Romney received around 57.8 million votes in 2012. In 2008, John McCain received 59.9 million. Romney got over 2 million fewer votes than McCain.
Obama received 60.6 million votes in 2012, almost 9 million less than he received in 2008.
Romney won independents by 5 points, and they made up 29% of all voters. McCain didn’t win independents.
What does this really mean? That’s where the hurt comes. It appears to mean that our side lost because we failed to turn out our side. (Paul Kengor - McCain beats Romney)I am uninterested in the post-election naval-gazing, but I find analysis of the numbers fascinating, and Sean Trende is one of the best. He’s not a Carl Rove that tells the base what they want to hear. He is a numbers guy who knows how to read them and explain them. He blogged about the polling discrepancies we saw pre-election, and he was one of the few who did not jump on the “the polls are wrong, Romney will win” bandwagon.
He analysis of this year’s election result numbers suggest that this was not a demographic tidal wave, sweeping the old and the white out in an undertow to oblivion.
Yuval Leven expounds on this finding:
Levin’s message: Don’t pander, present your core beliefs, and run with a positive message of who you are. Romney was a clean slate to many, and millions of dollars of attack ads successfully painted him as a rich plutocrat who not only wants to fire you, but who will kill your wife as well and make your raped daughter carry that baby to term. And it worked, because Romney and the GOP failed to define their candidate and their message.
The increased share of the minority vote as a percent of the total vote is not the result of a large increase in minorities in the numerator, it is a function of many fewer whites in the denominator. (The Case of the Missing White Voters)White people are still out there, they just didn’t vote at 2008 levels.
if our assumption about the total number of votes cast is correct, almost 7 million fewer whites voted in 2012 than in 2008. This isn’t readily explainable by demographic shifts either; although whites are declining as a share of the voting-age population, their raw numbers are not. (The Case of the Missing White Voters)He goes into an in-depth analysis of Ohio, finding that the biggest drop in voting happened in heavily white, blue collar and high unemployment areas of the state.
Yuval Leven expounds on this finding:
the story of this election is not massive turnout of the Democratic base but exceptionally depressed turnout of a portion of the electorate that, when it votes, tends to vote Republican.
Those were after all the two parts of President Obama’s cynical and substance-free campaign strategy: to work the most intensely committed and reliable parts of his base into a frenzy while persuading the least committed and reliable part of the Republican base (white working-class voters) that Mitt Romney didn't deserve their support so they should just sit it out.This is not a Rovian cry of “Obama suppressed the white vote!” President Obama’s team did what campaigns do, so it is far from unprecedented. They won fair and square. And how dumb do you have to be to let a few campaign commercials talk you into staying home? These were GOP voters that the party and the candidate could not motivate to get up off of their asses and go vote their own interests.
[…]
using any low and mendacious tactic required to tell working-class voters (especially white, Midwestern ones) that Mitt Romney was an evil and uncaring plutocrat—was by far the more successful and important. Those voters were not going to support Obama, but they could be kept away from Romney, and evidently they were. (The Election and the Right)
Levin’s message: Don’t pander, present your core beliefs, and run with a positive message of who you are. Romney was a clean slate to many, and millions of dollars of attack ads successfully painted him as a rich plutocrat who not only wants to fire you, but who will kill your wife as well and make your raped daughter carry that baby to term. And it worked, because Romney and the GOP failed to define their candidate and their message.
86 comments:
Does it really all come down to race?
This is post-racial America! [sarcasm]
The real winner in the election: Negativity! Americans are conditioned to respond to negativity. See my comment at the post below this one.
yesterday a fellow blogger was beating himself up and apologizing to his readers for giving them false hope that Romney was going to win. I told him he should cut himself some slack. I suggested that he make a serious effort to rate the average intelligence of the American voters on a scale of 1 to 10 and then understand that half of American voters are below average. I think that pretty much explains what happened in the election.
And it worked, because Romney and the GOP failed to define their candidate and their message.
------
Or because they did?
Ducky: Obama's campaign did a better job defining Romney and the GOP that Romney and the GOP did.
And this is not sour grapes or crying foul. Obama's campaign was expertly run, and the GOP's was not.
But to be fair to the GOP, when you don't know what you stand for, and you've been all over the map for at least the past 20 years, how do you shape a message?
The Democrats have been preaching a steady sermon of governmental care and compassion. Agree or disagree with the message, but it is a consistent message the resonates with a large sector of the electorate.
Maybe the Republicans should have offered them something to vote FOR instead of milquetoast.
Ooops, I forgot the Republican credo...
"Only milquetoast can WIN elections..."
btw - You can say whatever you like about Obama, there is ONE that that he's NOT...
...milquetoast.
People rejected the lies from the right, their imposition of out dated morals on society, their positions on unions, the middle class, health care and woman's issues. Their asinine and inappropriate use of the words 'socialist' and 'entitlement.'The loony birthers
And yes, immigration. That was ONE part of the big pictures.
If the voters have ONE value that rules the others, it's that they want their leaders (and friends) to be "authentic".
In a contest between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama over their "authenticity", Obama wins hands down. He had MUCH fewer flip-flops over the course of his career.
Romney was the quintessential in-Authentic candidate.
He had MUCH fewer flip-flops over the course of his career.
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True. Wasn't much of a career was it.
Romney ran a terrible campaign in PA. I would have worked for him, but it was made clear that PA was not in play so what the heck. He set up his headquarters with the blue bloods, 30 miles from any tea party folks, and never reached out. Then, at the last minute, when it looked like he had a chance, he turned on the burner and we were "expected" to rise to the occasion. Still stings.
OK. Steviereinio, you got it, us Republiskums are dirty racist no good SOB'S.
we can't fool an intelligent scholar like you!
"Always On Watch said...
Does it really all come down to race?
This is post-racial America! [sarcasm]"
Yes. We were naive to believe that the election of a bi-racial president in 2008 would change people's attitude toward race.
But may I gently remind you that those photoshopped images of Mr. Obama as a witch doctor with a bone through his nose and of him and his wife as hairy apes, and the watermelons on the WH lawn were NOT generated by Democratic party officials and operatives.
Darth: Don't feed the troll
Sorry , couldn't resist. It's a habit I got from visiting the Zoo.
"It's a habit I got from visiting the Zoo."
I beg apologies. We clean up the monkey poo as quick as we can, but sometimes it stays on the walls awhile.
The Whiteys(sic) all switched off The Jersey Shore episode to tune in to the Petraeus scandal(sic).
Ducky: The Petraeus is taking some twists and turns, huh?
A novelist couldn't have come up with something this good.
Two 4 star generals, a barechested FBI agent and two nice looking gals...
Did you hear that when the FBI was searching the girlfriend's house some jokester ordered Domino's pizza delivered to the front door?
This is turning into a farce worthy of Blake Edwards or Roberto Benigni...
Terrific article on Petraeus
z had asked me to name a few journalists I respected. Well, along with Amy Goodman, Chris Hayes, Matt Taibbi and a few others, I'd certainly name Glen Greenwald. I've missed some of his columns since he moved to the Guardian.
I think he is straight on correct about the surveillance state being a much bigger issue than the Benghazi non issue.
J. Edgar is back in town and I don't know why the right (yes, some are) aren't screaming holy hell.
"J. Edgar is back in town and I don't know why the right (yes, some are) aren't screaming holy hell."
Right Blogistanis have been, but not our politicians. Dems and Repubs alike both get their cut from the money made selling unneeded body scanners and drones to the government.
What do you think is behind the proliferation of drones at the state and local level?
Think they got money to buy that crap on their own? Hell no. They're buying them with federal grants.
Lobbyist goes to Congress with expensive crap to sell, Congress authorizes grants to the state so the companies can sell their crap to the states, politicians pocket the bribes, er... campaign contributions.
Regarding Whitey, as Eschaton says on his blog today:
They fundamentally don't see non-white voters from the wrong places as legitimate voters.
And the Supreme Court will likely soon make sure that they don't have to.
--------
Or as the pig Paul Ryan calls the, "urban voters".
I do like Glen Greewald. He's been writing for awhile now about the surveillance state.
He's a lib, so he better watch it, his cocktail party invites are going to dry up.
My tastes tend more toward anybody who writes at Reason.com
"A novelist couldn't have come up with something this good. -- Two 4 star generals, a barechested FBI agent and two nice looking gals..."
Oh yes a really SAVVY novelist eager to make the BIG BUCKS could:
Imagine the response this story would draw if the Dramatis Personae had been "Two Four-Star Generals baring their chests, and an FBI Agent displaying his -- and two handsome young, hung, muscular enlisted MEN?"
Funny how the great lover affair between Alexander the Great and Antinous never seems to tarnish Alexander's reputation or diminish his place in history isn't it?
The sick sick SICK irony of this Petraeus kerfuffle is the way it compares to Bill Clinton's far more outrageous carryings on with the Lewinsky slut, who was young enough to be his daughter.
No one, except a few Republicans too eager to get rid of Wonder Boy by hook or by crook, cared a Rat's Rump about Clinton's Sexcapades. If anything his misbehavior made him MORE popular than ever. He achieved FOLK HERO status because of it.
Only those who sought to bring him down have been reviled, discredited and consigned to Oblivion.
And YET just about twenty years after Monica Lewdinsky cried into Linda Tripp's telephone about how much she loved "The Big Creep," and Gennifer Flowers, Juanita Broaddrick, Paula Jones, Dolly Kyle Browning -- and who was the other one whom Clinton sexually assaulted when she asked him for a job? -- all of them did their darndest to topple The Rapist in Chief, and look where HE is TODAY.
How DARE we even CONSIDER the case of David Petraeus in the light of what we as a people became soon after SCOTUS banned Prayer in Schools and lifted the ban on pornography? How DARE we?
~ FreeThinke
I'm an even bigger Greenwald after reading the article. Thanks for the link!
Here's the money quote:
"having the career of the beloved CIA Director and the commanding general in Afghanistan instantly destroyed due to highly invasive and unwarranted electronic surveillance is almost enough to make one believe not only that there is a god, but that he is an ardent civil libertarian."
Why aren't there more journalists like him?
Silver, your enigmatic persona never ceases to amaze me.
You LIKE Glen Greenwald?
Two paragraphs into his article in The GUARDIAN -- Britain's equivalent to The Nation as far as I've been able to determine -- it was patently obvious the guy is just another leftist shill -- an America-hating, agenda-driven hack -- Katrina Vanden Heuvel, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Joe Conason, WIlliam Rivers Pitt, Amy Goodman, wannabe. In other words-- a piece of FILTH.
But yes, I too am vehemently opposed to The Surveillance State, which is much worse in Mother England than it is here. Unfortunately, we are catching up very very quickly.
Did you ever read The Puzzle Palace?
I think it came out in the Seventies. It's about the increasingly sophisticated, terrifyingly capable technology that has rendered privacy a thing of the past.
Things were already really really bad thirty-five years ago. Unfortunately, they're infinitely worse now.
I predict that very soon anyone who still has a longing for liberty will be forced to live like a Gypsy -- rootless, homeless, constantly on the move, forever hunted and despised by members of The Established New World Order.
The only hope Orwell offered us was the inclusion of "The Proles" in his otherwise hideous narrative.
~ FT
On a somewhat unrelated note, 30 states have people who have petitioned the White House for secession.
Personally, I voted for California and New York to secede.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petitions
FreeThinke: How could any civil libertarian not like Greenwald.
Yes, he is obviously a liberal, in the classical sense. He is an intellectually honest man facing facts and following the truth where it leads him, even if it leads back to a lefty lair, a trait in today's news media so rare as to be quaint and refreshing.
If we had more reporters like him, we would be much better off.
Sadly, my husband, and a few friends, told me they just didn't have the time. Umm...really? I told everyone when early voting started. No excuses. And then had some that voted for "Johnson?"
Then the rhetorical, "our vote doesn't count so I am not not voting."
And this is what the results were. People need to vote.
SF - Concur with you on Greenwald. I'd like to see him write at Reason, rather than Salon.
I often wonder, how on earth is there any daylight between civil libertarians and professed Conservatives?
"I often wonder, how on earth is there any daylight between civil libertarians and professed Conservatives?"
The will to power is strong. We just can't leave each other alone.
Electoral Collge Votes:
Obama 332
Romney 206
What it means? Landslide (and the GOP is done).
53,952,240 votes were cast for a Democratic House candidate compared to 53,402,643 cast for a Republican; in other words, over half a million more Americans voted for Democratic House candidates than for Republican candidates. Republicans received less than half of the vote for members of the House of Representatives, and even lost seats in the House this election. Yet Republicans still took 55 percent of the seats in the House. In effect, they had to steal the House. Here’s how:
In 2010, Republicans won a substantial majority of state governments. Once they were in power, they then deliberately redrew congressional district lines in order to manipulate the 2012 House election for a Republican victory. It’s called gerrymandering, a very old, very nasty technique that has long been successful in affecting the outcome of elections, for both sides. And it’s getting worse now that computer modelling can precisely calculate districts to maximize political advantages. Citizens, advocates and political parties have filed 194 lawsuits challenging congressional or state district maps in 41 states. Lawsuits are still pending in eight states.
Gerrymandering is the process of manipulating geographic borders to create a political advantage for a particular party, obstructing the ability of voters who oppose a state’s ruling party to influence future elections.
http://crooksandliars.com/nonny-mouse/how-republicans-stole-election-again
"They won fair and square." Yeah, outside Lucie County, Philly, and Cuyahoga County...
Libmann: You are a laff riot!
Jerrymandering has been going on for years...
Keep digging. I think over at Democrat Underground they've found that it's all Halliburton's fault.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
SF: "I think over at Democrat Underground they've found that it's all Halliburton's fault."
I didn't know Madison worked for them.
Hey Lib! In case you didn't know, the evil Republicans didn't just decide to redraw the lines on a whim. It's a function of the decennial census, as mandated by the Constitution.
One other item you seem to have missed. You don't live in a democracy. The country is, in Franklin's words; "a Republic, if you can keep it." Of course you're welcome to try and change that via a Constitutional amendment but since you'll need the assent of 38 states to do that it's probably pointless to try since we do intend to keep it.
" And it worked, because Romney and the GOP failed to define their candidate and their message."
Yep, at the end of the day that is what happened.
Of course it is damn hard to define your principles and solidify your message when both seem to keep changing almost weekly.
Demographic changes will continue to be important looking ahead as well.
@Mark --- "They won fair and square." Yeah, outside Lucie County, Philly, and Cuyahoga County...
----
Poor baby, did that bomb throwing douche nozzle Allen West lose and break your heart?
Silver's parsing the numbers. Young and minority voters INCREASED in this election from the last.
JMJ
I'm not parsing anything, Jersey, and I didn't say youth and minority voting decreased.
Go read the links before opening your blowhole.
It matters not WHO votes. It only matters who COUNTS the votes.
Andie
Excellent article Ducky, dead on.
I particularly liked "Who knew the key to stopping the Surveillance State was to just wait until it got so big that it ate itself?"
@ Did you ever read the Puzzle Palace?
Consider Moore's law and the fact that computer technology advances at an exponential rate. The Puzzle Palace was published in 1982... we've had 30 years of exponential growth since then.
@"Personally, I voted for California and New York to secede"
BRILLIANT!!!
@Duckster "Poor baby, did that bomb throwing douche nozzle Allen West lose and break your heart?"
Nope, didn't lose nothing, Mr 'I don't keep up on current events'.
Read a paper for once, will ya?
Romney lost because he courted fundraisers instead of voters.
Why anyone worth listening to doubted Obama would win re-election is beyond my ability to hallucinate.
When conservatives (at least the "conservatives" that are vehemently opposed to being taken seriously) pleaded for other conservatives to "set aside their principles and vote for Mitt anyway" you know the GOP was trying to shove a stinkbomb down your throat.
In short, Mitt Romney lost because he sucks. A conservative candidate would have sailed to a landslide victory. Instead, we had a choice between Obama and the gay rights and taxpayer-funded abortions guy so left-wing he makes Obama seem moderate.
Romney agreed with Obama so much in the second debate on foreign policy no one could help but come away with the impression that Romney was Obama's campaign spokesman.
Lifelong Republicans are done with this shit. It's to the point that not only is the GOP going to have to run conservative candidates to remain electable, they're in serious need of visibly purging the party of idiots such as those who tried to sell Romney as a "conservative" to people who care and know better.
A "true conservative" like dumbshit Todd Akin?
Maybe you can get the GOP to run him next time, and maybe you can pair him up with Richard Mourdock.
Or do you want to see The Michelin Man try again?
@What it means? Landslide (and the GOP is done).
As far as popular vote... Obama's victory was 35th out of the 47 elections in which popular vote was tracked (those since 1824).
As far as the electoral college goes his performance was 37th out of 57 elections held.
Harding-Cox, Roosevelt-Landon, Nixon-McGovern, Reagan-Mondale...these were landslides, and if you were paying attention yesterday you would know how wrong you actually are.
You won by 2.7% of the popular vote.
What it also means is you don't have a clue about how the electoral college works.
If you did, you would know that if electoral college votes were assigned the way they are apportioned (By house and senate districts), you would have lost the election 278-253 (By the way, I gave you DC and the two independents to boot).
Instead, 48 states have turned the electoral college into a winner take all proposition (Maine and Nebraska are the only two states that use the original and proportional congressional district method).
Oh, and speaking of lawsuits... your friends at crooks and liars are aptly named... their post is lifted word for word from the thinkprogress site.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/11/07/1159631/americans-voted-for-a-democratic-house-gerrymandering-the-supreme-court-gave-them-speaker-boehner/?mobile=nc
As far as "Citizens, advocates and political parties have filed 194 lawsuits challenging congressional or state district maps in 41 states" that's lifted straight from Publicintegrity.org. For the sake of intellectual honesty, you ought to read the article, those 194 lawsuits aren't all against Republicans, and the article doesn't have anything nice to say about Democrats either.
http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/11/01/11670/redistricting-gop-and-dems-alike-have-cloaked-process-secrecy
Gerrymander, first used by the Boston Globe on March 26, 1812 in reaction to a redrawing of Massachusetts state senate election districts under Governer Elbridge Gerry. When mapped, one of the contorted districts in the Boston area was said to resemble the shape of a salamander. The term was a portmanteau of the governor's last name and the word salamander. Hey wasn't Elbridge Gerry a Democrat?
Word of advice? Stop mindlessly cutting and pasting... it is better to be thought a fool than to paste and remove all doubt.
Cheers!
Maybe the Texas Turdblossom can run their campaign?
I have a question for anyone who advocates raising taxes.
What do we do in March?
Why March do you ask?
Well according to Reuters...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/19/us-usa-billionaires-forbes-idUSBRE88I0WA20120919
We could seize all the assets of the top 1% (1.7 Trillion) and given that the US 2012 budget was 5.123 Trillion... we could run the government for 121 days.
So, I ask again... what do we do we do on March 14th, 2013?
This is the message the GOP should have been spreading, don't you think?
A "true conservative" like dumbshit Todd Akin?
Todd Akin did surprisingly well in the election considering he was running against both Claire McCaskill's and Mitt Romney's smear machines.
Maybe you can get the GOP to run him next time, and maybe you can pair him up with Richard Mourdock.
I don't expect the GOP to do anything but run and lose with a Marco Rubio / Condaleeza Rice ticket.
Or do you want to see The Michelin Man try again?
When did Chris Christie throw his hat in the ring?
Maybe the Texas Turdblossom can run their campaign?
Has anyone stopped laughing over Karl Rove's prediction that Romney would win New Hampshire?
Todd Akin did surprisingly well in the election considering he was running against both Claire McCaskill's and Mitt Romney's smear machines.
Oh boo hoo!
Rubio, Rice and smear machines! Oh My!
Rubio, Rice and smear machines! Oh My!
Surprisingly well? He got his stupid, rape talking ass handed to him.
A few more candidates like him doing "surprisingly well" and the GOP is finished.
Well, Akin did better than you and your fellow pot-smoking Colorado leftists wanted him to. What other Republican candidate for Senate had the RNC running ads against him alongside the Democrat ads against him?
..and as long as the GOP wants to run far-left candidates like Mitt Romney for President, what part of "the GOP is finished" is supposed to be undesirable?
So, I ask again... what do we do we do on March 14th, 2013?
-------
We all sit down and reason together. This will reveal that the goal is NOT to pay down the debt (actually a foolish idea) but to stop the increase.
Then we move on to the topic of the cost of the debt which is what matters. The size is relevant only as the determinant of the interest cost.
Tax policy will certainly lower the level of debt.
We need to start doing something because this low interest/low inflation environment when the borrowing costs are trivial is going to disappear soon.
@Beamish -- I don't expect the GOP to do anything but run and lose with a Marco Rubio / Condaleeza Rice ticket.
-----
Condominium Rice is as politically relevant as Sarah Palin.
Rubio is the Republican Obama -- real lightweight.
@Finntann -- If you did, you would know that if electoral college votes were assigned the way they are apportioned
----
Well they aren't are they? So let's throw out that noise.
Fact is that you took one swing state. One (1).
Obama's ground game chewed Romney up and spit him out.
Ducky,
Condominium Rice is as politically relevant as Sarah Palin.
Rubio is the Republican Obama -- real lightweight.
Actually, the true lightweights are those positing a Rubio / Rice ticket because apparently Romney would have won if he were a melanin-enhanced vagina.
Akin? I think I saw a picture of him next to the word imbecile in Webster's.
"First of all, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."
Perhaps he should be seeking medical advice from Doctors of Medicine instead of Doctors of Divinity.
Internet poker? Yeah there's a solution in search of a problem.
Just another Nanny state progressive on the authoritarian right side of the wall.
"What other Republican candidate for Senate had the RNC running ads against him"
Perhaps that should have given him a frigging clue?
Ducky, the point is we have a spending problem, not a taxing problem. You'll never increase income enough to offset spending, and if you do manage... it'll only last a few months as the economy goes swirling down the drain.
Personally, I hope we go over the 'fiscal cliff', hell, I'll even volunteer to drive the bus. Because it's the only way we'll even see meaningful spending cuts.
But you know as well as I they won't let that happen. Even if they can't reach the goals they'll just vote the consequences away for another few years until you're so hard up you'll be looking forward to getting your care package from Greece in the mail.
Cut first, tax later!
So when "the GOP is finished" who's Akin gonna run for? The Dominionists? Or perhaps the CLP?
The GOP is finished, as long as we have idiots like Adkin running around.
Shhhh.... I think I hear Tammy Faye calling.
I, for one, can not wait to begin the round-up of Whites for the Obama FEMA Concentration Camps!
It will be a good day.
As Lee Atwater, You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.
Funny how continually hyping FEAR OF THE DARK backfired...
"What other Republican candidate for Senate had the RNC running ads against him"
Perhaps that should have given him a frigging clue?
Akin was besieged by the Gay Old Party establishment well before his single incoherent comment on rape and abortion which Karl Rove and company blew way out of proportion even after Akin claimed he misspoke and corrected himself. They wanted John Brunner, the far leftists of Mitt Romney's Tea Party "movement" wanted Sarah Steelman, and Akin beat both of them handily in the primary for the Senate candidacy.
Obama on the stump claimed he wanted to send all the jobs to China. Obviously he muffed his lines, but he gets the benefit of the doubt.
You far-left Romneybots should be happy. Obama's going to continue to push Romney's pet leftist causes (Romneycare, repeal of DADT, closing down coal plants, etc.) and there's even less conservative Republicans in the Senate to stop him.
I, for one, can not wait to begin the round-up of Whites for the Obama FEMA Concentration Camps!
They're closed for inclement weather.
So when "the GOP is finished" who's Akin gonna run for? The Dominionists? Or perhaps the CLP?
I don't think he'll run for anything. I doubt he'll be joining the circuit party at CPAC. He's not lispy enough.
single incoherent comment ?
The man's a DNC soundbite machine.
far-left Romneybots?
Yes, I suppose compared to you crypofascists...we're the far left.
Akin was besieged by the Gay Old Party
Want to know why we lost the election? Look in the mirror.
Bye! We'll miss you.
Let me know what party you wind up joining... I could use a good laugh.
AND GENE! GET BACK ON YOUR MEDS
Beamish! Closed for weather??? Damn it the government can't do anything right!
Next you'll tell me the round-up of the white man's guns has been put on hold till after we complete the War on Christmas!
In an August 19, 2012 interview aired on St. Louis television station KTVI-TV, Akin was asked his views on whether women who became pregnant due to rape should have the option of abortion. He replied:
"Well you know, people always want to try to make that as one of those things, well how do you, how do you slice this particularly tough sort of ethical question. First of all, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child."
The comment was widely criticized as being misogynist and inaccurate. Related news articles cited a 1996 article in an obstetrics and gynecology journal, which found that 5% of women who were raped became pregnant, which equaled about 32,000 pregnancies each year in the US alone.
So, if 95% of rapes don't result in pregnancy and there's 32,000 rape pregnancies a year that if aborted would make up 3.2% of the million or so abortions on demand each year.
But rape is only listed as the reason women seek an abortion in less than 1% of abortions.
Seems to me Akin, fumbled remarks or not, wasn't so far off the mark. Over 99% of women seeking abortions aren't doing so because they were raped.
Want to know why we lost the election? Look in the mirror.
I didn't lose the election. Mitt Romney and his fan club did.
Oh, you were complimenting me on sabotaging Romney's chances for election. Thanks, but I think his far-left record in Massachusetts did that.
Let me know what party you wind up joining... I could use a good laugh.
I don't join parties. I vote for the candidate that best represents my views. If you want to keep pushing the Republican Party so far left that Ann Coulter is the only heterosexual male in the room, be my guest.
Next you'll tell me the round-up of the white man's guns has been put on hold till after we complete the War on Christmas!
I think the NRA would do well to spotlight trigger-happy gangsta rappers.
Republican Party 2016
... And while relitigating the Akin debacle, Beamish collapses into an incoherent heap...
Intercourse is most likely to result in pregnancy when it's performed in the 72-hour window of peak fertility that begins about 48 hours before a woman ovulates and ends about 24 hours after ovulation, but her chances of getting pregnant during ovulation still depend on many factors.
A normal healthy woman younger than 30 with a healthy partner who has no fertility issues of his own has approximately a 15 to 25 percent chance of becoming pregnant every cycle.
So, if a woman is fertile 3 days a month, which is 10%...and has a 25% chance of getting pregnant during that period. The chance of unprotected sex producing a pregnancy is 1.5%-2.5%
So 95% of rapes don't end in pregnancy... 5% do, aren't those better odds? Your statistic, not mine...
IDIOT
Silverfiddle,
Why didn't Todd Akin continue hammering away at the gross incompentence and massive fraud waste and abuse associated with the JSF? Instead of embarking on his only bad girls who wanted it get raped. Good girls fight back and secrete penis melting juices to retain their virginity?
I wonder who could have pressured him to ignore the Billions being wasted and the billions to be wasted in the future with this hunk of crap plane which we don't need...
.. And while relitigating the Akin debacle, Beamish collapses into an incoherent heap...
Stop hitting the bong so hard, you far-left Colorado pothead.
So, if a woman is fertile 3 days a month, which is 10%...and has a 25% chance of getting pregnant during that period. The chance of unprotected sex producing a pregnancy is 1.5%-2.5%
So 95% of rapes don't end in pregnancy... 5% do, aren't those better odds? Your statistic, not mine...
IDIOT
Take up the argument with the cats at Wikipedia who came up with the figure that 5% of rapes in America cause pregnancies (32,000 pregnancies per year) and less than 1% of abortions in America are performed on women claiming to be raped. There's roughly a million abortions performed in America each year. Ten thousand of those are for rape? 22,000 women a year who become pregnant from rape keep their baby?
968,000 non-rape related abortions a year are justified?
Akin's not-well-stated point was that zero abortions per year in America is preferable to a million-plus. I'm sure he'd be willing to concede that 10,000 abortions per year (exclusively for the rape victims who get pregnant AND want to abort) is still preferable to a million-plus abortions per year for whatever.
Akin should have simply said "Women should not treat abortion as a rape insurance policy."
Hey, great comeback. And it only took you 24 to think it up...
Well, you know how it is when you have a job. Not much free time to go make a blogger close down his comments thread in a hissy fit.
Yes I do know how it is to have a job, and we don't mind your hissy fits at all. The provide comic relief.
"we don't mind your hissy fits at all."
disagree, please stfu.
Jez: Now you're getting a flavor of why so many Americans are fed up with the GOP...
@Akin should have simply said "Women should not treat abortion as a rape insurance policy."
That's as ridiculous as his actual statement, a rape insurance policy?
If the Christian Right spent half the time, effort, and money addressing the motivations of those 969,000 women who do get abortions, as they do on trying to outlaw it, maybe we wouldn't have as many.
That's as ridiculous as his actual statement, a rape insurance policy?
Yes, a rape insurance policy. What's the first thing out of a pro-abortion activist's mouth when someone suggests, as Akin does, that abortion should be banned.
"What about women who get pregnant from being raped?"
Okay, what about them? If there's 32,000 pregnancies from rape and less than 1% of abortions are of rape pregnancies, there's over 22,000 rape vicitims giving birth to their rapist's child a year. Less than 10,000 women who become pregnant from rape actually abort their child?
So abortion is a rape insurance policy for less than 10,000 women a year. Women need abortions to be available on demand because they could be raped and get pregnant at any time. Insurance.
If the Christian Right spent half the time, effort, and money addressing the motivations of those 969,000 women who do get abortions, as they do on trying to outlaw it, maybe we wouldn't have as many.
If drug abuse didn't have such a deleterious effect on your critical thinking skills, perhaps you could make a rational argument.
Yes I do know how it is to have a job, and we don't mind your hissy fits at all. The provide comic relief.
Yes, we all get a kick out of watching you close your comment threads in fear I may further illustrate your stupidity.
Sounds wike sumbuddy's butt-hurt again...
You should go start your own blog, Beamish...
Why? Because the comic relief I provide makes you shut your comment threads down while you suck your thumb?
No. Because we get a good laugh out of you chasing your tail.
I see. So you just shut your comment threads down when you're tired of losing the argument.
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