This morning, Vice President Joe Biden voted in Delaware, and was asked if this is the last time he will be on an election ballot.
Biden made it clear that in no way was this the last time!
So the Presidential Campaign of 2016 has begun, even before we count the ballots of the Presidential Election of 2012!
Such is politics in America, a never ending game that never escapes us, just like sports, always there, always entertaining!
Barack Obama’s rise to the Presidency began in Iowa on January 3, 2008, when he won the Iowa Caucuses.
Now, last night, November 5, he gave his last campaign speech in Des Moines, Iowa, with a tear in his eyes, as his final campaign ended, and he left it up to the American people as to whether he would serve a second term in the White House.
It has been a long five years from then to now!
Let’s hope the American people give Obama a lease on the White House for a second term!
Anyone who studies and follows American politics knows the names of Nate Silver, who writes the 538 blog for the New York Times, and Michael Barone, who is a conservative pundit for Fox News Channel, and the principal author of the authoritative work, THE ALMANAC OF AMERICAN POLITICS.
The two men totally disagree on the results of today’s Presidential election, so much so that it is disturbing, because, obviously, one is totally wrong!
Silver is 34 years old, considered a political genius by many, and correctly predicted the Presidential Election Of 2008 and every Senate race, and uses statistical methods to decide what is going on politically, and his last assessment last night was that Barack Obama had a 91.6 percent chance of winning the Electoral College, with a margin of 315-223.
Michael Barone, who is twice Silver’s age (68), and whose publication mentioned above has been regarded as the best single volume book every two years on the Presidential election, Congressional elections, and state gubernatorial elections–a literal gold mine of information on the 50 states and the national government— and a series that the author has had since the first publication forty years ago in 1972, says Mitt Romney will win the Electoral College by 315-223.
Notice that–the EXACT same electoral vote total–one by a man half the age of the second man—and both considered “experts”!
How can both be correct? The answer is that they cannot both be correct, so besides the results tonight and tomorrow morning, we are witnessing the battle of the “Experts”–and it will be interesting to see whether Silver or Barone is correct!
A complete list of accomplishments of President Barack Obama in his first term is much too lengthy to list here, but here is a shortened list of what he has meant for America.
Anyone who has not yet voted, and is still undecided, will, hopefully, see this entry tonight or early tomorrow, and use it as a justification to back the 44th President for another term.
This will be my last post or entry before voting starts at midnight today in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire.
Obama kept us out of a second Great Depression.
Obama passed health care reform, the most important reform since Medicare and Social Security.
Obama promoted an economic stimulus program which saved many jobs of public service workers and started economic revival.
Obama saved America’s auto industry.
Obama ended Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell against gays in the military.
Obama promoted sweeping financial industry reform.
Obama greatly improved benefits for veterans in our military.
Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act for women.
Obama presided over the creation of over 5 million private sector jobs in his first term.
Obama brought about tax cuts for 3.5 million small businesses.
Obama promoted tax cuts for the middle class, in their weekly paychecks.
Obama appointed two women to the Supreme Court.
Obama signed the legislation creating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Obama reformed the student loan program, and improved Pell Grants for higher education.
Obama extended unemployment benefits to those out of work for longer periods of time.
Obama promoted embryonic stem research on disease prevention and cures.
Obama invested funding in clean energy and scientific research.
Obama signed a bill to provide health care to 11 million children.
Obama provided health care coverage to age 26, and arranged for coverage of pre-existing medical conditions for people of any age.
Obama cut prescription drug costs for senior citizens by 50 percent.
Obama promoted legislation and executive orders to improve the environment.
Obama supported gay marriage rights, and the passage of hate crimes laws on basis of sexual orientation.
Obama repaired our international image with our allies, and respect from our rivals in the world.
Obama signed nuclear arms reduction agreement with Russia.
Obama ended the war in Iraq.
Obama has set a 2014 deadline for withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Obama helped to liberate Libya from Moammar Gaddafi’s dictatorship.
Obama gave IRON DOME missile system to Israel to protect against attacks.
Obama has been willing to defend us against terrorist attacks in America and overseas.
Obama was able to eliminate Osama Bin Laden and other Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists.
Obama was able to save a ship crew from Somali pirates.
No one is saying that everything is perfectly fine in America, but great progress has been made, and we are not about to repeal the many wonderful reforms and policies that Barack Obama has accomplished, more than any President in domestic affairs since Lyndon B. Johnson, and the greater respect and popularity in foreign affairs that we had accomplished under Bill Clinton, but was lost under George W. Bush!
It is still a fact that Obama has had to deal with the greatest set of crises since Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt, but with a much large nation, population wise, than these top two Presidents had to consider in making policy!
Commentary on the election results will follow, once we know what the results are for Congress and the Presidency! Make sure you vote tomorrow, if you have not yet done so!
Tomorrow, Barack Obama will be elected to his second term as President of the United States, and all of the conspiracy theories and hate mongering that has gone on since he first announced for President in 2007 up to now will have failed to remove him from the Presidency.
At this time, it seems appropriate to review all of the terrible attacks and character assassination that has been visited on the 44th President.
Here goes, in no special order:
Obama is a secret Muslim and was sworn into office on the Koran.
Obama is in league with the Muslim Brotherhood in the Middle East.
Obama has encouraged a takeover of the nation by Muslims.
Obama has decorated the Oval Office in Mideast style.
Obama is being funded by a Saudi prince.
Obama is secretly gay and married a Pakistani roommate in college.
Obama has had a mistress, who Michelle exiled in anger.
Obama never wrote his own love letters.
Obama went to Mars as a teen.
Obama is the anti Christ.
Obama is a lizard in the image of a human.
Obama has brainwashed all of us, but needs a teleprompter to do so.
Obama’s campaign was funded by drug money.
Obama was born in Kenya.
Obama has a fake birth certificate.
Obama speaks Arabic.
Obama’s real dad was Malcolm X or Frank M. Davis
Obama was a Black Panther.
Obama’s mother and father were Communists.
Billy Ayers wrote the Obama Memoirs.
Obama wants to re-educate your kids in Socialist ideas.
Obama removed the American flag from Air Force One.
Obama will not say the Pledge of Allegiance.
Obama is coming for your guns, gold, your retirement funds and your property.
Obama was behind the BP Oil Spill, the Aurora, Colorado shootings, and Hurricane Sandy..
Obama faked Osama Bin Laden’s death.
Obama had conservative activist Andrew Breitbart killed, as well as others who oppose him.
Obama caused the Great Recession of 2008.
Obama has robbed the rich to help the poor.
Obama’s health care plan promotes death panels.
Obama is the most radical, lawless President in American history.
Are these 31 plus ideas enough craziness, stupidity, and total insanity?
NO President, even Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Richard Nixon or George W. Bush, has had such a high level of mistreatment, disrespect, and faced such wild accusations without merit, that this decent man has had to endure!
But his haters had better get used to the fact that he will be in office for another four years, and will go down as a path breaking President, one of the best in American history, who endured through “thick and thin” to deal with challenges unmatched, except for Lincoln and FDR, but with both having a MUCH smaller population to have to protect and defend from domestic and foreign threats!
The New York Times and Nate Silver today list 512 Paths to the White House for Barack Obama, and 76 Paths to the White House for Mitt Romney in graph form, using different combinations of “swing” or “battleground” states to demonstrate the various paths.
Leave it to Nate SIlver, the most brilliant political statistician in America, who continues to say that Obama has an 85 percent chance of winning a second term, while Romney has a 15 percent chance of winning the White House.
Ultimately, in about 36-48 hours, we should know whether Nate Silver remains the “genius”, or is indeed a “paper tiger”!
Bet on Nate Silver would be this author’s advice!
It is clear that this Presidential Election of 2012 will see clear-cut splits in the population, unseen in modern history.
The following groups will clearly vote a majority (fifty percent plus one) for Barack Obama and Joe Biden:
Men–More Educated
Women-More Educated, Single
African Americans
Hispanics-Latinos
Asian Americans
Native Americans
Young People under 34
Middle Aged People 35-54
Jews–Less Religious
Catholics–Less Religious
Secular Voters
Labor
Gays and Lesbians
Veterans–Young and Middle Age
College Graduates
Intellectuals
Urban Residents
Suburban Voters
Civil Libertarians
Environmentalists
Northeast and New England
Midwest Except Indiana and Missouri
Mountain States Of Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico
Pacific Coast and Hawaii
Who will clearly vote in a majority for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan?
Whites–less educated, rural, men and women
Men–less educated and particularly from South
Women–less educated, married, more religious, rural
Wealthy–top two percent
Corporate World
Senior Citizens Who Are White and Christian
Voters 55-64 Who Are White and Christian
Religious Voters, Christian and Jewish
Cuban Americans
Rural Voters
Those With Less Than A Four Year College Degree
Southern States, except Florida and Virginia
Great Plains States
Portions of Midwest and Mountain States, and Alaska
White Working Class in South and Midwest
Tea Party Movement supporters
Conspiracy Theory Believers
“Racial Problem” Voters
High School Graduates or Dropouts
This represents the greatest divisiveness of our nation in probably the past hundred and forty years, and does not bode well for future cooperation in dealing with national problems, both domestic and foreign. Conflict, rather than consensus, is a very disturbing trend in our society!
This author has spent a lot of time and effort in studying, analyzing, evaluating the Presidential Election contest of 2012, and is now ready to project the final result.
Barack Obama has been long predicted to win at least 237 electoral votes to Mitt Romney’s 191 electoral votes, with nine states in play as “swing” or “battleground” states, all of which Obama won in 2008.
The prediction that the author wishes to make is that Obama will win ALL of the nine competitive states, except North Carolina, giving him 332 electoral votes to Romney’s 206 electoral votes!
So Obama will win New Hampshire, Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, Nevada, and Colorado, with a total of 95 electoral votes, added to the 237, making the final total of 332 electoral votes.
Romney, by winning the 15 electoral votes of North Carolina, will go from 191 to 206 in the final total of electoral votes.
It also means that Obama will have won every state he won in 2008, except Indiana and North Carolina, and a total of 26 states and the District of Columbia. Romney will win 24 states.
Also, expect that the popular vote will be close in North Carolina, Indiana, Missouri, Arizona, Georgia, and Montana, with Romney winning, but with hints that Democrats will have a grand opportunity to win those states in 2016 and beyond, with the growing Hispanic-Latino vote. The first hint will be the likely victories for the Senate of Democrats Joe Donnelly in Indiana, Claire McCaskill in Missouri, Jon Tester in Montana, and Richard Carmona in Arizona.
Additionally, Obama should win about 52 percent of the vote to 47 percent of the vote for Romney, with Gary Johnson and other third party candidates winning slightly more than one percent of the total vote.
This means Obama will have won by a slightly smaller percentage of the popular vote and fewer electoral votes, but with the factor of reapportionment of seats due to the Census of 2010 changing downward many of the Frost Belt states which support Barack Obama, plus the loss of North Carolina and Indiana from 2008.
Still, overall, a very impressive performance can be expected!
Comments on this projection of the results are welcome!
Mitt Romney’s campaign is rapidly imploding, and Romney’s spokesman is now criticizing New Jersey Governor Chris Christie for praising President Barack Obama for his quick response to Hurricane Sandy, including touring the area of devastation with Christie.
Rupert Murdoch and other conservatives are already laying the base for blaming Romney’s defeat on Christie, and Romney aides are claiming that Christie is annoyed that he was bypassed for Vice President.
This whole event just demonstrates further how Romney is not fit to be our President, since he does not give a damn for the “47 percent”, and for the Northeast, since he knows he will not be gaining their electoral support on Tuesday. The fact that Christie is doing what he needs to do for his state does not seem to cross Romney’s selfish, mean spirited personality, but it is clear that he is not the proper person to lead us into the future!
This author’s prediction on the House of Representatives elections is much more difficult, since trying to follow the race in 435 Congressional districts is overwhelming.
But it seems clear that the Republican Party will keep control, as with the gain of the Governorship and state legislative control in many states in 2010, the Republicans had the edge in reapportionment of district lines in the House.
Having said that, the discontent with the Tea Party Movement control of the GOP growing, it seems likely that the Democrats will gain seats, about 15, and make the next House competition in 2014 give them the opportunity for takeover.
Needing a minimum of 25 seats this time, the Democrats will gain, maybe, 60 percent of that, with 15, putting them within reach to gain control with a 10 seat gain two years from now.
The real battle for now will be whether Speaker John Boehner stays, or Eric Cantor mounts a “coup”, and whether Nancy Pelosi remains Minority Leader, or loses it to Minority Whip Steny Hoyer!