The Republicans Bet Everything, and Obama Won It All (NYTimes Mag)

[kentuck]

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/11/republicans-bet-everything-and-obama-won-it-all.html

<snip>


You remember the scene in Game Change, when John McCain’s adviser tells him that selecting Sarah Palin is “high risk, reward”? And McCain (or Ed Harris as McCain, or whatever) starts grinning uncontrollably? That is the approach the entire Republican Party has taken in almost every situation it has found itself since 2008. Republicans greeted Barack Obama’s presidency with a calculated wave of total opposition. They would not cut a deal on health care or on the federal budget, each time accepting the risk of total defeat rather than settling for half-measures, like giving Democrats some kind of token health care reform or small tax increase.

The gamble was that by denying Obama any support, they would render his presidency wholly partisan at best, and a dysfunctional failure at worst. They would increase their own chances of denying him a second term, and that their return to power would allow them to claim a full and absolute break with the past. They shoved all their chips onto tonight’s election. When the networks called it at 11:15 p.m., the totality of the right’s failure was clear. And because they bid up the stakes as high as they could, their loss was unusually devastating.


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[AnnaLee]

1. It's hard not to think of all the empty stomachs that money could feed. nm.

People might revere these guys if they invested in the country instead of in our not-so-free-with-them-in-it elections.

[RetroGamer1971]

2. I agree

They spent all of that money, and the only people who will still be thrilled about that are the sign makers, the people involved in direct mail, and the robocallers. At least the money used for that was taxed on the local level.

[MarianJack]

3. They went "all in" on a bluff.

Assholes.

PEACE!