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Democrats Government United States Politics

Barack Obama Retains US Presidency 1576

Fox News, NBC, and CNN have called the U.S. election for incumbent Barack Obama. Of the so-called 'battleground states,' Obama carried Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, and New Hampshire, which, along with all of the solidly Democrat-leaning states, was enough to push him beyond the 270 required for victory. You can check this chart to see the full list of states that have currently been called, and by which news networks. The NY Times has an excellent interactive map showing all election results updated in real time, as does CNN. It's currently projected that the Republicans will retain control of the House of Representatives, and the Democrats will retain control of the Senate.
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Barack Obama Retains US Presidency

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  • Excellent (Score:5, Funny)

    by isorox ( 205688 ) on Tuesday November 06, 2012 @11:33PM (#41903337) Homepage Journal

    No more

    • Re:Excellent (Score:5, Insightful)

      by x_IamSpartacus_x ( 1232932 ) on Tuesday November 06, 2012 @11:54PM (#41903569)
      Ok, honestly, I wish people could try to be a little less partisan. Both men were good men and would try to serve this country. Sure they both have selfish motivations for some of the things they do but, seriously, who the hell wouldn't in that position???.
      Let's all agree that, though Obama may do things differently than you personally think he should, he's going to lead America as best he can.
      I'm generally conservative/libertarian in my politics and most of my friends align in that direction. I infrequently use Facebook and when I looked this morning I was disgusted with the ridiculous epithets and flat out doucheiness of a LOT of people who call themselves "Christians" or at least moral people.
      Obama is a good man. I would lead a bit differently than I but he's NOT a "Baby Killer", the "Antichrist", the "Nigger in the White House", or any other hateful and decidedly unchristian thing so many morally ugly people are saying about him.
      He's your president. He's your supreme leader. He's under tremendous pressure and stress to serve America and her interests. Speak of him that way or shut the hell up.
      • Re:Excellent (Score:5, Insightful)

        by caseih ( 160668 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2012 @12:11AM (#41903727)

        Please mod the parent up. I remember back during the Clinton days in a red state the amount of vitriol and extremely vile and vulgar things said about Clinton. Then in the Bush days, particularly in the second term, it happened all over again. Remember the stupid "miserable failure" campaign to manipulate Google's search? If I recall at the time many slashdotters thought it was pretty clever. Some people went so far as to claim Bush would hold onto power somehow (watch the same things will be said of Obama now).

        Now again we see the same crap uttered by those who voted for the other team.

        It's this behavior that's destroying America as much as any party or policy. It's time to stop it. No, just because the majority of Americans voted a different way then I did, it doesn't mean democracy has failed and the country is going to self-destruct. And no, just because the majority of Americans *did* vote the way I think they should have doesn't mean that those who didn't are somehow less important than I am.

      • Re:Excellent (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Phroggy ( 441 ) <slashdot3@@@phroggy...com> on Wednesday November 07, 2012 @01:01AM (#41904073) Homepage

        Perhaps you can point some of your Christian friends to this quote:

        First and foremost, my Christian faith gives me a perspective and security that I don’t think I would have otherwise: That I am loved. That, at the end of the day, God is in control—and my main responsibility is to love God with all of my heart, soul, and mind, and to love my neighbor as myself. Now, I don’t always live up to that standard, but it is a standard I am always pursuing.

        My faith is also a great source of comfort to me. I’ve said before that my faith has grown as president. This office tends to make a person pray more; and as President Lincoln once said, "I have been driven to my knees many times by the overwhelming conviction that I had no place else to go."

        Finally, I try to make sure that my faith informs how I live my life. As a husband, as a father, and as president, my faith helps me to keep my eyes on the prize and focus on what is good and truly important.

        -- President Barack Obama

        The allusions to Matthew 22:37-39 and Philippians 3:14 are what makes me believe his sincerity.

      • Re:Excellent (Score:5, Insightful)

        by fearofcarpet ( 654438 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2012 @01:22AM (#41904209)

        It is easy to look back now and say that they are both good people with the best interests of the country in mind, and that is probably true. But elections and candidates are not mirror images and there are not two equal sides; this election was Dreams From My Father versus No Apology. After John McCain corrected an audience member that called Obama an Arab, the response from the electorate was a net negative; Obama supporters were mad about the comment and McCain supporters were mad that he looked "weak." That was the exact moment that truth-telling became a liability in the eyes of political advisers and name-calling whisper campaigns came back into fashion.

        This year, the Romney campaign decided that intellectual honesty and demonstrable facts are no longer important in presidential politics and almost managed to win the White House with that strategy. All politicians lie at times, to various degrees, often by omission, but the Romney campaign correctly observed that the resulting sound bites are a net positive, e.g., the first debate.

        Neither man is Hitler, but during the post mortem, which will be all about demographic shifts, business cycles, and the "ground game," everyone will pretend not to notice Romney's flaming pants. Nixon would have been embarrassed by the GOP campaign this year (including all the talk about "legitimate" rape and the complete abandonment of science and observation.) And it's our fault because, over the next four years, we will let the Obama administration lie to us and equivocate over everything from regulatory reform to drone strikes while FOX News tries to drum up another faux scandal. People will put their partisan blinders back on and pretend that it's ok when "our guy" lies--and besides, Romney was so much worse.

        I'm happy to see Obama back in office and I'm relieved that there won't be a republican in the White House to acquiesce to this bat-shit crazy House, but I don't buy the argument that Romney would have done a good job as president; he would have tried, but he is a self-obsessed moral relativist that is too comfortable with lying to be the figurehead of (what is still) the most powerful nation on Earth. He further damaged political discourse, further legitimized the fringe, ultra-right-wing of the party, and did nothing to discourage the hate-filled name calling to which you refer. Childish name-calling serves no purpose and denigrating the president just further polarizes the country, but lies are lies and we shouldn't be afraid to call Obama out on them and hold his administration accountable when they will inevitably start oozing from the White House.

        • Re:Excellent (Score:5, Insightful)

          by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2012 @02:33AM (#41904711) Journal

          I think Nixon would be saddened to see what his Southern Strategy has morphed into.

          One thing is clear, the Republicans have to recognize now that they have a serious problem. Yes, they've still got the House, but so weak, fractured and dominated by fringe special interests is the Republican Party that they could not even push over a President mired in economic woes, and whose major policy initiative (Obamacare) is still distrusted by over half of Americans.

          To Republicans I say this. You will hear Tea Party and social conservative types blame Nate Silver and the other pollsters, talking about media conspiracies and so forth. It's time to tell Donald Trump to form his own party, time to tell the Tea Party that they're influence has been purely malign, a tumor on the Republican Party that is forcing poor compromise candidates who are then further shackled by having to try to find some way of convincing Americans they aren't social Neanderthals while still maintaining the support of these social regressives. If you cannot purge the party of these types, or at least put them back under the stone from whence they came, you will be denied the Presidency again in 2016. You have to decide what core conservative values are, and if you cannot align them with the national mood, then you're going to come back disappointed.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06, 2012 @11:34PM (#41903347)

    Don't worry, Republican friends, Mitt will just claim he wasn't actually running for President anyway.

    • Re:But no fear! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by westlake ( 615356 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2012 @01:46AM (#41904407)

      Don't worry, Republican friends, Mitt will just claim he wasn't actually running for President anyway.

      It is often the little things that are most revealing:

      Over in Chicago, the Obama campaign had invited 10,000 to fill the floor of the McCormick Place convention center. But here in Boston, Mitt Romney favored a more genteel soiree for an exclusive crowd.

      Romney's election-night event was in a ballroom at the Boston Exhibition and Convention Center that could accommodate a few hundred. Most men wore jacket and tie; women donned dresses and heels

      Outside the ballroom, waiters in black tie tended bar, and Jumbotrons showed the election results on Fox News. Downstairs, Romney's big donors assembled in private rooms for finer fare; guards admitted only those whose credentials said ''National Finance Committee.''

      But the election results, even filtered through the rose-colored lenses of Fox News, were not promising.

      Michigan fell to Obama, and then so did Pennsylvania and Minnesota. Obama was holding his own in Florida and Virginia, and things were looking grim for Romney in Ohio. The ballroom was as quiet as a library as the audience listened to the Fox personalities on-screen.

      ''Romney would have to draw to an inside straight'' at this point, pronounced Brit Hume, who predicted ''an awful lot of recriminations.''

      Romney had spent nearly two years, and hundreds of millions of dollars, trying to convince Americans that he wasn't an out-of-touch millionaire unconcerned about the little people --- that he was more than a caricature who liked to fire people, who didn't care about the very poor or the 47 percent who pay no income tax, who has friends who own NASCAR teams.

      He very nearly achieved it: Polls showed him neck-and-neck with Obama in the campaignâ(TM)s closing days. But his final day in the race showed why he couldnâ(TM)t persuade enough working-class Americans that he spoke for them.

      On election night in 2000, George W. Bush hosted an outdoor rally for thousands in Austin. In 2008, Barack Obama addressed a mass of humanity in Chicago's Grant Park.

      The very location set the candidate and his well-heeled supporters apart from the masses: The gleaming convention center, built with hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, is on a peninsula in the Boston harbor that was turned into an election-night fortress, with helicopters overhead, metal barricades and authorities searching vehicles. Only a few gawkers crossed the bridge from downtown to stand outside.

      At Romney headquarters, the defeat of the 1 percent [washingtonpost.com]

  • Obama (Score:5, Interesting)

    by crumbz ( 41803 ) <<remove_spam>jus ... o spam>gmail,com> on Tuesday November 06, 2012 @11:37PM (#41903387) Homepage

    God bless America. Or flying Spaghetti monster. Or random evolutionary processes. At least it wasn't that mutant.

    Now, we have to:

    1. Declare a national holiday so all can vote on a day off to eliminate the lines.
    2. Get rid of the electoral college.
    3. Get Congress to override Citizen United.
    4. Take the money out of the electoral system.

    • Re:Obama (Score:5, Insightful)

      by aardvarkjoe ( 156801 ) on Tuesday November 06, 2012 @11:47PM (#41903511)

      1. Declare a national holiday so all can vote on a day off to eliminate the lines.
      2. Get rid of the electoral college.
      3. Get Congress to override Citizen United.
      4. Take the money out of the electoral system.

      Funny, I'd put "educate the voting public" ahead of any of those.

      Of course, it will never happen, since it suits both major parties perfectly well to keep the voters ignorant.

  • by Ungrounded Lightning ( 62228 ) on Tuesday November 06, 2012 @11:39PM (#41903411) Journal

    Romney could probably have gotten the Republican nomination fair-and-square, and if he had done it that way a bunch of people wouldn't have been alienated and abandoned the Republican party. Instead his people cheated blatantly and publicly and drove away, not just a few hundred thousand hardcore Ron Paul supporters, but a bunch of non-Paulite Rs. He lost FAR more than the margin by which he lost some key states in the general election.

    The behavior of his people in the primary/caucus period proved they couldn't be trusted with government power. So they got what they deserved. And I'm proud to have been a part of it.

    Take that, Neocons!

    • by ShakaUVM ( 157947 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2012 @12:18AM (#41903769) Homepage Journal

      > Instead his people cheated blatantly and publicly and drove away, not just a few hundred thousand hardcore Ron Paul supporters, but a bunch of non-Paulite Rs. He lost FAR more than the margin by which he lost some key states in the general election.

      He probably has lost Florida because of these shenanigans. Gary Johnson is getting more votes than the margin between Obama and Romney.

      Not all of the Libertarians came from the Republican party, of course, but a lot of those were Ron Paul supporters that Romney drove out of the party.

  • by elabs ( 2539572 ) on Tuesday November 06, 2012 @11:40PM (#41903425)
    The electoral college is fine. The problem is the Winner Takes All system. The founding fathers never intended that.
  • Wait, What? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Tuesday November 06, 2012 @11:50PM (#41903547) Homepage Journal
    I go away for like FIVE MINUTES to make popcorn, open a beer and settle in for a long night of watching pundits say whatever comes into their heads, and Obama wins it? I made enough popcorn to last UNTIL DECEMBER!

    Oh well. I guess I'll go watch Fox News slip into a channel-wide suicidal depression.

    • by Grayhand ( 2610049 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2012 @12:03AM (#41903661)

      I go away for like FIVE MINUTES to make popcorn, open a beer and settle in for a long night of watching pundits say whatever comes into their heads, and Obama wins it? I made enough popcorn to last UNTIL DECEMBER!

      Oh well. I guess I'll go watch Fox News slip into a channel-wide suicidal depression.

      Fox News just has a full screen banner running "The Mayans Were Right!"

  • by Snotnose ( 212196 ) on Tuesday November 06, 2012 @11:50PM (#41903549)

    If they can't beat Obama in this economy, with his results, they really need to stare at their navels and figure out why people hate them so much. They can start with GWB, one of the worst presidents in history, move on to what they think of rape, and then figure how much they need the religious nutjobs that forms their so called base. Their anti-science, anti-women BS is driving the country away from them.

    I'll admit I voted for Rmoney. Not because I like that finger in the wind flip flopper, but I think Obama's policies are disastrous.

  • by enter to exit ( 1049190 ) on Tuesday November 06, 2012 @11:56PM (#41903591)
    Mitts strategy was to rely on moderate Republicans (who vote for the party and what it ideally stands for, even if it falls short) and appease the far right, in an effort to push him over the line. Essentially playing the numbers game (Hey, it made him rich!).

    The Republicans didn't bother trying to engage broader America. This is now proven to be a loser move (and demographics are against this). So: Is the Republican party going to move towards the centre or go further right? A reagan-esque war is about to happen in the GOP.
    • by Billly Gates ( 198444 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2012 @12:30AM (#41903869) Journal

      Mitts strategy was to rely on moderate Republicans (who vote for the party and what it ideally stands for, even if it falls short) and appease the far right, in an effort to push him over the line. Essentially playing the numbers game (Hey, it made him rich!).

      The Republicans didn't bother trying to engage broader America. This is now proven to be a loser move (and demographics are against this). So: Is the Republican party going to move towards the centre or go further right? A reagan-esque war is about to happen in the GOP.

      Mark my words in 2016, you will see Rick Santorum stand on stage with a few grayer hairs. He will claim Romney as to far the left and a radical socialist and communist just like OBL. He was rejected because he was too much of a Democrat and we need some far right wing libertarian reactionary like me to lead America!!

      Then win and be shocked again! Then will be saying why are these dems winning! They all must be welfare recipients! ... or something retarded bla bla bla.

      The problem is the Tea Party. The Tea Party just kicked out popular Republican Luger (FYI is not a moderate) for a far right wing candidate. Gee, a democrat in this conservative district just won! Sigh ...

      Rush Limbaugh, Hannity, and Fox news mixed with the Tea Party makes up the Republican base. There is no moderate Nixon/Goldwater/Eisenhower GOP leaders of old left. Just angry ones who hate government and believe they are on a mandate to stop everything and cut taxes and regulation at all costs.

  • by Passout1 ( 1922988 ) on Tuesday November 06, 2012 @11:58PM (#41903603)
    ...Thankyou American voting public.
  • by arglebargle_xiv ( 2212710 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2012 @12:11AM (#41903729)
    Otherwise we'd never have been certain [slashdot.org] that 93% of people voted Obama and the other 88% voted Romney.
  • by Pf0tzenpfritz ( 1402005 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2012 @12:24AM (#41903813) Journal
    So we don't have to liberate you - for now...
  • by gman003 ( 1693318 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2012 @12:31AM (#41903871)

    Maine and Washington (and possibly Maryland) legalized gay marriage. Minnesota had a referendum to ban it, results still inconclusive.
    Massachusetts, Washington and Arkansas (and probably Colorado) legalized marijuana. Montana "reformed medical marijuana". Oregon had a referendum to legalize, which failed.
    The Massachusetts assisted-suicide referendum is still undecided, but seems to have failed from early numbers
    Florida rejected a referendum to limit "Obamacare" ("prevents penalties for not purchasing health care coverage in order to comply with federal health care reforms"), but Alabama approved a similar referendum. That will probably lead to the Supreme Court as a states-rights conflict.
    California had a referendum to ban the death penalty, which failed.

    Finally, Puerto Rico had a referendum to decide whether to pursue statehood, leave the union, or to remain a non-state commonwealth. While this could be one of the biggest actual changes of the election, I can't find any results as of yet.

  • by circletimessquare ( 444983 ) <circletimessquar ... il.com minus cat> on Wednesday November 07, 2012 @12:35AM (#41903901) Homepage Journal

    I am a solid liberal, but some of the finest times in my life is having a serious discussion with an intelligent conservative. But tonight, William F. Buckley is rolling over in his grave. The economy is weak. A shallow analysis says Obama should have been voted out. But you didn't deliver.

    Because the Right in the U.S.A. has been taken over by shrill blind ideological fanatics and well, frankly, the stupid. So the only guy who could maneuver from the primaries, where the truly crackpot rightwing idiots held power, to the general elections, was an empty vapid lying suit like Romney.

    The pendulum swings left and right in this country, your time will come again. But the only way you are going to get there, Republicans, is to use your brain. Stop pandering to the loud shrill dumb voices on the right. Cut them out, excise them, ignore them, marginalize them as they deserve, because they are a liability, not a strength. And thereby be a serious power again. Otherwise, you collapsed tonight, and you will continue to collapse, until you come to grips with the raging Randroids, hatemongers, and assorted narrow minded morons on your side of the fence.

    Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of stupid moronic liberals as well.

    But the difference is, they don't hold the power in the Democratic party for now.

    Yours,
    one happy elated American liberal tonight

    The path of lies, empty suits, vile sources of cash, and fearmongering was repudiated, soundly.

    All is good in the world.

    I sleep the deep happy sleep of the mightily vindicated tonight.

    • by GodfatherofSoul ( 174979 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2012 @01:55AM (#41904463)

      You know why they took over, right? When Obama won, the *only* fired up element in the Republican party was the extreme Right and we all know why that was. They called themselves the Tea Party under the guise that they wanted lower taxes, even though taxes are already historically low. When someone finally told them that, they decided they were the low debt party (ominously silent while the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were charged on Uncle Sam's card and ignoring the fact that the Bush tax cuts were creating trillions more in debt).

      But, since they were the only ones fired up and everyone else in the Republican party was depressed (even mainstream guys like Tucker Carlson were starting to call themselves Libertarian to wash the stink of the Bush years off them). So, even though the Republicans treated their far right wing like the racist, slightly imbalanced uncle who came over once a year for Thanksgivings (polite nods and half-hearted chuckles at his jokes), they decided to give him the reigns.

      And, when that happened, they got even MORE fired up. No more being forced to sit on the porch and watch the party from the outside. Now, they had access! And, the more access they got, the more fired up they got. They started winning elections, getting seats on committees, and soon built up enough power to start making demands! They weren't just coming over for Thanksgiving, now they had a room upstairs and their buddies were coming over every night to get wasted and talk about how much the hated that Mexican family across the street.

      Now, the Republican party is stuck. They've given the extreme Right so much power and access that they're entrenched. You can't ask them to leave and they've been legitimized for so long you can't call them wrong. Nothing to do but ride it out and hope their rowdy parties don't burn your house down, before they get bored and decide to leave for good.

  • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2012 @12:52AM (#41904021)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Nerds Win (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ideonexus ( 1257332 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2012 @06:06AM (#41905747) Homepage Journal
    Congratulations to the real winners of last nights race: Nate Silver, Sam Wang, Intrade and all the other "Quants" (statisticians) who never characterized this election as "close" or a "tossup," but stuck to their Bayesian models predicting Obama as a heavy favorite. If their predictions were wrong, they would be looking for new jobs today, but the hiney hobbit pundits who characterized these brilliant nerds as "effeminate UnAmerican eggheads" will pathetically deflect responsibility for their own failed predictions this morning--but the nerds know the score. Science works bitches.

Almost anything derogatory you could say about today's software design would be accurate. -- K.E. Iverson

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