Episode 21: The Post-2012-Election Analysis
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Yes, the campaigning, the TV ads, the debates and speeches, and all the vote counting (well, except in Florida, where it’s tradition to drag that out) are now all behind us, and what do we have now? A Democratic President, a Senate controlled by Democrats and a House of Representatives controlled by Republicans. So basically, the same government we had before the election. The economy has been bouncing along anemically, millions have left the workforce, and of those remaining, a higher percentage of them are still out of work.
And votes for Obama were, explicitly or implicitly, a vote for ObamaCare, and with it the reduction of religious freedom as taking a stand for your beliefs against killing the unborn was considered less of an issue than making sure contraception would be dirt cheap for college students.
So what happened, or more to the point, didn’t happen?
It looks like the Obama campaign had the better “ground game”, as they call it. He got his base energized. Democrats were 38 percent of the electorate while Republicans were only 32 percent. I thought that the Chick-fil-A appreciation day was a harbinger of Election Day, but it was, apparently, only a measure of the evangelical support for Romney.
I won’t be a sore loser. The American people spoke, and congrats to President Obama and his supporters. It’s time to move forward. But forward to where? Listen in.
Mentioned links:
Exit Polls: Obama Gains With Latinos, Romney Gains With Evangelicals
30 Reasons Republicans Lost The Election
20 things that went right on Election Day
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Filed under: Abortion • Budget & Spending • Economics & Taxes • Elections • Entitlements • Government • Health Care • Marriage
Hi Doug, it’s Hugh, I actually totally agree with you on the unemployment statistic. Though, to take it one step further, the 8 or below percent unemployment stat doesn’t take some other things into consideration. It doesn’t take into consideration those that have become unemployed that haven’t applied for unemployment benefits yet or that have exhausted their benefits and still aren’t working. I also believe the stat deceivingly uses people that are only part time employees, have jobs that are full time but only get minimum wage or lower paying jobs (i.e. $10 or $15 an hour; who can really live on that?!), and those who have full time jobs but can’t afford the benefits like hospitalization and such. Using these people to prop up a stat is just unrealistic if not outright contrived in my estimation. Yes, I am a blend of conservative and liberal and some might say I’m in conflict with myself but everything in this life is balance. So, I truly think the unemployment rate is even higher than what you suggest and give very good logical support of. I think it’s much closer to 20 percent when taking into consideration all the things I’ve said. On the tax thing that you bring up and the 47% again, maybe a flat 10% across the board is the answer. Though, there does have to be certain amount of income where there should be no tax and a luxury tax maybe for those that are truly wealthy. I still feel that 10% of a very low or medium income impacts on those people WAY more than it would impact on the truly rich. The question and problem lies with setting the level of income that is truly considered rich. Even though I’m very low income, I think the $250,000 figure is low for being considered well to do or wealthy. When we consider all the expenses of a 2 parent, two child, family with all the expenses (i.e. college, food, groceries, car maintenance, insurance, house payment, real estate taxes, cell phone bills, and other expenses etc…) that $250,000 figure doesn’t go as far as some of us might think. So, I’m really not totally unreasonable but we are in a mess and that is for sure. I will definitely check out the 30 reasons Republicans lost the election. Have a great day, Hugh
@written1hm Indeed, there are actually about 6 different unemployment numbers that include different types of situations (part-timers who want to be full-timers vs part-timers fine with their hours, that sort of thing). I was just trying to make it simple and do as much of an apples-to-apples comparison as I could.
A flat income tax would still have to have some sort of provision for deductions, indeed, which is why it might still be problematic (given government’s propensity for campaigning for deductions for constituents) but could be at least a bit better than what we have now.
Thanks for stopping by!