In case you didn’t hear, Barack Obama was reelected as president. (I’m not sure how I would feel if you actually hadn’t heard until now. Simultaneously flattered and abhorred that Brief Wit is your only source of news?)

The postmortems have come hard and fast since Obama’s victory, like that scene in The Avengers where the Hulk punches Thor in Grand Central.

In his own dissection of the loss, Romney inelegantly echoed the “47 percent” version of himself by saying Obama bestowed “gifts” on demographic groups. What you call “gifts,” I might call “rights” or “decencies,” but hey, let’s not parse. (Even Newt gave him grief for it.)

In the end, what looked to be the case became the reality.

Yes, Mitt Romney was so obviously and easily cast as a tone-deaf robber baron at possibly the worst time in 80 years to be labeled that way. But Romney was not just a bad candidate for his own message, he was a bad candidate for the GOP’s message. And, like a riesling paired with a ribeye, the GOP’s message was not very palatable to begin with.

Indeed, the predominant feature of these campaign postscripts has been clear-eyed criticism of the Republican party, chiefly its issue stances and waning appeal to a changing population. The takeaway: the GOP has run afoul of the electorate.

As the analyses have fluttered out, one of the earliest and most succinct was also probably the most palpable portrait, from former Bush reelection adviser Matthew Dowd on Good Morning America. He said that the GOP had become a “ ‘Mad Men’ party in a ‘Modern Family’ America.”

(I’m not saying it’s all over, but Sean Hannity’s already applied for Food Stamps.) Read the rest of this entry »

Did anyone tell Paul Ryan’s congressional staff that he has been selected as the vice presidential candidate for the Republican party?

Mitt Romney made it official six days ago, but there is still no mention of this pretty major development to his constituents in Wisconsin on his official Congress homepage, as you can see here, or in the screenshot above.

There is no word of it anywhere I can see, including on the “Newsroom” page, something that would otherwise seem to be a good fit for that section:

Read the rest of this entry »

I was out and about on Wednesday when an alert on my iPhone popped above the background picture to tell me that President Obama had publicly endorsed same-sex marriage. (Technological things like this still amaze to me.)

I’m embarrassed to say, my instant reaction was fear.

Considering I’ve written about this issue in some form three times, that surprised me.

I couldn’t recall a time when I was in such moral agreement with a politician’s decision and yet so politically worried about a stance he had taken.

“How will he win the election now?” I thought.

In the hours after and few days since, my feelings have tempered, but something still lingers.

Read the rest of this entry »

With his wins last night, Mitt Romney is building on a big delegate lead in the GOP primaries. Remaining contests linger, but anyone paying attention would bet their tax refund that Romney is going to be the Republican nominee. Still, it’s going to be great theater when Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich marshal their delegates and egos in slapsticky attempts to force a contested party convention this summer. Don’t forget, Ron Paul will also deliver a balls-to-the-wall speech if we’re lucky. Did I say theater? I meant sitcom.

Whether it’s Romney, or in the off-off-off-Broadway chance that Newton or Santo pull off the 16-to-1 political upset, we’re almost assured to see a familiar question dusted off once the general election campaign is underway. It was superbly asked by Ronald Reagan in his race for the White House in 1980. Reagan and Jimmy Carter had one debate, and Reagan twisted a knife in the incumbent with his closing remarks: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”

(This is doubly impressive because as you can see below, Reagan must have stabbed Carter from like 20 feet away.)

Read the rest of this entry »