And what was most amazing and troubling was that this sort of thing didn’t stop or abate even after it had been repeatedly pointed out in the press. Such things seemed to have absolutely no impact on Romney. I ran across some Blogger somewhere who actually started keeping count during the campaign and recorded 971 separate instances of it. This is not mere moral laxity, this is pathological.

Was the blogger partisan? Certainly. But he wasn’t merely expressing his own opinion. He brought incidents, names, dates, and direct quotations to the table time after time. In the world of the Presidency, you simply can’t be acting this way. Internationally, keeping your word is the only way you can gain cooperation from other leaders. Domestically, the continuation of this behavior on camera and in interviews by a President Romney for the next four years was a ticket to utter chaos.

Go back to the primary season and read the words of his fellow Republicans about the man. In February (I think), David Broder wrote an absolutely devastating piece about it. It had no impact on Romney’s behavior whatever.

Now I’m not unsympathetic to those who supported Romney because they thought Obama and his party are fountains of endless gallons of bad public policy that have to be averted whatever the cost. And I have not expressed these opinions with such directness here before the election because of this.

But I don’t think that anyone not now operating under such partisan constraints can fail to recognize the danger of such endless and brazen deceit. At least not anyone whose moral judgment I would trust.

I’m sad to hear about your condition and wish you the best.

I am agreed that for the time being anyway all of your points 1-4 are correct.

Point 5 however, particularly your following passage I would contest:

“Unless there is outright fear of immediate economic collapse, as in 2008, or real falling job numbers, as in 2010, elections will be decided for other reasons. Even if the job numbers are just small, but steadily positive, the economy is off the table. Everybody worries about it, but, in the end, progress is progress, even if it is slow.”

This election outcome was a reflection of the collective perception of voters about our nations state of affairs. And I see now that you are certainly correct that the Geeks have public opinion dialed in.

But your last point assumes that this collective opinion must somehow also be correct about the actual state of our nation. You’re collapsing epistemology with ontology. And its a common mistake.

My interpretation of this election outcome is that the political bubble is still a bubble, but what it’s going to take to pop that bubble will need to be more ‘clarifying’ than the production values around any national campaign. At some point in the near future the fiscal math of running up debt will have its way with the country, and no well financed political machine will be able to change that.

The democrats won the election, but election outcomes have yet to be so powerful that they change the laws of physics and economics.

I wish you the best, and pray for your recovery, and for that matter, of this nation as well.

Take care.

MPB, the Speaker’s claim for the mandate for nothing new includes the Obama mandate for repealing nothing old. Thanks for leading me to think of that cool point, which I need to exploit soon.

1). Don’t bet against Team Geek unless you’re offered odds.

Whatever Pseudoplotinus thinks Kierkegaard might have said about it, polls are the only real evidence we have of public political sentiment. Everything else is merely operating by guess and by God. Of course, Kierkegaard might like that just fine.

Take a look at some of the predictions for Obama’s actual Electoral Vote count.

Team Geek:

Nate Silver (fivethirtyeight) 332 (Implicit only)
Sam Wang (Princeton Election Consortium) 303
Drew Lintzer (Votematic) 332
Real Clear Politics 303
ElectoralVote.com 332

Team Guess-and-God:

Karl Rove 259
Michael Barrone 223
Flagg Taylor 223
Larry Kudlow 208
George Will 217

Note: 332 was with Obama winning in Fla., 303 was Romney winning in Fla. Numbers in between were almost impossible in anyone’s Team Geek electoral vote map.

2). The Anti-Obama Crusade is over.

There is now no longer any excuse for Republican office holders to waste public time and money to “defeat Barack Obama.” You didn’t, and now you can’t. So come back and start doing your real job, legislating for the benefit of America and not for the defeat of one man.

Millions of dollars were wasted on attack ads against Obama. It did not work against a candidate with an already strongly established, high profile, public image. The fact that such ads did have an impact on Romney says that his image and brand should have been established positively, first.

Now that the dust has settled, I can say unequivocally that Mitt Romney is the only presidential candidate I’ve seen in 50 years who has actually frightened me. The total lack of principles or scruples in the public man was chilling. Conservatives sometimes make a very big deal about having the moral high ground, but if you look back at the primary season, Republicans knew quite well the public qualities of the man they nominated, and I, at least, have the same realism about claims of moral superiority as I do about anything else. You are defined by who you choose, and, at the moment, and until you make another choice, you are defined by Mitt Romney. Do about this what you will.

3). The Southern Strategy is dead, dead, dead.

Obama’s Electoral Vote count would still have won the election without winning a single state of the old Confederacy. We will no longer have to kowtow to any particular regional mores or opinions when we select candidates. Good riddance. This has distorted our politics since I was in college–far too long.

4). Diversity is now a fact, not an agenda.

Reported voting totals broken down by ethnic group and gender should soon make this obvious. Very soon now, nobody will be a “majority”; mixed race voters like Obama will be commonplace; we’ll all be a lot better looking, like the Brazilians; and nobody’s groupthink of themselves as “the real America” will dominate our politics any longer.

5). It is no longer always “the economy”, because we’ve all wised up.

The people who expected to automatically be “better off than you were four years ago”, no matter what, were my parents’ generation, and they are largely gone. Unless there is outright fear of immediate economic collapse, as in 2008, or real falling job numbers, as in 2010, elections will be decided for other reasons. Even if the job numbers are just small, but steadily positive, the economy is off the table. Everybody worries about it, but, in the end, progress is progress, even if it is slow.

Participating in political life is difficult for me now. I have a bipolar condition, am medicated, but, as all of us who have it are, I am prone to relapse. Now that the election is over, I will need to rest in as non-stimulating an environment as possible–last week I was forced by my own mental state to take a dose of the powerful anti-psychotic drug that I have for emergencies. But it has been fun to break lances over here, and contribute in some small way to the political life of this great and free country. Thank you for the opportunity.

My best to all.

What did you make of Rep.Boehner appearing early and claiming the mandate?

Was it just for show? Or do you believe that our Speaker of the House was trying to blunt any possible “mandate-claiming” by the Executive Branch as a way to remind us that he holds the purse-strings and is digging in for a fight?