2012 Elections Wrap-Up: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

We’ve made it through another presidential election cycle – cheers!  Indeed, there was much to cheer about, but there were also many problems and downsides to the various election activities across our country. Here then is a rundown of my choice nuggets for the past year, tidbits that reflect the best, and the worst, of the 2012 elections.

The Bad

Voter suppression activities initiated by Republicans were abundant and more bold than ever before – here is a summary –

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/voter_suppression/

Several Republican Governors and Republican legislators (most notably in Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania) created a variety of roadblocks and hoped to deny hundreds of thousands of Americans of this most basic and sacred constitutional right. Many thousands of Americans responded by standing in lines for up to seven hours to vote. These patriotic citizens deserve a standing ovation! We clearly need congressional hearings to investigate these un-American voter suppression activities.

The Ugly

In their election coverage, Fox “news” (or as Jon Stewart calls them, “Bullshit Mountain”) carried on with the pathetic journalistic standards we’ve come to expect from them – here is Stewart’s take on their coverage –

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/08/jon-stewart-fox-news-election-meltdown-video_n_2092224.html

Be sure to scroll down to the bottom of this article to enable your viewing of additional clips of Stewart ripping Fox “news”.

The Bad

Unfortunately, the Fox “news” approach has caught on with at least one other unprincipled “news” organization.  Many residents who live in or around Columbus, Ohio, who watched TV on election night, saw a local “news” team presenting highly biased observations of the presidential race.

ABC affiliate WSYX in Columbus aired a half-hour “election special” twice on Monday night — one installment at 6:30 p.m., instead of the regularly scheduled World News with Diane Sawyer, and again later at 11:30 p.m., during the time slot regularly held by Nightline. Rather than offering a balanced comparison of the two major party candidates, however, the special featured highly partisan criticisms of President Obama, while spending little time examining the policies and actions of Republican nominee Romney – click below  for more –http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/11/sinclair_broadcast_group_ohio_anti-obama_special.php

This deceitful tactic clearly was designed to promote the station’s corporate interests (in their view), not the public interest — time for an FCC investigation.

The Good

Corporate dollars poured into election campaigns (thanks to the Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” ruling) at extremely high levels for Republican candidates, but in the overwhelming majority of cases the Republicans lost.  We learned that elections can’t be bought; grassroots campaigning won a big victory.  This was good news for American democracy.  This was bad news for some rich-guy-donors – here is Rachel Maddow’s take on this issue –

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/#49736596

The Good

Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight blog successfully predicted presidential election outcomes in all the states.  Silver is now the election numbers cruncher extraordinaire.  And for future reference, here’s a ranking of the major polls, based on success at predicting this election season’s outcomes –

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/fordham-study-public-policy-polling-deemed-most-accurate

A Great night for Democratic women candidates

The success of Democratic women candidates was unprecedented – click below to see a nice wrap up by Lawrence O’Donnell –

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45755883/ns/msnbc-the_last_word/#49737048

And for the record, a solid majority of women supported Obama, 55% to 44%, over Romney

A Great night for our United States of America

As the results rolled in and were finalized, Democrats and others who supported Barack Obama felt a range of emotions, from relief to great joy. We felt so very gratified that a majority of Americans shared a similar outlook on the great potential for the Presidency of Barack Obama.  We saw the many positive virtues of Barack Obama — Barack Obama the man, the family man, the politician and the compassionate leader. President Obama’s victory hinged on several factors – he won on character (honesty, integrity and likeability), because his policies connected with the majority of Americans (especially with working class folks, African Americans, Latinos, young adults, and women), and because his team developed and coordinated the best grassroots campaign infrastructure in the history of presidential politics. If Barack Obama’s second term is anything like his first term, he will be remembered in history as one of the greatest American Presidents ever.

Cheers!