The changing electorate

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Not sure why Mitt lost? Can't believe that a majority of Americans are stupid enough to vote for a deficit spending, big government, socialist ultra-liberal agenda? Well in that case you've been brainwashed by the CEC - the conservative entertainment complex. Remember, the primary interest of people like Fox News and Rush Wind-bag is to promote themselves and make money, not inform the electorate about reality. The truth is much less titillating than "Obama is a socialist from Kenya who wants to ruin America!" but you bought it hook line and sinker. He's a mediocre Senator from Illinois who saved us from a depression, hasn't started WWIII and is generally more palatable than Willard Mitt Moneybags III who thinks 47% of the country are a bunch of leeches.

There are some real reasons that explain Romney's loss though, if you're interested. Deep down, Karl Rove knows these to be true, though he'd never admit it. The electorate is changing, considerably, and the "classic" GOP strategy of let's appeal to old white bible beaters is no longer viable:

  1. Women are voting more, and paying more attention to details. Contraception matters to them. Equal pay matters to them. Abortion rights matter to them. Obama won women by 11% margin, and single women by a 2:1 margin (36%). That's huge. Guess what GOP, marriage is statistically on the decline, so that single women demographic is pretty important. 
  2. Shockingly, there are some Hispanic immigrants who have become actual US citizens, they vote, and they find the term "self-deportation" offensive. Who knew?
  3. There are a ton of people in this country who have been screwed by health insurance companies; denied claims, coverage, and/or treatments. The AARP supports Obamacare, yet the GOP continues its ongoing campaign to vilify it. This campaign is also ridiculous in light of the fact that 90% of Obamacare hasn't been implemented yet, so we don't really know WHAT it will look like. 
  4. Educated, middle-class voters know damn well that tax cuts for the rich DON'T HELP THE MIDDLE CLASS. They know that the GOP leadership in Congress is holding up tax cuts for the other 98% of us to protect tax cuts for the richest 2%, and they recognize that is a bad deal. 
And then there's this graph:

Note the scale on the left side - this is only a 20% drop, but still that's huge. Romney won by big margins among whites, especially white men, but that demographic doesn't carry the weight it did in 1980.

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