Fish for Friday

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The last word? I was thinking the graphic's conclusion myself. [personal communication]

Who was suppressing the vote? "Karl Rove on why Romney lost: Obama was 'suppressing the vote'," by Mark Trumbull, Christian Science Monitor, November 9. Republican leaders across the country discourage voter turnout by reducing the number of days of early voting and by trying to implement draconian voter identification statutes straight out of the Jim Crow era playbook, Romney runs dishonest last-minute ads about Obama sending auto workers jobs to China, and Karl Rove blames Obama for suppressing the vote? [personal communication]

Sorry...but had to give Rove another kick: "With Millions Spent, GOP 'Investors' Saw Little Return Election Night," by Peter Overby, NPR News. November 12. Republican strategy for a comeback: We lost every segment of the vote except for the most conservative, and the conservative vote is a minority in decline, but if we can be even more conservative next time, we can win. Unfortunately for them, when counting votes, less is not more: "Who Gets the Blame for the Romney Loss? The Tea Party Has a Theory," Ken Rudin, NPR Political Junkie, November 12. [personal communication; excerpt:]

According to leaders of the Tea Party and others on the right, the reason why the GOP suffered on Nov. 6 is because Romney was too moderate.
    In a Washington news conference the day after the election, longtime conservative activist Richard Viguerie argued that Romney had no core conservative principles, and flatly stated, "The battle to take over the Republican Party begins today."
    The Los Angeles Times' Robin Abcarian writes that Viguerie called for the resignation of the entire GOP leadership for its "epic election failure of 2012." He singled out RNC chair Reince Priebus, House Speaker John Boehner, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. And that wasn't all:

"In any logical universe," Viguerie said, "establishment Republican consultants such as Karl Rove, Ed Gillespie, and Romney campaign senior advisors Stuart Stevens and Neil Newhouse would never be hired to run or consult on a national campaign again and no one would give a dime to their ineffective 'super PACs.'"

Frank Rich post-election thoughts: "Fantasyland: Denial has poisoned the GOP and threatens the rest of the country too," New York Magazine, November 9. [personal communication; excerpts:]

Mitt Romney...raised Truthiness to a level of chutzpah beyond Stephen Colbert’s fertile imagination, and on the grandest scale. That a presidential hopeful so cavalierly mendacious could get so close to the White House, winning some 48 percent of the popular vote, is no small accomplishment...A slicker liar could have won, and still might.
    ...The Republican faithful at strata both low and high, from Rush’s dittoheads to the think-tank-affiliated intellectuals, have long since stopped acknowledging any empirical evidence that disputes their insular worldview, no matter how grounded that evidence might be in (God forbid) science or any other verifiable reality, like, say, Census reports or elementary mathematics....
    Daniel Patrick Moynihan might be surprised to learn that he is now remembered most for his oft-repeated maxim that “everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” Yet today most Americans do see themselves as entitled to their own facts, with one of our two major political parties setting a powerful example. For all the hand-wringing about Washington’s chronic dysfunction and lack of bipartisanship, it may be the wholesale denial of reality by the opposition and its fellow travelers that is the biggest obstacle to our country moving forward under a much-empowered Barack Obama in his second term. If truth can’t command a mandate, no one can.

Check out the Africa mom insert in "Election Day's Biggest Loser," by Matthew Mosk on ABC News, November 8.
    Someday, in the New New Testament, maybe it will be the mythical Barack & Mitt instead of Cain & Abel. [personal communication; here's the insert:]



Something to ponder. "Thoughts on the 2012 Vote," by Richard Kline, November 9 [personal communication; excerpts:]

This is the first time in American history that all of the rural vote was committed to a single party....
     ...Women, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, those of most and least education, and union workers overwhelmingly voted Democrat...Those rather diverse constituencies are offered NOTHING by the Republican Party in this generation, and by default voted the party which might offer them something; now, in the recent past, and for the foreseeable future....Rural, older, and white, or rural, white, and evangelical...on the whole want nothing to do with those who are voting for the Democrats, and consequently have collected in a different party....    Party affiliation for rural and exurban whites eroded after the Civil Rights era however...Rural whites were NOT going to appear in public with the Democratic constituency, so they have lodged themselves firmly in the Republican Party, which they now dominate at the local and organizing level: it is their party.—But too late! Due to declining demographics, this white, nativist, rural constituency may still be a plurality, but it is now too small to decide elections on its own, even with massive turnout. This is what we see in 2012, and the real lesson of this electoral cycle....
    ...Rural Red is demographically in decline, a process which appears irreversible, though it may have leveled off economically. The absolute share of the electorate they represent will only decease from here. That said, they are quite large enough to a) completely operate one of our two permitted political parties, and b) prevent any other faction from governing effectively.
    ...Urban Blue needs to sit down and have a long conversation amongst itself regarding how they are going to govern...Urban Blue have a narrow, slow-growing but reliable minority, but share a country with a large population which patently dislikes them and isn’t about to cooperate...Urban Blue hasn’t decided to fight back but rather has voted and programmatically proceeded in a defensive manner to this point. Red is offensive but short of the votes to rule while Blue is defensive and has diversity rather than purpose....

If Kline's analysis is correct, it's very bad news for Rural Red. They are demographically doomed. With each election cycle, their power to elect their candidate will grow weaker. Logically, then, the Republicans should abandon them in favor of a coalition that can put Republicans into office. So Kline is in effect predicting that the Republicans will gradually move leftward. This seems inevitable no matter what premises you begin with. They can't remain where they are, and there's no room left on the right. [personal communication]

Mug shot of Jerramy Stevens

I came across the article "Convicted of assault and accused of rape, star player received raft of second chances" (in The Seattle Times, January 27, 2008) because I was digging a little deeper on the Hope Solo/Stevens rumble [Jerramy Stevens allegedly assaulted Hope Solo one day before they were married]. When I read stuff like this I wonder if the radicals are onto something when they say organized sports should be banned for those beyond high school age. It is amazing to think how many lives were ruined, and how many people were lucky not to have been killed, from all the enabling and "over-understanding" of Stevens. If someone multiplied out the damage from all cases such as this and subtracted that number from the profits generated by college and pro sports, it would be interesting to find out which number would be higher. Btw, did you know the NFL is a non-profit organization? [personal communication]

I wrote a somewhat surly comment following a New York Times opinion column last night. Another participant asserted that Righties demonize Lefties, but not vice versa. This in the middle of a stream of comments most of which were precisely demonizing Righties. Not that they haven’t demons among them....[personal communication]

Limerick of the Week:

Shall I tell you of my friend Amir?
His dazzling brain has no peer;
    But quite in defiance
    Of his genius for science,
He's made Goldman Sachs his career.