The Commentariat -- Nov. 9, 2012

** Paul Krugman: "Even though preliminary estimates suggest that Democrats received somewhat more votes than Republicans in Congressional elections, the G.O.P. retains solid control of the House thanks to extreme gerrymandering by courts and Republican-controlled state governments. And Representative John Boehner, the speaker of the House, wasted no time in declaring that his party remains as intransigent as ever, utterly opposed to any rise in tax rates even as it whines about the size of the deficit.... Mr. Obama should hang tough.... This is definitely no time to negotiate a 'grand bargain' on the budget that snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.... No deal is better than a bad deal." ...

... MEANWHILE, Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times writes, "Senior lawmakers said Thursday that they were moving quickly to take advantage of the postelection political atmosphere to try to strike an agreement that would avert a fiscal crisis early next year when trillions of dollars in tax increases and automatic spending cuts begin to go into force." Not. A. Good. Sign.

... AND, Annie Lowrey of the New York Times writes, "Congressional leaders have made clear that the debt ceiling will be part of the intense negotiations over the so-called fiscal cliff, with many members unwilling to raise the ceiling without a broader deal. That has raised financial analysts' worries of a financial market panic over the ceiling in addition to the slow bleed of the tax increases and spending cuts."

Tom Toles of the Washington Post.

As a consequence of this election & to reflect the will of the country, I suggest what we do now is enact Mitt Romney's tax plan. -- John Boehner, Rachel Maddow translation

... Rachelle Younglai of Reuters: "Top Republican lawmaker John Boehner said on Thursday he would not make it his mission to repeal the Obama administration's healthcare reform law following the re-election of President Barack Obama. 'The election changes that,' Boehner, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, told ABC news anchor Diane Sawyer when asked if repealing the law was 'still your mission.' 'It's pretty clear that the president was re-elected,' Boehner added. 'Obamacare is the law of the land.' ... A spokesman for Boehner said later the speaker and House Republicans 'remain committed to repealing the law, and he said in the interview it would be on the table.'" CW: Boehner obviously got a copy of Romney's playbook -- imply one thing to a large audience; deny it via a spokesperson or statement. So now we have this straight: it is not Boehner's "mission" to repeal ObamaCare, but he is "committed to" repealing it. Huge difference.

Tim Egan: "The challenge now, at a time when 40 percent of all wealth goes to 1 percent of the population, is to see if national policy can really do something to revert middle-class losses."

Marc Caputo of the Miami Herald: "Though votes are still being tallied, President Obama is all but assured a victory in Florida because the lion's share of the outstanding ballots come from Democratic-heavy counties. Obama leads Republican Mitt Romney by 55,832 votes -- or 49.9 percent to 49.24.... Miami-Dade finished tallying a backlog of 54,000 absentee ballots Thursday and it marginally increased Obama's lead.... Romney's Florida campaign has acknowledged their candidate lost in Florida as well.... With Florida's 29 Electoral College votes, Obama will have 332 votes to Romney's 206." ...

     ... Update. Jay Weaver, et al., of the Herald: Miami-Dade County officials finished their vote tally Thursday, following an around-the-clock tabulation of tens of thousands of absentee ballots and a few thousand provisional ballots. Mayor Carlos Gimenez also pledged to uncover what went wrong Tuesday, by asking four Miami-Dade commissioners to join a task force that will examine the long lines and frustrating delays that plagued polling places in different parts of the county.... Broward County finally finished counting ballots at about 11:30 p.m. Thursday.... Palm Beach and Duval were still tabulating their absentees as of Thursday afternoon." ...

... AND an interesting factoid from CBS Miami: "Exit polls of the Cuban-American community in Florida showed a split between Cuba-Americans who were born in Cuba and those born in the United States. Historically, Cuban-American voters have heavily favored the Republican Party since the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. According to the Wall Street Journal, Cuban-born voters broke for Mitt Romney by a 55-45 percent margin. However, among Cuban-Americans born in the United States, President Obama carried the group by a 60-40 percent margin. The Pew Hispanic Center reported Cuban-Americans favored Obama by a 49-47 percent margin."

The Signal & the Noise:

Wherein Karl Rove Explains What "Voter Suppression" Really Means. Dylan Byers of Politico: In a Fox "News" interview, Karl "Rove argued Obama 'suppressed the vote' by demonizing former Gov. Mitt Romney and encouraging people notto vote":

... Or, Maybe, Karl, You Can Blame Your GOP Friends. BACKFIRE! Craig Timberg & Lonnae Parker of the Washington Post: "For many African Americans, this election was not just about holding on to history, but also confronting what they perceived as a shadowy campaign to suppress the black vote. Black voters responded with a historic turnout here in Ohio and strong showings across a range of battleground states.... Buoyed by the Obama campaign's sophisticated ground operation, African Americans helped provide the edge in Virginia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and perhaps Florida.... Analysts, voters and politicians said that a series of episodes here in Ohio -- where exit polls showed black voters accounting for 15 percent of Tuesday's electorate, up from 11 percent in 2008 -- were seen by African Americans as efforts to keep them from voting, stirring a profound backlash on Election Day." ...

... CW: Timberg & Parker don't say so, but I wouldn't be surprised if here in Florida, with our high percentage of older voters, efforts to suppress the vote worked -- on Republican voters. For a week, the local news was about long voting lines with waits of several hours. I suspect many older voters -- who tend to vote Republican -- just decided they didn't have the stamina to stand in line for hours. So they didn't. Anyway, we all owe a debt of gratitude to those extraordinary citizens who stood up (for hours) to GOP tyrants.

Jan Crawford of CBS News: Romney really was confident he would win up through Tuesday evening. ...

... Steven Shepard of National Journal: turns out the polls were skewed, just as Republicans kept insisting. However, they were skewed against Obama & Democrats, not against Romney & Republican candidates. Democrats & Obama won in many states by more than the averages of polls projected. "It is worth noting that PPP's final preelection polls were among the most accurate of all the outfits polling the campaign." (Public Policy Polling [PPP] is a partisan Democratic pollster.)

Sorry, forgot to run this yesterday. Yo, cynics, he just might be the real deal:

Eric Lipton of the New York Times: "In races around the country, an unusually large number of lawmakers facing charges of wrongdoing were unceremoniously ousted from their jobs on Tuesday -- which is quite rare, because more than 90 percent of the incumbents seeking re-election to Congress typically return for another term."

Andrew Rosenthal of the New York Times: no, GOP House members, the election was not about you, and you do not have a mandate.

Helen tells Margaret: "Like a zoo, Fox News isn't so scary once you realize the animals can't get out of their cages." A funny post. Thanks to Bonnie for the link.

Local News

NEW. NBC News Orlando: David Siegel, "the central Florida timeshare mogul who made headlines by telling employees a vote for President Barack Obama could jeopardize their jobs, is making more news.... Siegel told Forbes.com ... he will give [his employees] a 5 percent raise. That means he will not be laying off employees as he suggested was a possibility if Obama were re-elected." ...

America's Most Embarrassing Governor. Nick Wing of the Huffington Post: "Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) maintained that he would continue to reject implementation of key aspects of President Barack Obama's health care reform law this week, despite the certainty that Obamacare will now remain intact due to the president's reelection."

Steven Greenhouse of the New York Times: "Hoping to set a precedent for other states, Michigan's labor unions spent months pushing a referendum to amend the state's Constitution to prohibit the legislature from ever enacting a law that would curb the powers of public employee unions. But this push to enshrine collective bargaining rights in the Constitution was roundly defeated in Tuesday's election, 58 to 42 percent -- an embarrassing loss for labor in a state known as a cradle of American unionism."

Rachel LaCorte of the AP: "Washington state has approved gay marriage, joining Maine and Maryland as the first states to pass same-sex marriage by popular vote. Voter returns released since election night show Referendum 74 has maintained its lead of 52 percent. Opponents conceded the race Thursday, while supporters declared victory a day earlier."

Dan Frosch of the New York Times: "Thursday..., Democratic lawmakers [in Colorado] elected the state's first openly gay speaker of the House. The new speaker, State Representative Mark Ferrandino, a Democrat from Denver, was a co-sponsor of [a] civil unions bill [which Republicans blocked from consideration last year] and has vowed to bring it back when the session resumes in January."

Other Stuff

Ellen Barry of the New York Times: a new Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center, just opened in Moscow, Russia, is a "state-of-the-art complex underwritten by oligarchs close to President Vladimir V. Putin.... The project is meant to convey a powerful message to Jews whose ancestors fled or emigrated: Russia wants you back."

Paul Sullivan of the New York Times: a major gift-tax deduction is about to expire with the Bush tax cuts, & your average millionaire is scurrying to take advantage of it.

News Ledes

Stoner State. CNN: "The prosecutor's offices for two Washington counties -- including the one that contains Seattle -- announced today they will dismiss 175 misdemeanor marijuana possession charges, days after the state's voters legalized the drug. The dropped cases all involve arrests of individuals age 21 and older for possessing one ounce or less of marijuana."

New York Times: "With many states lagging far behind schedule, the Obama administration said Friday that it would extend the deadline for them to submit plans for health insurance exchanges, the online markets where millions of Americans are expected to obtain private coverage subsidized by the federal government."

New York Daily News: "Federal prosecutors in upstate New York have dropped their year-long sex-abuse investigation into Bernie Fine, saying there is not enough evidence to support allegations that the former Syracuse University assistant basketball coach molested a boy in 2002."

** Washington Post: "CIA Director David H. Petraeus has resigned, bringing a surprisingly abrupt end to his brief tenure at the agency as well as his decorated career in national security. Petraeus sent a letter to President Obama on Friday indicating that he was stepping down, citing an extramarital affair." New York Times story here AND has been greatly expanded. CW: I thought Jay Carney was giving awfully cagey answers re: Petraeus in his briefing, just concluded. I see I was right.

NBC News: "... President Barack Obama on Friday invited congressional leaders of both parties to the White House next week for talks on how to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff, but reiterated his insistence that higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans be part of a deficit reduction plan."

ABC News: "President Obama will today call upon Congress to work with him on preserving the lower tax rates first pushed by President Bush for those Americans who earn under $200,000 a year, but he will state his belief that voters were clear in re-electing him that they support a 'balanced approach' to deficit reduction -- meaning that the lower tax rates for higher wage earners should expire." ...

     ... Politico Update: "President Barack Obama said Friday he's ready to get to work on a deal to avert going over the fiscal cliff at the end of the year. But, he stressed, he believes he has the authority after winning reelection to a second term in the White House":

Reuters: "A former oil executive was named leader of the world's 80 million Anglicans on Friday, ending months of closed-door intrigue as the church struggles with bitter rifts over women bishops and gay marriage. Justin Welby, 56, has been bishop of the northern English city of Durham for barely a year and will replace the liberal incumbent Rowan Williams as archbishop of Canterbury in December. Welby is against gay marriage but favors the ordination of women as bishops."

ABC News: "Seven current members of the Navy's elite SEAL Team Six, including one involved in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, have received non-judicial punishments for having served as paid consultants for the video game 'Medal of Honor: Warfighter.' Four other SEALs who previously belonged to the unit remain under investigation."

The Commentariat -- Nov. 8, 2012

Jonathan Weisman & Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: "The House speaker, John A. Boehner of Ohio, striking a conciliatory tone..., said on Wednesday that he was ready to accept a budget deal that raises federal revenue as long as it is linked to an overhaul of entitlements and a reform of the tax code that closes loopholes, curtails or eliminates deductions and lowers income tax rates. Mr. Boehner's gesture was the most explicit offer he has made to avert the 'fiscal cliff' in January, when billions of dollars in tax increases and automatic spending cuts go into force. And it came hours after Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, offered his own olive branch, saying 'it's better to dance than to fight.'" ...

     ... CW: oh, for Pete's sake. Boehner isn't making a "conciliatory" move; they're positioning ploys. Boehner knows perfectly well the impending automatic expiration of the Bush tax cuts & the so-called "sequester" have him at a great disadvantage. This report by Wyatt Andrews of CBS News is more realistic:

... Gail Collins gets it right, and hilariously so: "by the end, it sounded as if the only cliff-avoidance Boehner was really interested in was one that raised new revenue through 'fewer loopholes, and lower rates for all.' We have already seen that plan. It was proposed by a man who, on Tuesday, lost the state in which he was born, the state in which he was governor, and the three states in which he owns houses.... The only candidate for president who lost his home state by a larger margin than Mitt Romney was John Frémont in 1856. And Frémont was coming out of a campaign in which the opposition accused him of being a cannibal." ...

... David Dayen: Democrats should sit tight & do nothing about the "fiscal cliff" this year but wait instead for the new, more liberal Congress to be seated. ...

... Bill Keller isn't as smart as Dayen, and he doesn't favor progressive fiscal policy, but he does see reason to hope the status quo -- which is what Americans voted for -- can still lead to change, especially if Obama has learned to schmooze and play hardball. ...

... New York Times Editors: "A newly energized Obama administration and Senate could have the effect of isolating the supply-side dead-enders in the House. John Boehner ... announced Wednesday that nothing had changed; he and his caucus still oppose higher tax rates for the rich and still want to pursue Mr. Romney's defeated goal of raising revenue by lowering rates and cutting unspecified loopholes.... The president's victory was decisive.... He now needs to use the power that voters have given to him to enhance and broaden his agenda."

Jon Chait of New York: "The [Republican] 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."

Adam Serwer of Mother Jones: "To the extent that we are looking at a new Democratic governing majority, Obama didn't build that -- not by himself. He had a great deal of help from Republicans whose refusal to acknowledge a changing American electorate narrowed their political coalition. Because Republican intolerance played such a decisive role in the electorate that emerged Tuesday, it's hard to draw a broad conclusion about a long-term ideological shift in the United States, or to see Obama's coalition as a lasting one."

Jon Chait: "... the moderate wing [of the Republican party] won the nomination without winning an argument. Romney won essentially by default, and to the extent his pitiful opposition mounted any challenge, Romney positioned himself to their right. The moderates' best chance would have been to give the right wing the full run of the place for the cycle."

"The Defeat of the One Percent." Dana Milbank: "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. Then there was Romney's [election-night] fete -- for which reporters were charged $1,000 a seat. The very location set the candidate and his well-heeled supporters apart from the masses: The gleaming [Boston] 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." ...

... Nicholas Confessore & Jess Bidgood catch some of these same fatcats at the private air terminal of Boston's Logan Airport. "... on Wednesday, at least, the nation's megadonors returned home with lighter wallets and few victories." ...

... This report by Philip Rucker of the Washington Post on Willard's Wednesday was informative. Not surprisingly, those rich guys were pissed. Also, Romney told them he felt he would win. ...

... In fact, here are screenshots of his transition Website, now defunct. ...

... Julie Bykowicz & Alison Fitsgerald of Bloomberg News: "Rove, through his two political groups, American Crossroads and Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, backed ... Mitt Romney with $127 million on more than 82,000 television spots.... Ten of the 12 Senate candidates and four of the nine House candidates they supported also lost their races.... The Election Day results showed Rove's strategy of bringing in huge donations from a few wealthy benefactors and spending that money almost completely on television advertising failed."

... CW: for anyone feeling really, really sorry for Sheldon Adelson & the Koch boys, et al., let me assure you that the Republican leadership in Washington & in the states will do their very best to give the biggest losers some very nice consolation prizes. ...

... John Judis of The New Republic: Democrats may have the majority of the electorate on their side, but Republicans have by far the better influence-peddling constituency.

This Pew Research report on the demographic makeup of the electorate is fascinating. For instance, "Fully 89% of Romney's [voters] were white non-Hispanics, compared with just 56% of Obama's supporters. Romney managed to better McCain's showing among whites by four percentage points -- and still lost the election."

** Adam Nagourney, et al., of the New York Times report on some of the deliberations & concerns that went on inside each presidential campaign.

Peter Beinart of Newsweek: "Four years ago, it looked possible that Barack Obama's election heralded a new era of Democratic dominance. Now it looks almost certain. In the early 20th century, the face of America changed, and only one party changed with it. In the early 21st century, that story has played itself out again. From the beginning, Obama has said he wants to be a transformational figure, a president who reshapes American politics for decades, another Reagan or FDR. He may just have achieved that Tuesday night." ...

... CW: one thing that is glaringly obvious -- Democrats need to get their "occasional voters" to come out for midterm elections. As long as Romney's 89-percenters are deciding midterm elections, Republicans will win. If you remember, Obama did almost no campaigning for Congressional candidates in 2010. Let's see if he does a better job in 2014.

How "the Rape Thing" Might Reform the Filibuster. Steve Benen: "It may seem hyperbolic, but the truth is, we'll have a more Democratic Senate because the GOP's far-right base elected unhinged and unelectable conservatives who said ridiculous things about rape." Sen. Claire McCaskill, "The year's most vulnerable Democratic incumbent, ended up winning by 16 points." With a more liberal Senate, "the likelihood of filibuster reform is real, and with Democrats expanding their majority, the party has a new motivation to help repair the dysfunctional chamber."

David Firestone of the New York Times fantasizes about how a more liberal Senate might actually lead to more liberal legislation that could be forced down the throats of the GOP House. CW: the only way to do this is to sell every single "big idea" to the public first. Teabagging Reps have to fear for their jobs before they'll reluctantly do the people's will.

Dan Friedman of the National Journal: "Maine Senate electee, Angus King, an independent former governor, looks likely to announce within weeks that he will caucus will Senate Democrats.... At a news conference Wednesday in Maine, King said he may make a decision on caucusing by the end of next week.... Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., in his own news conference Wednesday, said he had 'several conversations in the last 24 hours' with King. Reid said he expected King would reach a decision soon."

Jay Weaver & David Ovalle of the Miami Herald: "... Miami-Dade County's ... beleaguered elections supervisor told reporters Wednesday night that her employees, still processing thousands of absentee ballots, won't finish until Thursday.... With the presidential race settled -- but Florida still too close to call -- Miami-Dade's lack of final results have left a much-mocked blank spot on the long-decided electoral map.... Obama won't lose the lead in Miami-Dade, where his campaign had a massive grass-roots operation. But how the final batch of ballots affects the overall number in Florida remains to be seen -- Obama leads by just over 46,000, according to the state election department's most recent numbers. The race could still be close enough to trigger a recount in Florida, unless it is waived by Romney...." ...

... Adam Smith of the Tampa Bay Times: "... in the end Obama probably will again win Florida, though his slim 237,000-vote margin in 2008 will be even slimmer, around 50,000 votes."

... Jon Stewart comments on, among other things, Florida's voter suppression campaign:

Separate but Equal, Still Legal. Benjy Sarlin of TPM: "A Hart Research study sponsored by the AFL-CIO found wait times were disproportionately longer for Democrats and Democratic-leaning demographics by huge margins in 2012. For example, 16 percent of Obama voters reporter lines longer than 30 minutes, versus just 9 percent of Romney voters.... An MIT survey of 10,000 voters in 2008 found that waits for African Americans were more than twice as long as those for white voters for both early and election day voting." CW: "Same difference," as we say in the South for Hispanics:

Paul Krugman: the attacks on pollsters by the outraged right only makes some kind of psychological sense if you consider that "the modern right-wing psyche ... is obsessed -- more than anything else -- with power.... They can't separate the two: they perceive anyone suggesting that maybe they aren't going to smash their opponents as a threat." ...

... ** Jon Stewart comments:

A Bad Day for Benjy. Jodi Rudoran of the New York Times: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, "facing his own re-election fight on Jan. 22, did not directly acknowledge any missteps, but he rushed to repair the relationship [with President Obama]. He called the American ambassador to his office for a ceremonial hug. He issued a damage-control statement declaring the bond between the two nations 'rock solid.' He put out word to leaders of his Likud Party whose congratulatory messages had included criticism of Mr. Obama that they should stop."

@P. D. Pepe: because I can't see the difference between Charlie Rose & this:

News Ledes

New York Times: "Iranian warplanes fired at an unmanned American military surveillance drone in international airspace over the Persian Gulf last week, Pentagon officials disclosed Thursday, saying that while the aircraft was not hit, Washington made a strong protest to Tehran. The shooting, which the Pentagon said occurred Nov. 1 ... was the first known instance of Iranian warplanes firing on an American surveillance drone. George Little, the top Pentagon spokesman, attributed the weeklong silence on the incident to restrictions on discussing classified surveillance missions. But it doubtless will raise questions about whether that silence had been meant to forestall an international controversy before the election."

New York Times: "With gas lines in New York City still stubbornly long and no relief for gas shortages in sight, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg imposed an odd-even gas rationing rule Thursday that goes into effect at 6 a.m. tomorrow. Identical rules are going into effect in Nassau and Suffolk Counties on Long Island at 5 a.m. tomorrow."

ABC News: "Bradley Manning, the Army soldier accused of leaking more than a half million confidential U.S. documents to whistleblower website WikiLeaks, has offered to plead guilty to some charges during his ongoing pre-trial hearing. Pfc. Manning's civilian defense attorney, David Coombs, presented the plea in the preliminary hearing on Wednesday in Fort Meade, Md. No public copy of the plea offer is available yet."

AP: "The nor'easter that interrupted recovery efforts from Superstorm Sandy pulled away from New York and New Jersey Thursday morning, leaving a blanket of thick, wet snow that snapped storm-weakened trees and downed power lines. Households from Brooklyn to storm-battered sections of the Jersey shore and Connecticut that had waited for days without power because of Sandy were plunged back into darkness in temperatures near freezing."

AP: Jared Lee Loughner, "the man who pleaded guilty in the Arizona shooting rampage, will be sentenced Thursday for the attack that left six people dead and wounded former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 12 others." ...

     ... Arizona Republic Update: "U.S. District Judge Larry Burns on Thursday sentenced Tucson shooter Jared Loughner to seven consecutive life terms plus 140 years, calling the sentence 'astronomical' and 'justified' because Loughner 'knew what he was doing' when he killed six and wounded 13 at a congressional event sponsored by then-U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. 'The facts show he traveled there with the purpose of shooting Ms. Giffords,' Burns said. Burns imposed the sentence after a long and dramatic hearing that included testimony from Loughner's victims." New York Times story here.

New York Times: "A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced the man behind 'Innocence of Muslims,' the anti-Islam YouTube video that ignited bloody protests in the Muslim world, to one year in prison for violating parole."

New York Times: "Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo< has dismissed [Steven Kuhr,] his chief of emergency management, after learning that he deployed government workers to clear a tree at his Long Island home during Hurricane Sandy."

The Commentariat -- Nov. 7, 2012

Presidential Race

Jeff Zeleny & Jim Rutenberger of the New York Times: "Barack Hussein Obama was re-elected president of the United States on Tuesday, overcoming powerful economic headwinds, a lock-step resistance to his agenda by Republicans in Congress and an unprecedented torrent of advertising as a divided nation voted to give him more time. In defeating Mitt Romney, the president carried Colorado, Iowa, Ohio, New Hampshire, Virginia and Wisconsin, a near sweep of the battleground states, and was holding a narrow advantage in Florida. The path to victory for Mr. Romney narrowed as the night wore along, with Mr. Obama winning at least 303 electoral votes."

David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "Barack Obama was elected to a second presidential term Tuesday, defeating Republican Mitt Romney by reassembling the political coalition that boosted him to victory four years ago, and by remaking himself from a hopeful uniter into a determined fighter for middle-class interests. Obama ... scored a decisive victory by stringing together a series of narrow ones. Of the election's seven major battlegrounds, he won at least six."

Art by Donkey Hotey.Miami Herald: "With the presidential race settled but Florida still too close to call, Miami-Dade was still waiting Wednesday morning for final results. At 7 a.m., an elections spokesman told reporters that about 20,000 absentee ballots still needed to be counted. The office of Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez on Wednesday morning issued a news release insisting that the 'unprecedented length of the ballot'* represents 'over 100,000 pages that need to be reviewed and verified, one by one. This in no way is representative of any issues or delays, but a matter of unprecedented volume,' the release said...." CW: it sure is a good thing this race didn't hinge on Florida. What a pathetic state. ...

     ... Update: "With the presidential race settled but Florida still too close to call, Miami-Dade was still waiting Wednesday afternoon for final results."

* CW: Let's get one thing straight: "the unprecedented length of the ballot" was one of half-a-dozen Republican efforts to disenfranchise voters. As Brittany Davis & Toluse Olorunnipa of the Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times wrote today, "The outcome [of the vote on the ballot measures] is a sweeping rejection of the Republican-led Legislature's push to pile the ballot with long, complicated amendments, clogging precincts and causing voters to wait for hours in some cases. It was the worst outcome for constitutional amendments since 1978, when all nine of the state's proposed amendments failed." For a reminder on how many ways America's Worst Governor Rick Scott & his sidekicks in the Republican-led legislature tried to Screw the Vote, Adam Weinstein of Mother Jones wrote a nice primer last week.

CW: we're going to get a lot of these meaning-of-the-election pieces over the next few days, so let's start with a very good one -- by Tom Junod of Esquire.: "... tonight [President Obama ]celebrated the most sweeping political transformation in American political culture since the one Reagan cemented in his electoral victory of 1984: He had turned a center-right country into a center-left one." (See videos of Obama's & Romney's full speeches in the post below.)

** Ezra Klein: "President Obama's rousing victory speech left most everyone with the same question: Where's that guy been during the 2012 campaign? There's an answer to that question.... The Obama campaign found that their key voters were turned off by soaring rhetoric and big plans. They'd lowered their expectations, and they responded better when Obama appeared to have lowered his expectations, too. And so he did.... What you saw tonight, however, was that Obama didn't much like being that guy.... This has been the tension at the center of the Obama White House for four years now. Hope and change don't go together."

Michael Grunwald of Time: "President Obama started his term by passing a politically toxic stimulus bill. Next, he oversaw a politically toxic auto bailout. He then spent an agonizing year on a politically toxic health reform bill. His approval ratings dropped, the Tea Party erupted, and as he continued to do controversial things -- on gay rights, on immigration, on Iraq -- pundits continued to accuse him of political malpractice. Well, he won anyway. And there's a lesson there. The lesson is: DO STUFF!" (CW: note that we have the same old do-nothing, obstructionist House of Representatives we had before the election, so I'm not sure "Do Stuff" explains everything.)

New York Times Editors: "President Obama's dramatic re-election ... was a strong endorsement of economic policies that stress job growth, health care reform, tax increases and balanced deficit reduction -- and of moderate policies on immigration, abortion and same-sex marriage. It was a repudiation of Reagan-era bromides about tax-cutting and trickle-down economics, and of the politics of fear, intolerance and disinformation."

E. J. Dionne: "Many have argued that the president ran a 'small' and 'negative' campaign, and he was certainly not shy about going after Romney. But this misses the extent to which Obama made specific commitments and repeatedly cast the election as a choice between two different philosophical directions."

The Biggest Losers. Paul Krugman: "The limits of [Wall Street's] power have been cruelly exposed, and the reelected president now owes them nothing. Did I mention that Elizabeth Warren is going to the Senate -- a Senate that will be substantially more progressive and less Wall Street friendly than before? Bad move, guys."

The real winner tonight is Hillary Clinton, who Nate Silver is now projecting at a 68 percent chance of victory over Jeb Bush. That's up from 54 percent just a few hours ago! -- Wyatt Cynac, the "Daily Show"

Stephen Colbert announces the presidential election results:

Dan Amira of New York: Mitt Romney's concession speech was "as brief (at just under five minutes) as it was gracious. Romney thanked all of his supporters, congratulated Obama and his family, and called for his backers to 'earnestly pray' for Obama's success. He showed no bitterness, offered no excuses, and made no complaints."

This must be Egypt, 'cause this sure looks like De-Nile. New York magazine produced this great video of the Fox "news"-room's slow meltdown. Joe Coscarelli comments:

CW: I'm fairly certain there is no photoshopping going on here. Thanks to Ken W. for sending along the attractive snap.Dan Amira awards the Donald the Daily Intel's Election Night Most Unhinged Conservative Award for a series of tweets Trump sent screeching about the travesty of Obama's winning the presidency while losing the popular vote -- tweets sent before much of the vote was, um, counted. CW: apparently Trump is unaware there are Democrats on the West Coast. He is certainly unaware that Obama's plan was to win the election by Constitutional rules, not by Trump rules. P.S. Ask President Gore how much good it does to win the popular vote.

Congressional Races

Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "Deep disapproval of Congress and dissatisfaction with partisan division appeared no match for Congressional incumbency on Tuesday, as Republicans seemed to have retained a firm hold on the House of Representatives, assuring the continuation of divided government for at least another two years.... In the first Congressional election since decennial redistricting, Republicans -- thanks to their control of many state legislatures -- managed to shore up many incumbents by fashioning districts that Democrats had little chance of capturing."

Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "Democrats snatched Republican Senate seats in Indiana and Massachusetts on Tuesday, averted what was once considered a likely defeat in Missouri and held control of the Senate, handing Republicans a string of stinging defeats for the second campaign season in a row."

"The War Women Won." Margaret Talbot of the New Yorker: "It now appears that the number of women in the Senate could go from seventeen to twenty-three. If it hadn't been for those antediluvian attacks on contraception, we'd be calling this the Year of the Woman. If there was a war on women this year, it looks like the women are winning." CW: and, as I noted in the Congressional tallies, women were the winningest in New Hampshire, where the entire Congressional delegation -- House & Senate -- and the new governor are all women.

The Tortoise & the Orange. In case you had any foolish hopes to the contrary, be assured that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) (here) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) (here) are still going to be dicks.

Other Issues

Elizabeth Dias of Time has an overview of the outcomes of some state ballot initiatives. If you live in Kentucky, you now have a constitutional right to go hunting.

Erik Eckholm of the New York Times: "Voters in Maine and Maryland approved same-sex marriage on an election night that jubilant gay rights advocates called a historic turning point, the first time that marriage for gay men and lesbians has been approved at the ballot box."

News Ledes

New York Times: "A one-two punch of worries about the post-election picture in the United States and economic weakness in Europe sent stocks reeling Wednesday, with major indices falling more than 2 percent. Some industry sectors, like finance and managed care, fell substantially more than that over fears they would be hurt by tougher regulations and other adverse policies in President Obama's second term."

NBC News: "A nor'easter dubbed Athena moved Wednesday into areas battered by Superstorm Sandy, causing new power outages and threatening to dump up to 12 inches of snow, flood coastal areas again and even turn debris from Sandy into projectiles. Hundreds of flights were canceled or delayed across the Northeast, while residents of a few areas hit hardest by Sandy were urged to evacuate. Gusts up to 60 mph were possible along the New Jersey coast and in the New York City area...." ...

... Here's the New York Times story.