I thought witnessing the Great PUMA Tantrum of Aught-Eight in real time was fun, but it turns out that was just the bagged crudité tray before the grand schadenfreude banquet that is the Colossal Wingnut Bed-Shitting of 2012. Good times!
But among all the very many reasons to be happy today, one of my favorite things is the stunning progress we’ve made on LGBT equality, symbolized by a few of last night’s election results. NOM has a sad today, and that’s a Good Thing. They used to crow about their “36-0” record, and to give the devil their due, they were remarkably successful in advancing the cause of bigotry and defacing various state constitutions with anti-gay graffiti.
That streak is broken. Marriage equality won in Maine, Maryland and Minnesota (and maybe Washington state too). Tammy Baldwin is the first openly gay senator elected in US history.
This particular moral arc of the universe has been bending toward justice for a long time, thanks to the brave and tireless efforts of millions of people over decades. And although it has bent more sharply recently, we still have a long way to go.
But is there any doubt that having a sitting president come out in favor of marriage equality made a difference? Is there any doubt that President Obama’s successful drive to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell changed things?
Thank you, President Barack Obama. Well done, sir.
[X-posted at Rumproast]
Zifnab25
Ride that magic unicorn, Mr. President.
/salutes
General Stuck
The magical unity pony has traded up for rainbow canon fire.
You wingnut. You can run but you can’t hide.
Violet
It really is amazing how far we’ve come and how fast it has happened. Feels like dominoes falling. They’ve started and they’ll keep on going. Gay marriage will be the law of the land here.
imonlylurking
That’s not quite true for Minnesota-the amendment that failed was to enshrine the ban on gay marriage into the state constitution. We’ve still got a law making it illegal. I think that should be the next target but I haven’t had a chance to really look into it yet.
EconWatcher
Obama is like the good parts of FDR (economic justice) and LBJ (civil rights), rolled into one.
mai naem
I am so glad that the right can’t use this as a wedge issue anymore. They can’t use the immigration stuff anymore because the Hispanic backlash. People are beginning to clue into the voter id stuff. Luntz and Rove are going to have go back to the table and come up with something new. I dunno. Maybe running propositions against killing puppies and kittens and stuff. ANd please again, Obama needs to fill up the court vacancies and fix the voting crap. Nobody but nobody should have to wait for more than hour to vote. That is tops. And Husted better pay for the garbage he pulled. And Ricky Scott too. Mofos.
Roger Moore
Just words! Ok, a few deeds, too, but those don’t count because he only did that stuff after we forced him to.
Baud
Great job all around – Prez, organizers, and voters. My hope is that the momentum is so strong now that the Supreme Court will get that fifth vote they need to overturn DOMA.
arguingwithsignposts
Obama is worse than Bush! He sold us out!
just thought I’d get that out of the way early.
ETA: I now see that it was in the tags. Well played, Mrs. Cracker. Well played.
MattF
Yeah, I was just thinking that myself. Here in Maryland, you could practically feel the tectonic plates move when Obama endorsed marriage equality. There’s no doubt that at that moment, Obama personally and specifically derailed NOM’s anti-marriage strategy.
Comrade Jake
First POTUS to openly support gay marriage elected. Lot of firsts last night.
BTW, when are they gonna call Florida?
Xecky Gilchrist
INB4 Dr0nz
cathyx
The aging electorate is getting pushed out by death and the younger generation doesn’t care if someone is gay. And they’re not afraid of marijuana either.
Enhanced Mooching Techniques
@Violet: Yes, it was only in 2004 were they were saying The Right deliberately picked Teh Gay Marriage for the Culture Wars(tm) because it was the only issue they could win. And now they don’t even have that.
scav
Weird sudden thought. I’m still goddy, content for some very solid developments and bone deep
furiously angry, while still able to fall over goggling as some of the Big Bird comments.
Odd mixture.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@arguingwithsignposts:
Hey, Romney won! Karl Rove told me so! So Obama needs to get busy gettin’ worse.
Redshift
@mai naem:
Filibuster reform is the most important first step on that. According to Kagro X, who has made this his particular hobby horse, the threat of a filibuster is what gives force to holds, secret holds, and all that other crap that gums up the works in the Senate. Get rid of the filibuster, and they won’t be able to block nominees until they give up.
All of us who have Democratic senators need to really hammer them to do this, because we get one shot at it at the beginning of the session in January.
arguingwithsignposts
@Xecky Gilchrist: obligatory “That was never funny” sneer.
arguingwithsignposts
I wonder when the Justices will start retiring? I predict Ginsberg will hang it up at the end of this term. I will refrain from wishing illness upon any other justices of the asshat persuasion, only because I’m being magnanimous today.
Alison
All of these gains, and how quickly things have progressed on this front, make me wonder where things will be come 2016, and how different a role it will play then. If the GOP refuses to come around on the issue, I mean…lordy, they might as well not even run a candidate. Especially since I imagine DOMA will be gone by that time, and hopefully my dear state of CA plus many more will join the list of states with marriage equality. At that point, you just can’t keep running against a majority view. I mean, you *can*, but…
Schlemizel
@Comrade Jake:
A couple of hours ago there were still 200k uncounted votes & Obama leads by about 50k. In theory it should be recounted but, since it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference, they should all agree to just let it go without a recount.
Maude
@Roger Moore:
You beat me to it.
General Stuck
Got my wingnut decoding enema machine fired up and ready to decipher.\\
Robert Stacy MCcAin – America’s Sweetheart
Says America sucks, but you can still make a dollar manufacturing outrage.
Means break out the dildos and wetsuits for some manfully recreation.
Means — pass the Dijon and swallow yer shit sandwich hard. Tally Ho!!
I must rest now.
dmsilev
I was telling a coworker this afternoon about a conversation I had with my (Massachusetts) parents a few years back not too long after gay marriage became legal there. A lesbian couple had moved in a few houses down from my parents, and my mom was telling me this as part of an infodump of neighborhood goings-on and it was just utterly banal. “I hope their dog gets along with our dog” and things like that.
Hard to get a good frothing hatred going in that context.
aimai
@cathyx:
No, but if you read Jezebel’s roundup of (white southern) youth they are still just as racist as their parents.
aimai
The Moar You Know
@scav: Not so odd. I’m not going to speak for you, but I find myself enraged a lot these days, and it’s simply because of this observation I had a while back that keeps haunting me.
It should have never come to this.
This is the 21st century. We should be flying rocket cars to our vacation homes on the moon, not trying desperately to keep society from reverting to feudalism. A lot of futures have been stolen, and the present ain’t such great shakes for that matter. I don’t know where it all went wrong, it was already starting to go to shit by the time I was born back in the mid 60s, and I suspect the people fundamentally responsible are dead and beyond the reach of any justice. I feel cheated out of my future. Our future.
NotMax
Obama’s correct and right stance on same-sex marriage, IMHO, was what tipped North Carolina away from his winning there.
Well worth it.
Schlemizel
@arguingwithsignposts:
I have no such compunctions – I hope while Mikeie is settling all the family business he whacks Fat Tony, that tertiary syphilis finally takes Uncle Thomas ‘brain’, Sammy gets a fatal case of whiplash shaking his head during the SOtU and that Buster Brown wanna be does the CJ dad of his (come on you know he wants to do it after being forced to wear those clothes).
I have stopped trying to be nice or civil to the wingnuts and all their enablers. They want civility they will have to display some first
Chris
@mai naem:
And yet, they can’t go soft on it either, or the Angry White Conservative base will freak.
I continue to think immigration will be the rock on which the Nixon/Reagan coalition will be split. We had civil rights, they’re going to have this.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
You’re joking, right? Just checking, because I don’t want to miss the snark.
Amazing what making an example can do. I remember when Obama formally came out in favor of gay marriage, and some sage heads predicted that he would lose the support of conservative, religious black and Latino voters (and it was a given that he had lost religious whites).
Instead, many people said to themselves and others, well if it is OK with the president of the United States then maybe I should rethink my views. Others more openly said what they believed all along, that tolerance is a good thing.
A few brave souls who had hidden themselves away came out of the closet.
Sometimes it is the little things that matter most. It also reminds me of how Princess Diana was derided as an airhead, as useless parasite on the Royals. And yet she went into hospitals and hugged AIDS patients when all the brainier sorts kept away.
The entire world can change with a word or a touch. It matters less whether it was forced than that someone was willing to step up and make history pay attention.
Comrade Jake
I can’t believe nobody has mentioned yet that this is all the fault of Will and Grace.
Schlemizel
@Comrade Jake:
How could we have missed that?
It all started with that damn Billy Crystal playing one of them on “Soap”. Hollyweird YOU DID THIS TOO US!!
More wingnut tears please
Redshift
One of the things that continues to impress me about Obama is his genius for setting things in motion that have much stronger consequences as time goes on, rather than trying to get everything into legislation up front. I think part of that is because he genuinely believes the country will move in a better direction over the long term.
Health care reform, gay rights, the auto industry, etc. And he had enough vision to use crossover tactics — using the leverage of the bailout to reshape the auto industry from an SUV industry to an efficient car industry, and produce great environmental effects, and likewise using the stimulus to build up the clean energy industry. I’m a big space exploration fan, and as a result of this pattern, I trust Obama on space policy, even though he hasn’t been a huge booster of NASA, because I trust that his commercial space initiatives (among other things) are putting the field on a broader, more self-sustaining path.
This really is revolutionary. For a very long time, we had Democrats who wanted to lock in whatever small amount they could get, because they came out of the Reagan era (or were in office when it began), and acted as if, in the back of their minds, they were always expecting things to go against them at any moment. Obama really doesn’t believe that, and understands that your accomplishments will be more enduring if you design them starting from the assumption that they will endure.
cathyx
@aimai: But they aren’t the majority, and in the past, young people everywhere were homophobic and that is what’s changing.
Chris
@The Moar You Know:
I know what you mean. Man, do I know what you mean.
We’ve gone from being the forefront of liberalism and Enlightenment and humanist ideals to being the more reliably backwards, authoritarian, class-ridden shit hole in the developed world. It wasn’t always this way, it didn’t have to be this way and as you said, it certainly shouldn’t have been this way. I can only hope that at some point in my lifetime, we’ll have gotten over the hump.
? Martin
@dmsilev:
Well, without knowing how gay their dog is, we can’t really say.
The Ancient Randonneur
OT: When the new Congress begins in January the New Hampshire delegation will be comprised entirely of women! Senator Shaheen (D) and Senator Ayotte (R) AND Rep Carol Shea Porter (D) and Rep Annie Kuster (D). Has this ever happened before? I couldn’t find any precedent for it. But my Google-fu may be weak. Dunno. Thought maybe Maine but apparently not.
Southern Beale
Ole Miss Riots Following Obama Victory … with video.
Let the fun begin!
Southern Beale
Also, husband came home and said David Brooks thinks the solution is for billionaires to stop spending their money on campaign ads and Super PAC donations and instead to fund a think tank.
Right. Cuz they aren’t doing enough of that. * sigh *
honus
@cathyx: It is the passage of a generation, but also remember most of what are considered old farts now liked and still like to smoke pot. Hell, most of the 50-60 something white republicans I know are at least part-time vipers. This really is a bi-partisan cross-generational issue. I predict a rash of these ballot initiatives over the next few years culminating in a congressional vote to legalize marijuana.
We all pretty much figured it would happen in the 70s, but Reagan and Meese set us back about 40 years.
JPL
Today Boehner spoke about Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan working together and then exaggerated what they accomplished but several folks under 35 chanted Who dat? I
Lee
Can we get a thread with fun images from the election?
Here is my submission:
Obama with a smirk
Redshift
@dmsilev: I had the same thing a few years ago. I was talking to my mom, who still teaches preschool, and she offhandedly mentioned that they had a lesbian couple as parents of a child at the school, and they would be happy to have more, because this couple were such good parents.
Now my mom has never been remotely conservative, so that part wasn’t entirely surprising, but I honestly never thought I’d hear her say the word “lesbian.” The whole matter-of-fact tone of the conversation really highlighted how much the world has changed.
MattF
@Southern Beale: Right. And call it “The David Brooks Institute for Institutional Institutions.” We need it because that ‘democracy’ stuff can get out of hand.
Redshift
@The Ancient Randonneur: I believe the news stories about it I heard last night were saying it was a first.
mai naem
I was looking at the twitter machine r/t 2012 tweets last night. I did not know Guy Cecil the DSCC director was gay. And Jim Messina who Carson Pressley could play in a movie apparently was responsible for an anti-gay ad in the 90s in Montana.
J.W. Hamner
November 3, 2004 when we woke up to a pretty bleak landscape for LGBT rights doesn’t seem that long ago… I’m starting to dare to hope that we might be approaching critical mass where progress will come faster and faster.
Gian
@Chris:
Reagan did an amnesty on immigration
however that was before NAFTA and outsourcing to China. The powers that were in the GOP wanted the cheap labor.
Now they want a scapegoat
gbear
We’re going to use our new freedoms to open a chain of recruiting stations.
gex
Minnesota did become the first state to reject a constitutional amendment banning marriage equality. While historic, sort of pales in comparison to the three states passing marriage equality.
Not that I am complaining at all. It’s just that technically, nothing to advance gay rights happened here. It just didn’t move the wrong way.
ETA: I am remiss in failing to credit Obama. His consensus building clearly works more effectively than bully pulpit speechifying. I am truly impressed with what he did on this issue in four short years.
cathyx
@honus: I’m not talking about the 50-60 year olds, they’re former hippies. I’m talking about 75-90 year olds. They’re the ones who are dying, need to die, for change to happen.
JWL
“[T]he Colossal Wingnut Bed-Shitting of 2012”.
If there’s a Pulitzer for phrasing of that sort, you just won it.
burnspbesq
I am looking at the electoral map of California, and I can’t get this huge shit-eating grin off my face.
Dem Gov
Two Dem U.S. Senators
Congressional delegation 38-15 Dem
Two-thirds Dem majorities in both houses of the Legislature.
State went 59-39-2 for Obama (he carried San Diego County!)
I thnk it’s time to go piss on Howard Jarvis’ grave.
Redshift
@Alison:
They’re still running against the majority view on civil rights after several decades, they’re just more subtle about it. Sadly, I expect the same thing in this case.
Herbal Infusion Bagger
@? Martin:
Maybe the dog’s more into box turtles.
Baud
@J.W. Hamner:
The progress on gay issues is why you never say die, no matter how bleak things look.
Comrade Carter
The great joy of Tammy Baldwin being elected to the Senate is because of the People of Wisconsin!
Give it up for us!
The Ancient Randonneur
@gbear: Fine. But, if you are going to force us all to divorce our spouses and do the same sex marriage thing I want dibs on Johnny Depp.
Redshift
OT: I was listening to BBC radio on the way to work, and there was a news story about Greece, and how there were massive protests against austerity legislation to “cut pensions, raise the retirement age, and make it easier to fire public employees.” My first thought was: and the wingnuts have the gall to say we’re the ones who will turn the US into Greece!
Redshift
@The Ancient Randonneur: Fine, as long as I get John Barrowman.
Herbal Infusion Bagger
@J.W. Hamner:
I think Gavin Newsom could justifably ask for his own Magic Rainbow Ghey Equality Pony. He said back in 2004 that Ghey Marriage was going to happen “Whether we liked it or not”, and pissed off Boxer who thought it was too soon and was jeopardizing the 2004 election. Well, Newsom was right.
Roger Moore
@cathyx:
That’s apparently not the whole story. The nation has been moving toward gay marriage much faster than you can explain by haters dying off and young people not caring. It turns out that a lot of older people are changing their opinions, too.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Redshift:
Obama trusts the American people to get it right in the end, and that despite all the superficial evidence to the contrary, we’re not stupid. I think his enduring personal popularity in the face of trying times springs from his deep affection for the people of this country, which is something that really can’t be faked. Once he leaves office and the controversies of the day spanning his administrations fade with time, his likeability rating is going to be very, very high, possibly even higher than Reagan’s despite the more polarized nature of our political landscape.
Tin Roof
ST&P, I just stole this pic for my cover photo on FB.
Thanks!
LD50
@burnspbesq: The California GOP is even more fucked up and dysfunctional than the Texas Democratic Party. No mean feat.
gex
@Southern Beale: Win via buying it or propaganda. The idea of persuading honestly or developing a platform that appeals to more people is a non-starter apparently.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
Sorry, I left off the /snark tag. I thought it was obvious enough, but I guess the Left isn’t immune to Poe’s Law.
Betty Cracker
@Redshift: I call dibs on Rachel!
mai naem
@burnspbesq: Yeah, well, y’all did not give me my Sparkly Pony when you did not get rid of the odious Darrel Issa. Can you guys convince him to run for governator and give him a good ass whooping?
AxelFoley
I’m not used to this on progressive blogs. I mean, it’s like Everybody Loves Obama.
Shit’s throwing me off.
burnspbesq
Bwahahahaha. Sucks being Bibi today.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/11/07/a-very-awkward-video-of-netanyahu-congratulating-obama/?tid=pm_world_pop
Raven
Wow, just wow. I posted a “see you later jerk” about Allen West on my Facebook and my half-brother jumped up and told me he had “put up with” my disrespect long enough and “fuck you”. God, I could annihilate his fucking teabagger ass even though he’s 20 years younger. Good thing I’m in Georgia and he’s where who he called “the great Sheriff Arapio” can protect him.
burnspbesq
@mai naem:
Unfortunately, I think Issa possesses too much feral cunning to step into that trap. Would you settle for Rohrbacher?
SatanicPanic
@burnspbesq: That mean they can raise taxes and fix our budget?
mai naem
@LD50: If Hillary decides to run in 2016, the Big Dawg needs to sit his ass down in Texas for six months straight going from one end of that state to the other end doing his explaining thing. This needs to be followed up by a month each in Arizona, Lousiana, Arkansas and Georgia. Barry then needs to go to in and do his community organizing thing in the AA communities in those same states.
Linda Featheringill
I’m beginning to understand why so many Republicans thought Romney had a real chance.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/11/07/1158236/-Punditz-34-blown-election-predictions
Article lists more than 34 sources of misinformation.
It would probably take a certain level of sophistication to resist all those people spouting nonsense. And most folks aren’t that sophisticated about polling.
JPL
@Raven: Playing Russian roulette with someone is always a a good thing.. Sorry but take a deep breath and send them info on what a jerk West is.
burnspbesq
@SatanicPanic:
That is what it means.
geg6
There were so many important lessons and stories that were a result of last night, but this is probably the most visible and significant in the short term. I’m fairly old (about to turn 54) but I never once thought I’d live to see the day when America’s thinking on LGBT issues would have swung so wildly in the opposite direction of the shameful GOP behavior in demonizing non-heterosexuals back in only 2004! It’s amazing! I have now lived through three major improvements in civil rights: African Americans, women, and now the LGBT community. What a wonderful thing!
Next up? Undocumented immigrants. Polling shows that Americans support a path to citizenship and we need to go after it right now while the last few sane GOPers are chastened enough by this election and the Hispanic vote to go along.
JPL
@Raven: Playing Russian ro,u,l,e,tte with someone is always a a good thing.. Sorry but take a deep breath and send them info on what a jerk West is.
edit.. i’m in mod hell so decided to take matters in my own hands. West is dangerous and forwarding a few articles might solve that problem.
Corner Stone
@arguingwithsignposts:
obligatory Triple Lindy GFY
Roger Moore
@Redshift:
There’s more to it than just leverage. I think a lot of the auto industry’s resistance to fuel economy stuff has been a worry that environmentalists were fundamentally opposed to cars in principle, and the fuel economy standards were just an attempt to kill them by stealth. The bailout gave Obama real credibility as somebody who cared about the industry’s health, so his attempts to change fuel economy standards weren’t seen as automatically negative. Also, too, the industry can see that gas prices aren’t coming down again, so consumers are going to be demanding better fuel economy whether the government mandates it or not. That makes it a lot easier to agree to aggressive long-term targets.
mai naem
@burnspbesq: Nah, Rohrbacher is small potatoes. Y’all need to get one of Rove/Rmoney’s billionaires to run for governator and spend a good chunk of their fortune. Alternatively, you can get Clint Eastwood to run and Rove/Rmoney’s billionaires to fund the race.
Roger Moore
@burnspbesq:
Was there ever a bad time to do that?
Corner Stone
Ok. So please. President Obama pushed an opinion that had some measured support. And that made a significant difference.
Thanks
burnspbesq
Trojan Family cheering for one of our own: the new LA County District Attorney is a law school classmate of mine. First woman and first African-American elected to that position.
Fight On, Jackie.
arguingwithsignposts
@Corner Stone: Aww, u mad?
SatanicPanic
@burnspbesq: Oh wow, I had to reread your comment. BOTH HOUSES! Woohoo! Last night’s results were just too good. About time!
Corner Stone
@EconWatcher:
Are you for real dog? Get a grip.
Raven
@JPL: Nah, I pulled the trigger. I told him a couple of months ago to that I wanted to talk with him about his kids and sports. I have exercised great patience with him and his wife and I’m done.
RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist
One of my wingnut FB friends posted that PBO/unicorn/rainbow pic this morning along with “THIS IS WHAT ALL YOU LIBS ARE LIKE THIS MORNING!!1!”. Like that was a bad thing. They just don’t get it.
Corner Stone
@arguingwithsignposts: I think it’s, “Choo mad, bro?”
Accompanied by your favorite Condom Style! parody video.
? Martin
@burnspbesq:
I know exactly what you mean.
Wanna smile even more? Arizona and Texas are going to be here before long.
JPL
@Corner Stone: I loved that statement but I did think he was FDR with drones. I do know he is doing his best which is okay with me.
FlipYrWhig
@EconWatcher: Every good thing Obama has ever done is negated by how Bradley Manning had to sleep in his undies a few times. And that’s before even mentioning the drones and the banksters and Donnie McClurkin.
Corner Stone
@Roger Moore:
I think you mean, “Ok, a few weeds, too,”
Suffern ACE
@Southern Beale: a think tank that hires opinion columnists of a modest burkean stripe and pays them lots of money would be awesome thinks brooks.
FlipYrWhig
@RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist: Well, bear in mind that wingnuts have different ideas about what counts as a “joke.” For instance, “Hey, fag, why are you such a fag? Just joking” is their idea of the pinnacle of humor.
FlipYrWhig
@RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist: Well, bear in mind that wingnuts have different ideas about what counts as a “joke.” For instance, “Hey, f@g, why are you such a f@g? Just joking” is their idea of the pinnacle of humor.
Roger Moore
@geg6:
Sorry, we blinked and missed it.
RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist
We certainly should give credit to politicians for changes to LGBT laws where it’s due. But in the last decade I’ve seen major improvement in general public acceptance of the differently sexualityized. Out people seem more out. And fewer heteros seem to give a damn at all. Like it’s old news and why make it into a whole deal.
Yesterday a co-worker called a particular shade of blue ‘f@ggy’ and I couldn’t recall the last time I’d heard that formerly common slur.
Lojasmo
@imonlylurking:
Well, we now have majorities in the house and senate, and a good-hearted governor. I think an amendment is in order, however.
RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist
Oh, FFS. Has Moderation suddenly gotten all sensitive or something? Jeebus.
jayackroyd
Just wanna note that the bully pulpit thing seemed to make a difference here–that the powerless presidency had some mojo on THIS issue, anyway.
Surreal American
So my question to wingnuts regarding Obama is this:
Has he finally been vetted yet?
Roger Moore
@SatanicPanic:
Prop 34 didn’t pass, so they’re not as good as they could have been.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig: Awesome! Loving it!
Tell us more!
RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist
@FlipYrWhig:
We certainly should give credit to politicians for changes to LGBT laws where it’s due. But in the last decade I’ve seen major improvement in general public acceptance of the differently s3xualityized. Out people seem more out. And fewer heteros seem to give a damn at all. Like it’s old news and why make it into a whole deal.
Yesterday a co-worker called a particular shade of blue ‘f@ggy’ and I couldn’t recall the last time I’d heard that formerly common slur.
cathyx
Ranking of polling accuracy in a Fordham study:
1. PPP (D)*
1. Daily Kos/SEIU/PPP*
3. YouGov*
4. Ipsos/Reuters*
5. Purple Strategies
6. NBC/WSJ
6. CBS/NYT
6. YouGov/Economist
9. UPI/CVOTER
10. IBD/TIPP
11. Angus-Reid*
12. ABC/WP*
13. Pew Research*
13. Hartford Courant/UConn*
15. CNN/ORC
15. Monmouth/SurveyUSA
15. Politico/GWU/Battleground
15. FOX News
15. Washington Times/JZ Analytics
15. Newsmax/JZ Analytics
15. American Research Group
15. Gravis Marketing
23. Democracy Corps (D)*
24. Rasmussen
24. Gallup
26. NPR
27. National Journal*
28. AP/GfK
Citizen Alan
@Southern Beale:
In defense of my alma mater, my understanding from friends at the campus PD is that the “riot” consisted of a few dozen drunken assholes burning an Obama-Biden sign and a couple of hundred people standing around watching them make fools of themselves. The “Democratic response” — a candlelight vigil against racial bigotry — is going on right now and has over 700 people at it.
SatanicPanic
@Roger Moore: That’s a bummer, but I knew when I voted for it that it had no chance of passing. At least 3 Strikes is getting revised a bit.
Roger Moore
@jayackroyd:
The bully pulpit has power, but it’s more useful in the long term than short term. It can push public opinion a bit, and over the years that can produce good things. But it’s not as if Obama created this by himself with one big, rousing speech, which is what the “why doesn’t he use the bully pulpit” people seem to expect.
cathyx
In that ranking, look how low NPR is. In order to not look biased to the right, they were biased to the right.
Suffern ACE
@Linda Featheringill: if we’re going for false predictions, can we add James Carville, who basically called the election for Romney back when Biden “forced” Obama to speak out for gay marriage (and then had the nerve to send me a beg letter for the Democrats a few months later)? And could we add Penn or Schoen (can never tell them apart) who wrote that Obama needed to dump Biden or he was sure to lose?
Paul
@Surreal American:
Like most of the issues brought up by FoxNews, this one is particularly strange. Obama has been President for 4 years and according to FoxNews has not been vetted. Yet, the challenger Romney, who never released his tax returns, has been fully vetted.
Who are they kidding?
Roger Moore
@Paul:
With wingnuts, projection is always a reasonable explanation.
? Martin
@JPL: Or, he’s FDR without firebombing 100,000 Tokyo civilians, or LBJ without sending half a million conscripted Americans to Vietnam.
Let’s not cherry pick our heroes to death.
Gex
@efgoldman: So if something ELSE happens, gay rights advance. Between yesterday and today, no change.
I get what it means. It means the legislature or the courts could make it happen without violating the state constitution.
But nothing has changed for gays as a result of that vote.
? Martin
@Roger Moore: The legislature can fix the death penalty. They can also take care of GMO labeling. They couldn’t fix 3 strikes, though, or a few of the others.
FlipYrWhig
@Roger Moore: I think we need to differentiate between using The Bully Pulpit to alter public opinion, on the one hand, and using it to persuade legislators, on the other. F’rinstance, the Bully Pulpit isn’t going to make Republicans or conservative Democrats support true Medicare-for-all universal health care, even if the polls were to show that people liked it as an idea, because the Republicans don’t believe the government should be in that business and the conservative Democrats either agree with that or fear that they’ll lose reelection if they get tagged as big-spending tax-hikers. I wouldn’t be surprised if a bill supporting marriage equality at the federal level crashed and burned even now, even with public opinion on the subject being very much in favor.
Faux News
@cathyx: My 79 year old mom has voted for President Obama twice. Even she keeps telling me that “real progress will happen when her generation dies off”. A rather startling insight.
BillinGlendaleCA
@burnspbesq: Howard’s at Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills. Piss away.
Keith G
Now that we won, what are we going to do with this?
Is there a defined set of progressive demands for what a “fiscal cliff” deal must look like?
Will the progressive citizenry step up to the challenge and proactively outline what acceptable deficit reduction should look like?
FlipYrWhig
@? Martin: No, Obama is Andrew Jackson only with less populism and a farther-reaching program of decimating populations of brown-skinned people.
SatanicPanic
@? Martin: Will they do that though? 34 and 37 both failed pretty miserably. Full disclosure: I voted no on 37 /ducks
Michael
OT: the Rombot, according to the google, is down to 48.1% in the popular vote. With lots of votes in Oregon and Washington still out. I don’t think that there are 600K Obama votes out there to push Mittens all the way down to 47% (rounded down), but it looks like there might 200-300K out there still, enough to push Mittens blow 48%, in the 47% realm. So damn close!
garbo
I’m seeing a cougar parade ad at the top of the site. Is this because I was talking about my “house bra” in CIL last night?
jayackroyd
@Roger Moore: You do note that the point of the post is that Obama moved public opinion, substantially, by getting on board, enthusiastically, with the movement. You may disagree, but then you’re disagreeing with Betty C.
arguingwithsignposts
Damn, I forgot all about Bully Pulpitism!
Patricia Kayden
Proud that my fellow Marylanders did the right thing and voted in favor of marriage equality. It’s always good to hurt the feelings of the folks at NOM.
Patricia Kayden
Proud that my fellow Marylanders did the right thing and voted in favor of marriage equality. It’s always good to hurt the feelings of the folks at NOM.
burnspbesq
The most amazing result of all:
Celtic 2-1 Barcelona
Violet
@Michael: Please let this happen! Delicious karma.
FlipYrWhig
@arguingwithsignposts: I’m eagerly anticipating the return of “It’s Negotiating 101!” and “the way you handle a bully is to fight back!”
? Martin
@SatanicPanic: I think they might. Death penalty is effectively a null policy given that no governor is going to continue its use in CA. And there’s ample evidence within the state that we’re wrongly putting people on death row. This isn’t a matter of opinion any longer – there’s proof that innocent people cannot be protected from death row. That’s a strong argument even when it’s against popular opinion.
Regarding GMO, there’s a reasonable debate around its implementation and the legislature can still pass a GMO labeling law that is less far-reaching than what Prop 37 offered to do.
But the really big thing that the ⅔ majority offers up is that CA can take another whack at single payer, particularly if they can get the budget under control. We’re really close now.
gwangung
Yeah, the bully pulpit has some power, but not as much power as some people seem to think. And I truly think that the power lesses with overuse.
muddy
Nature on PBS is showing Animal Odd Couples. That is all. Sorry to be OT.
David Koch
Riding a Unicorn Drooooooooooooooooooooooooone
Corner Stone
@Keith G:
Yes! I can’t tell you how glad I am you asked. I’ll give you a brief outline of what acceptable deficit reduction should look like. Ok,:
“Whatever agreement Obama reaches.”
Thanks.
Corner Stone
@gwangung:
There’s a gas tank on the Bully Pulpit?! Is it sponsored by BP?
1badbaba3
@Schlemizel: Wait, don’t forget Uncle Arthur, ‘ol centre square himself, Mr. Paul Lynde, who was about as out as you can get while still being in. Now those were some zingers.
Violet
I think Karl Rove may be one of the losers after this election. Even Donald Trump is calling out his grifting:
I know Rove is scum, but his credibility for being able to deliver when he’s paid to deliver is in shambles. Money won’t be happy with that. They want results. Watch your back, Karl.
RedKitten
From NOM’s
websiteplaypen:You just go on thinking that, dear. Here’s some crayons — the grown-ups are busy.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: I’m already outraged by the NEXT sellout!
Davis X. Machina
When the people lead, the leaders follow.
FlipYrWhig
@Davis X. Machina: Or, the Republican corollary, “I don’t care what the people say they want and if they don’t like what I do, I dare them to vote me out.”
Baud
@Davis X. Machina:
a/k/a Democracy – How does it work?
muddy
@Violet:
He apparently erased his tweets from last night where he was calling for a revolution and a march on Washington if the President did not win the popular vote. Tweety had the 3 remarks on his show tonight, oops.
SatanicPanic
@? Martin: Good point, I can’t remember the last time someone was executed here. Man I hope we get single-payer. Oh that would be awesome.
GxB
@Paul:
Uhm… themselves? We got about 18 months of reprieve (ignoring all the soon to come Issa fueled horse-shit, impeachment dry fapping and other day to day idiocy) and we’ll do it all again. Calls for some Becker and Fagen.
ETA FYWP – moderation whateve’s
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig:
Do not even get me started on that fucking debacle. Got dammit Obama!!
jayackroyd
@Keith G: First, stop talking about a fiscal cliff. There isn’t one. If nothing is done, then nothing much happens immediately, and anything that does happen can be reversed. (As KagroX tweeted today, if they could retroactively grant immunity to telephone companies for illegal wiretapping they can do anything.)
Second, start with SS, Medicare and Medicaid off the table.
Third, focus on an immediate stimulus that takes advantage of the incredibly low interest rate the dollar is commanding, by making massive infrastructure investments that reflect the impact of climate change. You can start with the eastern seaboard, but there are bridges to be repaired all over the country, levees to reinforce, sea walls to rebuild. And I personally don’t see why we don’t pull fiber to every post office, and give localities rights to set up local wifi. Oh, and that smart grid.
Fourth, raise marginal rates on individual income AND eliminate loopholes. Treat all capital income as normal income. Impose a carbon tax.
This balances the budget (if anyone actually cares about that), directs the free money the world is offering us to physical capital that will generate a huge ROI and gets us moving in a realistic direction wrt what is happening to the environment.
Something like that.
Frankensteinbeck
I do not think Obama caused this other than being a great figurehead for getting voters to the polls. I love the man, but he ain’t a god, or responsible for all that is good. Society has moved on, that’s all.
Steeplejack
@GxB:
LOL. Whatever that crap is, it’s not Becker and Fagen. Did you even listen to it? It sounds like a shut-in with a drum machine and one of those “press the key that lights up” keyboards.
ETA: Seriously? FYWP doesn’t like “Fagen”?
Roger Moore
@Corner Stone:
The power of the bully pulpit comes in part from using it only on critical issues. People are willing to listen when somebody tells them that things need to change, but there’s a limit to how much people are willing to listen. Spend too much time at the bully pulpit, and people will see you as a moral scold who needs to be tuned out. In contrast, somebody who rarely moralizes is more noteworthy on the rare occasions when they do.
jayackroyd
@Frankensteinbeck: For the longer term trend, I actually agree with the conservatives–it’s the consumerist, especially mass media society that has been key. I use The Real World as an example. Every 14 year old, all over the country who watched that show was exposed to a program that depicted kids living together in a diverse household, both in race and sexual preference as, while fucked up, not fucked up because of their diversity.
And that reached past the conservative institutions meant to prevent them from seeing diversity as neutral, or even good. That’s why they hated MTV. It presented an alternative, tolerant reality to the ones they were presenting their kids.
In a different context, Neal Stephenson put it this way:
————–
A huge, rich, nuclear-tipped culture that propagates its core values through media steepage seems like a bad idea. There is an obvious risk of running astray here. Words are the only immutable medium we have, which is why they are the vehicle of choice for extremely important concepts like the Ten Commandments, the Koran, and the Bill of Rights. Unless the messages conveyed by our media are somehow pegged to a fixed, written set of precepts, they can wander all over the place and possibly dump loads of crap into people’s minds.
Orlando used to have a military installation called McCoy Air Force Base, with long runways from which B-52s could take off and reach Cuba, or just about anywhere else, with loads of nukes. But now McCoy has been scrapped and repurposed. It has been absorbed into Orlando’s civilian airport. The long runways are being used to land 747-loads of tourists from Brazil, Italy, Russia and Japan, so that they can come to Disney World and steep in our media for a while.
To traditional cultures, especially word-based ones such as Islam, this is infinitely more threatening than the B-52s ever were. It is obvious, to everyone outside of the United States, that our arch-buzzwords, multiculturalism and diversity, are false fronts that are being used (in many cases unwittingly) to conceal a global trend to eradicate cultural differences. The basic tenet of multiculturalism (or “honoring diversity” or whatever you want to call it) is that people need to stop judging each other-to stop asserting (and, eventually, to stop believing) that this is right and that is wrong, this true and that false, one thing ugly and another thing beautiful, that God exists and has this or that set of qualities.
The lesson most people are taking home from the Twentieth Century is that, in order for a large number of different cultures to coexist peacefully on the globe (or even in a neighborhood) it is necessary for people to suspend judgment in this way. Hence (I would argue) our suspicion of, and hostility towards, all authority figures in modern culture. As David Foster Wallace has explained in his essay “E Unibus Pluram,” this is the fundamental message of television; it is the message that people take home, anyway, after they have steeped in our media long enough. It’s not expressed in these highfalutin terms, of course. It comes through as the presumption that all authority figures–teachers, generals, cops, ministers, politicians–are hypocritical buffoons, and that hip jaded coolness is the only way to be.
The problem is that once you have done away with the ability to make judgments as to right and wrong, true and false, etc., there’s no real culture left. All that remains is clog dancing and macrame. The ability to make judgments, to believe things, is the entire it point of having a culture. I think this is why guys with machine guns sometimes pop up in places like Luxor, and begin pumping bullets into Westerners. They perfectly understand the lesson of McCoy Air Force Base. When their sons come home wearing Chicago Bulls caps with the bills turned sideways, the dads go out of their minds.
—
Steeplejack
Moderator in aisle 3, please!
Keith G
@jayackroyd: Of the many descriptions, here is just one:
A worst case scenario, I am sure, but hardly “nothing”.
Nonetheless, I am glad you stepped up with some ideas.
My point is that our side needs to act like a political party even after an election and give guidance/pressure to our leadership, including/especially the guy at the top. Part of the problem with 09-10 was asymmetrical political pressure. There was only one side with loud-assed, committed activists applying pressure.
I would like to avoid a replay.
Keith G
@Corner Stone: And it will be the best thing evah!
Democrat Partisan Asshole
@SatanicPanic: How about we start with the basics, like a balanced state budget that for once is not passed at 11:58pm the night before the state runs out of money, and a minimal amount of education funding that would permit me and my wife to not have to purchase pencils, paper and scantron forms for the 225 students in her five classes (yes, that’s 45 students per class for those of you who can do the math). And yeah, classroom supplies have been on us for years, we don’t get paid back for them. You’re welcome.
Bruce S
I think he’s still generally a hysterical dick, but I have to say that Sully had a good paragraph in the wake of almost-all things good yesterday:
Keith G
@jayackroyd:
I thought it was because of Martha Quinn and J.J. Jackson.
Corner Stone
@Roger Moore:
I agree! Now, let’s define the criterion for the “ultra important” times when the deed needs to get done.
Equal rights? Check!
…
Ok, what else?
jayackroyd
@Keith G: Yes, of course. But in 2013 But not on January 2nd. And while a couple of weeks of reduced paychecks will have an effect, that effect can be reversed. The point is not that the policies are contractionary–they are. But they are not immediately devastating. There is no “cliff.” And those policies can be reversed. There’s no reason to do this in a panic, and every reason to say fuck you, let all the tax cuts expire. THEN we’ll offer a bill reinstituting the <250K tax cuts, and see how you vote.
This "cliff" language creates an artificial urgency–intentionally on the part of the media centrists and the Peter Peterson tax cut (not deficit reduction) advocates.
AxelFoley
@Violet:
LOL, I remember during the Bush years, Dem/lefties/progs were like “Karl Rove this” and “Karl Rove that”. They actually feared that little fat bastard.
PBO comes around and demolishes Rove’s operation like it wasn’t shit.
Like I’ve always said, fuck Karl Rove.
Jay C
BTW, another blow struck for gender equality in Iowa: the one Iowa State Supreme Court Justice (who had voted for the state’s SSM law) who was up for a retention vote WON the retention vote, despite the usual campaign against him by the usual suspects. Unlike, unfortunately, three of his fellow Justices, who had gotten the axe after the homophobes’ campaign in 2010. Overreach, anyone…?
Matt McIrvin
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Bill Clinton liked to use a similar phrase: it was something like “The American people almost always eventually get it right.”
There have been times when I thought of it as a delusionally optimistic take on the American people. There have been times when they got something increasingly wronger and wronger for years and years, so I suppose the key to being optimistic is to just find the right point in the cycle to declare that “eventually” has come.
But it’s the attitude you have to have if you want to help make it happen.
Matt McIrvin
@AxelFoley: Oh, yeah, Karl Rove was like some kind of world-manipulating supervillain back then, or the deranged evil Demiurge with god powers over the universe.
I always thought that getting George W. Bush reelected in 2004, after 9/11 had arbitrarily knocked Bush’s job approval rating up to something like 85% just through post-traumatic stress, was not something that took any degree of genius. It was just a matter of not letting the gushing bleeding in his public support send it too low too early, which could have happened wholly by accident.
GxB
@Steeplejack:
Gaaah! Obviously not – shit that was hideous. Hangs head in shame. Didn’t want one with Palmer singing live, and had played one previously that featured just the album cover – Got them mixed up and out of frying pan and into he fire.
Upside – Lucrative GoP gig in near future, slap-shod work is a big selling point there.
Proper Becker and Phagen link – swear (vimeo though)
Steeplejack
@GxB:
Didn’t mean to ding you too hard, but that was just surprisingly awful. LOL.
asiangrrlMN
@imonlylurking: @gex:
Just hopping on board to agree with these two. I’m stoked that MN didn’t pass the amendment, of course, but we still have a ways to go in repealing the law that bans marriage equality. We will do it, though. Trust.
More good news – the Dems took back the house and the senate, so we have all three branches. At the very least, we should see a decrease in the anti-abortion bills and other such nonsense.