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Election Coverage 11-6-12

What I’ll do here is give you links to the networks coverage and updates throughout the day.

If you come across something of interest from your neck of the woods, share it with the rest of us.

YouTubePolitics has a page with running updates from several sources.

WallStreetJournal is here.

CBS coverage is here.

CNN has it here.

FoxNews is here

PBS has it here.

NPR is here as well.

ABC has a live stream here.

And lastly, this one from MSNBC, purely for comedic value, especially if Obama loses.

🙂

NOW GO VOTE!

UPDATE 1

They’re baaaack!

FoxNews has video of the New Black Panther Party threatening monitoring the same polling place as last time. Eric Holder is unavailable for comment.

UPDATE 2

More funny business in Philadelphia

From the WashingtonExaminer

“Court-appointed Republican poll inspectors are being forcibly removed from voting stations in some Philadelphia wards and replaced in some cases by Democratic inspectors and even members of the Black Panthers, according to GOP officials.

Secrets just received this memo from GOP officials:

The Philadelphia GOP is reporting that court appointed Minority (read GOP) Inspectors are being thrown out of polling locations in several Wards.

These Inspectors are election officials – again, court appointed — and are reportedly being thrown out by the Head Judges of Elections (these Judges are elected Democrats) and being replaced by Democrats.”

Also, from FoxNews

“A Pennsylvania judge is issuing an order to reinstate Republican election  officials across Philadelphia who allegedly were ejected or refused entry by  on-site Democratic voting chief judges, GOP officials tell Fox News.

One Republican official claimed that “just under 70” Republican election  officials were blocked from Philadelphia polling sites Tuesday morning by  Democrats on site. One of them, the official claimed, “was shoved out of the  polling place.””

Twitchy has more.

UPDATE 3

From DetroitNews, now THAT is dedication. Coming back from the dead to vote, is usually a bad thing. But not in this case.

“”I was filling out the form as were an elderly couple sitting at a nearby  table,” said Houston on Tuesday. “His wife, who was helping him fill out the  ballot, asked him a couple of questions but he didn’t respond. She screamed for  help and I went over to see what I could do.”

Houston laid the victim on the floor and went to work.

“He was dead,” Houston said. “He had no heartbeat and he wasn’t breathing. I  started CPR, and after a few minutes, he revived and started breathing again. He  knew his name and his wife’s name.”

What happened next astounded Houston and the victim’s wife.

“The first question he asked was ‘Did I vote?'”

Voting machine shenanigans? From CBS

“A video posted on YouTube at a Pennsylvania polling station allegedly shows an electronic voting machine changing a man’s vote from President Barack Obama to Mitt Romney.

The video, published by “centralpavote,” shows the man pushing the Obama tab on the Perry County machine, but highlighting Romney.”

And another from ForeignPolicy.com I’m amazed too.

“It’s very difficult to transfer this system as it is to any other country. This system is built according to trust and this trust needs a lot of procedures and a lot of education for other countries to adopt it,” Elabbar said.

The most often noted difference between American elections among the visitors was that in most U.S. states, voters need no identification. Voters can also vote by mail, sometimes online, and there’s often no way to know if one person has voted several times under different names, unlike in some Arab countries, where voters ink their fingers when casting their ballots.”

UPDATE 4

Here’s a link shared by Debra for NPR’s BigBoard

And another from Peter L for World Mag’s results

UPDATE 6

From FoxNews

“ROMNEY WINS: AL, AR, GA, IN, KY, KS, LA, MS, NE, ND, OK, SC, SD,
TN, TX,WV…
OBAMA WINS: CT, DC, DE, IL, MA, ME, MD, MI, NJ, NY, RI, VT,
WY…

UPDATE 7

FoxNews has called Ohio, and the election, for Pres. Obama

97 thoughts on “Election Coverage 11-6-12”

  1. Karl Rove, a fellow not given to rash prediction, in an article today, Election 2012: State of the Race has Romney winning the election. He writes as follows:

    Without twelve toss up states (MN, NV, CO, IA, WI, MI, OH, PA, NH, VA, NC, AND FL), Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are tied at 191 each. I predict Mr. Romney will win FL (29), NC (15), VA (13), NH (4), OH (18), IA (6), CO (9) and Mr. Obama will get MN (10), NV (6), WI (10), MI (16), PA (20). This brings Mr. Romney to 285 Electoral College votes and Mr. Obama to 253. These are just my base predictions and I still think several of these states are too close to call. For example, while I put them in Mr. Obama’s column, I still believe NV, WI, and PA are in play and very winnable for Mr. Romney. If crowds at his recent stops in these states are any indication of his supporters’ enthusiasm, Mr. Romney will likely be able to claim victory in these states as well.

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  6. Back under that blanket, Made it Man. 🙂

    It’s so quiet here at work — after all this build-up, it’s like literally being in the eye of a storm. Waiting. Waiting … I guess we will start seeing results from back east by around 4 p.m. Pacific Time. There’s been a suggestion (but it probably won’t be adhered to) that there be no gloating in the office tomorrow, whoever wins.

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  10. I voted before work, no line but they did seem to be busy.

    From Politico:

    “The earliest the race might be called is likely 11 p.m., when polls close on the West Coast. By then, networks and newspapers may be able to project winners in the Mid-Atlantic and Midwestern battlegrounds that will tip the Electoral College to Obama or Romney.

    “In the case of an extremely close outcome, a call could come much later than that. Early expectations are for high turnout across the country, with anecdotal indications of long lines at swing-state polling places.”

    Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1112/83420.html#ixzz2BTrenRaq

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  13. As for me, I’m going to bed. When I get up in the morning it will be about 1am on the east coast. Maybe they’ll know something by then. Night all, happy election watching!

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  19. We voted before dinner, though it took a bit longer than we expected. I dropped my husband off at the polling place then went to park the car. By the time I got to the building he was coming out saying we’d been reassigned to another precinct, and had to go to a different polling place.

    I did remember, from checking the precinct map, that there was this funny little chunk of our neighborhood that had been put in another precinct. One of the borders was our street, and I assumed that the division would be with our side of the street in one precinct and the other side in the other, based on the coloring of the map. But I hadn’t been sure.

    We drove around and finally found the other polling place, waited in line, and then were told no, we were still in precinct 1. The volunteer at the first polling place hadn’t looked up our names, he just asked for the address, and I guess he assumed that both sides of the street would be in the same precinct.

    So we went back to the first polling place. I again dropped my husband off while I parked. By the time I got in he was in line at the A-K table, past the volunteer asking for addresses. I’m assuming he did not say to the volunteer the things he said about him in the car on the way back from the other polling place.

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  22. AJ- That is why Glenn Beck told everyone to believe nothing until the last poll is closed. Iowa won’t close until 9:00PM CST, which means another two hours at least.

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  23. Went to vote about 2pm. There was a line but I was told some were there because their closest voting places had waits of 2 plus hours (in AZ you can vote in any voting area of the county.) We had to wait for a little while because they had run out of paper ballots and only had two of the new touchscreen machines.

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  32. RickyWeaver, that’s nice. But ….

    This was the Republicans’ race to lose. There will be a lot of reassessment after this.

    It’s not over yet, but it seems to be headed in a blue direction; if Ohio & Florida go Obama (or just one of those, and they appear to both be leaning blue), it’s over.

    Rats. Disheartening.

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  35. Looks like the outstanding votes in Florida are from mostly heavily Democratic areas, according to CNN. I’d have more hope if a few of the other contested states had fallen Romney’s way.

    But it looks like most (all?) of them are going to Obama. And that, to me, spells a trend …

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  40. Not over yet. But if Obama wins re-election, I’d only say that people, for whatever their reason, decided to give him one more shot.

    Heaven help us, but there it is.

    GOP will continue its hold on the House. Dems will rule the Senate.

    No change. On we go. Same ol’, same ol’.

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  42. Most of my family depends on small businesses. I doubt we’ll survive 4 more years of same ol’, same ol. I’m leaning towards secession. If you look at the map we have most of the land. Seriously though, Hubby looks scared. He’s thinking this will push his boss to just give up and retire.

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  52. I mean, normally you see Alaska and Hawaii crammed in the little inset. You rarely see Alaska drawn out on a map to scale. But when you zoom out on this map, you see just how much real estate Alaska holds.

    Just wish that translated into a little more clout for the red states.

    Donna. It would appear that the American public is going to get what it deserves.

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  53. So — as one who believed the too-close-to-call poll numbers in the past week — I’m looking forward to hearing political veterans like Michael Barone & Karl Rove explain how in the world they saw some kind of a landslide in the making.

    Sigh.

    Not looking forward to going to work tomorrow — there’s already considerable gloating going on via FB.

    Well, maybe it’ll help hone our prayer life a bit more.

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  58. Well, looks like there’s some challenge, but … again, Romney still would need Florida & Colorado & Iowa. A Romney “win” is unlikely, to say the least, at this point.

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  59. Donna

    It would appear that the state polls showing 2 to 3 percent ahead were not incorrect and that the “msm” was not inflating numbers or the polls which showed higher percentages od dems to reps.

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  64. I’m up for that, Donna. Every day we wake up has a built-in reason to rejoice :–)

    …but actually, I don’t think Romney has made a concession speech yet… and I don’t think he should until he is 100% sure about those questionable states.

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  65. I just don’t get the voters I guess. The R’s expanded control of the House, the D’s still have the Senate and Presidency. What we’re doing isn’t working, and yet we just voted to keep doing the same thing. Which is basically nothing. Gridlock. More of the same.

    ?????

    What now?

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  67. I don’t know AJ. Try to make it through 4 more years, I guess, pray-pray-pray. While I went into tonight thinking it could go either way, I still held out hope that we’d be surprised (in another direction).

    How people could re-elect a president who has been so clearly (putting it kindly) ineffective, I’ll never know.

    😦

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  68. Thanks for the bright spot coming from all places, out of CA! Yes, God is good and knows what He is doing. He lifts them up and brings them down in His timing and in His way. Praise be to God and the hope we find in Him!

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  69. This sucks! Not proud of my state. Ohioans, you should be smarter. Or Americans, for that matter.

    Oh well. God is still in charge and working out everything for the good of those who love Him. Right?

    I think we probably owe an apology to the pollsters. And kudos to the Obama GOTV operation. The GOP needs to learn how to do that.

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  70. Well put JaniceG. It was easier for me 4 years ago because the writing was on the wall. I remember praying for grace on election day because I know how that one would turn out.

    This one gave me a fighting hope that has now been very quickly dashed.

    😦

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  71. I believed the pollsters — but when people like Barone, Krauthammer & Rove all called it for Romney, it did give me hope that they were seeing something we weren’t.

    I guess not.

    Arrg, and there I was laughing & almost mocking one of my colleagues for yakking up Nate Silver last night. 😦 😦 Sheesh.

    FB is pretty insufferable right now, I have to say.

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  72. Rubio/Jindal 2016, I guess. It’ll be a long four years but that sort of ticket would really be something to look forward to, if it could happen.

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  74. And Matt Y, there’s always 2014, too.

    I still think Romney was our best shot, considering the group of wanna-be’s that lined up for the primaries.

    Maybe the next generation of conservatives will be more compelling. I do think the GOP needs to take another look at immigration. It’s an issue I think the party should be more compassionate about — and I think there’s something to the analyses that says the country is increasingly becoming Latino and so this will require a more thoughtful (and I think compassionate) response.

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  76. I like the way Pat Cadell put Obama’s strategy — “Divide and conquer.”

    And so he has.

    But all is not lost.

    Reminds me of a song by Chicago (“Saturday in the Park”) that was popular when I was so heartbroken from an earlier campaign:

    “Another day in the park
    You’d think it was the Fourth of July
    Another day in the park
    You’d think it was the Fourth of July
    People dancing, really smiling
    A man playing guitar
    Singing for us all
    Will you help him change the world
    Can you dig it (yes, I can)
    And I’ve been waiting such a long time
    For today

    Slow motion riders
    Fly the colors of the day
    A bronze man still can
    Yell stories his own way
    Listen children all is not lost
    All is not lost
    Oh no, no”

    OK, I have no idea what that song was about, but I sure did like some of the lyrics.

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  77. Donna, agreed. Romney had probably the best shot of the candidates who ran. He actually managed to turn around his favorability numbers which were awful after the primaries. There were probably others out there who could’ve done better if they decided to run (Huckabee? Jindal?). But Romney ran a solid campaign. It’s just very very hard to beat a sitting President.

    This looks like 2004 in reverse: this time the incumbent is a Democrat. Both times the incumbent beat a wealthy opponent in a close race.

    This most certainly isn’t 2008. The GOP increased its share of the popular vote and it sounds like also its majority in the House. Voters didn’t choose Obama’s 09-10 agenda. Instead they chose the last two years: gridlock.

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  78. Matt, I agree — We’re pretty much back where we started.

    My former pastor posted this verse on FB: “The Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone he wishes.” Daniel 4:25

    I have to say that being a Calvinist really helps on a bad election night. 😉

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  79. Guys

    I say this with nothing but love for you — it will be allright. In four years, when you still have religious freedom and America remains a strong nation, remember it will be allright.

    Ricky

    We are one nation under God, indivisible. Blue states need the red and the Red states need the blue. We are all Americans. Watching this election the one thing that foreigners remark on is our process and how peacefully we transition and how we keep our fundamental values intact.

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  82. CB (12:37) only because of my faith do I agree it will be “alright.” Now that doesn’t mean it will be “alright” in some ways we might commonly think. We could, indeed, have some rough spots ahead. But in God’s economy, that’s exactly as it should be, whatever it is we need to go through.

    God is over all, he is the ruler of the nations. No one rules except those he ordains (though sometimes that is for our chastisement, eh?).

    Actually, Rubio/Jindal sounds pretty good to me, Matt. 😉

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  84. Matt

    If you go back to the Republican primaries, Jon Huntsman was your best shot. He’d have been good on pro-life issues and moderate on gays. Smart on foreign policy and terrific on fiscal issues. That is a conservative I could have voted for. But you all rejected him because he served our country as an Ambassador in the Obama Administration and because he wasn’t righteous enough on gays. A pity.

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  86. Ohh. The acceptance speech is on.

    I do love the mute button.

    I’m sorry, I know I should be more gracious about losing. I’ll maybe be better about it tomorrow. 😦

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  87. There actually are a number of sharp, young conservatives coming up into their prime, I suspect the party will be well served by them in the immediate and longer-range future.

    So in that sense, there is hope that 2016 will belong to one of them. And 2014 is also key.

    In the meantime, let’s pray that both sides, for a change, will try to be less partisan and work together for a change. Many of us blame Obama for being the stumbling block to that; Dems blame the Republicans.

    But let’s put aside the fault-finding and demand our leaders do better in the next few years.

    Seriously, these last 4 years have been pretty lousy, all the way around. 😦

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  88. I just checked out the really bad headlines of the day and internally asked, “God, don’t you care about us anymore?” I felt Him answer, “I do. I’ve given you heaven.”

    This is a time to keep our perspectives clear. It is a day to be joyful for where we put our hope is not in a man but in our amazing God. We can’t see all He is up to. But He has promised good to us.

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  89. Remember, we have “voted” for our Leader and He has won for all of eternity, not just a four year term that is subject to the real Leader’s plans. So as others gloat on the outside today we can gloat, internally, all the while hoping they, too, will see the Light and not be eternal losers for their blindness.

    Resting on the divine, sweet consolation of the Lord. What is better than that?

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  90. Thanks for that timeless perspective, Janice. We need to hear it and be encouraged. All is not lost; we are merely undergoing a season of refinement–which is never pleasant, however needful it may be.

    On a practical note, some of our young people may be (and actually already ARE being) forced by circumstances to re-discover self-employment. That’s a good thing. If we can go back to being a nation that creates our own small businesses and sells our own products and services, we will be better off in the long run. There is a marked difference between the mindset of those who have to sell directly to customers and those who are a cog in the corporate chain. We are being forced to make that transition.

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  91. Some thoughts:

    1. Nate Silver and most pollsters (excluding Rasmussen) are vindicated. There was no conspiracy. The polls were not cooked.

    2. For those focusing on how close the election was, consider that Romney could have won all three of the closest states (Ohio, Virginia, Florida) and he still would have lost because Obama carried Colorado, Nevada, Iowa, New Hampshire and Wisconsin.

    3. Those who projected a large Romney win (Rove, Will, Barone, Limbaugh, Beck, Pethokoukis) are exposed as either 1) not very smart, or 2) lying shills. They should be ignored as they are either incompetent or wholly untrustworthy.

    4. The white share of the vote continued to decline even after its historically low total in 2008 due to Obama’s presence on the ticket. In 2008 it was 74%; in 2012 it was 72%. And that’s with a less popular version of Obama on the ballot. This trend looks to continue.

    5. Republicans must change their platform or see their prospects for the presidency continue to dwindle. In doing so, they can afford to lose one party faithful (so long as that person doesn’t start voting Democrat) for each two voters they flip from Democrat to Republican. So, think about groups of Democratic voters who would vote Republican if not for the Republican party’s stance on {X}. Immigration is the obvious one, but there are probably some others as well.

    6. Hard-line social conservatives are still an extremely strong bloc within the Republican party and will make it very difficult for the GOP to effect any major change in its national platform (unless that change is to more even further in the conservative direction). At the national level, then, the party platform seems doomed to the status quo, which does not bode well for its future.

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  92. I’m not better about it today. If this campaign has changed one thing for me it is that I have gone from have a grudging respect for President Obama to really not liking him at all.

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  93. I didn’t pay much mind ever to the projections of Limbaugh or Beck — Barone & Will, however, have long and honorable histories in looking at and accurately assessing polling data. They definitely called this one wrong.

    Nate Silver I’ll still take with a huge grain of salt. He got lucky. 😉

    We hear this every time the GOP loses — the Republicans just need to become more like Democrats. I don’t see that as the way forward in the least.

    Obama would do well to sit down with Bill Clinton and really try to make an effort at becoming more bipartisan. He’s always struck me as arrogant — taking a “win” as an opportunity to stick it to those who disagree with him, to basically just lord it over them. “We won. Get over it” seems to be his attitude.

    Perhaps now that he’s in his final 4 years he’ll grow a little humility. I doubt we’ll see that. But one can always hope. 🙂

    Say what you will about Clinton, he understood how to work with the other side. Obama seems never to have tried.

    And again, the country remains almost evenly split. This was not a “thrashing” as one story put it. As of what I saw at the end of last night, it was a very, very close result.

    I’m sorry the GOP didn’t at least take the Senate.

    In that sense, the party did take a head blow last night. But the bench is full of a new generation of conservatives. I suspect (hope) we’ll see a much more compelling field of primary candidates as we move toward 2016.

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  94. “Nate Silver I’ll still take with a huge grain of salt. He got lucky.”

    Hard to call it luck given the eventual accuracy of his predictions. He called the popular vote at 50.8% to 48.3%. Actual result (so far): 50.4% to 48.1%.

    He correctly called every state in which he predicted a winner. (He had the odds at 50/50 in Florida, so that counts as only being half-right.)

    His expected number of senate seats for Democrats: 52.5 (including the two Dem-leaning independents). Actual result (so far): 53 seats (assuming Heitkamp and Tester don’t lose in a recount).

    “We hear this every time the GOP loses — the Republicans just need to become more like Democrats. I don’t see that as the way forward in the least.”

    I would agree that the general statement “Republicans just need to become more like Democrats” isn’t meaningful or helpful. There are some ways in which Republicans could become more like Democrats that would not be helpful. There are probably other ways, however, that would. When national sentiment turns significantly against your party on a particular issue it may behoove you to either throw in with the opposition’s view (thus erasing the opposition’s “advantage” on that issue) or, at the very least, moderate your own position.

    Most of the GOP voters who would be alienated by a leftward GOP shift are not going to vote Democrat. They’ll stay home or vote Constitution or Libertarian. So the GOP would only need to steal one vote from the Democrats for every two it loses from its own ranks.

    For instance, what if the GOP sacrificed its goal of re-balancing the tax code to favor the wealthy and focused solely on its goal of shrinking federal expenditures? It could say, “Yes, we’re going to eliminate programs X and Y that benefit the working poor, but at the same time we’re going to rejigger the tax code to lower the tax burden on the recipients of those programs even further so it ends up being a wash”. Lots of people (some of them possibly Democratic voters) could get behind a plan. Or what if the Republicans adopted the Libertarian stance that immigration is a good thing and became the “immigration party”. How many Hispanic votes would that steal from the Democrats? (Note that Obama did even *better* among Hispanics in 2012 than he did in 2008.)

    “Obama would do well to sit down with Bill Clinton and really try to make an effort at becoming more bipartisan.”

    Why? If he’s getting his legislation through without having to compromise, why compromise? Of course that’s a big “if”. It strikes me that this criticism of Obama would not be leveled against a Republican president who, after election, decided to “stick to his guns” and not make any concessions to congressional Democrats. That guy would be applauded for his *lack* of bipartisanship.

    “And again, the country remains almost evenly split. This was not a “thrashing” as one story put it. As of what I saw at the end of last night, it was a very, very close result.”

    It was close, but it wasn’t as close as 2000 or 2004. As I pointed out, the percentage of the electorate that is non-Hispanic decreased even further in 2012 and that trend seems likely to continue based purely on birth rate and immigration. Non-Hispanic whites are, by and large, not voting Republican. Obama took 90% of the black vote, 71% of the Hispanic vote and 73% of the Asian vote. That’s a problem for the GOP, which must find a way to appeal to this demographic.

    “I suspect (hope) we’ll see a much more compelling field of primary candidates as we move toward 2016.”

    It seems like a near certainty that the crop in 2016 will be better than the crop in 2012. My hunch is that nobody wanted to run against Obama and lose. Ryan would seem to be the obvious front-runner. Nobody’s going to blame him for the Romney loss.

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  96. Buddyglass: “Why? If he’s getting his legislation through without having to compromise, why compromise?”

    Because he says (again) we’re purple, remember? He’s now recommitted to unity. I heard him say that. Last night. 🙂 Really.

    Just a thought. He won’t, of course. But maybe as a good faith effort (the Repubs already are doing this in the House) it might not be a horrible idea considering the political tension.

    Then again, the spoils go to the victor. It’s probably to be expected that it’ll be lorded over us to some degree.

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  97. “Because he says (again) we’re purple, remember? He’s now recommitted to unity. I heard him say that. Last night. 🙂 Really.”

    I didn’t hear the quote you’re referring to, but I’m guessing what he means is that “we’re all in this together”. That doesn’t mean, “I’m going to cave on all the policies I think would most benefit the country and instead implement something halfway between what I think best and what you think is best, which I happen to think is pretty darn terrible.”

    If every candidate did that it wouldn’t really matter who we elected, because they’d all “split the difference” and do the exact same thing.

    Would you want President Romney to have “reached across the aisle” and tried to come to a bipartisan “compromise” on abortion? I wouldn’t.

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