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Friday, November 30, 2012

What do you expect from "Faux" News?

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Tom Ricks to Fox News: The network operates 'as a wing of the Republican Party'
By MACKENZIE WEINGER, November 26, 2012

During a Monday interview on Fox News, author Tom Ricks blasted the network as "operating as a wing of the Republican Party” and accused it of hyping the Benghazi attack for political purposes.

Ricks — who writes a blog for Foreign Policy magazine and is a best-selling author of books such as “Fiasco” and “The Generals” — told Fox News’s Jon Scott “that Benghazi generally was hyped, by this network especially.”

“I think that Benghazi generally was hyped, by this network especially,” Ricks said. “And now that the campaign is over, I think [Sen. John McCain] is backing off a little bit. They’re not going to stop Susan Rice from being Secretary of State.”

Scott pushed back on the accusation that Fox News "hyped" the attack, asking, “When you have four people dead, including the first U.S. ambassador in more than 30 years, how do you call that hype?”

“How many security contractors died in Iraq? Do you know?” Ricks replied.

“I don’t,” Scott said.

“No, nobody does, because nobody cared,” Ricks said. “We know that several hundred died, but there was never an official count done of security contractors dead in Iraq. So when I say this focus on what was essentially a small fire-fight, I think, number one, I’ve covered a lot of fire-fights, it is impossible to figure out what happens in them sometimes.”

Ricks then slammed Fox News again for their Benghazi coverage.

“And second, I think that the emphasis on Benghazi has been extremely political, partly because Fox was operating as a wing of the Republican Party.

After that, Scott wrapped the interview. "Alright, Tom Ricks. Thanks very much for joining us today," Scott said.

“You’re welcome,” Ricks replied.

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UPDATE: Ricks: Fox 'asked my opinion and I gave it'

Author Tom Ricks said Monday he told a Fox News producer before he went on air he thought the network had "hyped" the Benghazi story and “it should have been no surprise when I said it.”

Ricks told POLITICO “my feeling was that they asked my opinion and I gave it.” The author's Monday interview with Fox News kicked off with him saying, “I think that Benghazi generally was hyped, by this network especially,” and ended after he told Happening Now’s Jon Scott that “the emphasis on Benghazi has been extremely political, partly because Fox was operating as a wing of the Republican Party.”

“I had told the producer before I went on that I thought the Benghazi story had been hyped. So it should have been no surprise when I said it and the anchor pushed back that I defended my view,” Ricks told POLITICO in an e-mail. “I also have been thinking a lot about George Marshall, the Army chief of staff during World War II, and one of the heroes of my new book. He got his job by speaking truth to power, and I have been thinking that we all could benefit by following his example as much as we can.”

After he went off the air, Ricks said he “saw some surprised faces in the hallway.”

“One staff person said she thought I had been rude. My feeling was that they asked my opinion and I gave it,” Ricks wrote.

Fox News has not yet responded to a request for comment.
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Newt thinks there's something wrong with "this picture"-- YA THINK?

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GOP’s All-White, All-Male House Leadership Bothers Newt Gingrich Too
By Margaret Hartmann and Caroline Shin, November 30, 2012

According to Newt Gingrich, there 
is something wrong with this picture. Recently Gingrich has been making the talk show rounds to promote his book and share his election-related epiphanies. Last night on the Tonight Show (Newt Gingrich On ‘Leno’: There Is A Diversity Problem In The GOP), he told Jay Leno that he's troubled by the lack of diversity in his party, as exemplified by the news that the nineteen new House committee chairs are all white men. He plans to spend the next few months doing a "very deep dive" into the lessons the GOP needs to learn from the election, since next time it can't offer "the same glib answer from the same guys who were wrong" — though that slogan is kind of catchy.
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We thought you served wine....not whine...

Steve Genson trolling for Right Wing Diners:

"Hey, will this make it on to the thurstonblog site.  We hear you are still using us for fish bait with your buddies."

You picked the right place, Stevieboy.  We have more conservative readers than liberals

Now if you could just find those with a taste for Moose Assholes and Ripple.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

The core belief of the Republican Party has been debunked

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Rumpelstiltskin Economics
By Jason Stanford

Republicans are having a hard time coming to Jesus on reality. Pundits are still calling the War on Women a media fantasy even as the Republican-controlled Michigan legislature considers giving tax breaks to fetuses. Congress is trying to pass an immigration bill that ignores the 11 million unauthorized immigrants. And Sen. Marco Rubio dodged a question about our planet’s age with a flippant, “I’m not a scientist, man,” demonstrating even if he couldn’t pass high school science that he could at least converse with the other flunkies in study hall.

It’s almost as if they think they lost because they have a branding problem. But their problem is that America sees Republicans for who they are. Every major event in the last decade—Hurricane Katrina, the Iraq War, the Great Recession, Superstorm Sandy—has exposed Pax Republicana as a crumbling empire based on false ideologies, none more dangerous than believing in the Tax Fairy that magically grows the economy and fills the treasury when Congress cuts taxes on the wealthy.

This cultish belief is fueling the Republicans’ ill-advised defense of tax cuts for the rich against an onslaught from voters and economists. Shortly before the election, Senate Republicans suppressed a report by the Congressional Research Service that found no correlation between tax rates for the rich and economic growth. In other words, the guys with green eye shades and really fancy calculators debunked the core belief of the Republican Party, and Sen. Mitch McConnell and his band of lost boys jammed their fingers into their ears while loudly protesting their belief in fairies.

Barack Obama was re-elected on an economic platform of growing the economy from the middle out and asking the wealthy to pay higher taxes. Bill Clinton’s economic agenda (focusing on the middle class while socking away surpluses in the Social Security Trust Fund) was a brother by another mother. It’s too bad we don’t have a catchy name for it like Reaganomics, because it works a lot better than Reaganomics.

As we approach the fiscal cliff, Obama has reaffirmed his support for raising taxes on the rich. Speaker John Boehner has responded with “dynamic scoring,” or a discredited economic forecasting model that predicts robust economic growth when you cut taxes. This is based on a study emanating from the Economic Institute of Their Rear End, because it just doesn’t work.

“Part of his speech he talked about dynamic scoring, this idea if you cut taxes you increase revenues,” Sen. Chuck Schumer said. “It’s about time we debunked that myth, it’s a Rumpelstiltskin fairy tale, dynamic scoring. You may remember Rumpelstiltskin was the fairy tale figure who turned straw into gold.”

Obama, God bless him, has told Republicans that he’d rather they strike a deal that relies upon math and not magic. The polls are on Obama’s side, but the election is over. Economists are on Obama’s side, but science doesn’t win many arguments with Republicans these days. This is a rare case in which we actually need Republicans to agree to disagree. Before the clock ticks to zero, we’re going to need to stop having this fight. If reason and evidence don’t win, the majority should.

Going over the fiscal cliff will raise taxes on everyone and dramatically cut federal spending. The Congressional Budget Office—those pesky economists again—predict a 4% decline in our GDP if that happens. That means another recession, which Republicans would use as proof that lower taxes equals economic growth. Like any zealot, they’ll say we’re being punished for our lack of faith while ignoring that the downturn will be due largely to the cut in federal spending.

Believing in the Tax Fairy doesn’t make it real. Whether it’s Reaganomics or Rumpelstiltskin, this false economic ideology belongs in history books with Communism and not in any serious public policy discussion. But don’t expect Republicans in Congress to get with the program any time soon. After all, if tax cuts for the rich don’t grow the economy, if lesbians don’t cause hurricanes, if contraception doesn’t cause promiscuity, and if corporations aren’t people, then why even have a Republican Party?
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Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Buffett: "The ultra rich, including me, will forever pursue investment opportunities."

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Warren Buffett calls for a minimum tax on the wealthy
Reporting by Ben Berkowitz, November 26, 2012

Warren Buffett, the legendary investor who changed the debate about U.S. tax reform in 2011 with a call for the rich to pay more, is now calling for minimum tax rates for millionaires.
In a New York Times editorial printed on Monday, Buffett suggested Congress move immediately to implement minimum taxes of 30 percent on incomes of $1 million to $10 million and 35 percent above that.
"A plain and simple rule like that will block the efforts of lobbyists, lawyers and contribution-hungry legislators to keep the ultra rich paying rates well below those incurred by people with income just a tiny fraction of ours," Buffett wrote.
"Only a minimum tax on very high incomes will prevent the stated tax rate from being eviscerated by these warriors for the wealthy," he added.
The new push is in keeping with the one he made in the same newspaper in August 2011, in which he decried the "coddling" of the super-rich. He used himself and his secretary as an example, noting that her tax rate was much higher than his even though her income was just a tiny fraction of what he made.
"Warren Buffett's secretary" became a political meme following that editorial, and the said secretary, Debbie Bosanek, was ultimately a guest of President Barack Obama at this year's State of the Union address.
The 2011 editorial spurred Obama to seek the implementation of what he called the "Buffett Rule," which set a 30 percent tax rate on millionaires. Opponents said it would stifle spending by the job-creating well-to-do, a notion Buffett ridiculed in the new editorial.
"So let's forget about the rich and ultra rich going on strike and stuffing their ample funds under their mattresses if — gasp — capital gains rates and ordinary income rates are increased," he said. "The ultra rich, including me, will forever pursue investment opportunities."
Buffett, whom Forbes ranks as the world's third-richest person, is the chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc, the ice-cream-to-insurance conglomerate that employs more than a quarter-million people around the world.
He acknowledged in Monday's editorial that some people like him might stop investing as they wait for Congress to act.
"In the meantime, maybe you'll run into someone with a terrific investment idea, who won't go forward with it because of the tax he would owe when it succeeds," Buffett said. "Send him my way. Let me unburden him."
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Monday, November 26, 2012

The Iowa straw poll: time to move on

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Iowa Straw Poll Losing Support Of GOP Establishment
By Thomas Beaumont, November 22, 2012

In the days since Republicans lost an election many in the party thought was theirs, chatter has been bubbling about what the GOP should do to recover.

For Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, it starts with the smallest of actions: abandoning the state's now-infamous straw poll.

Once a festive checkpoint on the road to the leadoff Iowa caucuses, the poll has devolved into a full-blown sideshow, Branstad and other critics contend. They say it's an unfair and false test that has felled good candidates and kept others from competing in the state.

"It's just something that's gotten totally out of control," said veteran GOP presidential campaign consultant Charlie Black. "It's been bad for years, but no one has had the guts to say it until now."

The poll, which morphed over the decades into a closely watched early test of caucus campaign strength, had "outlived its usefulness," Branstad told The Wall Street Journal this week. Some activists contend it amplifies the voices of candidates lacking broad appeal.

Branstad says he has widespread support for a different event to replace the poll, held in Ames the summer before every contested presidential caucus since 1979. It has become a lavish affair where campaigns spend heavily to wine, dine, entertain and chauffeur their supporters by bus to the Iowa State University campus.

Critics have increasingly called it a shakedown. Not only do campaigns buy up thousands of tickets for their supporters to attend the event, they bid thousands of dollars for prime spots to pitch tents near the voting area on the college campus.

It's all to show early support in Iowa, where the precinct caucuses traditionally lead off the early-state nominating march, even though only a fraction of caucusgoers turn out for the straw poll.

"It's a tedious effort. It costs a lot of money. It's totally irrelevant at the end of the day. It used to be a test of organization," said Ed Rollins, who managed Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann's presidential campaign at the time she won the 2012 straw poll. "Today it's a lot of effort and a lot of energy that really is not worth the effort."

Bachmann spent $2 million on the August straw poll and edged Texas Rep. Ron Paul with heavy support from religious conservatives.

"The straw poll doesn't provide a complete cross-section of the caucus-going electorate," said Phil Musser, an adviser to former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

Pawlenty pinned his hopes on a strong finish in Ames last year but dropped out of the race for the GOP nomination after finishing third, never reaching the caucuses in his neighboring state.

Only about 17,000 turned out for the straw poll, one-seventh the size of the roughly 120,000 who voted on caucus night in January.

John McCain, the GOP's nominee in 2008, and onetime favorite Rudy Giuliani opted not to compete for the straw poll, turned off by the event's heavy influence by Christian conservatives. They ran scaled down caucus campaigns as a result.

Romney did not compete in the 2011 straw poll, choosing to project himself as a national candidate who didn't need to define himself among the Iowa GOP's rank and file.

But in 2007, Romney spent millions and won, only to struggle to a second-place caucus finish. A month later, he quit the race.

During that campaign, the former Massachusetts governor was so struck by the ferocity of opposition by Iowa Republican activists to illegal immigration that he tacked to the right to distinguish himself from Giuliani and McCain, who supported relaxed sanctions for undocumented immigrants.

Doug Gross, a leading Iowa Republican who chaired Romney's 2008 Iowa campaign, said Romney's strong opposition to any pathway to citizenship or tuition benefits for undocumented immigrants hurt him in the general election four years later against Obama, partly due to his effort to appeal to Iowa conservatives at the straw poll.

The straw poll "forces them to deal with extremists and you can't help but have some of that rub off on you," Gross said. "That hurts our ability to nominate candidates who can win."

Advocates of the straw poll argue the money helps finance the caucuses, which are party-run, not state-run, elections.

Instead, Branstad's allies are urging the party to substitute the straw poll with a summer fundraiser, without a vote.

Without the straw poll, the caucuses may lure back all top-tier Republican contenders, Branstad's supporters say. That would raise the stakes for the caucuses by making them truly the first event to winnow the field.

"(The straw poll) was great in its time," said Iowa GOP strategist John Stineman. "It's time to move on."
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New member

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ThurstonBlog has a new member, Tom Beard.  Tom lives in Yakima and hopefully will give us an eastern WA view of our world.  Welcome, Tom!
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Sunday, November 25, 2012

Men are the nation's ultimate swing voters

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When it comes to gender gap, men play crucial role
By CONNIE CASS, November 24, 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) - Sorry, fellas, but President Barack Obama's re-election makes it official: Women can overrule men at the ballot box.

For the first time in research dating to 1952, a presidential candidate whom men chose decisively - Republican Mitt Romney - lost. More women voted for the other guy.

It's surprising it didn't happen sooner because women have been voting in larger numbers than men for almost three decades, exit polls show.

But men, who make up less than half the U.S. population, always have exercised power greater than their numbers and they aren't about to stop now.

When it comes to elections, males as a group are more influential because they show less party loyalty than women, who skew Democratic.

Despite all the focus on candidates courting Hispanics or the working class, men are the nation's ultimate swing voters; they're why Republican George W. Bush became president and Republican John McCain didn't.

Their move away from Obama this year expanded the voting "gender gap." It wasn't enough to determine the outcome, but came close.

So presidential hopefuls staring into the gender gap in 2016 might want to look beyond the usual controversies over "women's issues" such as abortion or the polling fads such as "Wal-Mart moms." Maybe it's time to pause and consider the fickle male. Maybe it's time to ask, "What do men want?"

In the voting booth, that is.

"I don't think we fully understand it yet," political scientist Christina Wolbrecht of the University of Notre Dame said about why men and women vote differently. But she said plenty of research on elections going back to the 1950s indicates it's not because of issues such as equal pay, birth control coverage in health plans or Romney's awkward reference to "binders full of women."

Paul Kellstedt has some ideas. A Texas A&M associate professor of political science, Kellstedt studies what American men and women want from their government and how that shifts over time.

Like Wolbrecht, he noted that the sexes aren't that different, at least when it comes to the issues.

Studies have found that the opinions that separate liberals and conservatives, even on issues such as abortion, don't divide the sexes much. Men and women are about as likely to fall on either side of those debates, and millions of each happily line up with each political party.

But there has been a consistent thread of disagreement for decades over what role the government should play. It's not a big gap, but it is statistically significant, about 4 percentage points or 5 points in many studies, Kellstedt said. As a group, women tend to like bigger government with more health and welfare programs; men lean toward smaller government that spends less, except on the military.

Sort of the social safety net versus rugged individualism. Or Obama versus Romney.

There are lots of possible reasons the genders see this differently.

Besides women's traditional role as family nurturers, they also live longer than men and so are more likely to rely on Social Security and Medicare. Women are more likely to be poor. They're more likely to be single parents struggling to pay for child care, education and medical bills. Men may feel many social programs are expensive and won't benefit them.

"Women tend to believe that government has a role to play, that it should be a partner in their life," said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. "Men tend to think it's been a good day when the government hasn't done anything bad to you."

When the nation as a whole drifts to the left or right on the big government-small government debate, the gap between men and women fluctuates. Men and women shift their views in the same direction, Kellstedt said, but men as a group tend to change their minds faster and move their views farther.

"The variation among men's opinions is larger," he said. "The flighty, moody ones are the men, not the women."

He said this difference of opinion on the role of government isn't big enough to entirely explain the larger gender gap in voting, however. "It's a little bit of a puzzle."

Women as a group voted Democratic in the past six presidential races, from 1992 through 2012, according to exit polls. The last time they decisively supported a Republican was Ronald Reagan's re-election in 1984. The Reagan years were when Americans first began taking note of the "gender gap," as women's rights groups emphasized that female support for Reagan in 1980 was narrow while male voters overwhelmingly endorsed him.

Men lean Republican but play the field. In the past six presidential races, men voted Republican three times, Democratic twice (including barely supporting Obama in 2008), and essentially split their vote in the 1996 Bill Clinton-Bob Dole race, exit polls show.

This year Obama campaigned on giving a leg up to those needing education, health care or job training. Romney talked about shrinking government, except for the military, and said overgrown social programs were creating a culture of dependency. Their arguments fit the long-running fissure of the gender gap.

"Women stuck with Obama," said Karen Kaufmann, a University of Maryland associate professor who studies the gender gap. "We didn't see a lot of movement from women. The movement was really men going back to the Republican Party."

Women's support for Obama dropped just 1 percentage point from 2008; they voted for him by 55 percent to 44 percent this time. Men's support for Obama dropped 4 points, flipping them to Romney's side, by a 52-45 margin. Women were 10 percentage points more likely to vote for Obama than men were, according to the survey of voters at the polls conducted for The Associated Press and television networks.

Gallup polling has tracked the gender gap since 1952. Gallup says this year's gender divide was 20 percentage points, the largest ever using its method of calculation.

The gender gap isn't just a white thing. It exists even among minorities that vote overwhelmingly Democratic. Obama got 96 percent of black women's votes, but 87 percent of black men's, compared with 76 percent of Hispanic women and 65 percent of Hispanic men, according to the exit poll.

"We group together this white male vote and sort of put that in the Republican ledger and we don't talk enough about all the various subgroups that fit within men and the multiple issues and currents that determine how they're going to vote," said sociologist Donald Levy, director of the Siena College's research institute.

"The Democrats aren't succeeding with some of these folks," Levy said. The Democratic Party needs to figure out why, he said, the same way "the Republicans are doing some soul-searching about how they can appeal to women."
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Graham will "violate" the Norquist pledge

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"entitlement reform"??  Excuse me, but if he's talking about SocSec, that is NOT an entitlement!  We pay into that program and deserve it!
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Lindsey Graham: 'I Will Violate The Pledge' To Not Increase Taxes
By Arthur Delaney, November 25, 2012 

[snipped]

"When you're $16 trillion in debt, the only pledge we should be making to each other is to avoid becoming Greece, and Republicans -- Republicans should put revenue on the table," Graham said on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos." "We're this far in debt. We don't generate enough revenue. Capping deductions will help generate revenue. Raising tax rates will hurt job creation.

"So I agree with Grover, we shouldn't raise rates. But, I think Grover is wrong when it comes to [saying] we can't cap deductions and buy down debt," Graham continued. "I want to buy down debt and cut rates to create jobs, but I will violate the pledge, long story short, for the good of the country, only if Democrats will do entitlement reform."

[snipped]
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Santa Obama

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Saturday, November 24, 2012

Backing the country: a good LTE printed in Virginia newspaper

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America is a melting pot, and voted that way
By Bud Jones, November 25, 2012

Since Election Day, talking heads on the radio and certain television stations have implied that African-Americans and Hispanics re-elected President Obama to a second term.

Comments such as these are meant to fuel hatred and antagonize a select group, and to foster resentment and hatred toward a designated group of people.

Unfortunately for them, the ballots that tipped the scales for Obama were multicultural. Voters from different races, gender, age, economic status, and education levels considered the state of the country. They did not want their country back, they wanted to back the country.

The voters in Southern states chose not the incumbent, but voted with their hearts and not in their own best interests.

Voting for Mitt doesn't make one a racist. There were people who truly believed what he had to offer. It's the 10 percent filled with hate who will never be convinced that America is indeed a true melting pot.

Continue feeding the beast and I promise you, the beast will ultimately digest you. In 2016 we can feel comfortable about the candidates we will vote for, regardless of political party.

Being the first-ever anything, as it relates to race or gender in this era, is passe.

To the voters for a better America, you should be commended!

Bud Jones
Spotsylvania, Virginia
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Hmmmm, shouldn't this cartoon have included some gamers??

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Washington electorate becoming less white

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Latino, Asian votes rising in importance in Wash. state
By Manuel Valdes, November 24, 2012

SEATTLE (AP) - If pollster Matt Barreto is right, then Latino voters in Washington were one of the key factors in Gov.-elect Jay Inslee's win over Republican candidate Rob McKenna.

Barreto estimates that about 140,000 Latinos voted in these past elections. While there were no wide ranging exit polls conducted here, by pooling polls Barreto roughly projects that Latinos in Washington broke similarly - about 3 to 1 - for the Democrat Inslee as they did for President Barack Obama.

That would be about 105,000 votes. Inslee beat McKenna by more than 90,000 votes at last count.

Asian-American voters, which at 7 percent of the voting pool have a bigger share than Latinos, are also thought to have broken for Inslee similarly in this state.

"Without these two growing minority electorates, Inslee would not have been able to win," said Barreto, a University of Washington professor and director of polling outfit Latino Decisions.

But with historically lower turnout numbers, Barreto thinks the full potential of Latinos has not been fully tapped. He estimates that there are another 140,000 eligible Latino voters in Washington state that aren't registered.

"People in Washington state have not come terms with the potential and growth of Latino electorate," Barreto said. The parties "still don't feel Latinos are voters."

The 2012 elections brought renewed attention to minority voting blocs after exit polls showed that Obama claimed the lion's share of votes from Latinos and Asians, giving him a key edge over Republican candidate Mitt Romney, who won a majority but shrinking white vote.

Nationally, Obama nabbed more than 70 percent of the votes among Latinos and Asians. Just a few years ago, those two voting blocs were up for grabs. President George W. Bush took 40 percent of the Latino votes, compared to Romney's 23 percent.

The sound defeat has forced many Republican thinkers to call for changes to the way the party has spoken about issues, specifically immigration, that those groups care about.

Locally, however, it's harder to ascertain how minority voters affected statewide elections.

But Barreto thinks similar forces played out in this state and this election serves as a reminder of what's shaping Washington politics: Minorities could redraw the state's political landscape.

If minority groups continue voting in masse with Democrats, it could push Washington to become a solid blue state from the Legislature up. Current Republican strongholds like central Washington, for example, could turn to swing districts and swing districts in Western Washington could become bluer.

In total population, Latinos now make up 11 percent of Washington's 6.7 million residents and are the fastest growing minority group, while Asians clock in at 7 percent, according to state figures.

"Just like the rest of the country, there's no doubt that the electorate is becoming less white," said Republican consultant Chris Vance.

Vance didn't mince words about what the state GOP needs to do to attract minority voters here.

"Becoming sane about immigration," he said. "You can't talk to Latino voters with the insane notion that you're going to round up 11 million people and deport them."

Republicans had fielded one of their strongest gubernatorial candidates in McKenna for a generation. He had branded himself as a moderate and had been well liked - and reelected twice - as attorney general.

McKenna made it a point to campaign hard among minority groups, dancing "Gangnam Style" at a Washington State Korean Association forum and speaking a full introduction in Spanish at a Yakima debate.

But he also focused on issues affecting those groups. He spoke of his work to crack down on fraud among the so-called "notarios" who pose as immigration agents in the Latino community. He ran radio ads in Spanish and recruited Latino and Asian field organizers.

But Barreto and Vance both said McKenna couldn't shake the national Republican image that the party is anti-immigrants.

For the Latino vote, Barreto also thinks McKenna's stance on driver's licenses and his participation in the lawsuit to overturn the Affordable Care Act also may have cost him votes, he said.

"Latinos are more likely to be working class to support health care reform," Barreto said.

Randy Pepple, McKenna's campaign manager, thinks it's too early to assess which way people voted. He's waiting to see precinct data to see details and see where the campaign had missteps and questioned whether a turnout of more than 80 percent among registered Latino voters is a safe assumption.

Pepple said there's not one group of voters that McKenna's campaign didn't work toward getting.

"You've got to compete in all groups," he said. "I think it's a mistake to write off any segment of the population."

Democrats aren't doing too well among Latinos, either, Barreto surmised. Inslee may have been helped more by Obama's coattails than his direct campaigning.

He points to the 15th legislative district - the state's first Latino majority district. The democratic candidate this year, a college student, was soundly defeated.

"If the Democrats would put some serious effort on voter registration, they could easily get a Democratic victory in that seat," he said.
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Friday, November 23, 2012

Straight talk to the Republicans from Michael Reagan

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Reaching Out
By Michael Reagan, November 23, 2012

Making Sense, by Michael Reagan

Forget Republican comebacks in 2014 or 2016.

Unless it gets its head and its heart straight, the party might never win the popular vote or the White House again.

The GOP today is not my father’s party.

And until the hierarchy of the GOP stops talking about how great Ronald Reagan was and starts embracing what he really stood for, the party of conservatism is destined for the ash heap of history.

Ronald Reagan was somebody who believed in inclusion, not exclusion. He found a way to reach out to all voting groups, which is why he was the last Republican presidential candidate to win the Hispanic vote.

The GOP in 2012 reminds me of the state of disarray it was in during the mid-1960s.

It was so bad for Republicans in California then that they held a special convention and invited the state’s Democratic Speaker of the Assembly, Jesse Unruh, to come and tell them what was wrong with them.

Unruh came and was blunt: The GOP had no vision and no message for voters, because they didn’t know who they were or what they stood for.

Those pre-Ronald Reagan Republicans got the message. They left that convention, turned their fortunes around, and ended up with Ronald Reagan in the governor’s chair.

Today’s national GOP needs the same kind of turnaround, and the process starts with fixing the party’s inclusion problem with Hispanic, black and Asian voters.

Last week I spoke to a room of 400 conservatives. The only blacks in the room were serving us breakfast. There were only a couple Hispanics — in Florida.

That’s not inclusive. Republicans have got to find a way to reach out to these communities.

I told those conservatives in Florida a story about a young man who as a child came to the United States illegally with his parents in the early 1980s.

He became an American citizen in 1986 when my father signed into law the Simpson-Mazzoli Act, which granted amnesty to 3 million illegal residents and made them citizens.

When he turned 18, to thank the United Stares for allowing him to become a citizen, he joined the Navy to serve his new country.

When the USS Ronald Reagan was home porting in San Diego, he volunteered to serve on the ship named after the president who allowed him to become a citizen. Now he mentors 275 sailors on that aircraft carrier and is working on his master’s degree.

There are a thousand stories like that that nobody wants to tell when Republicans talk about immigration.

The GOP has got to find a message of inclusion instead of “Get the hell out of my country.” That’s what Hispanics and other immigrants hear from the Republican Party — “Get out.”

We have to attract immigrants to the GOP, not repel them. We have to do it with more than words every two or four years. And we can’t do what Mitt Romney did.

He came to California, held a fundraiser, grabbed his money and left. He did nothing to get out the vote or reach out to the Hispanic community.

Romney wasn’t going to carry California. But we lost three good incumbents in close congressional races in the state on Nov. 6 — Mary Bono Mack, Dan Lundgren and Brian Bilbray.

Why did we lose those seats? Because only 29 percent of registered voters in California are Republican. And why is that? Because the GOP lacks a vision. Because it lacks a message.

If the GOP is to survive and get this country back on track, it has to regain its Reaganesque vision and make its message more caring and welcoming to immigrants.

The Republican Party has to reach out to the Hispanic, black, Asian and other communities and become involved with them — and do it every day from now on.

Until that happens, the GOP is going to have lots more Thanksgivings with less and less to give thanks for.
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Thursday, November 22, 2012

Bye bye, Mitt. Hello ?????

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GOP crafts new image as it hustles Mitt Romney out the door
By Brad Knickerbocker, November 18, 2012

All the Republican Party needs to recover from its defeat in the presidential election is a new message, a new image, and some fresh faces. That’s it. Piece of cake.

But first, it must usher out the remembrance of party leaders past. That would be Mitt Romney – who, in fact, has been making it easier for the GOP to do just that.

Echoing his infamous “47 percent” off-the-record comment to big donors during the campaign, he upped that to 51 percent in his post-election remarks (again, to donors) about how Barack Obama had won by purchasing his vote majority with “gifts” to liberal interest groups.

Grapes never seemed so sour, and Republicans were quick to rebuke such blame-gamesmanship.

“I absolutely reject what he said,” Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (the new chairman of the Republican Governors Association) said on Fox News Sunday. "We as a Republican Party have to campaign for every single vote. If we want people to like us we have to like them first. And you don't start to like people by saying their votes were bought.”

"We also don't need to be saying stupid things," Gov. Jindal said, referring to controversial comments on abortion by failed GOP Senate candidates Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock (neither of whom did Romney roundly reject). "Look, we had candidates in Indiana and Missouri that said offensive things that not only hurt themselves and lost us two Senate seats but also hurt the Republican Party across the board."

Carlos Gutierrez, who advised the Romney campaign on Hispanic issues and voters, says he was “shocked” by Romney’s most recent comments.

“Frankly, I don’t think that’s why Republicans lost the election," he said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." “I think we lost the election because the far right of this party has taken the party to a place that it doesn’t belong.”

The Associated Press interviewed a bunch of Republican notables, and their message was essentially the same.

Veteran Republican strategist Ron Kaufman, who advised Romney's campaign: "The bottom line is we were perceived to be intolerant on some issues. And tone-deaf on others."

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who ran against Romney in the GOP primaries and caucuses: “We were clearly wrong on a whole range of fronts…. There are whole sections of the American public that we didn't even engage with.”

Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who chaired the party during the 1990s: "We've got to have a very brutally honest review from stem to stern of what we did and what we didn't do, and what worked and what failed.”

Kevin McLaughlin, a Republican operative who worked on several Senate races: “We need candidates who are capable of articulating their policy positions without alienating massive voting blocs.”

That would be people like Jindal, Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (who helped himself when he left the Romney campaign to partner with Obama in dealing with superstorm Sandy), Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.

New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, and newly-elected US Senator Ted Cruz of Texas would help with Hispanic voters – the fastest growing segment of the US population and a portion of the voting public Romney lost badly.

At the head of that list – and likely among younger Republican presidential hopefuls generally – is Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, He, too, has pushed back against Romney’s “gifts” remark, although more gently and in a way meant to avoid alienating any in the party.

And guess where Rubio turned up last week? Iowa, where the party’s first presidential caucus is held.

“The appearance of the Republican Party’s most prominent Latino face in Iowa – a state President Barack Obama won by six points on Election Day – was no casual drop-by after the drubbing Mitt Romney took among Hispanics nationally,” reports Politico’s Lois Romano, tailing Sen. Rubio on his Iowa trip. “Republicans are looking to Rubio to help guide the party out of the past in which its base is aging, white men and into the future when it can appeal to young, female and more diverse voters, most crucially Latinos. And the first-term Florida senator is happy to help light the way.”
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Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Tax avoidance is the cause of inequality in the U.S.

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Ten Numbers the Rich Would Like Fudged
By Paul Buchheit, November 20, 2012

The numbers reveal the deadening effects of inequality in our country, and confirm that tax avoidance, rather than a lack of middle-class initiative, is the cause.

1. Only THREE PERCENT of the very rich are entrepreneurs.

According to both Marketwatch and economist Edward Wolff, over 90 percent of the assets owned by millionaires are held in a combination of low-risk investments (bonds and cash), personal business accounts, the stock market, and real estate. Only 3.6 percent of taxpayers in the top .1% were classified as entrepreneurs based on 2004 tax returns. A 2009 Kauffman Foundation study found that the great majority of entrepreneurs come from middle-class backgrounds, with less than 1 percent of all entrepreneurs coming from very rich or very poor backgrounds.

2. Only FOUR OUT OF 150 countries have more wealth inequality than us.

In a world listing compiled by a reputable research team (which nevertheless prompted double-checking), the U.S. has greater wealth inequality than every measured country in the world except for Namibia, Zimbabwe, Denmark, and Switzerland.

3. An amount equal to ONE-HALF the GDP is held untaxed overseas by rich Americans.

The Tax Justice Network estimated that between $21 and $32 trillion is hidden offshore, untaxed. With Americans making up 40% of the world’s Ultra High Net Worth Individuals, that’s $8 to $12 trillion in U.S. money stashed in far-off hiding places.

Based on a historical stock market return of 6%, up to $750 billion of income is lost to the U.S. every year, resulting in a tax loss of about $260 billion.

4. Corporations stopped paying HALF OF THEIR TAXES after the recession.

After paying an average of 22.5% from 1987 to 2008, corporations have paid an annual rate of 10% since. This represents a sudden $250 billion annual loss in taxes.

U.S. corporations have shown a pattern of tax reluctance for more than 50 years, despite building their businesses with American research and infrastructure. They’ve passed the responsibility on to their workers. For every dollar of workers’ payroll tax paid in the 1950s, corporations paid three dollars. Now it’s 22 cents.

5. Just TEN Americans made a total of FIFTY BILLION DOLLARS in one year.

That’s enough to pay the salaries of over a million nurses or teachers or emergency responders.

That’s enough, according to 2008 estimates by the Food and Agriculture Organization and the UN’s World Food Program, to feed the 870 million people in the world who are lacking sufficient food.

For the free-market advocates who say “they’ve earned it”: Point #1 above makes it clear how the wealthy make their money.

6. Tax deductions for the rich could pay off 100 PERCENT of the deficit.

Another stat that required a double-check. Based on research by the Tax Policy Center, tax deferrals and deductions and other forms of tax expenditures (tax subsidies from special deductions, exemptions, exclusions, credits, capital gains, and loopholes), which largely benefit the rich, are worth about 7.4% of the GDP, or about $1.1 trillion.

Other sources have estimated that about two-thirds of the annual $850 billion in tax expenditures goes to the top quintile of taxpayers.

7. The average single black or Hispanic woman has about $100 IN NET WORTH.

The Insight Center for Community Economic Development reported that median wealth for black and Hispanic women is a little over $100. That’s much less than one percent of the median wealth for single white women ($41,500).

Other studies confirm the racially-charged economic inequality in our country. For every dollar of NON-HOME wealth owned by white families, people of color have only one cent.

8. Elderly and disabled food stamp recipients get $4.30 A DAY FOR FOOD.

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) has dropped significantly over the past 15 years, serving only about a quarter of the families in poverty, and paying less than $400 per month for a family of three for housing and other necessities. Ninety percent of the available benefits go to the elderly, the disabled, or working households.

Food stamp recipients get $4.30 a day.

9. Young adults have lost TWO-THIRDS OF THEIR NET WORTH since 1984.

21- to 35-year-olds: Your median net worth has dropped 68% since 1984. It’s now less than $4,000.

That $4,000 has to pay for student loans that average $27,200. Or, if you’re still in school, for $12,700 in credit card debt.

With an unemployment rate for 16- to 24-year-olds of almost 50%, two out of every five recent college graduates are living with their parents. But your favorite company may be hiring. Apple, which makes a profit of $420,000 per employee, can pay you about $12 per hour.

10. The American public paid about FOUR TRILLION DOLLARS to bail out the banks.

That’s about the same amount of money made by America’s richest 10% in one year. But we all paid for the bailout. And because of it, we lost the opportunity for jobs, mortgage relief, and educational funding.

Bonus for the super-rich: A QUADRILLION DOLLARS in securities trading nets ZERO sales tax revenue for the U.S.

The world derivatives market is estimated to be worth over a quadrillion dollars (a thousand trillion). At least $200 trillion of that is in the United States. In 2011 the Chicago Mercantile Exchange reported a trading volume of over $1 quadrillion on 3.4 billion annual contracts.

A quadrillion dollars. A sales tax of ONE-TENTH OF A PENNY on a quadrillion dollars could pay off the deficit. But the total sales tax was ZERO.

It’s not surprising that the very rich would like to fudge the numbers, as they have the nation.
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Tuesday, November 20, 2012

'Tis the season.... BAH HUMBUG!!!

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Sunday, November 18, 2012

What safety net? And for who?

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Five Misconceptions about our Tattered Safety Net
By Paul Buchheit, November 13, 2012

Mitt Romney said he wasn’t concerned about the very poor, because they have a safety net. This is typical of the widespread ignorance about inequality in our country. Struggling Americans want jobs, not handouts, and for the most part they've paid for their “safety net.” The real problem is at the other end of the wealth gap.

How many people know that out of 150 countries, we have the 4th-highest wealth disparity? Only Zimbabwe, Namibia, and Switzerland are worse.

It’s not just economic inequality that’s plaguing our country. It’s lack of opportunity. It’s a dismissal of poor people as lazy, or as threats to society. More than any other issue over the next four years, we need to address the growing divide in our nation, to tone down our winner-take-all philosophy, to provide job opportunities for people who want to contribute to society.

Here are some of the common misconceptions:

1. Americans believe that the poorest 40 percent own about 10% of the wealth.

Most people greatly underestimate the level of inequality in our country, guessing that the poorest 40 percent own about 10% of the wealth, when in reality they own much less than 1% of the wealth. Out of every dollar, they own a third of a penny.

Factor in race, and it gets worse. Much of minority wealth exists in home values. But housing crashed, while the financial wealth owned almost entirely (93% of it) by the richest quintile of Americans has rebounded to lofty pre-recession levels.

As a result, for every dollar of NON-HOME wealth owned by white families, people of color have only one cent. Median wealth for a single white woman is over $40,000. For black and Hispanic women it is a little over $100.

2. Entitlements are the problem

No, they’re not. The evidence is overwhelming. Social Security is a popular and well-run program. As summarized by Bernie Sanders, “Social Security, which is funded by the payroll tax, has not contributed one nickel to the deficit and, according to its trustees, can pay 100 percent of all benefits owed to every eligible American for the next 21 years.” Dean Baker calls it “perhaps the greatest success story of any program in US history.”

Medicare, which is largely without the profit motive and the competing sources of billing, is efficiently run, for all eligible Americans. According to the Council for Affordable Health Insurance, medical administrative costs as a percentage of claims are about three times higher for private insurance than for Medicare. And it’s just as popular as Social Security.

3. Welfare benefits are a drag on the economy

Critics bemoan the amounts of aid being lavished on lower-income Americans, making dubious claims about thousands of dollars going to every poor family.

But despite an ever-growing need for jobs and basic living necessities, federal spending on poverty programs is a small part of the budget, and it’s been that way for almost 50 years, increasing from 0.8 percent of GDP in 1962 to 1.2 percent of GDP in 2007.

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) has dropped significantly over the past 15 years, leaving benefit levels far below the poverty line for most families. Ninety percent of the available benefits go to the elderly, the disabled, or working households.

For each family, current federal budgets pay about $400 per month for food, housing, and traditional ‘welfare’ programs. Food stamp recipients get $4.30 a day.

4. The American Dream is still alive — if you just work hard

The Horatio Alger tale has been a popular one for conservatives, but the OECD, the Economic Policy Institute, and the National Journal all came to the same conclusion: the future earnings of a child in the U.S. is closely correlated to the earnings of his or her parents. This lack of mobility is more prevalent in the U.S. than in almost all other OECD countries.

Only 4 percent of those raised in the bottom quintile make it to the top quintile as adults. Only about 20 percent even make it to the top half.

A big part of the problem is the severe degree of poverty for our nation’s children. According to UNICEF, among industrialized countries only Romania has a higher child poverty rate than the United States. Just in the last ten years the number of impoverished American children increased by 30 percent.

Not unexpectedly, it’s much worse for minorities. While 12 percent of white children live in poverty, 35 percent of Hispanic children and 39% of black children start their lives in conditions that make simple survival more important than the American Dream. 80 percent of black children who started in or near the top half of U.S. income levels experienced downward mobility later in life.

5. Prison puts away the bad guys

Despite a falling violent crime rate in the U.S., there are now, as noted by Adam Gopnik, “more people under ‘correctional supervision’ in America — more than six million — than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height.”

Incredibly, almost half of the inmates in federal prisons were jailed for drug offenses. Between 1980 and 2003, the number of drug offenders in prison or jail increased by 1100% from 41,100 in 1980 to 493,800 in 2003.

Outrageously, African Americans constituted 53.5 percent of all persons who entered prison because of a drug conviction. In the nation’s largest cities, drug arrests for African Americans rose at three times the rate for whites from 1980 to 2003.

In Washington, D.C., it is estimated that three out of four young black men will serve time in prison. In New York, with 50,000 marijuana arrests per year, 90% are black or Latino. In Seattle, the 8% black population accounts for 60 percent of the arrests. Over the last ten years Colorado police have arrested Latinos at 1.5 times the rate of whites, and blacks at over 3 times the rate of whites. Newly passed marijuana laws reflect the beginnings of a backlash.

Perversely, this is all happening as studies by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration find that both black and Hispanic adolescents use drugs LESS than the general population, and as a study by the National Institute of Health shows that the prevalence of marijuana use in colleges and universities was highest for white students.

The Greatest Misconception: The rich are being “soaked”

Redistribution has not spread the wealth, it has concentrated the wealth. Conservative estimates say the richest 1% have doubled their share of America’s income in 30 years. It’s worse. From 1980 to 2006, the richest 1% actually TRIPLED their share of after-tax income.

The real problem is tax avoidance: lost revenue from tax expenditures (deferrals and deductions), corporate tax avoidance, and tax haven losses could pay off the entire deficit. But the very rich refuse to pay. They have their own safety net in the House of Representatives.
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The National Popular Vote plan: moving toward direct democracy?

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The Tarnish of the Electoral College
Editorial. Published: November 15, 2012; corrected November 16, 2012

From the late-1960s through the ’80s, Republicans were convinced that they had a permanent lock on the Electoral College. The Sun Belt was rising, traditionally Democratic states were losing population, and Republicans won five of six presidential elections beginning in 1968. Democrats complained that this archaic system was a terrible and undemocratic way to choose the country’s executive. They were right, but they were ignored.

Now the demographic pendulum is swinging toward the Democrats. Young voters, Hispanics and a more active African-American electorate added states like Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado and Virginia to President Obama’s winning coalition in the past two elections, and suddenly Republicans are the ones complaining about a broken system.


They’re right, too, just as the Democrats were a generation ago. The Electoral College remains a deeply defective political mechanism no matter whom it benefits, and it needs to be abolished.


We say that in full knowledge that the college may be tilting toward the kinds of candidates we tend to support and provided a far more decisive margin for Mr. Obama earlier this month than his showing in the popular vote. The idea that a voting method might convey benefits to one side or another, in fact, is one of the strongest arguments against it.


There should be no structural bias in the presidential election system, even if population swings might oscillate over a long period of decades. If Democrats win a string of elections, it should be because their policies and their candidates appeal to a majority of the country’s voters, not because supporters are clustered in enough states to get to 270 electoral votes. Republicans should broaden their base beyond a shrinking proportion of white voters not simply to win back Colorado, but because a more centrist outlook would be good for the country.


The problems with the Electoral College — born in appeasement to slave states — have been on display for two centuries; this page called it a “cumbrous and useless piece of old governmental machinery” in 1936, when Alf Landon won 36 percent of the popular vote against Franklin Roosevelt but received only 8 of the 531 electoral votes.


But 76 years later, the system continues to calcify American politics. As Adam Liptak of The Times recently wrote, this year’s candidates campaigned in only 10 states after the conventions, ignoring the Democratic states on the West Coast and Northeast and the Republican ones in the South and the Plains. The number of battleground states is shrinking, and turnout in the other states is lower. The undemocratic prospect of a president who loses the popular vote is always present (it’s happened three times), as is the potential horror show of a tie vote that is decided in Congress.


The last serious consideration of a constitutional amendment to abolish the college, in 1970, was filibustered by senators from small states who feared losing their disproportionate clout. The same thing would probably happen today, even though Republicans (who tend to dominate those states) are increasingly skeptical of the college.


The best method of moving toward direct democracy remains the National Popular Vote plan, under which states agree to grant their electoral votes to the ticket that gets the most popular votes around the country. Legislators in eight states and the District of Columbia (representing 132 electoral votes) have agreed to do so; the plan would go into effect when states totaling 270 electoral votes sign up.


Until then, new generations of voters will continue to find themselves appalled by the system left to them by their populist-fearing ancestors. An 18-year-old voter in California and one in Oklahoma will have much in common when they realize they are each being ignored, and when they realize there is something their lawmakers can do about it.

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We have the Congress we deserve

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In U.S., geography is politics
By Timothy Heleniak, November 18, 2012

People who voted for Mitt Romney in the presidential election are amazed that he lost because they don't personally know many people who didn't vote for him.

Likewise for President Obama's supporters. Because they have few close acquaintances who voted for the other party, they are puzzled that the margin of victory wasn't higher.

As in many recent presidential elections, this year's was close in the popular vote. The reason for that closeness is that we have segregated ourselves geographically into such like-minded clusters.

The clearest reflection of that segregation is the Electoral College, which shows that there are a number of reliably red or reliably blue states and a small number of swing states.

But things are more obvious at the finer geographic scale of 3,000 U.S. counties, which are even more reliably red or reliably blue; often more than three-quarters of the electorate in many counties cast ballots for one party. Reliably Republican are rural, small-population counties in the Great Plains, the South, Utah and neighboring states and the South. Reliably Democratic are Washington, D.C., Indian reservations, black-majority counties in the South, major universities, high-amenity counties on the West Coast, large metropolitan counties and Vermont.

At an even finer geographic level of neighborhoods, political party preference is even more skewed toward one party or another. A major explanation for this is the high rate of mobility of the American population — 1 in 8 of us move each year — and how we end up residing near other like-minded persons.

Although there are many issues that cause people to vote for candidates — the proper role of government in people's lives, the place of the United States in the world, abortion and gay marriage — people don't usually select a place to live based on the political affiliation of neighbors, but rather on lifestyle and other characteristics and amenities that then translate into political preferences. But knowing where a person stands on one issue is a fairly reliable predictor of that person's political party affiliation and stand on other major issues.

A number of recent studies show that neighborhoods or clusters across the country explain how we have become so polarized. The most prominent describes "The Big Sort," or segregation by lifestyle. It showed that The Big Sort was also an arrangement by political party affiliation, which has become extreme since the 1970s. We also segregate in the clubs we belong to, in the TV and radio stations we listen to and in the periodicals we read.

We have become increasingly less exposed to viewpoints that differ from our own. We rarely know or associate with people who think differently from the way we do.

Think of the last time you were at a party that was divided roughly equally between liberals and conservatives. Typically, any gathering of friends or acquaintances will result in 90 percent or more consisting of like-minded persons with similar views on a range of social and political issues. For the one or two oddballs who hold views that are opposite yours, you will not only disagree and not understand them, you will likely question their mental stability.

This same segregation into opposite ends of the political spectrum is taking place in Congress as well, certainly in the House of Representatives, where redistricting creates safe and extreme districts. These are the people we voted for, so we have the Congress we deserve.

The high levels of racial segregation in the United States seemed to have peaked and are subsiding, but political segregation is increasing. One possible way to shift the political debate and expose the country to different solutions would be to eliminate the Electoral College. This is unlikely to happen because of the high hurdle of needing a constitutional amendment to do so and vested interests in retaining it. However, eliminating the Electoral College and bringing more voters into the discussion could produce a different set of issues, different candidates and different solutions. It's something worth trying, since the current system doesn't seem to be working.
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