Astonishingly good news

2012-11-08 03:34:28

The election results were astonishingly good, much better than I expected although I hoped that Nate Silver and other statisticians would prove to be right in predicting an Obama victory. In fact, Nate Silver and other statisticians were vindicated---his prediction was right on the money (within a fraction of a percent on the popular vote and within 10 electoral college votes). This was especially gratifying given the nasty things that were said about him by commentators on the right, who suggested that he is biased, and that he was lucky in 2008 (and that his fame rested only on that one election cycle). He was even called effeminate by a creep named Robert Chambers (writing for the website examiner.com).

But there were many other reasons to be happy last night:

• The election was not so close as to be contested: no recounts in decisive states, no legal battles, no claims of stolen elections. The Romney campaign had four teams of lawyers to challenge close election results, one in Florida, one in Virginia and one in Ohio, and a fourth team for any other state if needed.
• Obama won the election through a coalition of minority groups, young people, women and educated professionals, and the demographics of these groups are adverse to the Republicans for future election cycles.
• ObamaCare will take effect. It turns out that health care was a bigger issue among the voters than was anticipated, based on exit polling, and that many voters voted for Obama because of that issue. It was believed that ObamaCare would be a liability to the president, but apparently it actually helped him. ObamaCare is not the optimal solution for the health care problem for many progressives, who were angry that it did not include a public option (much less be a Canadian-style single-payer system). But I understand that Germany has a similar system and that it is successful; its immediate predecessor (RomneyCare in Massachusetts) is successful.
• Obama and the Democratic Senate will control Supreme Court nominations for four years.
• Several prominent Tea Party-backed Senate candidates lost. These include Mourdock in Indiana, who lost to the Democratic candidate Donnelly.
• It would have been disastrous for the dishonest and cynical campaign of Romney and his supporters to succeed, but it failed. The onslaught of "dark money" (hundreds of millions of dollars spent by certain extremely wealthy individuals) failed.
• Gay people had four victories last night: Marriage equality passed in Maine, Maryland and Washington state; an anti-same-sex marriage ballot measure failed in Minnesota. The first openly gay person was elected to the US Senate, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin (which state voted against Paul Ryan who is from Wisconsin).
• Marijuana decriminalization was passed in two states---Colorado and Washington---although it failed in Oregon.