Make it stop (this is Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei):
If President Barack Obama wins, he will be the popular choice of Hispanics, African-Americans, single women and highly educated urban whites. That’s what the polling has consistently shown in the final days of the campaign. It looks more likely than not that he will lose independents, and it’s possible he will get a lower percentage of white voters than George W. Bush got of Hispanic voters in 2000.
A broad mandate this is not.
Robin G.
There comes a point where you have to wonder if Politico is actually just an elaborate piece of performance art.
Seanly
Well, if you’re an Originalist, then only the white male vote should count anyway.
I can’t wait for this election to be over.
GregB
Pol-Dick-itco.
Comrade Mary
So, losing some independents and some white males — while keeping some white males and some independents — isn’t good enough. You have to catch them all!
cathyx
I say if people are saying we are a right of center nation, then we’re also a black, hispanic, single educated woman, nation too. So there.
Anonymous
Well, I have to say that this helps me to understand why Bush thought he could claim a mandate after the 2004 election.
As Denny Green so elegently said, they are who we thought they were.
Lyrebird
@cathyx: Hear, hear!
And MMDougJ and JC and all — thank goodness you’re here!
dr. bloor
They’re basically yelling at a demographic tidal wave. They’re to be ridiculed, if not ignored.
arguingwithsignposts
Dammit, someone should have mentioned that was VandeHai and Allen that wrote that slop. I had to track all the way back through TPM to figure out that it wasn’t some low-level reporter who’s pushing that bullshit.
JustAnotherBob
Let’s see, women, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, educated white males, gays, younger whites and not older white males.
Yep, that’s narrow….
the Conster
Everyone other than white, and highly educated whites, OH NOES! Only white male dumbfuck votes count. Do old white fat fucks really want to take on everyone else? Really?
smintheus
I think it’s amusing that the name given to this rag, “Politico”, is in the dative rather than the nominative case. Presumably that’s meant to be the “dative of interest”. Except there’s nothing of interest in what Politico publishes; same tired, predictable drivel over and over again.
Spaghetti Lee
I think Obama will not have a mandate until he eats a frog and rides his bike down Dead Man’s Curve blindfolded.
arguingwithsignposts
@Spaghetti Lee:
Politifixd
Joel
You should appropriately “credit” this piece to JIM VANDEHEI and MIKE ALLEN.
Just a note.
Scott S.
Obama wins with the aid of Hispanics, African-Americans, single women and highly educated urban whites: No Democratic mandate.
Romney loses with the aid of angry, aging white people: REPUBLICAN MANDATE!
Garbo
Romney-Ryan campaign holding supporters hostage at rally. Cold, tired people, including children, being told they can’t leave. Candidate I hour late and it’s getting colder. Breaking all over the Twitter.
That’s one way to make friends and influence voters, I guess.
http://www.democrats.org/news/press/romneys_pa_fantasy_turns_into_disaster
ETA:
Southern Beale
Someone just told me that a friend of theirs in Florida reports people have received Absentee Ballots with Romney’s name already filled in, and another person said two men came to his door claiming to be election officials and said they were collecting Absentee Ballots.
The ratfuckery knows no bounds.
Waldo
When a Dem wins there is never a mandate. When a GOPer wins there’s either an unquestionable mandate or, as in the case of W., mandates don’t matter. In any case, the winner will be expected to govern from the right. Same ol’ same ol’.
kay
It’s funny, because this is a really blatant example, but I hear this ALL THE TIME now, when listening to the punditry.
It makes me furious, and once you know to listen for it they ALL do a version of this.
Do they not hear themselves? Even from a commercial, marketing angle one would think someone would tell them “hey dumbass! You just alienated half your audience!”
The smugness and arrogance is incredible. Half the country doesn’t COUNT.
Sterling
The only people I see from Politico on Scarborough’s morning show are middle-aged white guys, so it’s no surprise they think white males are the most important political demographic there is.
Maude
Obama could win 70-30 and the pundits would call it a squeaker.
dogwood
This crap won’t stop for a long time. I remember after the ’92 election when the talking heads were so quick to jump on the fact that Clinton wouldn’t have won without women voters. White male votes are the “real” American votes in the eyes of people who yack about elections. I never comment on the threads where blatant racism toward the President is discussed because I always expected it to be front and center during his tenure. It doesn’t shock me in the least. As the demographic shift in this country continues, we will see increased racism and misogyny. Eventually it will all settle down, but there is no way around it. You can only go through it.
me
The only thing worse than Politico writers are Politico reader comments.
jomike
Of course, if Romney wins it’ll be due to overwhelming support among white people in the Deep South and the flyover states. A broad mandate, that is not… right, Politico?
Douchebags.
Anne Laurie
There’s a fine line between click-farming and depressing the readership, Mister.
Also, as stated by others, you should make it clear it’s Politico, not TPM that’s shilling this slop.
sparrow
@Southern Beale: So, can these people be tried for treason? Seriously?
El Cid
Yup. Only white males who vote Republican are a legitimate voting bloc.
kay
@Southern Beale:
Charlie Crist is making a lot of noise about Romney-Scott disenfranchising voters in FL.
I now love him a little bit.
mclaren
As compared to the year fucking 2000, of course.
Whiney losers are whiney. End of story.
jshooper
WHITE MEN !!!!!…the only demographic that matters…the more things change…the more they stay the same…SMH…at least the media isn’t even pretending anymore
Rita R.
Yet again, our supposed expert betters reveal more about themselves than they do about the nation. So — a Romney win achieved via working class white men and their wives while losing everyone else is a mandate? White male privilege dies hard, and highly-placed political pundits aren’t immune.
scav
hey, what about remarking that winning most of the wimminz vote being by definition a broad mandate all on its lonesome? Especially if you pull in the gheyz menfolk.
poor little menfolk. I’d suggest pooling our resourses to buy them a terrarium, but feel they, the pure of heart and testosterone, should build it themselves.
bad Jim
If you leave out Southern whites, there’s a nearly even split between Republicans and Democrats. The solid South really skews the distribution, and it should be explicitly mentioned whenever “the white vote” is discussed.
lamh35
Sorry, I was too busy watching #BlackGirlsRock2012 on BET. Am I to understand that according to Politico we don’t really rock? Well damn and here I was feeling all encouraged and empowered.
FUCK Politico!
Southern Beale
Conservatism has become extremism. And it’s becoming increasingly difficult for the RW to deny that reality, no matter how many news cycles they try to buy.
the Conster
Does “highly educated urban whites” mean teh Jooz? Cuz that would just be the icing on that Politico turd.
IowaOldLady
There’s a sort of unconscious assumption about what’s “normal.” You see the same thing, for instance, when people say a gay judge can’t make an unbiased decision about same-sex marriage. But they never say the same thing about a straight judge. His sexual orientation is invisible because it’s the “norm.”
Napoleon
Mike Allen is nothing short of a Rep plant in the MSM. Doug J, you really should have mentioned that.
BGinCHI
Obama doesn’t have a mandate because only idiots and bigots voted for the GOP?
Is the entire Politico strategy to fool the stupid people and turn off the smart people? Who wants to live in a world like that?
These are the same guys that would never, ever spend any time in the part of America that votes GOP.
gwangung
@Southern Beale:
The latter is also happening in King County, WA.
Cacti
@the Conster:
I was thinking homos, but either one works I guess.
Maude
@kay:
47% all over again.
GregB
If any Republican on the national scene were ever to go missing the FBI would be able to find a DNA match on Mike Allen’s chin.
He’s odious in his groveling.
cathyx
Let’s hope that there will be less aging white men, and more young virile men of color. Let’s hear it for young virile men of color! And women!
Anton Sirius
I like that this bullshit from Politico came out the same day that their own poll shows Obama tied with Romney among independents.
Reality? Who needs it?
Mr Stagger Lee
So the Mittster is holding hostages at his rally in PA. And was late for an hour to boot
Tonal Crow
@El Cid:
Ding ding ding ding! You win today’s “What most Republicans think but hardly any will admit to thinking” prize! Your reward, should you choose to accept it, is a tin-plated phonograph record of Rih Santorum whining about “blah” people mixed with the Mittster whining about the 47% and Ray-gun emoting about young bucks buying T-bones with welfare checks.
Southern Beale
@gwangung:
Does that work? Does anyone fall for that shit?
Breezeblock
Sometimes I wish I was dead.
FlipYrWhig
A voting result produced by persuading many distinct segments of the populace to vote for you seems like it would have to be, by definition, “broad.” He will have won with a broad spectrum rather than a narrow one. They could have made the same point by noting that it wouldn’t be an across-the-board victory, but they make it extra embarrassingly false by throwing “broad” in there.
blingee
If you don’t win the Applebees crowd, you don’t have a mandate!
My god what unbelievable excrement! Can’t believe those clowns get paid to write that utter garbage
freelancer
@Breezeblock:
Figuratively, right? This isn’t a GBCW post, is it?
Spaghetti Lee
Has there ever been anything more useless than Politico? I mean, anything, anywhere? All the mealy-mouthed bullshit of bland convention wisdom combined with the bursting-at-the-seams bigotry and pissy resentment of right-wing bloggers. Who is their audience? Who gets up every morning and says “I think I’ll read what Politico has to say about the morning news”? Who aren’t these people and why aren’t they on some sort of FBI list?
Patricia Kayden
I guess Politico is giving Repubs in Congress cover for when they start obstructing and voting down everything President Obama proposes after the Election.
Tonal Crow
@Mr Stagger Lee:
So? Didn’t his hostages read the RomneyTron 2012 Terms of Service agreement, where it says “1.7.9.23(a)(i)(3): You hereby pledge for all time your body, those of your kin to the seventh degree, your possessions of whatever kind, and your eternal soul to RomneyTron 2012 for whatever use it, in its sole discretion, desires.” ? No? Well then, it’s their fault, ain’t it? Buyer bee-ware, this is Ayn Rand gone wild we’re talkin’ here.
gwangung
@Southern Beale: Got no idea, but it was happening enough that it made the King County Elections home page.
kay
@IowaOldLady:
White males are the standard by which all other voters are measured.
They have to stop doing this. If you’re in the Lesser Voter category, you really hear it. Over and over and over..
It amuses me, because have you looked at advertising, oh, the last 20 years or so? People who sell products are VERY aware of this, yet our media is not.
Corporate advertisers are like ground-breaking radicals compared to these guys.
FlipYrWhig
@Spaghetti Lee: You know the people who say that what the country really needs is a centrist party that will reduce the deficit? You know, like a handful of veteran pundits who talk only to each other and think they’re very clever? Politico is by, for, and of them. It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “house organ.”
Hungry Joe
Rushbo said that since Clinton didn’t get 50% of the vote (1992, the Perot factor), he wasn’t a “real” president. In 2000 he declared that Bush had a mandate.
Just for the record, there are more cats than dogs in the U.S.A., so that makes this a feline country. And a few years ago the sale of bagels surpassed the sale of donuts, so … hmmmm …
Spaghetti Lee
@FlipYrWhig:
You know the people who say that what the country really needs is a centrist party that will reduce the deficit?
No! No I don’t! I mean, I know of them, but I’ve never met a single one in real life.
Roger Moore
@jomike:
Of course it will be a broad mandate. Just look at the county-by-county map, and you’ll see a huge sea of red with only a few small areas of blue. That’s proof of just how broad the Republican mandate is.
JPL
@Mr Stagger Lee: The story has been updated on the news feeds twitter. Probably not true.
calliope jane
And this isn’t their audition piece for The Onion? Sure, all these people voting for the President don’t count, because what about us poor repressed (old) white men?
On a happier note, I voted early on Friday (southern AZ) and there was a line! Filled with all sorts of people that don’t count in Politico’s eyes. Women, Latinos, even a few white men that didn’t look oppressed or worried that we were voting. There was one Latino man (in his 40s) who was just leaving with a huge smile on his face, wishing all of us good luck. Turns out, this was his first time voting. Everyone there was really happy for him.
Made my day.
Southern Beale
From Charles Pierce:
What a depressing thought. This country’s politics is so fucked up right now. I have no clue how to fix it.
Roger Moore
@the Conster:
I think we’re a key part of the highly educated urban white demographic, but it also includes teh ghey, hipsters, and ivory tower coastal elitists.
Shawn in ShowMe
@kay:
That’s exactly what Romney said in the 47% video. The national punditry agree with his take, they just lament his “bluntness.” His words could have used more salad.
TS
Some people only count for 2/3 compared to old white men and their beaten down spouses. The latter may surprise given it is a secret ballot.
Yutsano
@Southern Beale:
We don’t. Until we fight the Civil War again.
FlipYrWhig
@Spaghetti Lee: The people who claim to want such a thing do seem to be disproportionately well-represented on editorial pages in New York and Washington.
amk
Clutching at straws while drowning in the demographic quick sand. Soon, even the bubbles will die off.
Bill E Pilgrim
If one older cranky, barely coherent white male is unhappy, there is no mandate.
This is of course great news for John McCain.
LD50
‘MANDATE’ = LOTS OF UNEDUCATED WHITE MEN
Spaghetti Lee
@Roger Moore:
If the GOP wants to play silly rhetorical games with the right to vote, two can play at that game. New rule: Any county where the livestock outnumber the people must use provisional ballots exclusively.
catclub
@Southern Beale: On the one hand, it seems the voting public can barely tell what is going on.
On the other hand, even 4 years later, most people blame Bush more than Obama for the economy.
With that in mind, I can hope that two more years of treasonous GOP
sabotage of the economy gets noticed, and the House turns.
arguingwithsignposts
@Southern Beale:
If that happened, that’s fucked up. But before we go passing around chain e-mails, we need some proof. So far, you’ve got “a friend of a friend says” which amounts to nothing.
shorter: “pics or it didn’t happen.”
Mark S.
@Garbo:
Jesus, that’s fucking insane! Couldn’t those people sue the Romney campaign for false imprisonment?
Southern Beale
Someone on Twitter just posted this picture of an Obama figure hanging by a noose, don’t know where it was taken. Shocking.
Southern Beale
@Yutsano:
Oh God, must we? It went so well last time. Not.
arguingwithsignposts
@Southern Beale: that’s a Shell station somewhere. Weird.
IowaOldLady
@catclub:
This is why I don’t always understand how pundits interpret the answer to “Is the country on the right track or the wrong track?” They always assume that if someone says “wrong track,” it means they don’t want Obama.
I think the country is on the wrong track, but I don’t blame Obama. Mostly I blame conservative anti-science, theocratic, misogynist, Laffer-curve-loving Republicans.
Fluke bucket
After looking at the pictures on the Politico page I stand by my contention that most Republican politicians look like child molesting youth ministers. But damn, the Hillary and Obama photos look brutal. Like Mr. And Mrs. Anti-Christ .
smintheus
@Southern Beale: The photo was taken in Tampa.
Southern Beale
@smintheus:
Wow was it at the RNC?
rickstershierpa
As Charlie Pierce says on his blog “Things in Politico that make me want to guzzle anti-freeze by the gallon.”
By the way, this “white” vote breaks down on a regional basis. Across the Ol’Confederacy, and border states like Kansas, Missouri,Kentucky,and West Virginia (one could add Indiana to that, where there was a huge Copperhead presence in the War of the Rebellion (I kind like the old name)), the white vote, both among men and women, is 80% to 60% Republican. New England is pretty white, and so is the upper Midwest, and Obama is getting the majority, or near majority of the white vote. I offer this up in defense of us White Yankees (also known as DFHs). However, we apparently also don’t count for Mr. Allen and Mr. Vanderhei as real “murikans,” as apparently real “murikans” must have ancestors who committed treason against the United States.
Southern Beale
Gosh I’m so old I remember when being angry was a bad thing. But inchoate rage is all the right has these days.
Mary
Wow. This might be the most offensive thing I’ve ever read.
PurpleGirl
@arguingwithsignposts: But according to Chris Rock, he is white.
Baud
Correct. It is a very broad mandate.
RSA
@Southern Beale:
The guy who does this thing is named Phipps, and he’s from a rural county in eastern North Carolina. I believe this picture was taken in Raleigh, when the State Fair was running a couple of weeks ago.
1badbaba3
Isn’t that wonderful? I’d say they are handling their humiliating, crushing defeat very well indeed.
This is, and has been, the coolest thing ever.
Hiss-toe-ree, bitchez! Git some!
AA+ Bonds
Politico is kind of retarded
jackmac
@Bad Jim: If you leave out Southern whites, there’s a nearly even split between Republicans and Democrats. The solid South really skews the distribution, and it should be explicitly mentioned whenever “the white vote” is discussed.:
And if you leave out the Confederacy (and really, let ’em secede), Obama’s has himself a landslide.
russell
It is if there are a lot of blacks, Latinos, single women, and educated whites.
I leave the math as an exercise for the reader.
Yutsano
@jackmac: Yesbut, as Special Timmeh will tell you, it’s RAAAAAACIST to point that out.
mai naem
To be fair if you go to the piece they do mention in the next paragraph that the Repubs appealing to white men isn’t going to cut it anymore. Josh Marshall had a comment about this in 2000 or 2004, on how they always talked about the Dems needing getting x percent of the white vote as if non-whites, especially blacks didn’t count. I can’t stand Mike Allen but I personally find Jim VanDerHei the more loathsome of the two. He totally reminds of guys I’ve worked with who think they’re better then everybody else. Ugh.
pseudonymous in nc
@Southern Beale:
Raleigh; it’s a guy from eastern NC with a truck thing with a bunch of politicians’ effigies, and who’s been driving it around the country for three years; he wants a federal investigation into a family member’s death and this is his way to get attention.
I’m actually going to file this one under “severely mentally ill”.
Another Halocene Human
@blingee: Actually, Applebees crowd is very mixed race wherever I go.
Maybe you mean the 99 Restaurant, chain in the Boston area. Not too many near or near near patrons, IYKWIM.
Another Halocene Human
@Spaghetti Lee: Gotta thank them for that Wisconsin Local 1848 business. Made a great t-shirt.
Another Halocene Human
@Roger Moore: While I ought to be flattered, I’d just like the PSA here and explain that teh ghey are likely not over-represented in the overeducated category on account of that whole “parents disinclined to lend money to us” situation.
And even though things are changing, young teenagers are STILL being thrown out of their homes by parents for being GLBT.
But if it weren’t for bugfuck ignorant dimwit cruel parents throwing their little mistakes the door, creeps would never be able to afford underage tail. And that would be an American tragedy.
Bobby Thomson
@Southern Beale: Let’s not whitewash history. It ended slavery and was the only thing that could have done so. The only reason we have the Thirteenth through Fifteenth Amendments is because Northerners were able to kill hundreds of thousands of racist assholes.
Shorter: I wish a mother fucker would.
LosGatosCA
@Southern Beale:
“What a depressing thought. This country’s politics is so fucked up right now. I have no clue how to fix it.”
It’s the half of humanity within the country driving the conservative, Republican, TeaBagger Klown Kar right over the cliff that’s so fucked up right now and it can’t be fixed. Peak wingnut was an absolute lie and nature will run its course for a lot longer than when the current generation of angry white men die off, because guess what? There’s another, luckily smaller, generation coming right after them. The demographics work against their voices counting with the same emphasis but willful human ignorance is inexhaustible as is the money of the 1% that needs to continually exploit it.
All it takes to regress are 5 or more partisan Supreme Court justices that believe the liberation of money and corporations to corrupt political processes takes absolute precedence over the rights of individuals to exercise their right to vote and have their voted counted. Like right now.
sweaver
I couldn’t bring myself to click the link to determine for myself if it was real, so I’m going to conclude you just made it up because you were bored.
Helen Bedd
To review:
Obama wins 80% minorities and 40% whites = NOT A MANDATE
Rmoney wins 20% of minorities 62% of whites = HUGE MANDATE
Bulworth
Bring On The Meteor is a total #Winning tag.
Bulworth
And I think we can all remember how important W’s percent of the Hispanic vote was regarded by all the Very Serious People in 2000.
sherparick
Brad Delong has nice chart that breaksdown the white vote by region. http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/11/american-politics-in-the-south-the-past-is-not-dead-it-is-not-even-past-weblogging.html
As Faulkner wrote so astutely about the South, “the Past is not dead, it is not even Past.”
LAC
@me: Aren’t they disgusting? It is like they just got off of fucking the chicken on the WAPO’s comments section and, spent, stagger over to PolitiHo to finish up.
brantl
Bush didn’t win either election (the bullshit in Ohio in 2094, the bullshit in Florida in 2000) and he treated minimal so-called leads aa a mandate. What horseshit.