Obama victory thread

With nearly all precincts reporting, Obama is winning the state with 0.50 percent lead. The threshold to trigger an automatic recount? 0.50 percent. This result may change and break further in Obama's favor because, as The Miami Herald reports, some of the outstanding votes are in Miami-Dade county, which Obama won by a 25 point margin. Full results from the county, the Herald explains, may not be known until later today.

By the way, Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson received almost 43,000 votes in the state. The difference between Obama and Romney was 46,000.

What about the senate? Pretty good, huh? All those extreme candidates lost.

What about the senate? Pretty good, huh? All those extreme candidates lost. The gender gap held on despite all the conservative talk about it tightening.

Congratulations to Obama and the Democratic party for their win last night.
They ran a good campaign.

Now, so what?
What has changed?
The repubs still firmly control the house, the dems still control the Senate.
All that was accomplished was the chairs got rearranged.
I don't see how its possible to expect to see change in government if nothing changed in govt.

I think a lot changed.

I think the Republicans thought obstructionism was the way to go and that they'd be rewarded for it.

They weren't. They were punished.

That means that they may be willing to actually work with Obama. I don't mean caving, I mean negotiating, making some concessions in return for concessions on his part. Getting stuff done.

“To the extent [Obama] wants to move to the political center, which is where the work gets done in a divided government, we’ll be there to meet him half way. That begins by proposing a way for both parties to work together in avoiding the ‘fiscal cliff’ without harming a weak and fragile economy, and when that is behind us work with us to reform the tax code and our broken entitlement system.”

sozobe wrote:

I think a lot changed.

I think the Republicans thought obstructionism was the way to go and that they'd be rewarded for it.

They weren't. They were punished.

That means that they may be willing to actually work with Obama. I don't mean caving, I mean negotiating, making some concessions in return for concessions on his part. Getting stuff done.

The speaker of the house made comments last night which indicate that your hopes will go unfullfilled.

The House speaker, John A. Boehner of Ohio, striking a conciliatory tone a day after the Republican Party’s electoral drubbing, said on Wednesday that he was ready to accept a budget deal that raises federal revenue as long as it is linked to an overhaul of entitlements and a reform of the tax code that closes loopholes, curtails or eliminates deductions and lowers income tax rates.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, called for Congress to work quickly to resolve the looming fiscal issues in the lame duck session.
Mr. Boehner’s gesture was the most explicit offer he has made to avert the “fiscal cliff” in January, when billions of dollars in tax increases and automatic spending cuts go into force. And it came hours after Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, offered his own olive branch, saying “it’s better to dance than to fight.”

“Mr. President, this is your moment,” Mr. Boehner told reporters in the Capitol. “We’re ready to lead, not as Democrats or Republicans, but as Americans.”

sozobe wrote:

I think a lot changed.

I think the Republicans thought obstructionism was the way to go and that they'd be rewarded for it.

They weren't. They were punished.

That means that they may be willing to actually work with Obama. I don't mean caving, I mean negotiating, making some concessions in return for concessions on his part. Getting stuff done.

The speaker of the house made comments last night which indicate that your hopes will go unfullfilled.

Well, that worked…
By Dennis G. November 7th, 2012

Ohio GOTV

After spending five days doing GOTV in Ohio, I’m back in Baltimore.

I knocked on a lot of doors—and some of them almost every day I was there. The voters I talked to were mostly African-Americans. Almost everybody I talked to was engaged in the election. They were serious about supporting President Obama. They had his back, but the Teaparty Attorney General in Ohio was doing everything he could to make voting hard and confusing. Folks needed a bit of help to sort out early voting hours and rules as well as where to vote and what documentation might be required. Our GOTV effort gave them the tools to cut through the bullshit and vote. It was sweet to see the targets of voter suppression efforts fight back and vote.

The GOTV effort boiled down to breaking a voting precinct into 2-4 walk lists. These turfs came with printouts of likely Obama supporters and their addresses. The task was to talk to each of them and get them to go out and vote.

If folks weren’t home we left lit (that would change each day). If they were home, we would confirm their support of President Obama and then ask for their commitment to vote. Sometimes folks already had, sometimes they promised to Early Vote later that day (or the next) or vote on Election Day. Information would be recorded and reported to campaign after each list was walked. The lists would be updated. Then we would go back and walk the precincts again and again and again—always trying to move more voters to the polls. This was the drill from Friday though 7:30 pm on Election Day.

The face to face contact was great. The repeated visits were effective. What we did in our small turf in Columbus was repeated all over the state and the Country. The ground game of the Obama Campaign was awesome. I did GOTV in 2008 and the effort was good, but the 2012 GOTV effort was a quantum leap beyond it. I was honored to be a small part of it.

The effort worked. I know we got people out to vote. I can think of dozens of people that I talked to who wouldn’t have gone and voted without the nudge—and it was great to go back to a house and have somebody show me their “I voted” sticker. We helped folks get their absentee ballots in and gather the right documents to vote. We told them where their polling locations were and even engaged some neighbors to help other neighbors get to the polls.

The final hours were a panic as we made a fourth or fifth walk of the lists to try and get every last possible supporter to vote. As a lifelong Democrat, I was prepared for disappointment. I went to dinner with a couple of other out-of-state volunteers and as returns flashed on the teevees we began to feel better. By the time we got to the Ohio Democratic Party in downtown Columbus we were feeling good. And when MSNBC called it for President Obama we felt great. More than great—I was elated, relieved, thrilled, grateful, proud and happy.

More **** will come down the pike, but we re-elected President Obama. That is a big ******* deal.

Cheers

ps: I tip my hat to all the folks who worked on his campaign. These folks are hands down amazing—and so is the man they worked for…

Now, so what?
What has changed?