Romney CRUSHES Obama

[Feanor]

Lots of progressives felt the same after 2004 and W's re-election. The whole craze will die down in a few weeks then they'll go back to doing what do best, obstructing progress of any sort and longing for the simpler days of 1953 when they unquestioned masters of the world.

Worf

Allegedly Rush Limbaugh vowed to move to Costa Rica if the AFA was pasted -- until somebody pointed out the Costa Rica has universal healthcare.

[RGA]

I've often wondered if the vast majority of Republicans were ignorant, homophobic, racists and now I think I have my answer.

[ForeverAutumn]

Implying that people are ignorant, racist, or homophobic based on where they live or who they voted for delegates you to the Steel Cage.

[JohnMichael]

I've often wondered if the vast majority of Republicans were ignorant, homophobic, racists and now I think I have my answer.

I can understand fiscal conservatives but I do not understand social conservatives. I do not think you can lump Republicans into that group. Not all Republicans are racists but all racists are Republicans. I have a few friends that are gay and Republican. Of course due to their being fiscal conservatives and not social conservatives. I think the problem began when involving the evangelicals and fundamentalists in the Republican Party. Let us worry about the running of the country and not trying to legislate morality. Equality for all.

[RGA]

Like I said majority which doesn't mean all. The current Republican party is nothing like the Eisenhower Republican party - which Obama is far closer to than current Republicans.

PS: I'm not implying it - I'm outright stating it.

Fiscal conservatives fall into the ignorant camp because they all believe in Reaganomics which has proven to not work over and over and over and over again. Renaming a failed abysmal policy something else doesn't change the fact that it doesn't work. Indeed, it is even less likely to work in a country that has less manufacturing jobs. North America is no longer in the Industrial Revolution where giving a company owner more money (through less taxes) would have him increase production (workforce, plant size etc). In the info-tech age they spend it on a better computer to get rid of the workforce, reduce their office space, and buy $1,000 bottles of wines for themselves and buddies, private jets because Joe the competitor has a private jet etc.

And before someone gets on me for anti-Americanism - Canada has a prime minister who has a guy in charge of science education in Canada who believes the earth is 6000 years old, is trying to implement numerous failed U.S. policies on criminalizing drugs, and takes credit for a stronger banking system (through strong regulation) that Harper actually voted against and tried to abolish. I wish in one way he had been successful because Canada's economy would have fallen into the toilet bowl and he would have been booted out. But because certain government agencies in place can stop PMs from doing totally idiotic things they can re-write history and spin themselves to look good.

You'd think after Bush put the country in a near depression - attacked an "innocent" country for no good reason thus giving the rest of the "free" and "not free" world a view of America as an imperialistic nation of aggressors and basically ruing the entire world economy that some of these Republicans would clue in that their slack jawed party voters come from the movie "Deliverance."

The history map is pretty clear - the education map is pretty clear - the states that are the least knowledgeable, the least tolerant (and I dare say the most religious) are the ones who vote Republican - which means most of the ignorant homophobic racists.

If someone of "reasonable" intelligence who claims he/she is a fiscal conservative looked at the "typical" voter and said to themselves "gee if all the intolerant racists KKK whackadoodle crazies are voting Republican then maybe I should take a look at the SOCIAL PLATFORM! The social ideology affects people at least as much as fiscal policy. I don't see how anyone of good conscience can turn a blind eye to the social intolerance of the party in the name of fiscal conservation when the last 4 Republican presidents have done a terrible job with the economy. And then further dismiss Romney in 2 sentences who blames Obama for not creating jobs and in the next breath says three times "government doesn't create jobs" - whaaat?

[Feanor]

Quite right, JM. People support or potentially support Republicans for a variety of reasons. The most obvious division is economic vs. social.

This election, unforunately (maybe), place too much emphasis on the social conservative aspect: this was the fault of the Republican Party and it's Tea Party-biased "base". It is quite likely that Romney would have won if that had not been the case.

The bad news for social conservatives is that they can no longer win based on the historically racist, anti-femininist, homophobic biases.

The good news for economic conservatives that pure, right-wing economic positions have absolutely nothing inherent in common with the above social biases. I will go further: I believe the financial funders of the Republican Party are NOT (for the most part) themselves racists, etc., but they cynically forged an implicit coalition with social conservatives in the belief that would get their political surrogates elected.

The real problem for economic conservatives, (more accurately Right-wingers), is that there more poor and middle class voters than rich voters. So: what's to be done about that now that the social conservative gambit has been played and lost? They will have to fall back on the "trickle down" theory of economics and the "makers vs. takers" line of argument.

[Feanor]

As for results by location, I was struck election night by the general tendency for urban areas to vote Democrat and rural areas to vote Republican, (according to county results). This was true everywhere in the US, though this is not to say that there aren't regional differences too.

Check it out HERE or HERE.

Empirically, rural areas world-wide tend to vote more conservatively the urban areas. As you're aware this is the case in Ontario too. You are correct, of course, that conservatism doesn't necessarily imply ignorance, etc..