Aftermath of the Election

Of course after any election there are going to be citizens upset with the outcome. However to be so dissatisfied with the results that you wish to pack up and leave the country itself, is something in it’s own. After the 2012 election seven states have successfully petitioned to secede from the United State of America.

In this dramatic uprising many conservative news headlines have ignored the whole spectrum and obscured the headlines. By mainly focusing on the amount of states that created a petition to leave the union, that being all of them, the headlines are a dramatic exaggeration. They have failed to take into factor that the majorities within these states oppose the secession  movement and that many of these states have not reached the signature threshold requirement for the petition to be responded to by the white house.

According to the government issued website “We the People” which focal purpose is to give the American people a voice within their government. A petition will get a review and response from the white house once a signature threshold is reached.  In order for a petition to be searchable on whitehouse.gov 30 signatures are required within 30 days of it’s creation and for it to be reviewed by the white house 25,000 signatures are required within 30 days of it’s creation (petitions.whitehouse.gov).

So how many states managed to accomplish this? Of the 50 petitions created, seven were successful in acquiring the 25,000 signatures. That of which being:  Louisiana, Florida, North Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and Texas.

Fox known for being a more conservative news outlet had story called “WH ‘Secede’ Petitions Reach 675,000 Signatures, 50-State Participation”. This headline was sure to catch attention. Although 675,000 signatures may seem like a lot, when comparing to that to the population of the US in total, 675,000 is only 0.2% of the population (U.S. & World Population Clocks).  The fox news article neglected that only 7 states successfully reached the signature threshold and that the majority of the citizens within the states that were successful in completing their petition.

Contrarily the more liberal news post The Huffington Post with their article “Secession Poll: Majority Opposes Their State Seceding From The Union” shed some light on the subject with their poll that showed one of three things. The first being that a majority of people were not aware of the petitions and secondly that the majority of the 1000 US citizens polled didn’t feel the states should be allowed to secede from the union. Lastly and most interestingly the article pointed out that secession attempts are not anything new and showcased some past examples of secession attempts.

The last news outlet I looked at was BBC. I did this specifically to get an unbiased outlet compared to Huffington post, which is drastically left wing, and Fox which is oppositely right wing. The news article “US election: Unhappy Americans ask to secede from US” had a balance between the other two articles as it did touch on the major points in the two other articles. The first, which similarly to the fox article was that there is a large amount of American citizens unhappy with the outcome of the election and feel the United States government, is blatantly abusing American Rights. The second, which ties in to the Huffington post article, was that a majority of those wanting to succeed were republican. Whichever the viewpoint, the impact of any election is going to cause a stir within the dissatisfied and as an American citizen we are lucky enough to exercise our voice and opinion within the government as did these seven states. Although the probability of secession is unlikely the movement is noteworthy and an important symbol of our freedom of speech.

“U.S. & World Population Clocks.” U.S. & World Population Clocks. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Nov. 2012. <http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html&gt;.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/16/secession-poll_n_2147048.html#slide=307326

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20301477

http://nation.foxnews.com/2012-presidential-election/2012/11/14/wh-secede-petitions-reach-675000-signatures-50-state-participation

Greater Together: The Largest Grassroots Campaign in History

This past year, I have spent much of my free time, thus no longer free, volunteering for the Obama for America campaign. Standing on the other side of the election, I am inexpressibly happy to see that our efforts paid off.

This was a landmark year for presidential campaigns. The parties and candidates spent more than ever in history, but there were also other efforts that moved campaigns forward, and it seems that money is not the only factor in the elections. That said, the combined spending of both campaigns topped $1.1 Billion dollars. A staggering number, yes, but lets look at what else the Obama campaign did to secure that seat in the oval office.

Jim Messina, the president’s campaign manager called his work the “largest and most innovative grass-roots campaign in American political history.”

While this may seem like an arrogant statement, the results speak for themselves. The Obama campaign set up offices all over the nation. The way in which they were situated focused largely on demographics, that is, areas with a high concentration of young people, minorities, and other known supporters. The campaign office for south Denver was set up just down the street from DU.

I spent a lot of time at that office making phone calls as well as rendezvousing there after a long day of canvasing. What always amazed me, however, was that there was always someone there to pick up the slack. Yes we were short on people sometimes, but there was always someone willing to do the work, and happily I might add. Whether it was the fall fellows for the campaign, or a volunteer.

Another inspiring part of the campaign was the variety of people I saw working for the campaign. The volunteers would just as soon be DU students as retirees. I met one woman on a day of canvasing who was 83. She spoke to those at the office and said that this was the first election in which she would vote Democrat.

One tool that the campaign used was called surrogates. This refers to stars and celebrities that would come and speak at rallys, as Will.I.Am did on the debate day rally at DU. They woud also visit the offices and give much needed pep talks to the volunteers.

One such event was the Sunday before election day. Alexis Bledel, of the TV show Gilmore Girls, along with Brandon Routh of the 2006 Superman movie, visited the office. I was working at the time and, as trite as this might sound, she could not have some at a better time. It was the final stretch for us. Most of the volunteers there had been hard at work for months if not more than a year. We were worn down and tired. Ms. Bledel came into the office rather inauspiciously until she was announced. Everyone took a moment to put down their work and lend an ear. As is standard, they thanked us for our work and then Routh delved into a story of his childhood and why he was voting for the president. Although we had heard this from countless people, and even given the speil ourselves more times than we could count, this particular speech proved to be just what we needed. After they spoke, the stars took some time to socialize and take pictures with us. And then it was right back to work and we attacked the calls and canvasing with a new vigor that we had preciously lacked.

I think this is what ultimately led to the president’s victory. Not this event specifically, but the hundreds,even thousands like it that took place all across the nation. OFA simply related better to people. The personal connections made throughout the campaign, I think, ultimately defined what “grassroots” was for America. These small events no matter how seemingly inconsequential, won the election and it was amazing to b a part of it.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57541158/campaign-spending-tops-$1.7-

billion/http://articles.latimes.com/2012/oct/11/news/la-pn-obama-democrats-grassroots-campaign-20121011

Fox News and Secession

                It seems a small portion of Americans are taking that election a little too hard.  Since the results were announced, petitions from all 50 states have been filed on the White House’s We the People (https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/) site, asking the president to allow them to peacefully secede from the Union.  Of the 69 filed petitions, Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, and North Carolina have accumulated the 25,000 signatures that require the petition to be answered by the White House.   In total, the petitions have gathered 675,000 signatures.

                This has led to a rather interesting situation for Fox News.  Being a right leaning news network that was clearly devastated over Mitt Romney’s loss, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine many of its pundits supporting this sentiment.  Yet conservatism has also traditionally included a fierce patriotism that wouldn’t lend itself well to a secessionist movement.  This tension was expressed by Texas Governor Rick Perry, whose office had this to say on the petition “Gov. Perry believes in the greatness of our Union and nothing should be done to change it. But he also shares the frustrations many Americans have with our federal government.”

                This seems to be the line that makes many conservatives uncomfortable, where they can lament the complete destruction of American values, yet value the vague ideal of America enough that leaving that seems unthinkable.  On November 14, Sean Hannity interviewed Daniel Miller, president of the Texas National Movement.  Hannity was clearly uncomfortable with the idea, asking Miller “Isn’t it important that we are the United States of America?  Do you feel a certain sense of obligation that we need to stay united?”  While Hannity agreed with Miller that the United States had lost many of its core values, he expressed belief that those dissatisfied needed to “work within the system.”  On same day on “The Five,” co-host Greg Gutfeld said “secession is silly.”  Megyn Kelly called the petitions “weird fallout from the presidential election.”  Even Glenn Beck called the trend “stupid,” though he seemed to criticize the idea of giving one’s personal details to the federal government while promoting secession more than the idea of secession itself.

                Fox News is about as right wing as you are going to get in the mainstream media, yet it seems none of the well-known pundits on that network seem to agree with this movement.  When you freak Glenn Beck out, you may want to reel it in a little…

 

 

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/

Rick Perry doesn’t support secession petition on White House website

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/11/14/hannity-and-drudge-give-credence-to-post-electi/191375

http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/the-five/transcript/secede-union-lets-try-competition-instead

http://video.foxnews.com/v/1971846604001/individuals-from-all-states-file-petitions-to-secede-from-us/

Lets Go Cliff Diving

The problem with politics is that the people in power typically do not come together and agree to work on an issue until it is a problem. This, in my mind anyway, makes the politicians look a little like Wile E. Coyote. When I hear either side make big claims and be over optimistic about uncertain things, all I see is the coyote with a big rocket strapped to his back as he gives the camera a wink. Ironically, my depiction of politics fits right in with the issue of the fiscal cliff. The fiscal cliff is a “dangerous yet avoidable drop-off ahead in the nation’s fiscal path” (NY Times). The term refers to a combination of spending cuts and $500 billion in tax increases that will take effect for the entirety of 2013. This would result in the deficit being cut, but economists say it is too abrupt and will throw the country back into a recession. The term “fiscal cliff” was coined by Ben Bernake who is the chairman of the Federal Reserve and explained the problem a year ago in 2011. So why has it taken till now to deal with this issue only a month or so before it becomes a problem? The problem is politicians cannot agree on how to avoid it and if they do not, then this country will be the coyote running off the cliff and plummeting down.

Yesterday, Friday Nov. 16th, 2012, re-elected president Obama and congressional leaders met to discuss solutions to the impending fiscal cliff. A CNN article was the first to draw my attention to the meeting and the article explained why a compromise to avoid the fiscal cliff had not already been decided. As expected, the root of the problem is that Republicans and Democrats cannot agree on a solution. While both sides agree spending cuts are needed, the problem lies in how to increase revenue. Democrats would like to see the Bush tax cuts expire and then raise taxes on the rich. Boehner, the Republican House speaker, has talked about being eager to meet and discuss solutions to the fiscal cliff but he, and the Republican party, draw the line on taxes. Republicans do not want taxes to increase. They argue that raising taxes will not help Americans get back to work. They instead want to close loopholes in the tax code and eliminate deductions without having taxes go up. Another CNN article adds by saying Paul Ryan is a part of the group that met with the president to discuss numbers. Both CNN articles conclude that the meeting was a success and has instilled faith that this issue will be resolved before Jan. 1st, 2013.

Other news articles about the meeting, however, did not give the meeting as much praise or really recognition at all. The worst of these was Fox News, where I had to search to find this topic on their homepage. The article that Fox News had on the fiscal cliff meeting was titled Fiscal talks underway, Obama heads to Southeast Asia. As the title suggests, there was very little attention given to the talks. The lengthy 126 word article discusses Obama’s trip to Myanmar and how it is a break from negotiations. There were two other articles that mentioned the negotiations, but these were in the Fox Business section and related them to corresponding stock increases. A Huffington Post article explained the fiscal cliff much better than the CNN and Fox News articles but had a slight ring to it that blamed the Republicans for the problem in the first place. It also never mentions anything positive coming from the meeting while a Washington Post article stays extremely positive. The Washington Post article does mention the Myanmar trip in a darker manner, insinuating it to be a bad decision, but overall does the best at encompassing the most issues associated with the fiscal cliff while focusing on the positive outcome of the meeting. Hopefully the future holds a promising compromise as the CNN and Washington Post articles advertise, and this country can avoid another recession.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/16/politics/fiscal-cliff/index.html?hpt=po_c1

House GOP leaders prepare for fiscal cliff talks

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/11/16/fiscal-talks-under-way-obama-heads-to-southeat-asia/

http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2012/11/16/stocks-stall-at-summer-levels/

http://www.foxbusiness.com/news/2012/11/15/fiscal-cliff-fears-are-hammering-these-etfs/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/15/fiscal-cliff-negotiations_n_2138265.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/fiscal-cliff-negotiations-to-begin/2012/11/16/f2c04f12-2faa-11e2-9f50-0308e1e75445_story.html

A Big Night for Candy

Candy Crowley was the moderator for the second presidential debate, which was a “town hall” style debate that took place at Hofstra University in New York on Tuesday night. In response to the widely held opinion that Jim Lehrer did not do well as the moderator for the first presidential debate, even more pressure was put on Crowley to perform as an exemplary moderator. Pre-debate advice for CNN’s Chief Political Correspondent included suggestions such as: refraining from taking the focus away from the candidates and the town hall members asking questions, staying firm on the rules by not letting the candidates break any rules or go over their allotted time for the questions, and asking enough but not too many follow-up questions. The bottom line: Crowley was going to need to walk a very thin line if she was going to make it out of the debate unscathed.

Throughout the debate, Crowley intervened several times in order to keep both candidates in line. President Obama and Governor Romney made multiple requests to Crowley related to timekeeping and having equal opportunities to respond to questions. Romney directed questions at Obama more than once, deviating from the agreed-upon format where candidates only answer questions from the audience and follow-up questions from the moderator. By anyone’s account, this was a very heated debate where the contenders came out with their rhetorical guns blazing; such a scenario would be difficult for even the most seasoned moderators to handle.

However, it wasn’t until the final half hour of the debate that Crowley –and arguably the candidates– had their most memorable moment. Crowley asked a follow-up question to the president regarding who was ultimately responsible for the attack in Benghazi. The president responded that he, rather than the secretary of state, was ultimately responsible. He went on to add that the next day he spoke from the Rose Garden and said he would find out who was responsible for the “act of terror” and bring them to justice. Mr. Romney latched onto this point in his response and asked the president to repeat and clarify his description of what he had said in the Rose Garden, which he then used against Mr. Obama by arguing that it took him 14 days to finally call it an act of terror. President Obama requested to no one directly to get the transcript, as neither he nor Romney appeared willing to concede his stance. Candy spoke up and initially backed up the president, saying he did use that phrase; however, the administration spent about two weeks characterizing the attack as spontaneous as a result of the inflammatory video.

Following the debate, many conservatives cried foul over Candy’s interjection, as many viewers heard her back up the president and did not catch her second statement that also supported Romney’s argument in the chaos of the moment. A number of conservative pundits accused her of having a liberal bias that allowed Mr. Obama a significant victory in the second debate. Liberals argued that she was doing her job as a moderator and praised her real-time fact checking.

I found three articles on different websites that were all written about Candy Crowley’s performance as the moderator, but had taken varying positions on the topic. “The truth about what Candy Crowley said” was featured on CNN and had the most neutral-sounding title of the three articles. The writer’s purpose was clear: he needed in no uncertain terms to defend Crowley. The article opened with a summary of the verbal exchange over Benghazi, and said that Crowley was right and Romney was wrong. The author then included former Senator Sununu’s allegations of President Obama having lied by misrepresenting his words. In order to debunk Sununu’s claims, the transcript of the exchange from the debate was included in the article, as well as the relevant section of the transcript from the president’s remarks from the Rose Garden on September 12^th of this year and another from Las Vegas the following day. Not until the end of the article did the author address the point Romney was trying to make about the administration taking two weeks to admit it was a terrorist attack. A quote from the director of the National Counterterrorism Center on September 19^th was indicated to be the first mention of the incident being labeled as a terrorist attack. The author then reiterated that Crowley was indeed correct in addressing Gov. Romney’s specific argument from the debate, which was Obama did use the phrase “act of terror” in his September 12^th remarks. In what appeared to be an obvious show of support for one of its own correspondents, CNN made it clear that it had Candy’s back.

The second article, “Crowley’s intervention as moderator-in-chief swung the debate in Obama’s favor”, was found on Fox News’ website. Known for being one of the more conservative cable news networks, they didn’t waste any time letting readers know exactly where they stood on this issue, as the article title alone shows a clear bias. The article opens with the accusation that Crowley’s interjection completely changed the course of the debate, as evidenced by Romney’s “strong” performance beforehand that was thrown by her comments, leaving him unable to successfully make his argument about Benghazi and allowing Obama to swoop in and steal the debate from him. There are many instances throughout the article where the author uses vivid imagery and specific word choices to paint the picture of Crowley overstepping her boundaries and in the characterization of the Benghazi attack. For example, Crowley was referred to as the “moderator-in-chief”, “nanny moderator”, and “a partisan player…masquerading as a dispassionate arbiter” in an attempt to discredit her as a competent moderator. The more blatant emotional appeals that bordered on manipulations were dispersed throughout the article. The attack that resulted in four American lives being lost were depicted as “killings”, “murders”, and “slayings”; the most egregious example having been “four Americans were killed in twin attacks four hours apart in Benghazi on Sept. 11, a grim anniversary…” because of the impossible-to-miss comparison to the attack on the twin towers on the original September 11^th attacks. The author is insinuating that the two attacks are comparable in scale. This article also includes parts of the transcripts from President Obama’s remarks on September 12^th, however, not in context. The author breaks them up, summarizes his words in some cases, and only quotes the parts that serve his argument. The article wraps up by saying the instant polls were a direct result of Crowley’s comments, and that the conservatives seem to be the only ones aware of her apparent bias.

The third article I found was from MSNBC’s website and was titled “Crowley’s corrections highlight moderator role”. This article took a slightly different approach than the other two, as it portrays her as a “referee” and argues that she was brought into the squabble, rather than choosing to enter it. The author, who is writer for the Associated Press (AP), implied that Crowley spoke in response to a prompt from Mitt Romney; however, the transcript and video footage indicate it was more likely that she was responding to President Obama’s request to “get the transcript.” While this may be seen as a slightly bias interpretation of the events, the rest of the article seemed to be making a concerted effort to remain neutral. The author mentions the applause that came after both parts of her comments, the first showing support for the president and the second part showing support for the former governor. The article mentioned that opinions on her job as a moderator were divided by party lines, which was similar to what the other articles said. The author included a couple of quotes from Crowley that articulated her decision was based on wanting to clarify what was being said and to get the two men out of the “Yes I did” “No you didn’t” holding pattern they were in. It is noteworthy that this was the only article that mentioned the fact that she was the first woman in 20 years to moderate a presidential debate, as well broach the issue of potential blowback for male candidates who appear to be disrespectful to a female moderator. It was also the only one to mention that even though the candidates had agreed to not have the town hall moderator ask follow-up questions, Crowley ignored this and asked a number of follow-up questions that night. The author appeared to be questioning Crowley’s professionalism at the end of the article, where he mentions that Crowley had been interviewed on CNN the night before the debate and she offered up advice on how Obama could improve upon his first debate performance. This was contrasted with the decisions of the other three moderators having declined to do interviews prior to the debates they moderated.

Overall, the articles showed a range in the amount of context given for quotes from the second debate and the president’s remarks on September 12^th, the least context having been offered for the most bias article. In addition, it is unclear if Crowley only spoke up because Mr. Obama said “Get the transcript.” One could understand how the moderator might see it as a request directed at her, though. Furthermore, the power of a command coming from the current president having been difficult to not respond to is an important topic that wasn’t directly addressed in the articles, but is relevant to the overall topic. Regardless, each of these articles chose varying points of view from which to present the story, and demonstrated the biases that are present in the media’s coverage of the presidential debates.

 

“The truth about what Candy Crowley said”

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/18/politics/fact-check-crowley-critics-debate/?iref=obinsite

“Crowley’s intervention as moderator-in-chief swung the debate in Obama’s favor”

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/10/17/crowley-intervention-as-moderator-in-chief-swung-debate-in-obama-favor/

“Crowley’s corrections highlight moderator role”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49448544/ns/world_news-africa/t/crowleys-corrections-highlight-moderator-role/#.UIUaJGnuWXQ

 

Who Writes This Stuff?

“Personally, I think he’s further evidence that the Great Scriptwriter in the sky has an overdeveloped sense of irony.”

 –Molly Ivins

While the late, great Molly Ivins was referring to George W. Bush, the quote speaks volumes to the recent antics of Karl Rove. From an outsider’s point of view, political journalism almost seems like it should write itself. The fact is, some of this stuff is theater…and all of it is real.

As election night drew to a close, the media began to report that Mitt Romney’s chances of victory were becoming more and more slim. With some major swing states already having gone for Barack Obama, Fox News predicted Ohio going for Obama as well, marking the end of the election. However, Karl Rove (a Fox News correspondent) argued the contrary. Rove went rogue and began to argue with his own networks reporting. Rove noted that there were still some areas yet to report in Ohio, and those areas could go in favor of Mitt Romney.

As most of us know, Karl Rove was wrong. Fox News (along with MSNBC and ABC) was correct. Barack Obama won Ohio, and went on to be re-elected as President of the United States of America.

CNN covered the story with an article titled, “Karl Rove rejects reality”. CNN had an interesting take on the meltdown, noting that it was more than just Karl Rove being hopeful for Mitt Romney. After all, it’s no secret that Karl Rove loves Mitt Romney. His PACs provided hundreds of millions of dollars to the Romney campaign. The meltdown was more than just an act of stupidity. In fact, as the article notes, Karl Rove is a smart guy who definitely understands elections. Having been credited as the architect of George W. Bush, Rove served as Bush’s lead strategist in two very close elections. The CNN article claims that Rove’s meltdown is due to a lack of faith in the judgment of the country.

“What is striking is that he was challenging the decision-desk professionals at his network in a way that looked like he refused to accept the country’s judgment,” the article says.

The article notes that this has become a trend recently in conservative politics. When Romney was down in the polls, conservatives said that the media had created biased surveys. Nate Silver, The New York Times’ blogger and election prediction extraordinaire, was criticized by conservatives for being biased when he sad Obama had a 90% of winning.  Each and every time information came out that showed Obama winning based on the judgment of the American people, CNN notes that conservatives were first to start down the path of denial.

While CNN provided a trend that explains conservatives’ behavior and Karl Rove’s antics during election night, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, as usual, found the humor in all of this. Jon Stewart had a more biased (liberal) take on Karl Rove and Fox News in general. He noted that the American media performed amicably during election night, except for Fox News. The show started with a clips of “highlights” documenting Fox News’ coverage leading up to election day, including Fox News’ Stewart Varney mocking Nate Silver’s scientific approach to poll tracking. Varney is quoted, “You can go through all the scientific gobbledegoop you like; I don’t believe it.” Stewart quipped in response, “Yes, this was the historic 2012 Election between ‘scientific gobbledegoop’, or as we like to call it…arithmetic…and belief. And, belief wasn’t going down without a fight.” By ‘belief’, Jon Stewart is referring to the work of Nate Silver, who’s ‘scientific gobbledegoop’ correctly predicted the winner of all 50 states.

Moving away from Fox News correspondents not named Karl Rove, Jon Stewart commented that Megyn Kelly’s response to the meltdown put it better than he ever could. Kelly, a Fox News anchor, asked Rove, “Is this the math you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better?”

In what was a very eventful election, Karl Rove found a way to get into the headlines with his escapade on Fox News. With that said, it was covered by national media with a surprising level of civility. There were no sources that came out and called Rove a crook or disgrace to journalism. There was no blatant mudslinging.

CNN took somewhat of a high road by identifying a trend for Karl Rove to fit into. Not saying whether it was immoral or stupid, CNN’s article purely categorized Rove’s election night opinions as something that had been occurring throughout the entire election.

Meanwhile, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart just did its part as the news source on Comedy Central. While Jon Stewart is outwardly a Democrat, it’s not his job to be a non-partisan news anchor. Jon Stewart has never confused himself for Walter Cronkite. Instead, he embraces his role as the deliverer of the light message of politics: some of this stuff is a little funny, so why not laugh about it?

So…Whose Fault Was It?

In the days following the election, a great deal of finger-pointing has been going on in the realm of the Republicans.  Why did Mitt Romney lose?  It has to be someone’s fault, doesn’t it?  At whom can we direct all the anger?

An article by the Huffington Post’s Jon Ward cited Erick Erickson, the founder of conservative blog RedState.com. “Frankly, the fastest-growing demographic in America isn’t going to vote for a party that sounds like that party hates brown people,” scathed Erickson, blaming the party’s loss on Romney’s lack of appealing to Hispanic voters.

The same article went on to talk about conservative figures who feel that it’s not the party’s fault; it’s just that the wrong people are in charge.  “”The battle to retake the Republican Party begins today,” railed Richard Viguerie, a veteran of the conservative movement, who called on “the failed Republican leadership” to resign, and then named the leaders of the GOP in the House and Senate, as well as the head of the Republican National Convention.”

While the Huffington Post cited many different sources from multiple conservative groups, Fox News went for a broader blame game, running the headline “Five ways the mainstream media tipped the scales in favor of Obama” front and center on their website the morning after the election.  The article proceeded to list ways in which the “biased” media representatives hounded Romney with memes and fact-checking and were supposedly far less lenient with Obama.  The author, Rich Noyes, called all four of the debate moderators liberally biased, and even went so far as to say that the media alone  “saved Obama’s presidency.”  So according to Noyes, Romney did nothing wrong, and Obama did nothing right—it was all the media.

CNN took a much more analytical approach to figuring out why Romney lost—literally, their headline Wednesday was “Analysis: Why Romney lost.”  Author Peter Hamby looked at sheer numbers to figure out what went wrong, and pointed out (if more tactfully) the same minority gap as Erickson:  “Obama crushed Romney among Hispanic voters by a whopping 44 points, a margin of victory that likely propelled the president to victories in Nevada, Colorado and possibly Florida.”  And unlike many of the other stories, Hamby was quick to point out that it wasn’t just that Romney lost; it was that Obama won.  “Democrats showed decisively that their ground game — the combined effort to find, persuade and turn out voters — is devastatingly better than anything their rivals have to offer.”

The most oft-cited critic of the election was, by a long shot, none other than super-supporter Karl Rove, whose Crossroads organization donated over $300 million to the Republican campaign and yielded little return on the investment.  CNN, NBC, Fox News and the Huffington Post all featured prominent headlines about Rove just a couple of days after Obama was declared the winner.  In fact, poor Karl was berated with such headlines as “Karl Rove rejects reality” (CNN) and Megyn Kelly To Karl Rove: ‘You Keep Saying That, But’ Obama Won” (Huffington Post).  (The only website that didn’t poke at least a little fun at Rove was Fox News, his own network.)

Huffington Post contributor Amanda Terkel wrote that Rove was in disbelief for most of the election process, continuing to claim that the Republicans could win Ohio even after the major news networks–including Fox News–had called it for Obama.  The next morning, Rove seemed to hold the same sentiment as other members of his party: “[I]f we’re going to win in the future, Republicans need to do better among Latinos and they need to do better among women — particularly single women.”

Okay, so we see that underlying current again: the Hispanic vote seems to be one of the biggest factors in this election.  It’s definitely not the sole component responsible for the Republicans’ loss, as other articles pointed out, but it’s clearly important.  Maybe the Republicans will take a few notes and hit that demographic harder in 2016.

But Rove decided that that reasoning wasn’t enough.  The very next day, he was back on Fox news, claiming that Obama “”succeeded by suppressing the vote.” He rattled off a bunch of statistics, arguing that Obama’s victory this time was less significant than in 2008.  That’s when Kelly said, “You keep saying that, but he won, Karl, he won… and that’s what the Republicans care about, what the Democrats care about.”

-Ellen Leslie

Article links:

Ward, Huffington Post

Noyes, Fox News

Hamby, CNN

Kertz, CNN

Terkel, Huffington Post

General Contribution, Huffington Post

How Mitt Romney Lost the 2012 Presidential Election

I followed three different valid sources and 4 different articles explaining why Romney lost the election. I first looked at the titles of each article. Two of the titles did happen to mention race as a determining factor for Romney losing the election. The titles consisted of the following: Why Mitt Romney Lost: Empathy, Mitt Romney’s Neglect of Black Americans Failed Him at the Polls, Conservatives Struggle to Explain how Mitt Romney lost 2012 Presidential Election, and Why Mitt Romney Lost: Winning Over The Angry White Male Was Not Enough. I choose these articles by simply clicking from the first page after entering “Why Mitt Romney Lost the Election” in the Google search engine.

The Huffington Post: Why Mitt Romney Lost: Empathy

This message completely evolved around the idea of Romney missing that sense of connection to majority of the voters. It gives results from surveys that show Obama having a more emotional connection and mutual understanding with the American voters. It bluntly gives examples of why voters feel as if Republicans having a drastic disconnect with immigrants, the gay and lesbian community, women, as well as those who depend on government assistance. They mentioned how Romney’s 47% comment also caused a drastic disconnect with a large portion of middle class voters. This article also allowed comments to be made at the bottom.

Atlanta Blackstar Tribune: Mitt Romney Lost: Winning Over the Angry White Male Was Not Enough

Presented, is almost the same kind of argument as the “empathy” article above. However the title is pretty forward and direct. Atlanta BlackStar tribune presented a case the Romney only appealed to the wealthier Caucasian voters. Therefore, the tribune does acknowledge that sense of disconnect and lack of empathy that Romney presented. But they support it with the truth of demographics. The facts the minorities are beginning to become majority and getting their votes in was what mattered in this election. The demographic argument is supported with the fact that Obama won over a few of the states that historically vote Republican.

The Washington Post: Mitt Romney’s Neglect of Black Americans Fails Him at the Polls

Going hand in hand with winning “angry white males” the Washington post seems to emphasis on the disconnect between Romney and the voters as well. The article reflects a bunch of statistics on the race and ethnicities a lot more than the other article. Their statistics supported their argument which the Atlanta tribune argued as well: demographics. They emphasis that he could not appeal to the diverse crowd which seems to be the same argument made in the previous articles just in different ways. Presented in the article was his “heavy outreach” to the minorities in America. Obama clearly made to effort or perhaps naturally made the connection with most of these voters. There are a lot of comments in this article expressing the Republicans lack of Black leadership in their party. It attacked the Republican Party for pretty much being racist and anti-diverse in a sense. This article provided comment boxes also.

Huff Post: Conservatives Struggles to Explain How Mitt Romney Lost 2012 Election

This article right off the bat also coincides with the idea that Romney lost due to his lack of empathy. It mentions women voters and losing that sense of connect with Romney as well as Latinos. This still presents the case of having some sort of disengagement with certain voting groups that may determine the election. It mentions how the Republicans are looking for someone to blame when. This article unlike the others, does present explanations from the Republican parties as to why they felt they had lost the election. Some of the reasons included the following: The media selectively reported Romney’s gaffes, fact checkers were biased, Hurricane Isaac hit the Tampa convention, Romney was too nice, Hurricane Sandy and Chris Christie get the blame, Obama won by suppressing vote, Romney wasn’t conservative enough, and the list continues. None of the other news sources provided any information on why the Republicans felt they had lost. This article also gave you the opportunity to make a comment.

 

The main idea these articles present just in different cases supports that Romney lost because Obama could relate more, he reached out the majority of Americans and understood what point they were at their in life and showed concern about bettering people’s situations. Race seemed to have been brought up in every one of the articles. However it is vaguely mentioned that the majority of his supporters happened to be Caucasian.  Maybe the fact the more minorities made the effort to make their votes actually count this time around and that’s what ultimately made the difference in addition to many other things.

 

Chiles , Nick. Why Mitt Romney Lost: Winning over the angry white male was not enough. Atlanta BlackStar , Web. <http://atlantablackstar.com/2012/11/07/how-romney-lost-winning-over-the-angry-white-male-was-not-enough/&gt;.

Conservatives Struggle to Explain how Mitt Romney Lost 2012 Presidential Election . Print. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/09/conservatives-mitt-romney-presidential-election_n_2099504.html&gt;.

Crystal , Wright. Mitt Romneys Neglect of Black Americans failed him at the polls . The Washington Post , Print. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/therootdc/post/mitt-romneys-neglect-of-black-americans-failed-him-at-the-polls/2012/11/07/05331e2e-28f1-11e2-96b6-8e6a7524553f_blog.html&gt;.

Yahsar , Ali . Why Mitt Romney Lost: Empathy . Huff Post , Web. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/yashar-hedayat/why-mitt-romney-lost

 

The Biology of Voting

The other day I came across a news article discussing the biology involved in the way we vote and what political party we affiliate with.  Being a psychology/biology major, I was instantly intrigued, and wanted to look more into this subject.  Some of the findings are actually pretty fascinating, and I promise to try my hardest not to get too “science-jargony” here…

http://manassaspark.patch.com/articles/the-psychology-of-your-vote-ballots-and-your-brain

This initial article was from a news site called the Manassas Park Patch, written by Dr. Michael Oberschneider who apparently writes a regular column.  Recent research using structural MRI’s and fMRI’s (which create maps of brain activity, whereas structural MRI’s use magnetic fields to create images of the structure of the brain, in case you were wondering) has discovered that there are consistent differences in specific parts of the brain among Liberals and Conservatives.  All you left-wingers out there are likely to have much more activity in a brain region known as the anterior cingulate cortex (or ACC), while those more on the conservative side probably have a larger amygdala.  So what exactly do these areas of the brain do?

First of all, the amygdala is the area of the brain associated with emotion regulation and acts of aggression.  It also processes feelings of fear, hunger, pity, anger, and sexual arousal; basically, it is the fight-or-flight response center.  These findings do nothing to rid Conservatives of the stereotypes of making decisions based on emotions, and being the gun-lovers of society (please don’t be offended by this if you are conservative; I’m not saying these are my views, they are just some of the things I commonly hear.  Same goes for you Liberals when I get to you in a bit…).  It could also explain right-wing tendencies to avoid anything that may cause a radical change; the enlarged amygdala heightens emotions and is more easily thrown into “survivor mode,” which may sound good but is actually incredibly stressful to the mind and body.  Interestingly enough, it has also been found that men tend to have a larger amygdala than women.  I couldn’t find consistent enough information to determine whether or not there are more males than females declared as Republicans, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this were true based on the findings I read about.

Now, on to the Liberals.  The ACC is associated primarily with error detection and various types of problem solving, and also plays a role in motivation and reward anticipation.  It is located in the frontal lobe of the brain, which is fairly unique to humans and is responsible for higher-order thinking that we don’t see in many other animals (i.e. understanding abstract ideas, critical problem solving, self-awareness, etc.).  Increased activity in this area could aid in explaining stereotypes that Liberals are more aware of environmental issues and more likely to want to see change in an area of society or government.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any gender-related differences in the ACC like there are in the amygdala, however women do tend to have a larger hippocampus than men.  The hippocampus is hugely important in the initial processing of information and then sending this input on to parts of the frontal cortex for higher processing, so perhaps there could be a connection here causing more women to align with the Democratic party.  This is just my own speculation however, I found no studies related to this hypothesis.

So, if you are a Republican or consider yourself to be more on the conservative side, I’m curious: do you notice the characteristics that are associated with an enlarged amygdala in yourself?  This may require being painfully honest with yourself (which I’m certainly not asking you to disclose) since some of these traits may come with a negative stigma attached or may be very personal, especially in the case of trends in sexual arousal…you can probably keep those revelations to yourself!  But in all seriousness, I would definitely be interested in a Republican’s opinions on this research, and I’d also be curious to see if more males affiliate with the conservatives.  On the flip side, I’d like to ask those who see themselves as liberal the same question: do you notice yourself analyzing problems or being hyperaware of errors, as would be expected of someone with a highly active ACC?

But What about people like me who are usually undecided voters and don’t really align with one party over another? Unfortunately, research in this area has not been as conclusive as it has for those who do have a distinct political affiliation.  However, There have been numerous twin studies examining this topic that have found that there is some sort of genetic component to being undecided or disinterested in voting and politics entirely.

Another interesting article I found (click here) provides a short quiz you can take that tells you whether your brain is closer to that of a Liberal or Conservative.

All in all, it appears our political affiliation isn’t under our control as much as we would like to think.  There is a good possibility that we are born destined to be a Democrat or Republican, and our vote isn’t so much up to us as it is up to our biological and neurological composition.  I think these findings are almost ground-breaking because they suggest that it essentially doesn’t matter what a candidate does or does not do; as long as they don’t completely mess up, we are pretty much already programmed to vote one way, and it would take a lot to make our brains function differently.  This research ultimately suggests that it is not a candidate’s platform or reputation that wins our votes, but the size of our amygdala or the activity in our ACC.  Apparently during this year’s election there were more voters with an active anterior cingulate cortex than those big-amygdala folks!

My Experience Canvassing

It all started with a knock at my door. Initially I wasn’t planning to volunteer for either party because I don’t necessarily affiliate myself with either one. However over the years I have tended to lean more left wing. Nevertheless one day while sitting on my couch I hear a knock on my door and proceed to answer.  A girl named Katie is there and starts asking the stereotypical political questions such as “Are you registered to vote?” and “Whom are you planning on voting for in this election”. After chatting for a few minutes she asks if I would like to volunteer. If it were not for the fact that I am awful at saying no, most likely I would have not volunteered for the Obama campaign.  Seeing that I am awful at declining, the girl got my number and information than left.

Not paying too much attention to the event that just occurred, I got back in my daily routine. After a few days the phone calls proceeded to flood in. I would get phone calls asking me the same questions as the previous phone calls. Not only did it become an annoyance, it made me seriously question the organization of the campaign and the validity of the statistics on which way the voters are swaying. After the excessive amounts of phone calls I have now started to screen my phone calls and any unknown Denver number that comes up, gets an automatic sent to voicemail.

Even after the bombardment of phone calls I kept true to my word and gave Katie a call and gave her the times where I could volunteer. I signed up for a Monday night and when Monday came around I proceeded to walk down to the 14^th and Broadway Obama campaign location. When I walked in I was impressed with the table of free “swag”.  I found myself taking a handful of swag until I realized “I am not even voting for Obama, what the hell would I do with an Obama sticker?”, so I than backtracked my previous actions and put all the free “swag” away.  I got the feeling that a lot of random people walk around the campaign center because no one paid attention to my whole swag fiasco.

After a few more minutes of awkwardly standing around a woman came up to me and I told her I signed up to canvass. To my surprise no one else had volunteered. We both agreed it wasn’t the best idea for me having no idea what I am doing go door to door solo canvassing. She asked if I would want to try to work the phones. Hesitantly I agreed but warned her I wasn’t too enthusiastic about phone canvassing. Instantly I felt uncomfortable as I started to read the prompt. I felt like a complete hypocrite. I thought to myself “I hate receiving these phone calls and now I am the one making them?”. Especially for the fact I volunteered so late in the campaign, many of the people I talked to had already spoken with a campaign representative. After a little while I gave up on the phone canvassing and asked the woman if I could come volunteer a different time when I could door canvass. She was fine with the idea and signed me up for the next Sunday.

Next Sunday came around and it was a sunny day and I actually felt a little bit excited to go canvass. When I showed up to the campaign center they regretted to inform me I had to go to a different campaign center closer to my neighborhood. I jotted down the address and quickly headed over. Once I got there I instantly got there I could observe the overall demographic was generally around the same age (within their 20’s) and styles ranged from preppy and conservative and dreaded out with tattoos. Personally I did not mind canvassing a lot of the people were friendly and just conversed about the election. To be honest however a good portion of people did not even answer their doors. Over all I was most surprised about the professionalism of the volunteers. Not once did I hear any of the volunteers say anything negative about Mitt Romney. It’s amazing how many people come together and are not hesitant to volunteer for an election. This opportunity allowed me to meet different people in my neighborhood and come together. Even though I may not be the biggest Obama supported I liked canvassing and would do it again in the future if I supported a candidate.