Looking through the general feel of news outlets this past week, I think it is important to make a distinction. There is a group of people that are firmly saying that Romney lost. Let me be clearer: the story is more about how Romney lost than it is about how Obama won. When you're watching the knot unravel, it's a very important distinction.
"The Gimme and the Give Up"
Way back in September, Laura Ingraham said that this election was a gimme. She said that if Romney couldn't win this election, against this sitting president, than the whole of the GOP should be shut down. She wasn't the only one on this bandwagon. There were a few Republicans who said that this was the end for the GOP. Remember Rush Limbaugh saying "[I]f the Republican Party can't win in this environment, it has to get out of politics." Fast forward a bit and let's see how that message made it to November. Well, they haven't closed up shop, but the new phrase you will see is "Republican Soul Searching." There's a lot of it, apparently. But, it's probably not going to be worth it. Either way, it's odd to see Fox say that Romney's loss caused Obama's win.
"The Demographics are Changing and People Want Stuff"
Remember this interview? This is also back from September. This video was, at first, originally about Sarah Palin agreeing with Ingraham. By the middle of the video, Bill O'Reilly is talking about the changing demographic of the nation and, a little too close on the heels of that idea, about how the (who, exact?) all want stuff. This is still his message. He's still talking about entitlements being part of why the election happened the way it did. Oh, and demographics. Everyone is talking about demographics and the GOP gap with appealing to the parts of the country that are not white males. Hopefully, they actually do figure out how to close the gap.
As an aside, I re-watched the video interview with Palin for the first time since it originally was posted on September 11th. This was a full week before the now-famous 47% video of Romney was made public. You might notice how closely O'Reilly's language tracks to the comments Romney made in the video. "Half the population wants something." Maybe Romney took the hit for repeating something he heard someone else say first.
Obama may have had that same problem with the "You didn't build that," since that concept was first made famous by Elizabeth Warren.
"It's about Math'
When former President Clinton opined about arithmetic at the DNC, I don't think he meant it in the way that math has come to be discussed at the end stages and recap of the 2012 election. Clinton was trying to say that Romney's budget plans did not add up. There were simply not enough loopholes to close to make the spread for what Romney proposed could be done. It was great fun, and probably one of my favorite moments from the DNC for "punch and zing" factor. It wasn't Clinton, Romney or even Obama that would have the lasting word on math in this election, however. It was Nate Silver.
I like this quote from, of all sources, Psychology Today. "2008 was the year of Obama, and 2010 was the year of the Tea Party. 2012 was the year of Nate Silver."
It was the year of the math geek, according to Forbes, too.
What started out as the kind of election cycle where we paid attention to pundits, became an election of polls. Everyone had one. Most said that the actually voting day results would be Romney. Nate Silver stood out among the pollsters as saying an Obama victory was more likely. More likely. That's all. Not "a shoe-in, everybody go home." For this, he has been pretty widely lambasted, but is also enjoying a bit more celebrity than a statistician would normally garner. If you'd like a giggle, check out @DrunkNateSilver on Twitter. Although, #drunkNateSilver is also just as funny. Some warning for language.
You just never know how something is going to hold up, or who you will run into down the line. There were some strange people in my StopNShop last night.
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