House Republicans retain majority, defending gains from GOP wave in 2010

Republicans won enough crucial races Tuesday to retain control of the House of Representatives, beating back a strong Democratic challenge and allowing the GOP to keep pushing an agenda of fiscal austerity.

The GOP was on track to hold on to a strong majority in the chamber, according to early returns, ensuring that House Speaker John A. Boehner (Ohio) remains the dominant Republican legislator in negotiations over government spending in the months ahead.

The continued GOP dominance in the House probably will lead to renewed clashes with Senate Democrats, with whom Boehner’s conservative caucus feuded for the past two years in budget battles that brought the federal government to the brink of defaulting on its debt.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/house-republicans-poised-to-hold-majority-democrats-declare-end-of-the-tea-party/2012/11/06/f5767e92-27b3-11e2-b2a0-ae18d6159439_print.html

Obama wins a second term as U.S. presidentBy Robert Barnes, Published: November 6 | Updated: Wednesday, November 7, 4:10 PM

A sharply divided America awarded President Barack Obama a second term Tuesday, choosing him over Republican Mitt Romney to lead the repair of an economy that by far remains the country’s biggest concern, the Washington Post projects.

The president was poised to narrowly win several tight races in a handful of battleground states. It was the culmination of a staggeringly expensive, extremely close and sometimes bitter contest far removed from Obama’s 2008 message of hope and change.

Democrats also held onto their majority in the Senate, picking up two seats in early returns with the possibility of a third.

By 11 p.m., Obama had already won the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Iowa and Wisconsin, the home of Romney’s running mate Rep. Paul Ryan.

Other prizes -- Florida, Ohio and Virginia -- were still too close to call, but Obama appeared headed to victory because of still-to-be counted votes in Democratic strongholds there.

In Florida, Obama clung to a narrow lead, but Democrats were encouraged that the votes remaining to be counted come from South Florida counties where the president enjoys his strongest support.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/after-grueling-campaign-polls-open-for-election-day-2012/2012/11/06/d1c24c98-2802-11e2-b4e0-346287b7e56c_print.html

It has taken me a while to come to grips with American politics ― most likely because I was seeing it through an Australian lens. There is an assumption that, because Australia and the United States are both English-speaking developed nations, they are also culturally and politically identical, or at least similar.

In fact, they are not. The centre of the political divide in the United States is far – far – to the right of where the centre lies in Australia.

This assumption leaves many in the expat community scratching their heads in bewilderment at the lack of universal healthcare (and the fight against it, being based on it being a privilege, not a right), and the importance placed on religious belief in politics and public discourse that (until recently) did not really exist in Australia.

It’s also behind my inability to comprehend anyone not agreeing to a hike in tobacco product prices.

However, the sense of history, and its importance to the way the constitutionally based political system is set up here, is such a part of the everyday mainstream American culture – and so very different to the Australian system – that questioning of the political system and its setup is tantamount to questioning America’s history and culture itself.

So, in short, questioning the system is simply not done here.

Part of being American is having respect for and adherence to The Constitution and the ideals of the Founding Fathers. This culture colours political stances ― particularly on the conservative side.

It underpins the ideals of state, rather than federal, control over many spheres ― hence the abhorrence towards federally controlled universal healthcare among Republicans, and their opposition towards anytax by some of the more extreme  right voters ― even if it means paying out more in tobacco-related healthcare.

read more: http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/politics/looking-at-the-u-s-election-from-the-inside-out/

Welcome to HOMER SIMPSON'S COUNTRY...

Bill Kristol, for once, is right. The Bush tax cuts for the rich have to go.

The election is barely over, but true to form, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner have already bungled the next one. Their line in the sand is exactly the wrong way to recast the GOP’s appeal to minorities, women, and working-class whites.

Look at the data. Exit polls showed that voters largely agreed that Romney was a “strong leader” and “had a vision for the future.” But as AEI’s Henry Olsen notes, “Romney lost because he lost among those who chose the remaining characteristic – by 63 points, 81-18. That characteristic? Cares about people like me.” (The exit polls do not include the nine million white voters who showed their opinion by not voting at all.)

Having lost two national elections in which the Bush tax cuts were at issue, the GOP Congressional leadership now seems determined to dig the ditch deeper.

C.S. Lewis begins his classic Mere Christianity by listing phrases we’ve all heard or said: “How’d you like it if someone did the same to you” – “That’s my seat, I was here first” – “Leave him alone, he isn’t doing you any harm” – “Why should you shove in first.” He notes that a child’s first introduction to immorality is when someone cuts in front of him in the school lunch line. The response is instinctual: “That’s not fair.” All moral codes, Lewis says, begin with that one reaction: “That’s not fair.”

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-real-gop-fiasco-fairness/

No one wanted to be president less than Mitt Romney, his son says in an interview that raises new questions about the candidacy of the losing Republican nominee.
In an interview with the Boston Globe examining what went wrong with the Romney campaign, his eldest son Tagg explains his father had been a reluctant candidate from the start.

He wanted to be president less than anyone I've met in my life. He had no desire ... to run.