Romney has to concede. And that? Could take a while.

Should the President win, then Jon Stewart summed it up well: two years, billions of dollars, same #$%^ing place we were in when this started. The GOP will make it their mission to see any second term fail and hope to ride the ashes in 2016. No legislation will pass. Nothing will get done. And the economy will recover or fail on its own.

On the other hand, four years of nothing happening in D.C. could be the best news this country ever had.

Chris Christie should be happy. Now he needs to work on a weight-loss regimen in time for 2016.

Don't forget: he committed the ultimate sin. He reached across the aisle in a time of need and openly thanked those who gave him aid. He put people ahead of party. And there will be a hard core who will never forgive him for that.

However (and I'm serious about this), the SOB came that much closer to picking up my vote. I still don't like some of his politics. But he's proven that in the battle of his state versus his career, the state comes first. That's rare enough that I just might want to keep it.

Agree. I never cared all that much for Christie before the storm, but the way he spoke and the way he was able to work with Obama while putting partisanship aside, that really made me take notice.

Hopefully the same bipartisan spirit rules the day over the next four years as we all really need to quit throwing up roadblocks and other crap simply because the other person is on the other side of the political spectrum ... let's just get the right bills and right laws passed to make all of our lives better. In Canada, some of the most productive sessions of Parliament came about because of a minority government requiring two sides to work together to get things done.

I'll be disappointed if the Republicans decide to stick it (so to speak) to Obama and the Democrats by not getting anything done in Congress.

in Massachusetts, Scott Brown, who was a Republican who voted with the Democrats often enough that the Tea Party had turned on him, lost to one of the most partisan, polarizing figures in the country, Elizabeth Warren, whose idea of compromise is "do it my way."

And you have hopes that things are going to improve in Washington? When you have a President who rammed through Obamacare on a straight party-line vote (60-40) and incoming senators like Warren, while losing senators like Lugar? You have to be kidding.

LAST EDITED ON 11-07-12 AT 11:38 AM (EST)

...agreed. We're in for at least two more years of gridlock and more likely four. The only way anything gets done in the current climate is for one party to control legislative and executive simultaneously. Anything else is Induce Failure For Future Profit.

ETA: And you're providing support for my belief that Christie's lost part of his party. I'm not sure he can get it back.

You're absolutely correct about that, but I've never seen a more divisive country and it's time for the folks in Washington to find a way to work together for the betterment of the country.

It's also time for there to be world peace and universal respect for human rights throughout the world.

But look at the landscape. Not only are governments like Iran and North Korea not going anywhere, but moderates like Olympia Snowe, Scott Brown, Ben Nelson, Richard Lugar and Kay Bailey Hutchinson will all LEAVE the Senate at the end of this term, while radicals like Elizabeth Warren and Ted Cruz will join.

Frankly, we have more hope of resolving the fiscal cliff (for at least two more years) in the lame-duck session than we do in January.

Last night's Daily Show skit with a holographic George Washington suggested the country was on the verge of civil war. George was just thankful it had taken this long.

Jon didn't have the heart to tell him.

He took the slave vs. merman race badly enough.

No kidding, we're in for another four years of a do-nothing Congress, with the previous Congress being the least productive (in terms of bills passed vs bills proposed) in decades.

2016, however, looks real murky in light (or lack of it) of this election, with the current trend in political polarization.

It could theoretically be two years, but America would have to be supremely pissed off to swing the House to the Democrats. Just too many seats needing to change rears in one shot.

Or, considering that there are 20 Democratic seats up for grabs to only 13 Republican ones, voters could make the Senate Republican in 2014. That is, providing the Republicans don't run any more Angle-O'Donnell-Buck-Mourdock-Akin types, which seems unlikely going by the track record.

1. Impeach!
2. We lost because we weren't conservative enough!
3. Why did we ever nominate a stinking Masshole moderate!
4. *sobbing*

If the current voting percentages hold, then by sunrise tomorrow, recreational marijuana will be crime-free in Colorado, Oregon, and Washington.

That'll create a few jobs in and of itself. Mostly in rehab centers.

LAST EDITED ON 11-07-12 AT 01:47 AM (EST)

Most of the provisions include taxation that will cover drug education and rehab, with a percentage of taxation dedicated toward the purpose.

I'm kind of surprised, given that the Netherlands is already tightening up their tourist "coffee shop" trade to locals and neighboring countries (effective by the end of this year), with required cards and ID. The EU as a whole hasn't been too pleased with Dutch laxity with soft recreational drugs, although tourists love it.

This is going to pit the US states against the Feds quite directly and it may well come down to court cases, possibly at the SCOTUS level, to determine who has the authority to criminalize or legalize taxed recreational/medical drug use.

(eta) I'm in favor of legalization, simply because of the economics of supply and demand. People will demand it, legally or illegally. I think it's better the cash go into the coffers of legal suppliers and taxation entities than into the armed Cartel coffers with growers cultivating tons and tons of illegal crops on American soil within national forests and other areas that cannot be effectively policed.

>This is going to pit the US states against the Feds
>quite directly and it may well come down to court
>cases, possibly at the SCOTUS level, to determine who has
>the authority to criminalize or
>legalize taxed recreational/medical drug use.

SCOTUS has already decided this issue in favor of the Feds. See Gonzalez v. Raich.

Yes, but will SCOTUS revisit it if it comes to them again? I have to agree with the dissenting opinion, in particular Thomas, that invoking the interstate commerce clause was a bit of a stretch.

So the state which proudly gave us the man dubbed Mr. Right:

A. Went into the Democrat column for the presidential race.
B. Elected a Democrat senator.
B1. Who happened to be an open lesbian.

I smell a backlash.

LAST EDITED ON 11-07-12 AT 01:16 AM (EST)

Dammit, it's about people forgetting what those Judeo-Christian Western Civilization values are.

I heard that even his own county, where his family has been prominent for generations, voted for Obama. Awkward!

His district did re-elect him to the House.

I started a thread on this when it was first proposed: condom use on all adult film sets, enforced by random inspection on up. It's on the ballot. If it passes, I expect a huge number of lawsuits and a mass relocation to San Diego, along with the happy declaration of Freedom @#$%s.

I do expect it to pass. Puritans, y'know.

I predict long lines of applicants to be inspectors.

And we need video camera evidence, lots of it.

It's early and not official but it looks like all four marriage equality referendums have passed.

It's an interesting referendum election with these projections so far...

Same-sex marriage: MA yes, MD yes, MN ban split, WA yes.

Limit Obamacare: AL yes, FL yes, MO yes, WY yes.

Legalize marijuana: AK medical no, CO recreational yes, MA medical yes, MT ban yes, OR recreational no, WA recreational yes.

Death penalty ban: CA yes.

Public funds for abortion: FL no.

About time. One thing I was disappointed about (among many) was that Obama/Biden never made it clear their support of gay marriage was about the legal contract of marriage, an actual government concern, which has nothing to do with the abstract religeous issue of the covenant of marriage.

MA? You mean ME. (MA is Massachusetts, where gay marriage has been legal for quite some time. Yes ME is a stupid abbreviation for Maine, but there are just too many M states.)

Dear sir, I do stand corrected in the state abbreviations. Hah, those arbitrarily defined two-character US postal service codes for states!

*laugh*

Thanks!

Clearly Todd Akin's deity wanted this to happen.

As you may remember, I was sure that the MO Republican Party would get him out of the race. I was wrong.

If he recognized this as God wanting him to lose because he didn't withdraw, that would probably be a net benefit. But he won't.

I saw a video link to his concession speech on CNN with the title of 'God Makes No Mistakes'. I think it's safe to say he didn't learn a thing.

I didn't watch it, but if you want to risk the nausea...

http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_rr_7#/video/politics/2012/11/07/election-mo-sot-akin-concession-speech.cnn

And congratulates President Obama

LAST EDITED ON 11-07-12 AT 02:39 AM (EST)

Yup, and the way he said it, it seems like he saw it coming, too.

With due respect, I didn't vote for him, but I also don't think he is a such a bad guy that he was unfit for presidency. I think his intentions were for what he thought was for good, although I disagreed with him in many positions. He was a bit of a chameleon, delivering the message he thought people wanted to hear to vote for him. Ryan was much worse in this respect, and although I weighed in Ryan's economic experience, his political savvy was completely lacking.

Romney put up a good fight. I find it unfortunate, however, that the likes of Carl Rove appeared on Fox election coverage due to the proliferate amounts of cash (hundreds of millions) that he personally organized into the Pub campaign, including the campaign that KO'ed Indiana's beloved incumbent Pub senator (Lugar) in the primaries, only for the seat to fall to the Dems as a result.

I honestly think part of the GOP's problem in the last two elections has been their choice of VP running mate.

Palin was a joke and Ryan scared the hell out of a lot of people. He was one of the bigger turn offs for me. And while most people understand a VP doesn't do much it kind of shows where the party wants to lead you, and there's always that chance that he will step into the President's shoes.

The Latino vote is going to be even bigger in 4 years, the GOP better start thinking about that.

Perhaps, but there is no question that the GW Bush influence still played a role in this election.

The electorate in 2004 reported being split evenly between Democrats and Republicans, 35% each. The electorate in 2008 reported being 7% more Democratic, 39%-32%. Against Republican expectations, the electorate this time reported being 6% more Democratic, 38%-32%.

Obama's victory speech. Respectful, thankful, hopeful, still grounded in the realities of American politics.

Oh yeah, that was very nice. Worth the wait.

LAST EDITED ON 11-07-12 AT 07:02 AM (EST)

n/m... moved

His post-election tweet, and I quote:

"He lost the popular vote by a lot and won the election. We should have a revolution in this country!"

So basically, he's moving into weapons sales.

Huckabee tweeted on a 47% basis -- saying this just proves people are dependent on government. They sure aren't dependent on information.

LAST EDITED ON 11-07-12 AT 11:26 AM (EST)

Today's 3,958th bit of election trivia...

This marks only the second time we've had three consecutive two-term presidencies, the other being Jefferson-Madison-Monroe (1801-1825). However, only one president (Monroe) had the same VP (Daniel Tompkins) for both terms.

If I'm reading it right, and according to Wikipedia. (News coverage on this last night, even on the web, was amazingly vacuuous.)

Question 1: Do you agree to maintain current territorial political status?
No 934,238 53.99%
Yes 796,007 46.01%

Question 2: Status options
Statehood 802,179 61.15%
Associated free state 436,997 33.31%
Independence 72,551 5.53%

Those results are correct. Current plans are that Republicans will introduce legislation in Congress for Puerto Rico to be admitted as the 51st state.

LAST EDITED ON 11-07-12 AT 01:32 PM (EST)

About time.

(Oh, darn: the GOP will have to ask a bunch of mostly-non-Caucasians if they want to become Americans. That'll be fun to watch.)

This hasn't happened in my current lifetime, so there's a bunch of questions associated with it. Since this is an election thread, immediate and foremost are:

1. Representation. Let's say they go in. They immediately get two Senators of their very own. A certain number of Representatives have to be assigned to them based on population. How long do they have for elections and seat claiming? Can't have a state without a presence in Congress.

2. Citizenship. Everyone born in PR from that point on would be automatically now eligible to run for President? How about those already living? Does that kick in as soon as they join?

3. Power shifts. What way does PR normally run, conservative or liberal? Obviously the House can't be affected right now, bu the Senate could come closer to the edge.

>1. Representation. Let's say they go in. They
>immediately get two Senators of their very own. A
>certain number of Representatives have to be assigned to them
>based on population. How long do they have for
>elections and seat claiming? Can't have a state without
>a presence in Congress.

When Alaska and Hawaii were added, the bill that added them provided that each would get two senators and one representative until the next apportionment of representatives by Congress. Thus, the House was actually at 437 from 1959 until 1962. In this case, Puerto Rico will probably end up with four representatives, so I'd expect Congress to approve a hike in membership to 439 until after the 2020 census and reapportionment.

>2. Citizenship. Everyone born in PR from that point
>on would be automatically now eligible to run for President?
> How about those already living? Does that kick
>in as soon as they join?

Actually, this is incorrect. Under current U.S. law, everyone born in PR since 1917 is a US citizen and thus could run for president. They just can't vote for president, unless they live in a state or in DC. So the only change that comes around as part of this is the change in federal voting; citizenship is not affected.

>3. Power shifts. What way does PR normally run,
>conservative or liberal? Obviously the House can't be affected
>right now, bu the Senate could come closer to the edge.

This is almost impossible to predict, because neither the Democratic nor the Republican Party has any presence in Puerto Rico. Instead, the two political parties in PR are the PNP (New Progressive Party) and the PPD (Popular Democratic Party), with the PIP (Puerto Rican Independence Party) a poor third.

However, the governor and current leader of the PNP, who led the statehood drive, is an active Republican. His successor as PR's nonvoting representative to Congress is also a member of the PNP but is a Democrat. They are widely seen as the two most influential figures in PR politics if the statehood drive succeeds.

Remember that Hawaii was expected to become a Republican state and Alaska was expected to become a Democratic one, and you can see how difficult projections as to PR's future politics become.

Thankee. I messed up on #2 -- I haven't thought about what 'commonwealth' means in U.S. political terms for a few beyond-school years.

So if the move to statehood goes forward, both parties are going to be establishing assimilation beachheads at warp. The entertainment will continue.

Alaska was Democratic in its early years. It became much more conservative during and after the pipeline building years when so many Texan and Louisianan oil workers arrived. There were a few other factors, too, but the point is that the prediction that AK would be Dem was correct given the info available at the time.

They now have to establish state borders (not really an issue) and come up with a state constitution and submit it to Congress for ratification. Congress can make special demands, as when Utah vied for statehood they had to include a provision in their state constitution outlawing polygamy, so we can expect the English as national language people to pop up and make some noise and drag out the process.

Puerto Ricans were already citizens of the US anyway.

The national parties (Democratic, Libertarian, Republican, etc.) don't actually have much presense in Puerto Rico as things currently stand, the commonwealth has its own unique political parties for local and commonwealth elections. The main parties will now attempt to absorb those Puerto Rican parties, how it will turn out is unknowable at this point.

When a change in Congress will occur is unknowable at this point as well, as this is a process. It could occur soon, with special elections, or drag out until the 2014 elections.

Wait and see.

I could definitely go with that flag.

Thanks for the additional information. I would be deeply amused by PR declaring state borders to be a few miles out into the ocean. I will be less happy when special interests show up and demand for gay marriage bans to be written into the state constitution from the start -- the first such opportunity to do so.

For some reason, I kept thinking 'citizens in all but 'I can run for'.'

It's a Very Special Election Night, only on FOX!

Congress establishes the state borders, such as this fun provision in the Hawaii Statehood Admissions Act of 1959, which I've had occasion to consider:

§ 2.

The State of Hawaii shall consist of all the islands, together with their appurtenant reefs and territorial waters, included in the Territory of Hawaii on the date of enactment of this Act, except the atoll known as Palmyra Island, together with its appurtenant reefs and territorial waters, but said State shall not be deemed to include the Midway Islands, Johnston Island, Sand Island (off-shore from Johnston Island), or Kingman Reef, together with their appurtenant reefs and territorial waters.

Let me guess. Someone in Congress had vacation homes and/or offshore banks.

No, it was for a nonprofit, The Nature Conservancy.

Palmyra Island is unique; it's the only incorporated unorganized territory in the US, and the only people who live there work for the U.S. government or The Nature Conservancy (because, along with all of the other islands listed except Midway, it's also part of a national wildlife refuge that was set up after the Navy closed its bases there).

The Nature Conservancy conveyed land that it owned on the island to the U.S. government, but there was no clean way to do that, as there is no Act of Congress that ratified Palmyra's unique status after it was pulled out of the Territory of Hawaii by this act. Thus, it was incorporated as part of the Territory of Hawaii, but left unorganized as a result of the Hawaii Statehood Admission Act.

I like that flag design a lot. Unfortunately, that one is just one that was created for use by the Puerto Rican statehood movement. The actual planned 51-star flag which has been in place for some time now goes with the traditional stars in rows.

CNN carried a story on this vote.

Puerto Ricans were asked about their desires in two parts. First, by a 54% to 46% margin, voters rejected their current status as a U.S. commonwealth. In a separate question, 61% chose statehood as the alternative, compared with 33% for the semi-autonomous "sovereign free association" and 6% for outright independence.

The referendum is nonbinding, but it compels lawmakers in Washington to act, he {Puerto Rico Secretary of State Kenneth McClintock} said. "The people are withdrawing their consent to be governed the way they are governed," McClintock said, citing the Declaration of Independence, which states that a government's power comes from the consent of those governed. "Congress will have to address this and will have to pay attention," he said.