Aftermath

I know that this post is going to go over the heads of most conservatives that even bother to read it, but here goes anyway.

If one looks at the Constitution of the United States, in Article II Section 1 Clause 4; Amendment XII; Amendment XXIII Section 1, you will find the process outlined by which these United States elect the President and Vice President.  We just finished the first part of that process, in which we choose the Electors.  In December, those worthies will then meet, as directed, and actually elect the President.

In accordance with that process, we are assured that the current incumbent of that office, Barrack Hussein Obama, has been re-elected to that self-same office for a second four year term.  His opponent, Mitt Romney, has conceded that President Obama’s election was legitimate and correct.

Face it, Obama won.  Legitimately won.  He didn’t cheat, he didn’t win in court, it didn’t have to go to the House for settlement.  and he was elected using the process outlined and specified in the Constitution you Conservatives love so much.

So, can we move on?

Look.  Somebody had to win.  I am sorry that your echo chamber prevented you from seeing the handwriting on the wall which was visible to anybody else with half a brain for the past week, and that the surprise shocked your fragile little brains quite out of kilter.

No, Obama didn’t cheat by defining Romney as some caricature of himself - Omaba merely pointed out the truth behind how Romney had defined himself during the primaries - it isn’t Obama’s fault that Romney had his etch-a-sketch working overtime to redo his image in the last weeks of the campaign instead of immediately after the primaries were over like any sane candidate of the past did.

Romney defined himself - early in the primaries - as a hard right conservative, and made a point of backing all of the most extremist positions possible, in order to endear himself to the Tea Party crowd.  It isn’t Obama’s fault that those positions are not what most Americans like nor admire, and it is a legitimate campaign tactic to point out to the Electorate that an opponent’s general campaign positions aren’t what he promised his Party faithful in the primaries.

Obviously, voters rejected those policies - or at least over half did.  Enough to allow Obama to win re-election.  Not only did they reject those policies, they rejected Romney’s lies and his empty rhetoric as well.  His Jeep job ads hurt him, not only in Ohio, but throughout the midwest where the auto industry is a big employer.  They hurt him because Americans don’t like a liar.  His refusal to show his tax returns hurt him, too. (Don’t, for goodness’ sake, bring up Obama’s college records - nobody gives a damn, and the college records of a man publicly known to have been the first black President of the Harvard Law Review can hardly show anything bad or embarrassing, so get over it.)

No, any further denials, rejections, wailing or gnashing of teeth will do you no good, and will surely just label you as childish and ignorant.

We’ve got a country that badly needs some expert attention from people devoted to bringing her back to prosperity, and that will not be served by people solely focused on partisan political goals.  Romney himself, in his concession speech, said it well when he told you to stop the partisan bickering and to cooperate with Democrats. Yes, he meant that for you, too!  It wasn’t a right wing dog whistle for letting the Democrats do the compromising while you stand your ground.  That won’t work this time.

Take a look at the demographics.

Romney lost the majority of the votes from women, Latinos, Blacks, the under 30 crowd, and just about every other demographic that wasn’t white and male - by significant double digits in almost every case.  (and he didn’t get all of those, either.)  In the past, that one demographic - white - was enough.  Twenty-five years ago, 90% of the voting public was white, and women voted what their hubbies told them to.  That was more than sufficient to win just about any election.

Not any more.  In every Presidential election for the last twenty years at least, the percentage of voters which are white compared to the overall voting pool has declined by between two and four percent.  This election was no different, and this time, only 72% of the voters in this election were white.  That means that all of the others were much more significant in number than in the past.  That is what you call in statistics a trend, and it is moving sharply away from whites as a majority.

It also means that Republicans have a job to do before the next Presidential election:  decide what kind of Party they want.  Do they want one that continues to look like it does today - largely white, male and bigoted?  Or do they want one that is winning elections?

They can’t have both.  I’ll leave it to you, dear reader, to decide which of the cherished policies and principles of the Grand Old Party which will need to get dumped, but there is a house cleaning that will need to be done before Republicans put another of their own in the White House.

Instead of pointing fingers over who lost Romney, they’d better get started.

Hillary ain’t gonna wait.