We knew this was going to happen, we just didn’t expect it this soon. Usually, the party would wait until the humiliation of a defeat subsides before discussing the reason for their loss, but not now.
Just hours after President Obama hammered Mitt Romney in both the Electoral and popular vote, Republicans have lined up to throw Romney and his campaign from the train… ah, under the bus.
“They ran a 20th century campaign in the 21st century,” said one Romney bundler, frustrated that the campaign made assumptions about the youth vote and voter intensity that didn’t pan out. “The anger is that they were entrusted to do certain things. It’s not like they were paid a $5,000 retainer to get a few dozen articles in an inside-the-Beltway paper. This is the major leagues.”
Another Republican outside the Romney campaign but privy to its thinking described the defeat as a complete pummeling, with Senate losses adding salt to the wound.
Romney supporters point to a series of brash statements made by advisers that seem out of touch with reality in retrospect. Inside the Beltway, Republicans trained their fire on senior Romney advisers like Ed Gillespie and political director Rich Beeson for appearances on last weekend’s Sunday shows. Gillespie said the electoral map was expanding, and Beeson predicted a 300 electoral vote win for Romney.
“There were a lot of Republicans who were on calls that the campaign was having led to believe we had shots in Pennsylvania and Minnesota,” one Republican operative supporting Romney said. “I think Republicans are split right now between confused and shocked, and also I think they are wondering did the Romney campaign have numbers we didn’t have.”
In starker terms, the source questioned: “Was last week a head fake, or were they just not that smart?”
“For those of us who believe that America, as founded, is the greatest country in the history of the world – a ‘Shining city upon a hill’ – we wanted someone who would fight for us,” Tea Party Patriots co-founder Jenny Beth Martin wrote in an e-mail, quoting 40th president and conservative hero Ronald Reagan. “We wanted a fighter like Ronald Reagan who boldly championed America’s founding principles… What we got was a weak moderate candidate, hand-picked by the Beltway elites and country-club establishment.”
In case you missed it, here’s the video and transcript of President Obama’s acceptance speech after being elected to a second term as President of the United States.
Tonight, more than 200 years after a former colony won the right to determine its own destiny, the task of perfecting our union moves forward.
It moves forward because of you. It moves forward because you reaffirmed the spirit that has triumphed over war and depression, the spirit that has lifted this country from the depths of despair to the great heights of hope, the belief that while each of us will pursue our own individual dreams, we are an American family and we rise or fall together as one nation and as one people.
Tonight, in this election, you, the American people, reminded us that while our road has been hard, while our journey has been long, we have picked ourselves up, we have fought our way back, and we know in our hearts that for the United States of America the best is yet to come.
I want to thank every American who participated in this election, whether you voted for the very first time or waited in line for a very long time. By the way, we have to fix that.
Whether you pounded the pavement or picked up the phone, whether you held an Obama sign or a Romney sign, you made your voice heard and you made a difference.
I just spoke with Governor Romney and I congratulated him and Paul Ryan on a hard-fought campaign.
We may have battled fiercely, but it’s only because we love this country deeply and we care so strongly about its future. From George to Lenore to their son Mitt, the Romney family has chosen to give back to America through public service and that is the legacy that we honor and applaud tonight.
In the weeks ahead, I also look forward to sitting down with Governor Romney to talk about where we can work together to move this country forward.
I want to thank my friend and partner of the last four years, America’s happy warrior, the best vice president anybody could ever hope for, Joe Biden.
And I wouldn’t be the man I am today without the woman who agreed to marry me 20 years ago.
Let me say this publicly: Michelle, I have never loved you more. I have never been prouder to watch the rest of America fall in love with you, too, as our nation’s first lady.
Sasha and Malia, before our very eyes you’re growing up to become two strong, smart beautiful young women, just like your mom. And I’m so proud of you guys. But I will say that for now one dog’s probably enough.
To the best campaign team and volunteers in the history of politics…
The best. The best ever. Some of you were new this time around, and some of you have been at my side since the very beginning.
But all of you are family. No matter what you do or where you go from here, you will carry the memory of the history we made together and you will have the life-long appreciation of a grateful president. Thank you for believing all the way, through every hill, through every valley.
You lifted me up the whole way and I will always be grateful for everything that you’ve done and all the incredible work that you put in.
I know that political campaigns can sometimes seem small, even silly. And that provides plenty of fodder for the cynics that tell us that politics is nothing more than a contest of egos or the domain of special interests. But if you ever get the chance to talk to folks who turned out at our rallies and crowded along a rope line in a high school gym, or saw folks working late in a campaign office in some tiny county far away from home, you’ll discover something else.
You’ll hear the determination in the voice of a young field organizer who’s working his way through college and wants to make sure every child has that same opportunity.
You’ll hear the pride in the voice of a volunteer who’s going door to door because her brother was finally hired when the local auto plant added another shift.
You’ll hear the deep patriotism in the voice of a military spouse whose working the phones late at night to make sure that no one who fights for this country ever has to fight for a job or a roof over their head when they come home.
That’s why we do this. That’s what politics can be. That’s why elections matter. It’s not small, it’s big. It’s important. Democracy in a nation of 300 million can be noisy and messy and complicated. We have our own opinions. Each of us has deeply held beliefs. And when we go through tough times, when we make big decisions as a country, it necessarily stirs passions, stirs up controversy.
That won’t change after tonight, and it shouldn’t. These arguments we have are a mark of our liberty. We can never forget that as we speak people in distant nations are risking their lives right now just for a chance to argue about the issues that matter, the chance to cast their ballots like we did today.
But despite all our differences, most of us share certain hopes for America’s future. We want our kids to grow up in a country where they have access to the best schools and the best teachers.
A country that lives up to its legacy as the global leader in technology and discovery and innovation, with all the good jobs and new businesses that follow.
We want our children to live in an America that isn’t burdened by debt, that isn’t weakened by inequality, that isn’t threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet.
We want to pass on a country that’s safe and respected and admired around the world, a nation that is defended by the strongest military on earth and the best troops this – this world has ever known.
But also a country that moves with confidence beyond this time of war, to shape a peace that is built on the promise of freedom and dignity for every human being. We believe in a generous America, in a compassionate America, in a tolerant America, open to the dreams of an immigrant’s daughter who studies in our schools and pledges to our flag.
To the young boy on the south side of Chicago who sees a life beyond the nearest street corner.
To the furniture worker’s child in North Carolina who wants to become a doctor or a scientist, an engineer or an entrepreneur, a diplomat or even a president – that’s the future we hope for. That’s the vision we share. That’s where we need to go – forward. That’s where we need to go.
Now, we will disagree, sometimes fiercely, about how to get there. As it has for more than two centuries, progress will come in fits and starts. It’s not always a straight line. It’s not always a smooth path.
By itself, the recognition that we have common hopes and dreams won’t end all the gridlock or solve all our problems or substitute for the painstaking work of building consensus and making the difficult compromises needed to move this country forward. But that common bond is where we must begin. Our economy is recovering. A decade of war is ending. A long campaign is now over.
And whether I earned your vote or not, I have listened to you, I have learned from you, and you’ve made me a better president. And with your stories and your struggles, I return to the White House more determined and more inspired than ever about the work there is to do and the future that lies ahead.
Tonight you voted for action, not politics as usual.
You elected us to focus on your jobs, not ours. And in the coming weeks and months, I am looking forward to reaching out and working with leaders of both parties to meet the challenges we can only solve together. Reducing our deficit. Reforming our tax code. Fixing our immigration system. Freeing ourselves from foreign oil. We’ve got more work to do.
But that doesn’t mean your work is done. The role of citizens in our Democracy does not end with your vote. America’s never been about what can be done for us. It’s about what can be done by us together through the hard and frustrating, but necessary work of self-government. That’s the principle we were founded on.
This country has more wealth than any nation, but that’s not what makes us rich. We have the most powerful military in history, but that’s not what makes us strong. Our university, our culture are all the envy of the world, but that’s not what keeps the world coming to our shores.
What makes America exceptional are the bonds that hold together the most diverse nation on earth.
The belief that our destiny is shared; that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations. The freedom which so many Americans have fought for and died for come with responsibilities as well as rights. And among those are love and charity and duty and patriotism. That’s what makes America great.
I am hopeful tonight because I’ve seen the spirit at work in America. I’ve seen it in the family business whose owners would rather cut their own pay than lay off their neighbors, and in the workers who would rather cut back their hours than see a friend lose a job.
I’ve seen it in the soldiers who reenlist after losing a limb and in those SEALs who charged up the stairs into darkness and danger because they knew there was a buddy behind them watching their back.
I’ve seen it on the shores of New Jersey and New York, where leaders from every party and level of government have swept aside their differences to help a community rebuild from the wreckage of a terrible storm.
And I saw just the other day, in Mentor, Ohio, where a father told the story of his 8-year-old daughter, whose long battle with leukemia nearly cost their family everything had it not been for health care reform passing just a few months before the insurance company was about to stop paying for her care.
I had an opportunity to not just talk to the father, but meet this incredible daughter of his. And when he spoke to the crowd listening to that father’s story, every parent in that room had tears in their eyes, because we knew that little girl could be our own.
And I know that every American wants her future to be just as bright. That’s who we are. That’s the country I’m so proud to lead as your president.
And tonight, despite all the hardship we’ve been through, despite all the frustrations of Washington, I’ve never been more hopeful about our future.
I have never been more hopeful about America. And I ask you to sustain that hope. I’m not talking about blind optimism, the kind of hope that just ignores the enormity of the tasks ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. I’m not talking about the wishful idealism that allows us to just sit on the sidelines or shirk from a fight.
I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting.
America, I believe we can build on the progress we’ve made and continue to fight for new jobs and new opportunity and new security for the middle class. I believe we can keep the promise of our founders, the idea that if you’re willing to work hard, it doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from or what you look like or where you love. It doesn’t matter whether you’re black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or young or old or rich or poor, able, disabled, gay or straight, you can make it here in America if you’re willing to try.
I believe we can seize this future together because we are not as divided as our politics suggests. We’re not as cynical as the pundits believe. We are greater than the sum of our individual ambitions, and we remain more than a collection of red states and blue states. We are and forever will be the United States of America.
And together with your help and God’s grace we will continue our journey forward and remind the world just why it is that we live in the greatest nation on Earth.
Thank you, America. God bless you. God bless these United States.
The good thing about this story is that this machine was removed when the fault was brought to the attention of the poll workers. No idea how many votes were wrongly credited to Mitt Romney
Regardless of the lies coming from the other side that President Obama hasn’t done anything since he became President, there is a record and Rachel Maddow goes through just some of the many bills the President was successful in signing into law.
And regardless of your political affiliation, you should at least know that there is a record. You owe it to yourself to know the truth.
What we’ve all learned from the Republican primaries was that God told each and every Republican contender to run for President. They’ve all said it. From Herman Pizzaman Cain to Michelle investigate congress to see who is un american Bachmann, to Rick “Santorum” Santorum. They’ve all said that God told them to run for President.
They’re all home now watching Mitt Romney.
For the most part, Mitt Romney has trailed in the polls against President Obama. But after the first debate where the president appeared to be in dreamland, Romney saw the surge in the polls he expected from his RNC Convention. And up to a few weeks ago, many Republicans predicted a win for Romney on Tuesday. They were all calling the moving trucks, preparing to move Romney and his peeps into the White House.
But then, Hurricane Sandy [an act of God] made her presence known along the east coast and a newfound coöperation between the President and Republican Governor Chris Christie dominated the airwaves, pushing Romney and his false message off to the side. For almost a week, news stations focused on the storm and the aftermath and Americans are, once again, seeing the caliber of a true leader from the president.
Republicans are taking note. They are calling hurricane Sandy the “October Surprise.”
In the pages of The Washington Post, a chief Republican Strategist Karl Rove, began setting up the talking-point in the likely event that Romney lose the election on Tuesday, and according to Rove, Sandy will be blamed;
“If you hadn’t had the storm, there would have been more of a chance for the [Mitt] Romney campaign to talk about the deficit, the debt, the economy. There was a stutter in the campaign. When you have attention drawn away to somewhere else, to something else, it is not to his [Romney’s] advantage.”
“It’s the October surprise. For once, the October surprise was a real surprise.”
And with that talking-point in motion, the rest of the Republican party used Sunday’s talk show circuit to hammer home Roves point. Appearing on CNN‘s Candy Crowley’s State of the Union, Republican Haley Barbour said;
“The hurricane is what broke Romney’s momentum. I don’t think there’s any question about it.”
“Any day that the news media is not talking about jobs and the economy, taxes and spending, deficits and debt, Obamacare and energy is a good day for Barack Obama. You had a blackout — you had a blackout on all of those issues that started about last Saturday and lasted until about yesterday. That was what was really good for Barack Obama.”
Now if you take the Republican’s attempt to affiliate God with a political candidate, and if Sandy was an “act of God,” it would make perfect sense to conclude that God saw the way Romney was gaining in the polls and allowed Sandy to Bring Barack Back into the public’s focus. It would make sense to conclude that President Obama – if the Republicans thinking is correct – is the candidate God prefers. And it would make sense to conclude that if God prefers Barack Obama, then conservative Christians determined to put Romney and his peeps in the White House would be going against God’s will if the vote for Romney…!
And if Romney is a leader in the Mormon Church, shouldn’t he see this sign and drop out? I would.
Only time will tell, and that time runs out on Tuesday!
Recently, Republican Colin Powell endorsed President Obama for a second term. After his endorsement, Mr. Powell received the usual backlash from the Republicans and the praise from Democrats.
And he received an ad from the Obama Team. Here it is, in Colin Powell’s own words when he made his endorsement.
President Barack Obama heads toward Election Day with an apparent lead over Republican Mitt Romney among early voters in key states that could decide the election.
Obama’s advantage, however, isn’t as big as the one he had over John McCain four years ago, giving Romney’s campaign hope that the former Massachusetts governor can erase the gap when people vote on Tuesday.
More than 27 million people already have voted in 34 states and the District of Columbia. No votes will be counted until Election Day but several battleground states are releasing the party affiliation of people who have voted early.
So far, Democratic voters outnumber Republicans in Florida, Iowa, Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio – five states that could decide the election, if they voted the same way. Republicans have the edge in Colorado, which Obama won in 2008.
Obama dominated early voting in 2008, building up such big leads in Colorado, Florida, Iowa and North Carolina that he won each state despite losing the Election Day vote, according to voting data compiled by The Associated Press.
Mitt Romney has used this talking point in the debates and he uses it all the time on the campaign trail. He never states where this information came from, because accurate information is not necessary in Republican world. And his mouthpieces are now using the same talking point, but today, one person stood up for the truth.
Her name is Neera Tanden. She was a guest on the Melissa Perry Show this morning, and responding to the talking-point, Ms Tanden said, “23 million people aren’t unemployed. This is something that Mitt Romney says, it’s not true. We have an under-employment problem.”
And the record reflects Neera Tanden’s point. According to CNN reporting, “the U.S. Labor Department, which puts out the official government jobs data, counts 12.8 million people as unemployed — not 23 million.
“Even if you add in unemployed people who are not counted in that total because they are not actively looking for work — a category the Labor Department terms “marginally attached” — that number rises to just over 15.3 million.”
But again, Republican never let facts get in the way of a good talking point.
Investigators today arrested a Southern Nevada woman suspected of trying to vote twice this week at two different polling locations.
Roxanne Rubin was taken into custody as she arrived for work at the Riviera hotel-casino, investigators said. Rubin, 56, is a registered Republican who lives in Henderson, according to the Clark County Registrar.
Rubin allegedly cast a vote Monday at the Anthem Community Center in Henderson. Later that day, she tried to vote a second time at an early voting location on Eastern Avenue, investigators said.
When Rubin arrived at the second location, a poll worker conducted a routine database check and found Rubin had already voted. When confronted by the poll worker, Rubin denied having voted and claimed the database used by the poll worker was wrong.
Poll workers at the Eastern Avenue location blocked Rubin from voting and notified the county registrar’s office, who forwarded the complaint to the Nevada secretary of state.
Mitt Romney was once a believer that the human race may be contributing to climate change. He quickly changed his position when it was politically beneficial to him and he became an opponent of his previous position. Now, he’s even questioning the Federal Government’s role in providing help to victims of natural disasters.
President Obama on the other hand has made his position known about climate change, and much of his policies including his push for clean energy reflects that belief. During his acceptance speech at the Republican National Conference, Mitt Romney chose his time in the spotlight to joke about Mr. Obama’s climate change belief. Stepping to the podium to deliver his speech, Romney claimed that “president Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans, and to heal the planet.” Romney then said, “my promise is to help you and your family.”
Maybe Romney should stop lying to the American people about helping our families, and realize that the planet demands our immediate attention. President Obama is paying attention and his policies reflect the need to invest more in clean energy. And after the recent hurricane Sandy that hit the east coast, we can see once again, that President Obama’s approach is right.
A North Carolina resident named VR Phipps is traveling the country in a truck displaying a hanged effigy of President Barack Obama, drawing the shock of local residents and the attention of the Secret Service.
Phipps says he’s protesting the murders of family members by local law enforcement. He says that a cover-up has successfully prevented him from getting justice for his family.
Thetruck was first spotted by Mike Opelka, a reporter for Glenn Beck’s website The Blaze, back in May while driving through Midtown Manhattan.
“After two decades of living and working in Manhattan, this average New Yorker believed he had seen everything. Today proved that to be a false assumption,” Opelka wrote.
Phipps denied racism was a motivation for the hanging in another video posted on his channel.
We use cookies to improve your experience on our site. By agreeing to this, we can analyze browsing behavior and unique IDs on this site. Declining or revoking consent may affect certain features.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
