Tom Toles for November 07, 2012

Mt was gracious in defeat, good to see.

Am I wrong, or would this cartoon work for either candidate winning? It was always assumed that the vote would be close.Not dissing Toles, just wondering if he did the cartoon long before the polls closed?

Somewhere, out there in America, the next Timothy McVeigh is beginning to lay out his plans.

Make sure Chief Justice Roberts gets the Oath right this time!

Wednesday morning. All state results in. Except Florida.Florida was admitted as a state in 1845. More than 150 years ago. Should we give it . . . I don’t know . . . maybe another half-century or so . . . before the state can figure out how to handle this whole “voting” thing?

Nothing like losing gracefully, eh? Not that we were expecting it from you.

Concession speeches should never stop the count, no matter who wins. We went to the trouble of voting, dammit, so they should all be counted.As this article points out, concession speeches aren’t legally binding.

You get what you elect. It took a lot of votes of everyone to get the second term. As for me, I’ll no longer support the people without jobs, or people who have lost their homes and people living on the street, people in the gettos etc. I’m sure Barrack will take care of them.

The Republicans have vowed to make Obama a two-term president.

This cartoon is very unfair to Mr. Romney and his supporters. A 2-3% difference in the popular vote does not indicate a mandate. It is a statement on how badly our people want our leaders to come to a more central place and be leaders of all of our people, not just their side. I am actually pleased Republicans maintained control of the HoR. One of these political parties with too much control could upset the delicate balance of rights and freedoms in our nation. My compliments to the commentators here who have complimented Mr. Romney’s concession speech. If he had maintained that tone from the beginning, he probably would not have won the Republican primary, but had he, he would have swayed many more independents.When you win and start gloating, you’re a bad winner. When you lose and start yelling, you’re a bad loser.When you show respect and courtesy, you’re a good American.Respectfully,C.

Don’t think Michelle will go for that. She’ll probably double her staff for the 2nd term!

I’m sure the inauguration celebration will exceed even his first one!

PS: “Doonesbury” runs on a shorter lead time than most daily strips (although still longer than editorial cartoons), but Trudeau famously went far out on a limb when he submitted his “Obama Wins” storyline four years ago. He’s an astute guy, and surely felt confident, but the potential for winding up with egg on his face was enormous. He didn’t do it this year (his current storyline is more focussed on the Elizabeth Warren campaign anyway, but he didn’t try to predict that either).

No likeness to turtle-man

The cartoon to which I posted my above comment is not the one I’m posting under now. If the comment seems off base, it’s because of the toon is replaced.C

“But the vote wasn’t close. It was as close to a landslide as it could get. Pres. Obama had many more electoral votes than he needed, over 300 plus the popular vote.”

The vote was close, but the result wasn’t. In none of the “Battleground States” did Obama even reach 53%, and those could conceivably have gone the other way. In a 15-round boxing match, you can lose 7 rounds while taking a pounding, win 8 rounds while STILL taking a pounding, yet win by “unanimous decision.”

The only mandate I see from this election is for moderation and cooperation. The balance in the Senate is about the same, but the Dems now have a few more middle class advocates. The balance in the House is also about the same, although with fewer of last term’s Tea Party candidates. I hope this message is loud enough that the balance of the House and Senate hear it.

MortyForTyrant has a great idea! How can we make this go viral? I don’t have the tech skills, but would be glad to help some other way. Also, Mitt’s concession speech was the best I ever heard, after 59 years of voting.

the republicans stated and acted according quite honestly and honorably. They objective for the last four years was to make obama a one-term president, country be damned.

and the country has been damned due to their intrasegence and lack of cooperation of the republican and their effort to blame everything on obama. They have proved they can lead us to a fiscal cliff, and indeed, over it. Just look at the debt ceiling issues past and looming. All ostensibly about not one penny more in taxes from the uber wealthy.

so for ‘not one penny more in taxes from the billionaires’ and ‘make obama a one term president’ the republicans have slowed the recovery and FAILED in their objective to make obama a one term president.

good going republicans. Whatcha gonna fail at next? impeaching obama?

how about a little bipartisan cooperation?

or is your hatred against a black president, women’s rights, gay rights, immigrants and a clean environment more important than your country?

Hate to be a gloomy Gus, but Mitch and his crew spent 4 years voting against thing that would benefit Americans simply to make O look bad. Why would he change now?

Listening to Hannity (my ears hurt) he started his show with “the stop Obama train 2016 starts today”. Sean, just like Mitch, doesn’t have a different product to sell.So this time I agree with Sean, only two terms Obama, that’s it!

“But the vote wasn’t close. It was as close to a landslide as it could get. Pres. Obama had many more electoral votes than he needed, over 300 plus the popular vote.”

Just for fun, I decided to see what the result would have been if each state’s electoral votes had been allocated according to the split in its popular vote(this is actually how I think the electoral vote should work).

If we allow for fractions of electoral votes (i.e. Utah’s popular vote ran 75%-25% for Romney, so its 6 electoral votes would be split 4.5-1.5), Obama wins the electoral vote 270.3 to 258.8 (it doesn’t total 538 because I only took the percentages to two digits, and the fractional votes to two decimal places).

If we DON’T allow for fractions of electoral votes (i.e. Utah’s 6 electoral votes would be allocated 4-2; if a state’s electoral value is an even number, I resolved in favor of the loser; if the value is odd, I resolved in favor of the victor), Obama does a little bit better: He wins 272 to 266.

By the way, it seems like Romney did better in states Obama won than Obama did in states that Romney won. In states that went red, the margin of victory averaged just over 20%. Obama won the states he won by an average of just under 17% (and that’s with the help of DC, where he got 91% of the vote).

And now that the American people have spoken and re-elected the president, they right wing will stop the obstructionism and work hard with Obama to solve the nations problems.Bwahahahahahahahahaha

You’re new here. You don’t need to regurgitate Fox talking points. They’ve been thoroughly dissected over the past months. Election’s over.

I agree with your evidence, but not your conclusion. The margin of victory in electoral votes is impressive, but it’s misleading (if not entirely illusory) on account of the “winner take all” allocation. As I said above, to a large extent for every easy win on Obama’s side there was a counterbalancing easy win for Romney, and the race was decided by states that finished closer than 47%-53%. California was 55 easy electoral votes for Obama, but even there 40% of the state voted against him (on the other side, of course, Romney was assured of 38 from Texas, even though 41% voted for Obama).

Yes, Obama clearly won the battle for electors, in that there’s no need for recounts or court challenges, and he also won the popular vote (but not by much). However, coupled with only a modest gain in the Senate and the GOP retaining the House, you can hardly call it a mandate, let alone a landslide; his coat-tails weren’t particularly long. Obama would have won with 270 electoral votes just as officially as if he’d had 370 electoral votes, but it doesn’t change the fact that both across-the-board and state-by-state nearly half of the voters wanted the other guy.

Look, I’m as happy as you are that Obama won (maybe happier, given what you’ve said about your feelings for BOTH parties). But there’s only room for a breather, not for complacency (let alone cockiness). Obama wasn’t given much of a “honeymoon” in January 2009, and I expect January 2013 to be even colder (chalk it up to Climate Change).

Wow, I did not see this coming. I was pretty much speechless last night other than voicing my concern over this country. When a man with hair as Presidential as mine can’t be President, this country is heading in the wrong direction.I suppose I could have exhorted my fellow Republicans to concentrate on what used to be good about us:Real fiscal discipline, that doesn’t think you can cut the deficit, while cutting taxes and increasing military spending.The belief that a competent and efficient government is the best government. Even liberals like a government that does more with our tax dollars. The notion that government is useless at best, has led my party to appoint cronies and hacks, while turning over authority given to us by the People, to corporations and lobbyists.Giving up the assumption that all taxes are bad. The first sign of a great nation in decline is when it’s wealthiest citizens refuse to pay taxes. Taxes must come from those able to pay them. This is simple logic that is beyond the grasp of many of my fellow Republicans.Backing religious freedom. The nonsense about our “Judeo-Christian” values being under attack just divides and causes hate. We’lll attract a lot more voters if we embrace tolerance and grant the same rights to people who live a little differently than we do. The party of Lincoln was built around this idea.

You behave like a disciple of Senator Joe McCarthy. Get thee to a shrink. We all know you have seen the enemy, but he is YOU!

McConnell is a trator to the American people. He should be representing the people, not his millionaire backers.