I am beginning to become scared that Romney/Ryan will win. Can smart people please post here and say reassuring things to convince me that he won't?

The Republicans are still so much in thrall to the past (i.e. Reagan) that they're always rehashing stuff that worked once but is presently considered settled by everyone who isn't a die-hard. Name a competitive Socialist party in Europe that actually believes in the State taking over all the means of production? The new-found and largely incoherent Muslimphobia on the Right (Really? Sharia is your fear?) is weakened by the 'US is a Christian nation' silliness of the Xtian Right for Libertarians and Independents. The Republican brand is horribly weak right now; the kids are less racist, anti-immigrant and homophobic than in the past, there are fewer 'intellectuals' and they're less and less relevant and mostly scared of engaging with facts, the economy has been mixed since the 30's yet less sclerotically than in ages; all that's left are shrill zombies pissed off that the world doesn't revolve around their entitled little precious selves as much as when they were kids. Good luck finding a way to sell that as a path to a brighter future with that. It's the politics of pouting and even Reagan, God curse his Stanic soul, actually offered a brighter option than 'malaise' however wrong-headed he was.

Romney isn't the problem; the Republican coalition is the problem.

also dem party has legit co-opted many of the republicans most loved ideas

like why would foreign affair hawks stick w/ the republican party when obama is such a stone cold motherfucking killer?

Tomasky remarked today that if Obama is reelected then he will have taken the Democratic Party back to '48.

That sounds about right

w/o Thurmond, tho

Yeah, this makes sense:

http://gawker.com/5943076/rush-limbaugh-theorizes-that-al-qaeda-gave-bin-laden-up-to-help-obama-win-re+election

I really want to read a good history that addresses Johnson's claim that the Civil Rights act of '64 would lose the South for the Democratic Party and the radical, historical shift of the South from the bedrock of Democratic politics to the bedrock of Republican politics. From NASCAR to unborn fetuses to racial backlash about bussing and welfare, etc..., the egalitarian streak in Scotch-Irish commoners is now little about politics and rights and mostly about cultural butt-hurtedness. If they weren't such dicks I'd be happy to condescendingly feel bad about how fucked they've been by their 'betters'.

mw otm

throw in "the rise of the Sunbelt, decline of manfacturing"

manufacturing too

I think a total collapse of the republican party in our lifetime is not even a particularly radical prediction at this point. they've dug the hole too deep.

when romney gets 48% of the vote i think we're a long way off from a "collapse"

you guys are talking as if right-wing butt-hurtedness is some kind of formula for failure in times like these

yah, Romney's "no apologies/Obama is a wimp" line is actually resonating with the base right now.

Well the convention and Ryan pick didn't do it (in terms of, say, Palin levels).

Has anybody taken into account the yard sign/bumper sticker factor? By this point last year I was seeing a fair amount of McCain/Palin bumper stickers, even in Democrat-laden Chicago, but I can still count on one hand the number of Romney stickers I've seen. And in 2008 when I drove through rural Wisconsin, I saw hundreds of McCain yard signs. Making the same trip this year (though two weeks earlier, to be fair) I only say a handful of Romney yard signs.

er, obvs "last election" in that second sentence

Barely seen anything for Romney here in OC.

and the McCain campaign was not setting any engagement/enthusiasm records, either

romney can only pull 48% w/ this economy + that 48% is overwhelmingly made up of waning demographics + the hardest core republicans already don't even want to be called republicans = there's plenty of room for stuff to happen over the next decade

xp

people were freaking out about how awesome palin was though.

xp

i think a social + economically libertarian republican party could do very well in the future

he shot himself in the foot so bad with that libya shit, can't wait to see him do it again and again

xp you mean democratic party, right?

/morbs

and the obama fear factor the right wing was playing up was stronger. they're still beating that drum but 4 yrs have shown that he's not letting al qaeda into the white house to hang out and plot.

i don't think so xp

romney and paul might win, idk. but obama's energizing his base pretty well and the repubs just seem like assholes.

i think that's what it will come down to.

nov 6 forecast still at 80% but obama nowcast is now at 91.6%

saw a number of Romney signs in yards in Alexandria, Virginia (a mostly liberal town in Northern VA). They were outnumbered by the yards with no signs(the silent Obama majority!)

nov 6 forecast still at 80% but obama nowcast is now at 91.6%

Yeah, and a 51.2% - 47.5% popular vote landslide.

that's a landslide?

I've seen alot of R/R bumper stickers on cars in Atlanta, which is more or less a Dem oasis in a vast sea of Republicans.

Atlanta, maybe, the Atlanta metro area not so much so

xp Nah, I'm underlining Tracer's point upthread, that getting 48% of the vote isn't exactly the sign of a party on the decrease. Though some of that is just How Politics Works these days, it's been 28 years since the runner-up got less than 45% of the vote (after you throw out any third-parties).

By the estimation of Nate Silver, a "landslide" is a ten percent or higher edge over the opponent.

I assume that's electoral votes. Ten percent in the popular vote seems unlikely nowadays. :(

That's funny, I was just pondering the other day, here in Atlanta, why I've seen almost NO Romney bumperstickers this close to voting day.

Even Dukakis was within eight points with 45.7%--and the electoral was 426-111 that year. (Mondale, on the other hand, barely inched over 40%.)

when 48% becomes yr roof, you have a big picture problem, even if you can still win a (democratically unrepresentative) congress on a good year.

xp

so uh how many obama bumper stickers have y'all seen

i saw one but it turned out it said "nobama" and i thought i heard someone say "obama" the other day but they said "fauxbama."

If registered Democrats were as likely to vote as registered Republicans, the margin would be a lot wider.

so uh how many obama bumper stickers have y'all seen

In Atlanta? SO MANY.

Bama, Bama, Bo Bama
Faux Bama Fanna, Faux Bama
Fee Fie, No Bama
Obama!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MJLi5_dyn0

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qilVUxdSdKo/T9qYMQE4QsI/AAAAAAAASYw/rmb3D5ONhvo/s1600/BARRY+CHOOM+OBAMA+VERSUS+MITT+Romney.jpg

this pretty much sums it all up for me

i wonder if "close" (ie, non-landslide) elections aren't just a permanent reality now--given the media environment, polling, and the mutability of the political parties. they're kinda *too* good to allow either side to really get swamped. the "middle" will just get shifted to wherever certain antagonisms can be best exploited.