Why Did Obama win?

• “...the truth is that there are reasons why Obama is a phenomenon, and one of them is that his political intelligence is so keen that he knows when unreality best serves his ends.” — Adam Gopnik, “Obama's Political Intelligence,” in The New Yorker 
• “...the country is changing. And this may be the last election in which anyone but a fool tries to play — on a national level, at least — the cards of racial exclusion, of immigrant fear, of the patronization of women and hegemony over their bodies, of self-righteous discrimination against homosexuals. ... Ronald Reagan won his mandate in an America in which 89 percent of the voters were white. That number is down to 72 percent and falling.” — David Simon, “Barack Obama and the Death of Normal” on “The Audacity of Despair.”
• “The president’s victory was a triumph of vision, not of demographics. He won because he articulated a set of values that define an America that the majority of us wish to live in: A nation that makes the investments we need to strengthen and grow the middle class. A nation with a fair tax system, and affordable and excellent education for all its citizens. A nation that believes that we’re most prosperous when we recognize that we are all in it together.” — Joel Benenson, “Obama Won on Values, Not Demographics,” in The New York Times.

Why Did Romney lose?

• “In the final analysis, Mitt Romney lost simply because he ran a campaign that insulted large swaths of the American people.” --Kyle Curtis, “Mitt Romney Lost Because He Ran an Insulting Campaign,” on Blue Oregon.
• “The GOP's most reliable supporters remain white, married couples who identify themselves as Christians , a group that continues its sharp decline in numbers.” — Joshua Holland, “What Propelled Obama to Victory?” on AlterNet.
• “Mitt Romney lost because of the Republican brand and Republican policies. There are other reasons, of course, like Mitt being unlovable to anyone not named Ann Romney, but nothing trumps the idea that 2/3rds of America thinks the other 1/3 is a frightening conglomerate of Bible-thumpers, xenophobes, and vaginophobes. (Not a word, but should be.)” --Bill Mahr, “Why the Republicans Lost,” on HBO.com.
• “Mitt Romney says he is a numbers guy, but in the end he got the numbers wrong. His campaign was adamant that public polls in the swing states were mistaken. They claimed the pollsters were over-estimating the number of Democrats who would turn out on Election Day. Romney’s campaign was certain that minorities would not show up for Obama in 2012 the way they did in 2008.” --John Dickerson, “Why Romney Never Saw It Coming,” on Slate.
• “There is an attitude of contempt, derision and disrespect that permeates Republican politics and Republican and conservative media. There are attitudes that permeate Republican politics and Republican media that are outside of traditional Republicanism and outside of American discourse. Democrats are demonized and liberals are hated and alternate opinion is often treated as though it does not exist, and even worse, treated as though it is unpatriotic.” — Brent Budowski, “Why Obama Won,” on The Hill.

Who still doesn't get it? At all?

• “A political narcissistic sociopath leveraged fear and ignorance with a campaign marked by mendacity and malice rather than a mandate for resurgence and reform. Instead of using his high office to articulate a vision for our future, Obama used it as a vehicle for character assassination, replete with unrelenting and destructive distortion, derision, and division.” --Mary Matalin, “Mendacity and Malice Won,” on the National Review site.

Mary Matalin is just one of many, of course, who still don't get it. Look for their comments, past and future, on the new, crowd-pleasing (or at least Erik-pleasing) pundit-shaming tumblr.

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