The Pardu’s 12 Days Of Christmas

Nice sounds for your reading and the original lyrics below our political version

The Progressive Influence

On the first day of Christmas,

my true love sent to me

A landslide election for US History.

_________

On the second day of Christmas,

my true love sent to me

Obama and Biden,

And landslide for US History.

________

On the third day of Christmas,

my true love sent to me

Three seething Senators,

Obama, Biden, and Rice,

And landslide election for US History.

________

On the fourth day of Christmas,

my true love sent to me

Four whining Romneys,

Three seething Senators,

Obama, Biden, and Rice,

And a landslide election for US History.

________

On the fifth day of Christmas,

my true love sent to me

Five angry Billionaires,

Four whining Romneys,

Three seething Senators,

Obama, Biden, and Rice,

And a landslide election for US History.

_________

On the sixth day of Christmas,

my true love sent to me

Six Fox New Hosts a-lying,

Five angry Billionaires,

Four whining Romneys,

Three seething Senators,

Obama, Biden, and Rice,

And a landslide election for US History.

_________

On the seventh day of Christmas,

my true love sent to me

Seven GOP pundits a-brimming,

Six Fox New Hosts a-lying,

Five angry Billionaires,

Four whining Romneys,

Three seething Senators,

Obama, Biden, and Rice,

And a landslide election for US History.

__________

On the eighth day of Christmas,

my true love sent to me

Eight campaign staff a-milking,

Seven GOP pundits a-brimming,

Six Fox New Hosts a-lying,

Five angry Billionaires,

Four whining Romneys,

Three seething Senators,

Obama, Biden, and Rice,

And a landslide election for US History.

__________

On the ninth day of Christmas,

my true love sent to me

Nine Herman Cains dancing,

Eight campaign staff a-milking,

Seven GOP pundits a-brimming,

Six Fox New Hosts a-lying,

Five angry Billionaires,

Four whining Romneys,

Three seething Senators,

Obama, Biden, and Rice,

And a landslide election for US History.

__________

On the tenth day of Christmas,

my true love sent to me

Tea Party members a-leaping,

Nine Herman Cains dancing,

Eight campaign staff a-milking,

Seven GOP pundits a-brimming,

Six Fox New Hosts a-lying,

Five angry Billionaires,

Four whining Romneys,

Three seething Senators,

Obama, Biden, and Rice,

And a landslide election for US History.

_________

On the eleventh day of Christmas,

my true love sent to me

Eleven Congressional pipers piping,

Tea Party members a-leaping,

Nine Herman Cains dancing,

Eight campaign staff a-milking,

Seven GOP pundits a-brimming,

Six Fox New Hosts a-lying,

Five angry Billionaires,

Four whining Romneys,

Three seething Senators,

Obama, Biden, and Rice,

And a landslide election for US History.

__________

On the twelfth day of Christmas,

my true love sent to me

Democrat drummers drumming,

Eleven Congressional pipers piping,

Tea Party members a-leaping,

Nine Herman Cains dancing,

Eight campaign staff a-milking,

Seven GOP pundits a-brimming,

Six Fox New Hosts a-lying,

Five angry Billionaires,

Four whining Romneys,

Three seething Senators,

Obama, Biden, and Rice,

And a landslide election for US History.

____________

The meaning behind the lyrics

5 Golden Rings refers to the first Five Books of the Old Testament, the “Pentateuch”, which gives the history of man’s fall from grace.
6 Geese A-laying refers to the six days of creation
7 Swans A-swimming refers to the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, the seven sacraments
8 Maids A-milking refers to the eight beatitudes
9 Ladies Dancing refers to the nine Fruits of the Holy Spirit
10 Lords A-leaping refers to the ten commandments
11 Pipers Piping refers to the eleven faithful apostles
12 Drummers Drumming refers to the twelve points of doctrine in the Apostle’s Creed

The Twelve Days of Christmas (12 Days of Christmas) : Lyrics

Play Music !

On the first day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
A partridge in a pear tree.

On the second day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.

On the third day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.

On the fourth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.

On the fifth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Five golden rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.

On the sixth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Six geese a-laying,
Five golden rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.

On the seventh day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five golden rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.

On the eighth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Eight maids a-milking,
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five golden rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.

On the ninth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Nine ladies dancing,
Eight maids a-milking,
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five golden rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.

On the tenth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Ten lords a-leaping,
Nine ladies dancing,
Eight maids a-milking,
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five golden rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.

On the eleventh day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Eleven pipers piping,
Ten lords a-leaping,
Nine ladies dancing,
Eight maids a-milking,
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five golden rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.

On the twelfth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Twelve drummers drumming,
Eleven pipers piping,
Ten lords a-leaping,
Nine ladies dancing,
Eight maids a-milking,
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five golden rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree!

The Twelve Days of Christmas (12 Days of Christmas) – lyrics

_____________________________________

Elizabeth Warren A Legislator to Watch!

The following Huffington Post pieces simply great news.

One day the GOP will see the errors in their ways. If McConnell had shown one small degree of cooperation with President Obama, Ms. Warren would have been confirmed as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the Obama Administration. After her  non-confirmation withdrawal, she ran for the Massachusetts Senate Seat vacated as a result of Ted Kennedy’s death. Scott Brown won the special election seat, and was defeated by Warren on November 6th.  

Even before Warren takes her Senate seat, her impact starts to manifest. Her assignment to the Senate Banking Committee, is a lesson to the obstructionist GOP.  The lesson, “your obstructionist moves  have backfired.”

Elizabeth Warren Wins Senate Banking Committee Seat: Sources

The Huffington Post  |  By Ryan Grim Posted: 12/04/2012 9:36 am EST Updated: 12/04/2012 9:55 am EST

WASHINGTON — Nearly two years after Wall Street waged a successful campaign to keep consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren from running the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the incoming senator will be tapped to serve on the Banking Committee, according to four sources familiar with the situation. It’s a victory for progressives who battled to win her a seat on the panel that oversees the implementation of Dodd-Frank and other banking regulations.

Read more linked via title above 

The White House Was Our Destiny!

KultureKritic Dot Com has published an intriguing piece about the aftermath of the November 6th elections.  The piece mentions Mitt Romney’s boredom and his wandering loss of things to do. The article focused on one who would have been “Queen” of the nation: Ann Romney.

If you have followed any news reports on MSNBC, read any articles in middle-ground or progressive print media, you know the Romney Campaign, family and GOP operatives were flabbergasted with their loss the evening of the 6th.  So, flabbergasted  Mitt Romney did not even have a concession speech. If you stayed up late that evening you know the election was factually over by 11:15PM. Around 1:20AM the next morning, Mitt Romney came to a Massachusetts stage and spoke the shortest concession speech in US History. The speech was gracious, professional albeit a bit whiny,  but it was obvious it was thrown together after the 11:00PM hour.  ”Oh, I so wanted to be your president“, “Ann would have made a great First Lady“.  Well, he spoke to a partisan crowd and 47 per cent of the electorate.  His comments fell on deaf ears for the remainder of the electorate, and the loss also bode very well for the nation.

The Romney’s are American wealthy aristocracy, and their expectations were so obvious they hired accordingly.  They hired staff as elitist, they planned as elitist, and they failed as elitist.  We should not be surprised by the aftermath. 

According the KultureKritic Ann Romney may have consumed a small fortune in tissues post election.  She felt ordained (entitled) to the White House and the campaign was a mere exercise in formality. Election night was to simply serve as a preclude to grand Balls on inauguration day. A day fit for her newly ordained status as “Queen” of America. 

We ask, what is it about the uber wealthy that does not deep introspection?  Do they not know behavior or actions as those the following would be noticed by millions. Millions who really do not worship the greedy, self-serving and elitist “Hunger Game” like wealthy.

_________________________

Let’s take a journey through Ann of America summer and fall of 2012.

“By all accounts, the past month has been most difficult on Romney’s wife, Ann, who friends said believed up until the end that ascending to the White House was their destiny. They said she has been crying in private and trying to get back to riding her horses.” 

KultureKritic (Stop It)

In an interview early this evening with Radio Iowa, Ann. Romney addressed her fellow Republicans who’ve criticized her husband.

“Stop it. This is hard. You want to try it? Get in the ring,” Ann Romney said. “This is hard and, you know, it’s an important thing that we’re doing right now and it’s an important election and it is time for all Americans to realize how significant this election is and how lucky we are to have someone with Mitt’s qualifications and experience and know-how to be able to have the opportunity to run this country.” (audio via Radio Iowa)

_________________________

The North Africa Post (Military service for ordinary Americans vs the Romney’s Mormon Missions)

During her appearance on The View television show, Mrs. Romney unwittingly gave clarity to this family doctrine. She tried to equate the Mormon mission service of Mitt, Tagg, Josh, Matt and the others with the sometimes life-threatening service in the military.

“ He was serving his mission” Was the comment from Ann Romney. “

“His mission”. I do this day do not understand how the Mormon Church was the only church organization to secure exemption from serving in the military base don a church mission. 

Whoopi Goldberg, I believe baited Mrs. Romney into the following set of comments.

The North Africa Post continues...

During her appearance on The View television show, Mrs. Romney unwittingly gave clarity to this family doctrine. She tried to equate the Mormon mission service of Mitt, Tagg, Josh, Matt and the others with the sometimes life-threatening service in the military.

Remember that candidate Romney promises to keep the US military strong, just not with any Romneys at risk. Ann explained: “My five boys and my husband did serve missions; did not serve in the military. But the thing that I love, and I will tell you this… ” she interrrupted herself but then continued. “… You all know as mothers, when you are raising children, that one of the most selfish periods of their life is about (ages) 18, 19, 20,” chuckled Mrs. Romney, trying to warm her interviewers and the New York City studio audience. 

She failed. See, Mitt Romney’s religious mission in France coincided with the Vietnam War. New Yorkers buried 4,120 Vietnam casualties, according to TheWall-USA.com. During Mr. Romney’s 30 months in France (the last six in Paris), Americans lost 33,886 soldiers, also posted on TheWall-USA.com. In all, 58,220 Americans died, according to archives.com. Not one of the healthy Romney males put on the uniform of the good ole USA. Looking for converts in France (and Costa Rica in Craig’s case), well how does that compare, Mrs. Romney?

My five sons have also served missions. None served in the military, but I do have one son (Ben) that feels he is giving back to his country in a significant way where he is a doctor and he is now taking care of veterans. So, you know, we find different ways of serving,” she said to internationally-acclaimed interviewer Barbara Walters and co-hostess Whoopi Goldberg, who opened the prickly discussion. 

Mitt Romney’s different way of serving? Spending 2 1/2 years in France; the closing months of it in a $12-million Paris mansion. In fact, 4 of the five Romney sons as teenagers opted for France. There, each Romney could have lamented the perils of … um … over-indulging in specialty cheeses and oven-fresh baguettes.

In Mitt’s case, from mid-1966 until late 1968, his contemporaries were guarding against something other than taking on too many calories. They were heavy in battle in the jungles of Vietnam while he was sleeping in the luxurious Mormon mansion in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. Specifically, 3 Rue de Lota.

____________________________

 Ann Romney “You people”.

I learned many years ago, if one has nothing to hide, attacks take on less meaning.  In her inimitable way, Ann Romney showed the epitome of ‘elitism”.  ”Attacks”.  She exhibited contempt for questions and concerns by labeling  issues “Attacks”.  While at the very same time her husband’s campaign was labeling attack after attack at ta sitting president. I will add, those attacks were as guttural as any I have even seen in the course of a political campaign   But, I sometimes forget, Barack Obama is the very first African-American President.  (In hindsight I see the word “attacks”‘ was a campaign ploy as Mitt Romney used it repeatedly in the third Presidential Debate). 

Mitt and Ann Romney would serve in the White House comparable to any national leader who would have a wife who spoke, “Let them eat cake”. Well, the learned reader knows that Maria Antoinette spoke of a French Bread called ” Brioche”. Actually Mario Antoinette did not speak the words, but for sake of folklore (“Let them eat brioche“) let’s allow the misrepresented phrase to stand.

I am reminded by a segment of The Last Word and Jonathan Capeheart of Ann Romney’s response to  question about the election. “It our turn.”  She said :….it’s our turn.” 

The presidency is not a pass-around privilege like passing around the newspaper at the country club.  

Ezra Klein Explores Romney’s Internal Polling Failures

A few of  Obama’s Rockers…NARWHAL Team

As we move away from the November 6th General elections a few items demand continued attention. First, Romney had not prepared a concession speech as he and his team felt confident he would win by a landslide.  Second, and I will not delve deep here, the business of gerrymandering that may have contributed to a Republican majority in the House of Representatives.  Romney’s failed ORCA (Rove’s system) has been reported on The Progressive Influence. As the article linked in the last sentence provides intriguing insight into the technical acumen of the Obama Campaign and the fails of the less adroit Romney Campaign, I have anxiously waited for television news data geeks to tackle the Romney data failure.

You might know Ezra Klein and his circle of data ‘geek’s would address the issue with the same thoroughness and detail as Klein devotes to his online web postings (The WONKBLOG).

The segment is 10:23 seconds long, but worth every second, if you are one who knows the value of competent political campaigns as indicators of potential for leading our nation.  Romney’s campaign clearly showed he was not up for the job, his party is not focused on leadership of all the people, and money really cannot buy presidential elections.  Technology as part of a ‘ground-game’ will win every time   Romney had not ground game. He and his party relied on big money donors, lies, and use of the southern strategy to appeal to the 92% of the GOP voters who happen to be white Americans, and people who fell for the Fox News propaganda and Romney campaign mantra.

As we watched the general election campaigns moved towards November 6th, it became apparent the Romney camp was in way over its head. Their ticket was flawed, their message was esoteric at best, their agenda was dangerous to the economic health of the nation and their strategies were as outdated as bell bottom blue jeans on men. Yet, 47% of voters cast votes for the flawed ticket.

The Progressive Influence suggest the nation needs serious healing. Healing in this case can only be in the from of a lobotomy of the major of those 47% who voted for the Romney/Ryan Ticket.

Election 2012: Battle Of Polling Databases, ORCA vs. NARHWAL

An image that depicts the GOP Circa 2000. If you look really close and think about what follows, you will draw deeper meaning from my choice of the image above.

It is almost as if reflecting back on past wars.  No war has been won (for that matter lost) without strategy and strategic execution that involved intelligence (AKA INTEL). And, to the winner of the INTEL wars goes the spoils.  Political campaigns are much like a form of war.  The presidential campaigns leading to November 6th elections, certainly involved war-like strategy.  Both success in INTEL execution and failure to execute was evident throughout the 2012 Campaign. The Obama Team was successful; the Romney team failed miserably. While success and failures span many campaign fronts, campaign use of technology was an area that the Obama campaign won handily. No war is won without effective INTEL. Details of behind the scenes technology wars are starting to come forth.

Election 2012 was perpetrated with assistance from technology born just ahead of the 2008 Elections.  The Obama Administration and software professionals continued development of what has come to be known as Project Narwhal (and DreamCatcher). Romney’s Polling INTEL came to be known as ORCA. In the end Romney’s  system failed. As stated in previous TPI pieces and restated below,  Anonymous claims to have interfered with ORCA. Ultimately, and regardless of failure the system failed miserably. 

A team of high tech software engineers trumped the Romney ORCA Team and they went about their mission with the precision of well planned and executed military strategy. Yet, I am certain not one of the team credits their success to military like acumen. 

Meet the Obama Narwhal Team.

Three of the 40 engineers.

They’d been working 14-hour days, six or seven days a week, trying to reelect the president, and now everything had been broken at just the wrong time.

Narwhal: high-tech  voter-targeting system,  after the Arctic sea mammal.

Josh Thayer, the lead engineer of Narwhal, had just been informed that they’d lost another one of the services powering their software. That was bad: Narwhal was the code name for the data platform that underpinned the campaign and let it track voters and volunteers. If it broke, so would everything else. (The Atlantic)

Josh Taylor is a member of a team of elite, talented and committed software professionals (Specialist and technicians) who worked behind the scenes to re-elect a president. 

The Atlantic’s  Alexis C. Madrigal  on November 16th, published an intriguing look at the innards of President Obama’s technology team. It is impossible to fathom how President Obama could have garnered as many electoral votes as he factually won without the team of “30 somethings”. 

Narwhal…

(The Atlantic) 

When the Nerds Go Marching In

         Alexis C. Madrigal, The Atlantic

Excerpt 

The election was still 17 days away, and this was a live action role playing (LARPing!) exercise that the campaign’s chief technology officer, Harper Reed, was inflicting on his team. “We worked through every possible disaster situation,” Reed said. “We did three actual all-day sessions of destroying everything we had built.” 

Hatch was playing the role of dungeon master, calling out devilishly complex scenarios that were designed to test each and every piece of their system as they entered the exponential traffic-growth phase of the election. Mark Trammell, an engineer who Reed hired after he left Twitter, saw a couple game days. He said they reminded him of his time in the Navy. “You ran firefighting drills over and over and over, to make sure that you not just know what you’re doing,” he said, “but you’re calm because you know you can handle your shit.” 

The team had elite and, for tech, senior talent — by which I mean that most of them were in their 30s — from Twitter, Google, Facebook, Craigslist, Quora, and some of Chicago’s own software companies such as Orbitz and Threadless, where Reed had been CTO. But even these people, maybe *especially* these people, knew enough about technology not to trust it. “I think the Republicans fucked up in the hubris department,” Reed told me. “I know we had the best technology team I’ve ever worked with, but we didn’t know if it would work. I was incredibly confident it would work. I was betting a lot on it. We had time. We had resources. We had done what we thought would work, and it still could have broken. Something could have happened.”

Read more

(Immizen View)

Reported as early as Feb, 2012 in a Slate article titled “Obama’s White Whale”, project Narwhal, Obama’s top-secret campaign project until then, featuring high tech data integration and data mining techniques,promised to change the ways in which campaigns are fought and won.

(Slate Dot Com) Feb 15, 2012

…….as part of a project code-named Narwhal, Obama’s team is working to link once completely separate repositories of information so that every fact gathered about a voter is available to every arm of the campaign. Such information-sharing would allow the person who crafts a provocative email about contraception to send it only to women with whom canvassers have personally discussed reproductive views or whom data-mining targeters have pinpointed as likely to be friendly to Obama’s views on the issue.

 There are growing numbers of articles about the NARWHAL Vs. ORCA Systems, their missions and outcomes. I have posted a few links at article end.   I find the most informative a  piece about the two systems was written on November 12, 2012 by Tomi T. Ahoen, Orca meets Narwhal – How the Obama Ground Game Crushed Romney – A look behind the math.  

                                           

The article is very long and probably only suited for those who are enthralled with the inner workings of Presidential Elections Circa 2000 and forward.

Tomi T. Ahonen….. [Tread no farther if you abhor long reads]


Excerpt

The Romney machine called Orca vs the Obama machine called Narwhal. This is truly a classic match-up, like Godzilla vs King Kong. (be prepared, this is a long article, nearly 9,000 words, and there is a lot of math in it..) PROJECT ORCA Romney had built a brand new database and voting monitoring and voter activation system called Orca. It is credited with catching the voting behavior of about 14 Million Romney supporters. It also is famous for crashing many times during the day and that many Romney supporters had trouble logging into the system, some never made it all day. Project Orca had inputs coming in from voting places from 34,000 Romney supporters, who would report how each voting precinct was performing. Based on that info, Romney headquarters in Boston could monitor in real time what was the voting in every state, by precinct, and then make their estimates of what the situation was on the ground, and then direct GOTV efforts, primarily robocalls, directed by a phone banking staff of 800. They would make 6 million calls during the day – a number never attempted before by the Republicans. The Orca system would guide which states were trending ‘safely’ for Romney, and where their voter numbers were down from projections. This meant, Romney could direct their resources efficiently, to make calls in those states where needed. What is more, the Orca system had identified the needed phone number area codes, so they would call those regions that were strongly Romney and Republican-leaning, so if a given county went for McCain over Obama in 2008 at a ratio of say 70 to 30 or for example 60 to 40, when the whole country went against McCain 47 to 53, such counties were good places to target, with a lop-side Republican supporter base, and make sure, all of their voters would come to the polls, because those would be strongly leaning to the Republicans.. We do also know, that Romney’s team explicitly did not attempt to build its own lists of supporters (that would take months, years even) but rather, it bought commercially available lists, email lists, phone number lists, which are of less than perfect accuracy and relevance. Understand, this all was new. McCain had nothing like this. McCain’s campaign was still paper-based with ‘strike lists’ ie paper slips with names and numbers, you called them and then ‘striked’ a name off the list, when that person said they had voted. Romney’s ground game was a whole generation ahead of McCain’s in 2008 and by mid October, Romney’s campaign boasted that it had made 50 million actual contacts with voters. Those contacts ranged from visits at home and phone calls, to emails and Facebook contacts, to robocalls and traditional mailings via the post, and depositing doorknob hangers. Out of a nation of 130 million actual voters and some 145 million registered voters, and a target level of about 60 to 65 million Republican-leaning supporters, to make 50 million contacts is very impressive (it would include duplicates, so the aggregate total contacts would be lower). The ABC/WaPo poll of registered voters in mid October found that 18% of the voter base had been contacted by Romney, which would be about 26 million individual voters. So Romney’s team had had hit their targets typically twice. Unfortunately it was indeed, all new. The team was not trained to use this complex system. It required users in the field to access the system from smartphones and needed user IDs and passwords. The volunteers had to read a 60 page manual, which was only sent to the volunteers the night before the election. In the morning, many of the users of the system weren’t able to access it, and there was no help desk. The actual decision-making desk at Project Orca in Boston was unable to rely on data from the field as expected, and often got the best info from TV news like CNN and Fox, rather than their own field machine. This part of Orca was under performing hideously, compared to what it could have been, if it had been a well-tested, well-run and well trained system. There is an interesting parallel to 2008. In 2008, Obama’s team had intended to collect voting data per voter, in key districts, and send it in via mobile phones to their central database, through an automated telephone switchboard just by keying in numbers and using IVR (Interactive Voice Response) just like we all do when we call a calling center and they ask us to punch in numbers, press 1 to find out about your phone bill, press 2 to hear our new offer, etc.. The system was called Houdini, and it too crashed on election day due to completely overwhelming telecoms traffic that they had not anticipated. But at least Axelrod and gang had been smart enough to pre-test it and to build a work-around in case it failed on election day. They went back to paper and pencil, and runners, and did get useful data while not anywhere near as efficiently as hoped, in 2008. The difference in Orca in 2012, is that Romney’s team had no alternative and when Orca crashed, it was unable to help in any way, and there was no workaround. Also, just as a note. The Obama system was known for months, that it is internally called Project Narwhal. Narwhal or Narwhale, is an arctic whale. And the only known predator in nature (other than man) that hunts the Narwhal is – the killer whale, Orca (ORCA. So when Romney’s team wanted to best Narwhal, and beat team Obama, they named their data-mining project Orca. Yeah, that’s intimidation right there. Both sides were making occasional revelations about their systems to psyche out the other side. PROJECT NARWHAL Where the Romney campaign was running fast to try to get into the 21st century with their GOTV plans, Obama’s team, led by Axelrod, Plouffe and Messina had already done all that. Their 2008 campaign had been brought to fully digital communications, and was very cutting edge from the SMS announcement of Obama’s choice of Vice President, to using Facebook. Its not just that the Obama team was fully digital and using social media back in 2008, they had now had four years of time to plan and build and revise and expand their system. Boy did they ever. We do not have direct apples-to-apples comparison numbers on every metric, but consider the few where we do. Romney’s team was proud of achieving 50 million contacts by mid October with their base (which included non-personal contacts such as mailings, doorknob hangers and robocalls). Obama’s team announced they had hit 125 million personal contacts. Personal contacts! Visits at home or phone calls. Wow. Based on that same ABC/WaPo survey of total contacts made, Obama’s team had hit about 28 million registered voters. 125 million total contacts meant, that Obama’s team had talked to – talked to – their voters/supporters on average 5 times in the election cycle so far. You really get to know your voters this way! And Obama got just over 60 million votes in the end. By mid October, the Obama team in Chicago had personally spoken to almost half of those who would eventually vote for them – and on average spoken with each voter 5 times. Not ‘sent a letter’ but actually spoken, face-to-face, or via phone, on average 5 times! Romney’s team consistently every month spent most of its massive millions in campaign funds on TV ads. Obama’s team not one month had its biggest spend in TV advertising. Its biggest spend every month was the mysterious Project Narwhal. They spent millions on this project months before voting day? Why? Because it was a grand plan and it was truly nefarious. First, Team Chicago had decided that the info coming from regular pollsters was not accurate enough. We saw how many daily polls every day? And yet the Obama team felt that was not accurate enough. So they constructed the biggest polling panel ever made, of 29,000 voters in the state of Ohio alone (nearly 1% of the total voting population in Ohio). I am pretty sure they didn’t get this level in all states, but probably did, in the targeted 9 battleground states. If we assume the same ratio held for all 9 battleground states, then Narwhal would have a voter panel of approximately 300,000 total voters – just in those 9 states. Double or triple that for the rest of the country to cover all 50 states (probably with less people on the panels in the other states, as those were not goin g to be as critical to victory). This is by two whole orders of magnitude more accurate than anything any professional pollster ever runs. A ‘huge’ consumer survey might run 3,000 surveys. Obama’s team ran 100 times that size (or likely even bigger yet). This is the essence of Project Narwhal (and DreamCatcher) which was not primarily a voting day machine, but something to give voter insights all throughout the campaign season. The accuracy level of the Obama internal poll totally blasts away any other professional pollsters – usually major national polls have sample sizes from 1,000 to 2,600 voters. State-wide polls often have sample sizes as small as 600 voters. Obama’s machine accuracy was so precise, they matched actual voter results on election day, to their panel projection, within a fraction of a percent in almost every battleground state. In Colorado, where Obama’s winning victory was far bigger than any public polling had suggested, Narwhal still predicted the landslide victory for Obama, but undercounted it by only 1%. Even when it was ‘massively’ off, it was off by one percent and did not miss who would be the winner. Team Obama knew they had won. And this level of accuracy is the management insight which drove the Obama campaign. And this system was built, tested, improved, and its users trained. Users on Narhwal had received training on it a year before election day. The system was truly tested and used daily, not unveiled on election day. Project Narwhal was also a massive election simulation tool – I really like this part (eleven years ago, back when I was still employed over at Nokia, as part of the Nokia consulting assets and tools, I was heading Nokia’s set of simulation tools, so this is also a personal interest of mine). So Obama’s team could simulate anything, what if one of the candidates had a heart attack, what if there was a blizzard on voting day, what if there was a military scandal and the military vote support was suddenly lost, etc. The Obama team ran… get this.. 2 MILLION simulations of election outcomes through Narwhal !!! They knew every conceivable scenario, well before it played. They KNEW if there was an Atlantic hurricane that would appear in the last week of the election, what to do with it. Why? Because they had modelleled it through no doubt over 1,000 separate simulations, what if it only hits southern Atlantic, what if it causes Manhattan to flood, what if it rushes up to Boston, what if it blocks out electricity to fifteen Northeastern states – and what if Obama stays campaigning during the Hurricane, what if he stops campaigning but Romney continues, etc etc etc. 2 million total simulations, powered with the most complete consumer survey data of any country any election electorate, ever. Its not just that Narwhal knew what was happening on election day, minute by minute. Narwhal had pre-anticipated any conceivable variation. This is like playing chess against a computer – and the computer is powerful enough to calculate essentially every variation from that move onto check mate. What if there is a terrorist attack in Houston, what would that do to Texas vote and the national vote etc etc etc.. The power of simulation is incredible, if your model is reasonably accurate – which is why simulation is used to train supercritical experts such as astronauts, submarine captains, fighter pilots, Formula 1 drivers, tank commanders etc. So what could Chicago do with these simulations? They soon were able to identify the exact parameters of what type of person would be likely to support the campaign by donating via online – and what messages would trigger that donation; compared to who would rather donate via mail (ie send a cheque) or via SMS etc. They were able to find what types of people were willing to volunteer to help the team etc. How powerful? They raised almost a Billion dollars in donations this way, far and away more than in 2008 – when the Obama campaign set the records for most unique individual donators, and the most money ever raised in an election. The benefit of such simulation is to test out which method works the best, and that, in turn helps guide management into using scarse resources more efficiently. The Obama campaign was always many steps ahead of the Romney campaign. About those comparisons. We do know Project Orca for Romney was able to capture voting info for ’91%’ of the intended target voters, and thus it has at a miminum a capacity of collecting data on about 16 million voters. It did not contain this info on election day – so Orca did not know which voters were going to vote for Romney, etc, but as the data came in, Orca added to the info, so that data on about 14 million Republican supporters can be used next time in the 2016 Presidential election. Remember, Orca was only taken into use on election day, and Romney staff had not meticulously been collecting voter preferences in the weeks and months leading into the election (like how Obama’s team had done). Compare to Narwhal. Obama’s team had preloaded its massive database with 175 million voting age Americans already before election day! They knew who were registered voters, and they had a very good understanding who were likely Romney or Republican supporters, who were Obama or Democratic supporters and who were swing voters. The Obama campaign had contacted nearly half of its own voter base, and knew which were the 28% who had voted early – those did not need reminder calls on election day – and knew which were the four million who had made a campaign contribution – very high level VIP supporters of the Obama campaign, etc. This is like comparing a navy with a saiboat to a navy with an aircraft carrier. Yes, Romney’s Orca was a quantum leap compared to the paper-based system McCain’s team had used. But it was peanuts compared to Obama’s massive multi-multi-million dollar system. The 2008 version was the biggest data mining effort in any election. The 2012 Obama edition had 5 times the staff compared to 2008 and cost a massive 100 Million dollars to build. Whatever Orca was or could have been, was utterly dwarfed by Narwhal and its sisters. So what did the two campaigns do with their systems?

As you know from reading the TPI, Anonymous claims to have placed a block on the Romney campaign ORCA.  We will never know if the Anonymous claim is accurate. We do admit to an inclination to believe the Hacktavist Group as the coincidence Anonymous in Ohio were too much like the Karl Rove manipulated election in 2004. 

Whether true of not, other writers are writing about the differences in the Obama and Romney technology foundation and operational effectiveness throughout the 2012 election campaign. As we approached the election, I often wondered why the Obama campaign stated late in the campaign, and as November 6th approached, they felt comfortable with, and confident of, their “Ground Game”. It is now glaring evident the Obama campaign ‘outfoxed and out geeked’ the Romney campaign.

The significance of the last point is beyond critical. I learned many years and campaigns ago the presidential campaign is a long and draining process. The process also includes testimonial to how well a candidate and his/her team can perform even after an election win an ascension to the Oval Office. If the last campaign was any indication of the fortunes of America and the simultaneous shallowness of the 47% who voted for Mitt Romney, the following piece from The Daily Beast drives the point to the core. 

:

The Romney Campaign’s Ground Game Fiasco

Excerpt 

The story starts in 2008. The Romney campaign sought to counter Team Obama’s highly touted, high-tech voter-targeting system, nicknamed Narwhal after the Arctic sea mammal. Narwhal provided the Obama campaign with reams of specific data on voters—finding single women in conservative counties, for instance, or families with children who have disabilities. 

In 2012, the Romney campaign unveiled its own killer app and called it Project Orca—the fierce great whale that is the natural predator of the Narwhal. The only problem: Boston’s Orca turned out to be toothless. 

The system was different from Narwhal. It was designed to allow Romney poll watchers, in real time, to identify likely Romney supporters who still had not shown up at polling stations on Election Day. By uploading the names of people who had voted, the computers back in Boston could figure out who still needed to be targeted and turned out. 

At least that’s the way it was supposed to work. But on Tuesday, it became clear that the deployment of Orca was doing more harm than good. “I think it’s fair to say that pretty much everything about the system that was supposed to work actually failed,” said one campaign official who witnessed the breakdown from the Romney war room on the floor of Boston’s TD Garden. 

The Romney high command had cloaked the system in secrecy to maintain what it hoped would be a true competitive turnout advantage. But by limiting the number of people with access to Orca, the campaign was not able to train its field operatives to use it or do the necessary beta-testing to work out the kinks that typically plague new software.

Reasons for any quest to understand the details of the November 6th win and the loss on  goes well beyond simply politics and social views.  The issues are as serious as any letter from the IRS.  The political campaign really does reveal the effectiveness of leadership, planning, strategy,  and execution.  Of course, the first lesson of any campaign, “…how well does the leader of the campaign and her/his close advisers staff the remainder of the campaign team?”  To explore the continuum a bit more, how effectively can a group of people (w/resources) manage.  In this case, manage affected each of us and our families  our jobs and our literal lives.  Both the McCain and Romney Campaigns stumbled miserable.  And, each stumbled from the top down.

We posit the American voter must be extra careful in exercising their legal right to cast a ballot on who leads our governments.   The Romney campaign showed from day one it was not a campaign of truthfulness, it was a campaign of dirty tricks, and the party behind the campaign executed un-American voter suppression.  The voter must also pay close attention to the quality of management team necessary in today’s world for maintaining and advancing the quality of life in our country. 

NARWHAL Vs. Romeny’s ORCA is another example the effectiveness of leadership and management that leads to successful outcomes.

Sources:
  
Communities Dominate Blog (ORCA Meets NARWHAL….)

The Business Insider

Immizen Dot Com

Ontd.political.livejournal Dot Com

The Business Insider (Romney’s ORCA Disaster….)

The Daily Beast (Romney Campaign Ground Game Fiasco)

Read more: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/11/when-the-nerds-go-marching-in/265325/#ixzz2DGKTfb8X

Mario Piperni Does Allen West

Cross posted from MarioPiperniDotCom

Allan West Finally Gives It Up

The guy who once said to Democratic leaders…

Take your message of equality of achievement, take your message of economic dependency, take your message of enslaving the entrepreneurial will and spirit of the American people somewhere else. You can take it to Europe, you can take it to the bottom of the sea, you can take it to the North Pole, but get the hell out of the United States of America.

…is now history. After dragging out his election loss for two weeks, West finally came to grips with reality…sort of. This is what he wrote on his Facebook page yesterday.

While many questions remain unanswered, today I am announcing that I will take no further action to contest the outcome of this election.

I’m not sure what made me happier on election night – President Obama’s win or Allen West’s loss. It might very well have been the latter. If there was one Republican who embodied the complete tea-bagging, partisan, obstructionist, narrow-minded idiocy of the last two years, it was West.

And so, to the man who once said that he believed that 78 to 81 members of Democrats in Congress were members of the Communist Party, here is my own little farewell message to Mr. West.

Take your message of ignorance and hate, take your message of economic favoritism for the wealthy, take your message of enslaving the middle class somewhere else. You can take it to Fox, you can take it to talk radio, you can take it to the bottom of the sea, but get the hell out of Congress.

___

Follow MarioPiperniDotCom on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

NAACP African-American 2012 Poll Results

Enjoy while the caffeine kicks-in!!!!!

A morning report to go along with your Sumatra, Kenya AA, Tanzanian, French Roast, Kona Coast, Jamaica Blue Mountain, Ethiopian Yirgacheffe, Costa Rican, Espresso,  Moyobama Peruvian Organic, Indonesian Blend, Coffee Latte, Kauai Blend (often bitter), Colombian Red Lips, or your Folgers 100% Colombian.

http://www.naacp.org/

Anyone who followed the plethora of polls that proliferated over the last two years and culminated with the final result of the 2012 General Election, must have an interest in the African-American Vote.  I certainly have awaited a definitive set of results. The NAACP has published the Black vote poll results from a representative group of respondents.  Frankly, I would love to see a poll with many more thousands of respondents, but as poll go the results are informative.

The poll results are both satisfying for the political wonk and disconcerting a bit as the respondents look to the future.  Satisfying in overall vote participation and the extent to which the vote crosses critical state boundaries.  Disconcerting as the results point to a state of concern once Barack Obama is no longer at the core of Democratic politics.  

NAACP 2012 Battleground Poll from NAACP

The NAACP and top pollsters, including Latino Decisions, polled voters on the issues that matter to them, their family and community for the NAACP Battleground Poll. Sixteen hundred African American voters and likely voters from Ohio, Virginia, Florida and Georgia were interviewed.  NAACP President and CEO, Benjamin Todd Jealous had this to say about the polls results:

This data underscores the decisive role we played in key battleground states.  It reveals opportunities for the GOP to improve its relationship with our community, and suggests the Democratic Party should not assume it will see the 2008 and 2012 levels of Black turnout in 2016.

Read More 

Anonymous Claims To Have Killed Karl Rove’s ORCA

Cross posted from Motley New Dot Net and linked to Occupy For Accountability Dot Org

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License

{NOTE: Of course, we at the TPI have no way of knowing the extent to which the following is 100% accurate.  We will never know. If ANONYMOUS actually published the letter below and hacked into Karl Rove’s servers, the following could be the full extent of what we will ever read. If Rove’s organization knows the hacked  ORCA as true, he will never admit the attack, and damned certain will never admit to the ORCA nor being hacked.  There is one point that follows which is undeniable. Rove certainly freaked out on election night and a seasoned operative like Rove has to know elections swing as was the case in Ohio. The prospect  really does make me wonder. And, there-in lie my reasoning for publishing the following.  Whether we believe the story or not, we have to admit it is intriguing reading. Below, Benjamin T, Moore provides a non-technical explanation of how ANONYMOUS dealt with Rove’s ORCA}

Anonymous Claims to Have Hacked into Karl Rove, ORCA Thus Stopping His Vote-Switching 

As expected, any Romney supporter (with heavy financing), was shocked at the final outcome from November 6th, the night President Obama retained his seat. We have all heard the whining, crying, finger-pointing, foul, and so on and so on. But there were a couple of items which stood out more than others.

We all know that Karl Rove flipped out on FOX News when they announced Obama won Ohio. The video is below if you haven’t seen it. Basically, Rove just could NOT understand what was happening, which is what I expected. Although he did have a very shocked “the sun just rose in the west” look on his face, and that is what surprised me. Even more shocking was hearing many top supporters and chiefs cry that Romney was supposed to win with a landslide. That is NOT what the polls had been showing the entire time.

.

Karl Rove Questions Ohio Call for Obama Victory

Linked: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2V59zUdLwXg

These cyber “protectors of what’s right” – who refers to themselves as “The Protectors” – said that they had been following the digital structure of Rove’s operation and of ORCA, a Republican get out the vote software application. After finding open “doors” in the systems, they created a “password protected firewall” called “The Great Oz,” and installed it on servers that Rove planned to use on election night to re-route and change election results “from three states.”

“ORCA Killer” was launched at 10am EST followed by “The Great Oz” at 8pm EST on November 6th. Both sides watched as ORCA crashed and failed throughout Election Day. Rove even mentions computer problems while on FOX News that night. Rove’s computer techs tried 105 times to penetrate “The Great Oz” using different means and passwords.

Is this what happened to Kerry back in 2004 in Ohio when he ran against Bush? A server went down for approximately 90 minutes. When it crashed, Kerry was clearly in the lead. When it finally booted back up, Bush had taken the lead. How? Read on for a theory.

The Ohio Computer Crash in 2004

On the night of 2-3 November, 2004, the computer designated to count Ohio votes was cut out of the loop. Its web address was diverted to a private company in Chattanooga, TN, named SMARTech.

The web redirection on Election Night of 2004 went a step beyond this: Not only did the official website of the Ohio Department of State look just right, but it had the right address: http://election.sos.state.oh.us . Any citizen or press service looking for real time election results from the state of Ohio would have been directed here. In every sense, this SMARTech site became the official vote tabulation for the state of Ohio.

SMARTech leases computer servers to the Republican National Committee, and the 12-digit ISP address to which the Ohio Department of State was diverted for the 2004 vote count falls between two ranges known to be leased to the RNC. This raises the suspicion that it was an RNC computer, impersonating the state of Ohio computer, that performed the official vote tabulation in 2004. This diversion is so unusual (and brazen!) a ruse, that it is inconceivable that it happened without Blackwell’s explicit consent.

Perhaps Anonymous decided that these spoiled rich boys could no longer have their thieving, cheating way any longer. Here is the letter which was supposedly put out by Anonymous explaining how they hacked the hack. LOVE IT!!!  Oh, click on the image to pull up a PDF file.

• Supposed ANONYMOUS letter about hacking Karl Rove’s computer servers.(CLICK for larger view)

  
   Click for full letter. 

  
  
  Motley News Dot Net read more.
  
  Occupy For Accountability Dot Org reports Anonymous warned Rove about use of his system two weeks prior to the election.
  Linked

   

  

  
  Benjamin T Moore Jr

   · 

   

  THANK YOU ANONYMOUS!!!

  •  

    During the weeks running up to election night, I was asked by numerous people if I thought President Obama was going to win. My response was a qualified “yes!” The reason it was *qualified* was because I have been aware of “Black Box Voting Fraud.” If you do not know what that is, Google it. In brief, it has been proven that these electronic voting systems we’ve gone to can be hacked rather easily.

     

    There is even a documentary about this showing how it is done. Furthermore, in almost every jurisdiction where these systems have been put in place, a law has been passed to immediately *destroy* the hard copy records of votes so that *only* the digital records remain. WHY??? The reasons are rather obvious… if you get to a situation requiring a recount, you just hit the “tabulate key” and the computer spits out the exact same results as the last time. Thus, no actual recount occurs. Nobody actually looks at the hard copy paper ballots, it is all digital. A virus or a skilled hacker can make the vote come out any way you want it to for a fee.

     

    WHY MY CONCERN

     

    In order for this scheme to work successfully, you *NEED* to make people believe that the election is *close.* When people *believe* that the outcome could have gone either way, they are less likely to contest the results and do a forensic investigation on the machines if the results go against them.

     

    I watched poll after poll – usually conservative polls – showing that the race was extremely tight and some *always* put Romney ahead by a point or two. This concerned me because this was the *EXACT* scenario I envisioned necessary to pull off electronic voting fraud. I am a fan of Nate Silver’s 538 Blog which has proven it’s self the most accurate and reliable polling site for several election cycles now. Nate Silver – who was proven exactly right – didn’t even have Romney close. Gallup, Rasmussen and other’s always had Romney extremely close or ahead. Both positions could not be correct. Numbers are numbers and there are only so many things you can do to them before you begin erasing the actual numbers and putting the ones you want in place.

     

    Nate Silver shows his numbers and explains his methodology clearly. His approach is highly transparent. Anyone can fact check him and do the calculations for themselves. Not so much with some of the other polling sites and in particular those sites that showed a close race or a Romney lead. So, yes, looking at the way things were shaping up… I had some concerns!

     

    GUARDIAN ANGELS???

     

    It seems that I was not alone in my suspicions and concerns. The Hacker Group known as Anonymous was watching and working behind the scenes as well. They had discovered a piece of software known as ORCA that had been inserted by Karl Rove’s operation in what is known as a “man in the middle” attack. The man in the middle attack works like this. Say you’re mailing a letter to someone and you place your letter in mailbox to send it to them. Unbeknown to you, *I* own that mailbox. I collect your letter, read it, change it and send it on to whomever you’re corresponding with. They *THINK* their letter is from you, but it is really from me. They respond. When their letter gets to *my* mailbox, I open it, read it and change it and send it on to you. The end result is you and your friend *believe* you’re communicating directly with one another, when in essence you’re communicating with me.

     

    This is what ORCA was designed to do. The votes from the Ohio precincts were being sent into Ohio’s election tabulation center… or so they thought. Orca was designed to redirect those precinct results to RNC computers located in Tennessee. There the numbers could be changed to show a Romney win and *NOBODY* would have been the wiser.

     

    The Hacker group Anonymous stepped in and blocked ORCA by placing a firewall into the software thus preventing ORCA from functioning or being accessed by Karl Rove and his team of miscreants. This is why Karl was so shocked on election night. This is why he disputed Ohio because he *knew*… or as it turns out, he *THOUGHT* he knew that the fix was in. This is also why Mitt Romney was in shock! He had been assured that he was going to be the winner. He had already *paid* for the election.

     

    I’m not religious… but I will say, “THANK GOD FOR ANONYMOUS!” I love you guys!!!!

     

    The Progressive Influence. “If the report is true  I join Mr. Moore in….ANONYMOUS I love you guys!”

Mother Jones and Gerrymandering

‎

Last week I wrote about GOP re-districting (gerrymandering) after the party swept into a majority in the US House of Representatives in 2010. Writers for Mother Jones have delved deeper into the strategically effective re-districting by the post 2010 Congress. Yesterday, Adam Serwer, Jaeah Lee, and Zaineb Mohammed published an article that when coupled with the piece linked above will provide details of how the democrats receive more votes than indicated by the GOP Congressional majority.

Mother Jones

excerpt

So how did Republicans keep their House majority despite more Americans voting for the other party—something that has only happened three times in the last hundred years, according to political analyst Richard Winger? Because they drew the lines.  

After Republicans swept into power in state legislatures in 2010, the GOP gerrymandered key states, redrawing House district boundaries to favor Republicans. In Pennsylvania, Democratic candidates received half of the votes in House contests, but Republicans will claim about three-quarters of the congressional seats. The same is true in North Carolina. More than half the voters in that state voted for Democratic representation, yet Republicans will fill about 70 percent of the seats. Democrats drew more votes in Michigan than Republicans, but they’ll take only 5 out of the state’s 14 congressional seats.

Read Details before this closing graphic

Redistricting only happens once every 10 years. So Americans may have to learn to live with a Republican House, no matter how they vote.

Graphic production by Jaeah Lee

Both parties take advantage of re-districting. It is a shame the nation must be saddle with four additional years of Boehner/Cantor and Tea Party inhibiting progress towards improving all that is critical to our nation.

The Daily GOP Ignominious: Romney /Ryan Asinine Comments. "Urban" "Gifts"

I believe the 47% is a bit higher than 47 percent.

The New York is reporting  Mitt Romney sat through a conference call today, No, the call was not your typical CEO conference call with deferential managers vying for favorable consideration or hoping of avoiding there scorn of the “almighty CEO”. The call was with major financial supporters and one has to think in terms of (excuse the analogy) a come to Jesus Rear-view rationalization of “WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED“? 

We are posting a few passages from the Times piece. As you read Romney’s continued manifestations of ‘the pathological liar’ think in terms of the following: 

• GOP efforts to suppress the vote in many states (26 states enacted Voter ID Laws post the 2010 elections. A clear strategy and a confessed strategy according to a Pennsylvania state legislator.  

• Heavy-handed authoritarianism against women of child-bearing age and who have medical conditions treatable via contraception medications.   

• GOP fanaticism with the victims of rape and the conservative paradigm regarding a woman’s choice.    

• Obvious and blatant use of the often deployed GOP southern strategy, inclusive of Romney campaign adviser use of direct and shameful race based comments about the 44th President of the United States of America.   

• The Romney/Ryan Path to Prosperity.  

• An inept campaign from start to finish with a trail of alienation of people across the globe.   

• A campaign completely based in lies and misinformation.  

• A history of callousness regarding human needs with devotion to increasing his self worth.  International tax shelters, refusal to go transparent with financial disclosure.  

• Miscalculation on believing a US election could be bought (hence his big money conference call audience).   

• The eleventh hour (desperate) Jeep Ad and campaign strategy.  

• Announced plans to eliminate valued government agencies that provide services to people in ties of need.

• Tan facial color applied at the Univison Annual event. How disgracefully condescending and patronizing in its shallowness?

Let’s give Mitt Romney’s conference call some scrutiny and follow with a 30 second clip of Paul Ryan with same message.  It is so obvious the Right has come-up with post election loss rationalization. Their comments are as ludicrous and demeaning to the public psyche as their entire campaign. 

The New York Times

Romney blames loss on “gifts to minorities and the young .…….big “gifts” that the president had bestowed on loyal Democratic constituencies, including young voters, African Americans and Hispanics. ……. the president had followed the “old playbook” of wooing specific interest groups — “especially the African-American community, the Hispanic community and young people,” Mr. Romney explained — with targeted gifts and initiatives. “In each case they were very generous in what they gave to those groups,” Mr. Romney said. “With regards to the young people, for instance, a forgiveness of college loan interest, was a big gift,” he said. “Free contraceptives were very big with young college-aged women. And then, finally, Obamacare also made a difference for them, because as you know, anybody now 26 years of age and younger was now going to be part of their parents’ plan, and that was a big gift to young people. They turned out in large numbers, a larger share in this election even than in 2008.” You can imagine for somebody making $25,000 or $30,000 or $35,000 a year, being told you’re now going to get free health care, particularly if you don’t have it, getting free health care worth, what, $10,000 per family, in perpetuity, I mean, this is huge,” he said. “Likewise with Hispanic voters, free health care was a big plus. But in addition with regards to Hispanic voters, the amnesty for children of illegals, the so-called Dream Act kids, was a huge plus for that voting group.”

How about a look at Exit Poll data that appears to place Romney/Ryan’s credibility and veracity in perspective? The data also provides a reason for the Us populace to celebrate the non-election of these men. 

National Poll President 2008 Exit Polls 26565 respondents
Are you: Total Obama Romney Male 47% 45% 52% Female 53% 55% 44% Sample: 26517 respondents

Age Groupings

In which age group are you? Total Obama Romney 18-29 19% 60% 37% 30-44 27% 52% 45% 45-64 38% 47% 51% 65 or over 16% 44% 56% Sample: 26413 respondents

In which age group are you? Total Obama Romney 18-24 11% 60% 36% 25-29 8% 60% 38% 30-39 17% 55% 42% 40-49 20% 48% 50% 50-64 28% 47% 52% 65 or over 16% 44% 56% Sample: 26413 respondents

Racial Groupings:  Comment…..”urban vote”? ; looks much ,ore like the Diversity vote, the American vote.  despite a past of absolute privilege simply by being born ‘white’, does not transcend voters who are intellectually discerning.

Are you: Total Obama Romney White 72% 39% 59% Black 13% 93% 6% Hispanic/Latino 10% 71% 27% Asian 3% 73% 26% Other 2% 58% 38% Sample: 26200 respondents

Age by race:  Comment; If we are reading the following correctly, it appears the election did not draw as much from minority groups as Romney and Ryan would reverse- rationalize. We only have a representative respondent group of 26,200 people  that is a very large exit poll respondent group and probably well representative of national data. Ryan’s “turnout” remarks do appear credible.  [Look blue font} Total Obama Romney White 18-29 11% 44% 51% White 30-44 18% 38% 59% White 45-64 29% 38% 61% White 65+ 14% 39% 61% Black 18-29 3% 91% 8% Black 30-44 4% 94% 5% Black 45-64 4% 93% 7% Black 65+ 1% 93% 6% Latino 18-29 4% 74% 23% Latino 30-44 3% 71% 28% Latino 45-64 3% 68% 31% Latino 65+ 1% 65% 35% All other 5% 67% 31% Sample: 26091 respondents

Sex by race: Romney nor Ryan mentioned the “woman” vote. this poll shows Romney Ryan carried larger amounts of the White woman vote, but failed miserably across the spectrum of diversity with consideration of sex and race.  Total Obama Romney White men 34% 35% 62% White women 38% 42% 56% Black men 5% 87% 11% Black women 8% 96% 3% Latino men 5% 65% 33% Latino women 6% 76% 23% All other races 5% 66% 31% Sample: 26160 respondents

Education: What was the last grade of school you completed?  Comment: Eectrifying and startling results…..” No high school diploma and Postgraduate study“  Total Obama Romney No high school diploma 3% 64% 35% High school graduate 21% 51% 48% Some college/assoc. degree 29% 49% 48% College graduate 29% 47% 51% Postgraduate study 18% 55% 42% Sample: 25466 respondents

               Income Grouping: Comment… Obama wins among “under  $50,000 and Romney’s carrying the $50,000 or more grouping was not overwhelming and only by 8 points.

2011 total family income: Total Obama Romney Under $50,000 41% 60% 38% $50,000 or more 59% 45% 53% Sample: 24157 respondents 2011 total family income: Comment..The following shows the overwhelming number of respondents were in the “under $100,000″ Income strata.  Total Obama Romney Under $100,000 72% 54% 44% $100,000 or more 28% 44% 54% Sample: 24157 respondents Gender by marital status Total Obama Romney Married men 29% 38% 60% Married women 31% 46% 53% Non-married men 18% 56% 40% Non-married women 23% 67% 31% Sample: 20681 respondents Population of area, five categories: Appears this respondent group these does not support Ryan’s claim of “the urban vote”. Only 11% show as possibly “urban denizens”.  Total Obama Romney Over 500,000 11% 69% 29% 50,000 – 500,000 21% 58% 40% Suburbs 47% 48% 50% 10,000 – 50,000 8% 42% 56% Rural 14% 37% 61% Sample: 26565 respondents Population of area, three categories Total Obama Romney City over 50,000 32% 62% 36% Suburbs 47% 48% 50% Small city and Rural 21% 39% 59% Sample: 26565 respondents

The source of this exit poll data is Fox News.  

Romney and Ryan’s post-election rationalizations are as faulty as every aspect of their campaign. They are clearly practicing ”cover one’s ass”, we are not at fault bologna for people who gave obscene amounts to their campaign.  Of course, Ryan is practicing credibility saving strategies, that will surely fail.  It is good to hear some in the GOP distance themselves form the fading Romney/Ryan squawking. 

Thom Hartmann and Joe Madison discuss an Obama mandate or Paul Ryan’s perception of a House mandate. A central question….

Published on Nov 14, 2012 by  TheBigPictureRT      

Why are people upset with Republicans? Could it have something to do with their failed policies – or toxic addiction to Reaganomics? Not according to Paul Ryan. What did Ryan say about the election outcome – and what do his words say about the Republican Party as a whole? Linked.

 …..AND THE BAND PLAYS ON…….