Lyndon Johnson.

Who is the guy all the way on the right with the glasses? And who is the guy that his back is facing the picture and is from the old days of the republic?

The news commentators this morning were saying that the Republicans were going to have a rough time every four years. They need to run to the far right to win the primary, but this loses them many votes in the general election.

Exit Polls with comparison to 2008.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/2012-exit-polls/?hpid=z3#United-States

Could not agree more. It puts a lot of people off when they spout that kind of garbage in the primary's

Glasses is woodrow wilson (28th if I remember right, after Taft though) and the one with his back turned looks like andrew jackson (7th president born on march 15 and is the only president to have no debt).

I believe that's Woodrow Wilson on the right, and Andrew Jackson facing away.

^^Thank you guys!

Ahh LBJ. I just KNEW it wasn't who it looked like: Ron Paul


The ones on the chair I believe are Truman & FDR. I too am not sure about the guy on the far right.


TIS

Woodrow Wilson on the right and Andrew Jackson who's back is facing the picture

From the Fordham Political Science Dept., here's a list of the polls who got the election right, and got it wrong. From best to worst:

Diane Sawyer - Drunk On Air?



Diane Sawyer's election night performance left some viewers asking if she had begun celebrating the election a bit early.
Co-anchoring ABC News' coverage on Tuesday, the veteran journalist struck a different manner from her practiced, straight-news-delivering style.
Sawyer spoke more slowly than usual while seeming to prop herself on outstretched arms at the anchor desk she shared with George Stephanopoulos.
"OK, I wanna — can we have our music, because this is another big one here? Minnesota, we're ready to project Minnesota, rrright now. ... Well, tonight we know that President Barack has won Minnesota," she said around 10 p.m. EST, stumbling over President Barack Obama's name.

In going with the Election theme the BBC showed a documentary from back in 1960 when JFK went up against Hubert H Humphrey in the primary i believe??

Apparently it was the first time it had been done,following politicians on camera,and it was fascinating. They were fighting over Wisconsin. Humphrey looking for the rural vote with hard looking farmers in dungarees and JFK going like a rock star in the urban areas. So many women at his rallies.

The only down side was the constant playing of his old campaign song High Hopes

Sounds like an interesting documentary Yogi. I was too young to vote back then but remember being fascinated with the whole JFK era and his appeal. Can't say I remember the "High Hopes" theme (tho I know the song) but it sounds appropriate for JFK for the times.


TIS

They obviously changed the lyrics TIS, to make the song about JFK, but every time he made an appearance all these women kept singing it over and over and over....

Humphrey had none of that of course, but he did seem like a decent sort!!

Yogi,

I was 12 when JFK campaigned but I remember sitting in front of the tv during debates (or press conferences after he was elected) not totally understanding issues he was talking about, but found him very interesting. One of my biggest thrills was waving to him (actually pretty much up-close) as his motorcade went by (an open convertible with JFK sitting atop the back seat). The only President(actually a candidate at that time) I can say I saw in person.

TIS

Wasn't that close to Mike Nichols' birthday? Maybe she celebrated to much.

I saw George Will after the election pimping Marco Rubio* as the GOP's potential savior in '16, and honetly I like you George, you're intelligent, but you're really really really missing the lesson from this election.

People didn't vote for Bubba in '92 because he was a redneck. He made his party attractive to middle class voters again, triangulated in scoring moderate voters away from the GOP while keeping his party's (whipped) liberal base.

For all his faults, Dubya saw the demographic writing on the wall and campaigned not against Hispanics and stoking whitey's anger, but his "compassionate conservatism." Skinny Vinny, for his obsession about race, he is right that not all Hispanics are lock-stop Democrats and liberals. Dubya won 40% of the Latino vote in '04, record % for a GOP candidate. His party lost 20% of that vote in the next 2 subsequent elections.

Why? After Dubya failed at his immigration reform effort (thanks to his party's base), that's when you had the same Rocky Mountain/Southwest GOPers of that party base go insane with the border fence and Minute Men and all that. Cream topping being the Arizona anti-immigration bill, where cops could (initially) pull over any person that "looked" like an illegal immigrant. (I.E. anybody who looked Hispanic, whatever that means.)

As Skinny did mention (in his blunt language), there are right-winger Hispanics, people who're citizens (most likely lived in America their whole lives) and done every thing and by the book. But I'm pretty certain a good number of them got PISSED OFF when their own party did this because fuck you racist rednecks if you think I'm an illegal immigrant just because I'm a tad too brown for you. It's fucking condescending.

The funny thing was, Obama did nothing for his own party's Latino voting bloc legislatively except for half-heartedly pushing DREAM Act. Hell he deported more people in his first term than Dubya's two terms combined. (Or just about.) Except the GOP in the primaries played to that same dumbass Rocky Mountain/Southwest party base, especially Willard who really nailed Rick Perry's presidential campaign dead to rights over his Texan bill allowing children of illegal immigrants to go to state college. (Which actually a pragmatic solution to a lose-lose isue, but to the GOP that's EVIL!)

And afterwards, the GOP/Willard made little...I'm sorry, no effort to backtrack and make up for that whole "self-deporting" line of his. Instead GOP/Karl Rove concentrated more on raising the white vote out, as it had worked back in the 80s and onward. Well that shit aint gonna work anymore. Willard won the highest white voting % since Reagan in '84, and shit full of good it did him.

What can the GOP do to win back some of that vote? Well for one each time those western GOPers go off about immigrants and all that, RNC should kick them in the balls publicly and tell them to fuck off. Run the party, don't let them do it.

Second, actually be up for Immigration Reform or at least willing to negotiate a bill (or more) to fix that problem. I'm pretty sure Obama will go for that in his 2nd term. Rail against it in typical white rage this side of Fox News, you'll only convince those same Hispanic voters that they're right about their Democratic votes.

If you listen to those idiots who scream AMNESTY! AMNESTY! AMNESTY!, you know what might happen in '16? You'll hear the other side chant this: FOUR MORE YEARS! FOUR MORE YEARS! FOUR MORE YEARS!

Third, Obamacare is here to stay. Instead of still running on Repeal/Replace, instead run on Reform, practical solutions to fixing the holes in it. Because once Obamacare finally kicks in during Obama's 2nd term, I'm pretty sure voters will not want to give up the perks of that bill.

*=The problem remains personally for Rubio in that he's Cuban, and the Mexicans and Puerto Ricans and other Latinos...they and Cubans may share the same ethnicity, but that's it in terms of relatability to each other.

In '84 when Reagan took every state comfortably, except for Mondale's home state of Minnesota, whichwas decided by less than a percent (I think), there was a lot of talk about the death of the democratic Party and what they needed to do. The conventional perspective of the party at that time was that it was a small, fragmented coalition of unions, minorities, and special interests without a central unifying theme. Back then 88% of the electorate was white.

I think the Republicans have obvious problems connecting with the young, minorities and women (particularly single women), but their most glaring problem is that their agenda seems to be driven by the likes of Limbaugh, Beck, evangelicals, FoxNews and Trump. While Romney was not exactly representative of this mindset, he still pandered to the far right and could not escape its influence.

Isn't that the truth. I've had some good laughs at people, who are screaming things like "that Muslim Commie is going to bring sharia law to America," "How can anyone support a party that took God out of its platform?" (Frankly, I didn't know that God needs a platform), and my personal favorite "America is no longer a Christian nation;Jesus just rolled over in his grave." You mean ya think he's still dead?

3 fun facts, if they haven't been posted yet:

*Obama is the first Democratic President to win the Plurality popular vote since FDR. (Bubba failed both times thanks to Perot.)

*Since 1928, the GOP haven't won a national election without Nixon or either Bush on the ticket.

*Of the last 6 national elections, GOP have won the popular vote only once. ('04)



I'll never forget what Scott McClelland (former Dubya press secretary) saying that he learned too late that he and the WH didn't run the Republican Party. Fox News (and that media) who ran the agenda.

You know I'm very surprised by the youth turnout being HIGHER than it was 4 years ago. Sure Obama lost 6 points from his '08 total, but he still won comfortably 60%.

I have no proof, but I really wonder if Obama publicly supporting Same Sex Marriage (and pretty much Gay Rights as a whole) is what fueled that youth turnout, especially in northern states where the NOM and those Evangelical wingnuts tried to ban gay marriage. The younger generations, my age bracket, are much more tolerant, much more over the "gay issue" than older peoples are. If the GOP keep openly running against that like it's still 1984, they'll pay for it.

Funny enough the NOM people are now bitching that Willard lost because he tried to avoid the social issues like the plague. No Willard knew better, that America is slowly but surely going not liberal but libertarian regarding gay rights.

Meanwhile, NOM were 0-4 this time in their crusade. Maryland, Maine, and Washington approved SSM. Minnesota rejected a state amendment that would've banned SSM. Go away you crazy assholes. Or better yet, go to the one country in the world that loves your view on women and gays.

Iran. I'm sure they'll call you heroes for the faith. And then lecture you for not car bombing the infidels.

Obama didn't so much win this election as Romney lost it. Romney was never a strong candidate--he never got 50% of the vote in the primaries except until the very end. He was an unconvincing campaigner.

But the surge he achieved after the first debate was telling: Obama behaved in the first debate as he has in office: detached, aloof, contemptuous, seemingly not caring about the outcome. A lot of '08 Obama supporters who've been disappointed in him showed their disappointment after that debate because they saw in his performance exactly what they'd been seeing for the past four years.

I wish Obama well in the next four years. I always wish our Presidents well--if they succeed, we all succeed. But, no President has ever done better in his second term than in his first term.

This election was absolutely winnable for Willard.

But a good data sign for how he and his party blew losing an election with 7.9% unemployment rate (first since FDR), is exit polls showing he had only ONE POINT advantage over Obama when asked who they trusted more on the economy.

ONE POINT? Now that's failure.

George Will agreed with this point Tuesday night when he said that younger American voters look at gays and lesbians as they would view people, who are left-handed. They're confused by the big deal made over it.

Well there is hell to pay for Mr. Rove.



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/07/republican-reckoning-defeat_n_2090510.html

That's true, Ronnie. There isn't much cohesion among the Latino groups as a whole. The "rivalry" between them often borders on hatred (Mexicans vs. Puerto Ricans, Puerto Ricans vs. Dominicans, etc.). I hear it all the time here in New York (where, unlike Tennessee, we actually live among these folks ).

That's exactly what I was thinking on Election Night. The donors don't mind him being unscrupulous. But when you're unscrupulous and can't deliver with an endless amount of cash, then your head goes on the chopping block.

The Republicans lost 9 of the 10 Senate races where Rove's Crossroads organizations pumped in the most money. It's apparently not as easy to buy an election as it used to be.

+1 on everything my favorite Arizona transplant just posted .

I, too, was very disappointed in Obama's first term, after being very vocal in support of his 2008 campaign. But at the end of the day, Willard (thanks, Ronnie, now I keep calling him Willard) was just too out of touch and "flip-floppy."

I'll tell you this much (and the far left will hate me for this): If Willard had some of that folksy charm that Dubya had, he'd be celebrating right now. The guy is a mope.

I can suggest more countries, it's not like we've monopoly on gay bashing. They could also go to Saudi Arabia. I'm pretty sure many Arab countries in the ME would hang gays as well and not that woman friendly.

Yeah, it would be very unfair to single out Iran as far as that goes. It seems to be the entire region that's living in the dark ages in that regard .