Apparently the Romney campaign was just as deluded as the Right Wing punditry

Yesterday I mentioned how shocked I was that so many on the right had ignored the basic facts that Romney was probably going to lose. But surely you would think the campaign itself was using real numbers instead of made up numbers or “gut” feelings, right?

Apparently not.

Not only is there widespread reporting that the Romney team was shocked that they lost, but apparently they were confident enough in winning to rent a fireworks barge in Boston.

I’ve gotta say, this bumps Romney down a notch in my book. It’s one thing to disagree with a candidate’s policies (those that could be gleaned anyway), but when the candidate’s team is using so little real data as to delude themselves and their ground game is so bad they were out of touch with the very communities that we’re critical in this election, it does not speak well at all for the potential competence of a potential administration.

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When the surprise is the surprise

There’s a lot to say about Tuesday’s election, from the huge gains made for LGBT rights and LGBT candidates to the legalization of pot or from the number of women elected to the Senate to the reaffirmation that our polling data is actually really, really good.

What I wanted to write about here relates to that last point. I watched more Fox News on election night than I probably have in the rest of my life combined. Admittedly, I was initially just looking for some immature, gloating, schadenfreude. Instead I found myself simply shocked that it seemed everyone on Fox [...] Continue Reading…

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The electoral college map looks good for Obama

I noticed in this piece (and to be fair, this post is really just an expansion and further breakdown on that piece) that apparently Mitt Romney is spending all his ad money in eight states: Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, and New Hampshire. These are 8 of the 11 states that are generally agreed upon to be “in play,” the other three being Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

The states that are agreed upon to be foregone conclusions give an electoral college count of 201 Obama, 191 Romney (remember, you need 270 to win). Looks close, right?

Well, let’s [...] Continue Reading…

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A few thoughts on the #16TrillionFail Twitter sponsored trend/hashtag

Earlier today I tweeted this:

LOL, GOP bought promoted trend #16TrillionFail but all the tweets are about how republicans drove up the debt— Jesse Emery (@ejesse) September 5, 2012

I should first point out that “GOP” in my original tweet is entirely incorrect. The hashtag was NOT sponsored by the GOP, it was sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, a political advocacy group that is part of the Kochtopus. I posted a correction here. (Let’s just set aside the money in politics part of whether orgs like AFP “are” the GOP at this point or not…).

Now, I don’t make any secrets that [...] Continue Reading…

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The most important line of Bill Clinton’s 2012 DNC speech

Sure, there were wittier zingers and ad libs and he completely, utterly took apart the Romney/Ryan platform point by point. But I think this is what it all, really, boils down to:

If you want a you’re on your own, winner take all society you should support the Republican ticket. If you want a country of shared opportunities and shared responsibilities – a “we’re all in it together” society, you should vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

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On single-payer healthcare and participating in society

I made a snarky comment on Facebook and Twitter about conservatives wanting to leave the US because of this morning’s Supreme Court ruling on Obamacare and it resulted in a debate. I’m cross-posting my own comment on single-payer health care from that thread, below, because I think it sums my thoughts about as succinctly as they can get. The comment was in response to a comment regarding the fairness of healthier people having to pay more than less healthy people (say obese people or smokers).

I guess it really all comes down to how important it is to you that [...] Continue Reading…

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On Learning to Code

While I normally agree with nearly every one of Jeff Atwood’s posts, I find this post, Please Don’t Learn to Code, at best utterly baffling, and at worst, deeply troubling. He makes several points and the post is, as usual, well thought out and written, but I think this is the crux of my disagreement:

The “everyone should learn to code” movement isn’t just wrong because it falsely equates coding with essential life skills like reading, writing, and math. I wish.

It might not be at the level of reading and writing, but I think basic coding is up there [...] Continue Reading…

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