midwestern states, 4 Southern states, and one Western state make up enough electoral votes to determine the winner.

Of course, no one can expect in this or any election that either candidate will win ALL of these states, but at this point a year before the election, only Texas seems out of reach for Barack Obama.

The states that seem certain for him would include: California, New York, Illinois and New Jersey.

The states that he won in 2008 that are “battleground” states in 2012 are Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and North Carolina.

Georgia along with Texas went to John McCain in 2008, but Georgia, with its growing Hispanic population, could go to Obama in a close race, although Texas still seems a few elections away before the Hispanic vote can tip the state “blue”

Of course, other states NOT in the top eleven will be important, including Virginia (13), Wisconsin (10), Minnesota (10), Indiana (11), Missouri (10), and Washington (12), all of which Obama won in 2008, except for the very close election in Missouri.

So out of all the states mentioned above, Obama ONLY lost Texas, Georgia, and Missouri (closely).

So Obama ONLY lost three of the top 17 states, with a 2012 total of 64 electoral votes, in 2008

If Obama wins all of the states he has won before, he would have a total of 272 electoral votes, and this does NOT include states such as Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maryland, Delaware, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, and Hawaii, all of which he won in 2008!

Any way one looks at it, Barack Obama has a great electoral vote advantage for 2012, one year before the election, and it is hard to imagine him losing enough states to a divided, confused Republican Party that has no strong, knowledgeable, principled leader found in any one person running for the nomination!

The Republican Party: Fiscal Discipline And National Security–Foreign Policy Expertise Reputation Replaced By Incompetency And Ignorance!

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The Republican Party used to be the party of Fiscal Discipline, until George W. Bush and the Republican Congress spent wildly on the War on Terror and a Prescription Drug Plan without raising taxes, and in fact, cut them dramatically on the wealthy, causing the economic crisis of the Great Recession as a result!

The Republican Party used to be the party of National Security–Foreign Policy Expertise, the party of Richard Nixon and George H. W. Bush, until Sarah Palin came along as a Vice Presidential choice in 2008, and then Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain came along, all three of them displaying total ignorance of the subject, and Rick Perry not much better!

To believe that the Republican Party could have serious challengers for the Presidency who have no clue on foreign policy or economic matters is something that promotes speechlessness!

Sarah Palin showed plenty enough ignorance, and there was a great sigh of relief when she decided finally not to run for President.

But instead, we have Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain, who seem in many ways, even worse than Sarah Palin.

We also have Rick Perry, who seems even worse than George W. Bush.

What has happened to the party that used to be respectable and knowledgeable, the party of Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Bob Dole, George H. W. Bush, John McCain, and yes, even Ronald Reagan?

The Republican Party is in mourning for itself among its Establishment, and the nation should be in mourning as to how far downhill the party has gone!

A major political party with a glorious history in many ways has become an embarrassment to itself, and the nation suffers as a result!

A Triumph For The “Occupy Wall Street” Movement: Bank Of America Cancels $5 Debit Card Fee

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People have speculated that the “Occupy Wall Street” movement, which has spread all over the nation and overseas, was an exercise in futility, but now those involved in drawing attention to the greed and selfishness of the top one percent, particularly in the form of banks and other financial firms, have won a major victory!

Bank of America had announced a plan for a $5 monthly debit fee on its customers, which had caused an outrage and plans for millions of Americans, in theory, to withdraw their accounts from BOA and other big banks, including Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, and Citibank. The other banks had announced that they would not charge a similar fee, and now Bank of America has announced it is giving up the idea of a monthly fee.

This shows that the American people, if they organize, can have an effect, and this must be just the beginning, with the campaign for greater regulation and higher taxation of wealth the ultimate goal, and the insistence that politicians must side with the 99 percent, not the one percent which have become outrageously dominant and wealthy at the expense of the rest of the American population!

So this is a moment to applaud, but not the time to rest on laurels!

MS Magazine Hits 40! The Great Impact Of The Feminist Movement

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It is hard to believe that it has been 40 years, two generations, since MS Magazine was started by the founders of the National Organization For Women, Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan.

How much the role and life of women has changed in those 40 years!

Not only are a majority of college students now female, but also that is true in medical and law schools and other professions.

Women have come to be an important influence in Congress, in both the House of Representatives and US Senate, and we have had women running for Vice President and President, and ending up as top presidential advisers. Also, women have occupied the governorship of many states and been major factors in state legislatures.

Women have ended up on the Supreme Court and other federal and state courts, and they have reached the pinnacle of power in many corporations as Chief Executive Officer.

Women have become a great success story in so many other ways, and the treatment of women in social situations has also undergone dramatic change.

Women have definitely been “liberated” in ways no one could have believed forty years ago, and they have become a model of what should be happening in much of Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America, where there is still much oppression of women, in some cases shockingly so!

Marriage and personal relationships have been transformed, changing the family structure, and the differences between men and women relating to what they are capable of doing and being, has been narrowed to the point that they can be seen as equally capable of just about anything except child bearing.

Not everyone likes what feminism has done, but it has, overall, improved America for the better!

The Anti Romney Campaign In The Republican Party Faltering: From Trump To Bachmann To Perry To Cain And Beyond

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It is very clear to anyone with a political sense that the Republican Party right wing does not wish to see Mitt Romney become President, anymore than they wanted John McCain in 2008.

Both McCain and Romney have been seen as “next in line”, which is exactly why the conservatives in the party hated McCain and now Romney.

The Anti Romney movement has gone from Donald Trump to Michele Bachmann to Rick Perry to Herman Cain, and all have been found wanting in their abilities, their record, and often even their sanity!

The past few days have been a great time for Mitt Romney, with the collapse of Rick Perry and Herman Cain.

Perry put on a weird performance at a speech Friday night in New Hampshire, coming across as possibly drunk or on some kind of prescription pills, but his odd way of acting will certainly harm his campaign, which already is in its death throes by any reasonable standard.

Herman Cain is having problems with financial irregularities and sexual harassment charges, and seems unable to keep a straight story, or even seem aware of anything going on in his past or in his campaign, being a very undisciplined man.

This all benefits Romney, and also allows Barack Obama’s campaign to focus on Romney and his constant changes in position on every issue imaginable. While Romney may look presidential, and on paper is much better qualified than anyone the conservatives want, he will have major trouble in the upcoming campaign because, as David Plouffe, the campaign manager for the President says, if Romney could find a way to say the grass is blue and the sky is green, he would do it!

With the reality that Romney comes across as a fake conservative, much like McCain in 2008, the odds are that many conservatives will refuse to back him if he is the nominee, and will stay home, or look for a third party vehicle. But that would only help President Obama, leading to a divided vote among Republicans.

And then, the evangelicals might not back Romney on religious grounds, as he is a Mormon, and the only other reasonable candidate, Jon Huntsman, also a Mormon, would not be able to gain their backing for the same reason, and would be seen also as insufficiently conservative.

So it is clear many mainstream Republicans see the defeat of Obama as receding every day as their party goes through the disaster of a Tea Party Movement, evangelical Christian, dominantly Southern control of their party, which guarantees its defeat in 2012!