Header

“A ‘Mad Men’ Party in a ‘Modern Family’ America”: On The Future of the Republican Party

In the last weeks of the election, most people thought Obama would win, but hardly anyone thought he would win like he did Tuesday night. Nobody thought we would know as early as 11:30 pm EST who the victor was. 2012 wasn’t 2008 – Obama lost two states (Indiana and North Carolina) that he won four years ago, the House remains in Republican hands – but it certainly was a great night for liberals, and for women and queers in particular.

In 2008, we expected this, to some degree. People were fed up with years of failed Bush policies, and the economic failure with McCain saying “The fundamentals of the economy are strong” could only help Democrats. But in 2012, this feels a bit out of the blue. So what exactly happened to make this a great night for liberals? Well, to put it frankly: the Republicans didn’t exactly deliver.

Since Tuesday’s victory, I’ve been reading a lot about “soul-searching” in the Republican Party, and what they can do when this was an election they were expected to win, and yet they seemed to have lost much more decisively than expected. Was it the extremist positions on women’s rights, from wanting to defund Planned Parenthood to Akin and Mourdock’s stupid comments about rape? Insisting on anti-gay positions when the country is rapidly moving in the opposite direction? Romney making an ass of himself about Hurricane Sandy? The 47% comments? Alienating Latino/a voters with extremist positions on immigration? Blatant House obstructionism purely to try to force Obama into a one-term presidency? Or all of the above, and more?

Since the 1960s, the Republicans have built themselves on being the party of the conservative white man. And indeed, the last time a Democrat won a majority or plurality of the white vote was in 1964, when President Lyndon Johnson won all but six states in a landslide over AZ Senator Barry Goldwater. This was the same year Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, which caused him to remark, “We’ve lost the South for a generation” – a region the Republicans were only too happy to snap up, with next president Richard Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” to play on the racial resentments of Southern white voters as their road to victory for the next several decades. But those same racial politics – plus the anti-women and anti-gay politics that came into the party platform with the rise of the Religious Right in the 1980s – may now be alienating more voters than they’re recruiting. We simply aren’t the same country that we were when Nixon first won in 1968, especially in the Southwestern part of the country.

Latinos and Latinas are one of the fastest growing demographic groups in the U.S., and it may not be long, as many have opined, until they are actually the ethnic majority in the United States. The transformation of Colorado and Nevada into swing states in the last few election cycles has largely been due to increasing numbers of Latino/a voters, and some have projected that current red states Arizona and Texas are moving in that direction as well. As recently as eight years ago, the Republican leadership was aware of these changing demographics and had planned a way forward that wasn’t quite as hostile toward Latino/a voters, but extremists in the party changed all that. From Nicholas Lemann at The New Yorker:

The seeds of Romney’s defeat were sown during Bush’s second term. Bush and Karl Rove were fully aware of how unfavorable the country’s changing demographics were to the Republican Party. First-term initiatives like the No Child Left Behind education bill and the Medicare prescription-drug benefit were meant to lure important Democratic constituencies (mothers and senior citizens respectively) to the Republican side. After Bush’s reëlection, a big proposed change in the structure of Social Security was supposed to persuade Americans that they could entrust their retirement savings to an ever-rising stock market, instead of to the government, and a sweeping immigration-reform plan was supposed to bring Latino voters into the G.O.P. But these both failed; the intra-party revolt over immigration reform in the summer of 2006, which took the Bush White House by surprise, nearly guaranteed that in 2008 and 2012, the ever-rising number of Latino voters would represent wind in the Democrats’ sails.

This really gets at one of the main albatrosses the Republicans have hanging around their neck: the “base.” While the moderate or libertarian wing of the party can often be (personally) pragmatic in their choices, holding their nose for someone whom they totally disagree with on social issues because they like their tax policy or for “the good of the party,” the socially-conservative, racist ultra-right feels entitled to candidates who exactly match their views after years of the party pandering to the Religious Right and racist white voters via the Southern Strategy. As a result, rather than the presumably more moderate immigration reform plan that Bush had in mind in the middle part of the last decade, we now have the party embracing racial profiling as “immigration restrictions,” as in the infamous Arizona law. No wonder, then, that Latino/a voters are defecting heavily to the Democrats; according to the Huffington Post, only 27% of Latino voters picked Romney this year, compared to 44% voting for Bush in 2004.

The problem with the base is larger than simply the immigration issue. While the rise of the Tea Party in 2010 helped the Republicans clinch the House, even that year, we saw some problems with how the group’s stranglehold over Republican primaries was turning out races that Republicans were expected to win. The big names that year were Christine O’Donnell of Delaware and Sharron Angle of Nevada, both of whom beat more moderate Republicans in the primaries because of Tea Party enthusiasm, and then went on to lose the general elections because the larger electorate found them off-putting. This year, Richard Mourdock of Indiana – he of the “babies from rape are a gift from God” quote — was the Christine O’Donnell; he beat six-term incumbent Senator Dick Lugar in the primary, and then lost the general election to Democrat Joe Donnelly after his rape comments made national news.

Republicans will continue to be successful in House races, because it’s a regional campaign for a national office; you only have to convince a small and often relatively insular community to vote for you. The majority of the country will see someone like Michele Bachmann or Paul Ryan as scary extremists, but their particular conservative district doesn’t. (And thanks to gerrymandering, the party in office in a state will always be able to carve out seats for themselves regardless of changes in demographic trends.)  For a lot of far-right voters who live in insular rural or suburban communities that don’t reflect the country’s racial or political changes over the last few decades, and yet have been the subject of decades of Republican party pandering, the fact that their preferred candidate just wouldn’t win over a larger, more diverse group doesn’t occur to them.

In his New York Times op-ed called “Can Republicans Adapt?,” Nicholas Kristof goes into further detail about how the primary process, because it’s so controlled by extremists, makes it harder for Republicans to choose a candidate who appeals to the whole country. The process forces more moderate Republicans (like Romney is, believe it or not) to push themselves to the right to appeal to “the base.” The one candidate who didn’t fall for this particular song and dance, Jon Huntsman, was, ironically, probably the guy who had the best chance of winning the general:

You would expect the Republican Party to make a similar lurch to the center [as Democrats did in 1992 with Bill Clinton]. But many Republican leaders still inhabit a bubble. It was stunning how many, from Karl Rove to Newt Gingrich, seemed to expect a Romney victory. And some of the right-wing postmortems are suggesting that Romney lost because he was too liberal — which constitutes a definition of delusional.

If the Republicans had nominated Jon Huntsman Jr., they might have been the ones celebrating right now. But he had no chance in Republican primaries because primary voters are their party’s worst enemy.

Kristof has an explanation for why this is:

Part of the problem, I think, is the profusion of right-wing radio and television programs. Democrats complain furiously that Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity smear the left, but I wonder if the bigger loser isn’t the Republican Party itself. Those shows whip up a frenzy in their audience, torpedoing Republican moderates and instilling paranoia on issues like immigration.

All this sound and fury enmeshes the Republican Party in an ideological cocoon and impedes it from reaching out to swing-state centrists, or even understanding them. The vortex spins ever faster and risks becoming an ideological black hole.

Kristof isn’t the only one with this idea; a Mother Jones article published Wednesday explicitly says in the title “The Republican Party Needs to Ditch FOX News If It Wants to Win,” arguing that, rather than FOX serving as the Republican Party’s mouthpiece, now the GOP is “the unwitting puppets of the self-serving right-wing controversy machine. Fox News and the talk radio shock jocks across the country win whether or not conservatives are in power; these purveyors of political entertainment thrive under a Democratic president, perhaps even more so than under their preferred candidates. There’s big money in controversy, and controversy is what the Glenn Becks of the world do best.” While FOX may have worked to rile up the passions of an older generation of swing voters, now that it’s Latino/as, working women and young people deciding elections, all the same race- and religion-infused paranoia simply turns them off, while Tea Party types continue to vote as though nothing is changed.

So far, though, this doesn’t look likely to happen; the GOP media machine seems to be insisting, as Kristof surmised with his “delusional” claim, that the problem is they weren’t conservative enough, and the likes of Glenn Beck are promising to “double down” on their message rather than moderate it. The party leadership may be condemning it – Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) says he’s “going to go nuts” at that claim, adding, “We’re not losing 95 percent of African-Americans and two-thirds of Hispanics and voters under 30 because we’re not being hard-ass enough” – but unfortunately, those words don’t mean as much to the base as those of the party demagogues. One of the most telling quotes is from former Bush re-election campaign advisor Matthew Dowd, who said the GOP is turning into “a ‘Mad Men’ party in a ‘Modern Family’ America.” But if anything, the far-right revels in that charge, with its 1960s-style ideas about stuff like birth control. (Or, in predictable fashion, dismissing Dowd’s comment as “liberal lecturing” despite his well-documented conservative credentials.)

Women and LGBTs have also been big in moving the country away from Republicans. It wasn’t just that Romney was unfortunate enough to endorse Richard Mourdock a day before his rape comments, or that he picked anti-choice extremist Paul Ryan for his running mate (the discussion of who Romney should have picked instead could take up a whole ‘nother article); Democrats were tying even relatively moderate Republicans to the extremists in their party across the country. For example, Elizabeth Warren’s campaign released this advertisement tying a vote for Scott Brown to a vote for a Republican-controlled Senate that would, among other things, vote for a Supreme Court justice to overturn Roe v. Wade:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5kwaViRFWU

While the Republican Party has been seeming less interested in emphasizing their anti-gay credentials in recent elections, it’s not like they’ve exactly gone away; opposition to LGBT equality is still a core tenet of the Republican Party platform. And it’s not like we can’t remember times when our inequality was THE Republican wedge issue; hell, it was as recently as the 2004 election, so even younger queers recall this. As our star has risen this year, LGBT Americans have made it more and more clear to our friends and family that you can’t support equality and vote for an anti-gay candidate, no matter what other reasons you might have; editorials like this famous one on the Huffington Post calling for de-friendings from Romney voters because, you know, “I care more about lower taxes than I do about your equality” isn’t actually that much better than “I don’t want you to have equality.” Women’s rights advocates have done a lot to raise the issue of what would happen to the Supreme Court if Romney were elected, and how that would risk an overturn of Roe v. Wade; it would also have risked freezing us in time or even turning back the clock on LGBT equality if Romney got to appoint another Scalia or Thomas who would swing the court in favor of the Prop 8 defenders in that likely-upcoming case. With both their rejection of Romney-Ryan and of their support of equality in ballot proposals – anti-equality forces’ favorite tactic – voters made it clear that the anti-gay movement is its death throes now, and it won’t be long before it ceases to be an issue altogether – much less one a major party can use to drum up votes.

The Republicans will still have some electoral victories, like they did tonight by retaining their hold on the House, especially when it comes to House campaigns and local or state campaigns that don’t require convincing a huge group of people. But Republicans banking on a 2010 electorate don’t realize how much it was an anomaly, or even an exception that proved the rule (since it involved many key Democratic demographics staying home in large numbers), and that the electorate in the future is going to look much more like we saw in 2008 and 2012. Republicans need to wake up to the realization that the Southern Strategy is outdated. If Republicans want to continue to be relevant, they need to listen to women, people of color, queers and others outside of their traditional white Christian male base, or their long-term success as a national party is in serious jeopardy.

25 Things Mitt Romney Can Do Now

Last night I slept better than I had in weeks, full of pizza and beer, a well deserved reward for having survived a violently manipulative and incredibly frustrating election cycle. Mitt Romney went to bed having lost a bid for the most important job in the country, a well-deserved punishment for his occupation as World-Class Asshole.

Here’s what he can do with his time now that he has to find a way to bide it.

1. Pursue a life in which he goes by “Willard” full-time

2. Re-read his original proposal for health care in Massachusetts

3. Learn the names of most, if not all, foreign countries and provinces

4. Write a highly fictionalized memoir about his life

5. Look up “Obamacare” on Wikipedia

6. Find his lost tax forms

7. Marvel genuinely at Ann Coulter’s newest book

8. Stroke Ann Romney’s hair gently

9. Shop around for a toupee

10. Create a time machine in order to participate more actively in the 2002 Olympics

11. Repair his broken relationship with the cast of Sesame Street

12. Experiment with drinking

13. Write an economic stimulus plan and post it publicly on the Internet

14. Go to lunch with John McCain

15. Hang out with more women

16. Move to a new state and run for public office

17. Improve at golf and/or tennis in order to get into the Country Club scene

18. Purchase a spa membership

19. Grow facial hair

20. Collect spoons and/or stamps

21. Catch up on missed episodes of the Bill O’Reilly Show

22. Take a refresher math course at his local county college

23. Plan a birthday party for himself that is actually a staged relief event covering up a staged campaign event covering up that it isn’t his birthday at all

24. Write a concession speech

25. Get a job

We Won So Many Things! Obama, Same-Sex Marriage, Drugs, Rock ‘n Roll

It’s nearly 11 PM in California and we’ve been awake forever, because we had to vote first thing in the morning so I could come home and freak out about it all day. I’ve eaten a lot of potstickers and Chuck Todd is definitely fading and Rachel Maddow remains a supreme being and WOW, what a day! WHAT A FUCKING DAY!

via shepelavy.com

Tammy Baldwin: Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) will become the first openly gay woman in the U.S. Senate!

We’ve never ever won a popular vote on marriage equality until tonight. This is really fucking historic.

Marriage Equality Wins in Maine: Question 1 has succeeded! That means gay marriage is legal in Maine. See — we got gay marriage in Maine in 2009 but then before anybody could start getting married, they took it back. Now everybody has come to their senses, so suck it Maggie Gallagher!

Marriage Equality Wins in Maryland: Guess where else you can get married? Maryland! That’s why it’s called Maryland, you know, because gay people can get married there!

Marriage Equality Is Winning In Washington: Washington state, birthplace of Nirvana and coffee, so far is voting in favor of Referendum 74 to affirm the state’s decision to legalize same-sex marriage! Votes are still being counted.

Discrimination Against Gay People Loses in Minnesota: Minnesotans were voting on whether or not to amend their state constitution to deny same-sex couples the right to marry today, and it’s official — they’re now the first state to reject a same-sex marriage ban!

Weed: Medical marijuana was legalized in Massachusetts and in Colorado and Washington, small amounts of marijuana were legalized for adults for recreational use. So that’ll be neat.

Also Notable:

Todd Akin, who believes in a magical thing called “legitimate rape,” lost in Missouri. Incumbent Senator Claire McCaskill kept her seat.

Richard Mourdock, who believes pregnancy from rape is a gift from G-d, lost in Indiana to Joe Donnelly.

Openly pansexual Mary Gonzalez won the race for Texas State District 75.

Elizabeth Warren defeated Scott Brown to become the first woman to represent Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate!

In California, Mark Takano is the first openly gay person of color elected to congress!

Rachel Maddow: Just briefly, and I’m not being hyperbolic — Rachel Maddow’s presence is so comforting on my television. This must be what it feels like for straight white men every time they watch everything, ever. Rachel Maddow is a safe space.

Oh right and…

Barack Obama Has Been Re-Elected!!!

The networks called it for Obama and we were really excited about it, but then Romney got upset because he hadn’t written his speech yet, so he bought himself some time by saying he wanted to wait for Ohio to finish counting all their votes. Then at 12:55 EST he conceded and a little before 2 AM EST Barack Obama gave his speech in which he actually mentioned gay people! I sort of want to just lie down now, you know? Like, I’m just so relieved. My brain is reclining. I’m so relieved and thrilled.

Also: every one of you who stood up for your rights against people who wanted to vote against them made a difference tonight. It feels like we — the feminist and queer “blogosphere” — have been just screaming all year. We’ve just been screaming because what else can you do but scream when you’re forced to make a case for yourself on issues that shouldn’t be up for debate anymore. Because sometimes there really is a wrong and a right. Tonight the left won, and that’s all right. I think voter turnout numbers are gonna be massive this year, and a tip of the hat to all of y’all who turned out. Not everything went our way tonight, but for tonight, let’s just celebrate. Celebrate that it’s time for shit to start making sense.  GAME ON.

OPEN THREAD: 2012 Election Day Live-Blog, With Extra Feelings

Whiskey Kitten Photography © jmberman1 2009

Get your sticker that says you voted, even if your polling place doesn’t have one! Print out the whole sheet and stick one to your forehead with some tape. Congratulations! You’ve just participated in Democracy.

Greetings Queers, and Happy Election Day! Welcome to our Feelings Thread / Election Day Party Live Blog. Are you excited? I’m excited.

I love Election Day– I feel about Election Day the way most people feel about Christmas. And we’ve done a lot of amazing reporting on the Election so far. We taught everyone how to Vote with their VAG (and then we did it again. And again for local elections and voting while abroad.) We talked about loving your Republican family and voting while trans*. We gave you the low down on Bain Capital and we covered (I mean g-chatted) all kinds of debates, including the vice presidential one and there was freedom and justice (and an app) for all. So now it’s time for us to bite our nails and stare at the TV and have a big ole feelings party together on the interwebs. We’re going to have updates from a whole bunch of the Autostraddle staff today, and the greatest surprise is WE’RE ALSO GOING TO HAVE UPDATES FROM YOU!

That’s right. If you have a link to something you’d like covered, a picture of your Election Day Party, witty commentary or just about anything you can dream up, you’ve got two options: a) leave it in the comments below! It is an open thread after all or b) email it to ali [at] autostraddle.com to submit it for inclusion in the body of the post. Not everything may go up, but I’d love your submissions! Especially if you’re making election-themed jello-shots. Then I want pics or it didn’t happen.

So let’s have a grand time together! And hopefully this great country of ours won’t be set back forty years when we wake up in the morning.

8:08 am. Just turned on MSNBC! Who’s watching along with me?

8:14 am. I’m putting out the “pics or it didn’t happen” call for pictures of y’all voting. Send ’em to ali [at] autostraddle.com.

8:22 am. Can anyone guess where Brandy Howard is going to be sending us updates from tonight?

8:27 am. Aww, you guys, here’s a tweet from Contributing Editor Vanessa last night. She’s voted for the first time ever today! Check out her button!

8:31 am. Awww, sorry Vanessa. No “I Voted” stickers at her polling place. But I award you an imaginary internet “I Voted” sticker, complete with not-imaginary love from Autostraddle.

8:37 am. !! Reader Sarah (SugarMaple86) just voted in Ohio! Ohio is a swing state! You get an imaginary virtual internet chocolate chip cookie from me!

8:42 am. That’s right Lanie, Brandy Howard is gonna be at the Victory Party in Chicago. Here’s what she emailed me last week: “On November 6th, I am going to Obama’s victory party in Chicago!!  I’m so fucking excited- I can’t even see straight.” I’ve been trying to come up with some kinda “can’t see straight” joke, but I haven’t had my coffee yet.

8:44 am. Is it weird that I feel like heckling my TV just because Rachel Maddow isn’t on it yet?

8:49 am. Holy Election, Batman! The news anchors just casually dropped in that Biden is going to run four years from now. Apparently he announced that this morning and I missed it? Imma fact check that. Stand by. Update: I can’t find anything on the google machine about that except that he joked about it days ago. So until I can, it isn’t real. Back to fun pictures of readers voting!

8:59 am. Reader Cara voted in North Carolina. That’s another swing state, you guys!

9:01 am. MSNBC just had a great map of battleground states. Imma try to find one, y’all, because it was helpful.

9:04 am. Romney and Mrs. Romney just voted in Massachusetts. You guys, I keep finding myself heckling my TV.

9:07 am. MSNBC tells me that we’ll start to know which candidate is having a good night by 9 pm est. Which means I’m going to have an ulcer for twelve hours.

9:13 am. Politico has a great view of the swing states. Super helpful. It also includes predictions based on previous polls. Update: It doesn’t include PA, though, which is another state that both candidates are really gunning for.

9:23 am. In case you haven’t decided who you’re voting for yet, here’s a message from the Greatest Generation, via Move On. This is very much NSFW, so don’t hit play unless you’re a) at home or b) work for Autostraddle or similar cray cray liberal website. In that case, hit play and call over your co-workers.

[yframe url=’https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f17fWth3YgA&feature=player_embedded’]

9:16 am. I missed Joe Biden voting. So here’s some pictures of Joe Biden voting!

9:26 am. There are so many mustache-related bets happening regarding this election. Do y’all have mustache-related bets, or is that just every MSNBC news anchor and analyst?

9:32 am. MSNBC is discussing how Obama will win without Ohio. They’re saying it seems plausible. He would need Wisconsin, Iowa and Virginia, which is not unlikely.

9:36 am. Just reminding you guys to send your voting pictures to ali [at] autostraddle.com. I want to see you brag! Send me pictures of your stickers, you with two thumbs up in front of your polling place. You dancing around like a cray cray person because you participated in Democracy today. Yeah, I want that photo too.

9:43 am. A vote against Todd Akin from reader Sherri!

9:46 am. Haley Barbour, who I fundamentally disagree with on just about everything, just said don’t believe exit polls because so many people voted early. I feel like I kinda agree with that. And now my brain is melting out of my ear.

9:55 am. Reader Mareika just voted for Elizabeth Warren and President Obama in MA. She just sent me the following email: “Hopefully you can see the sticker through all the femme in this picture.”

9:57 am. I just saw a Fox News commercial touting them as Fair and Balanced election reporting and the best place to keep up with the election. I vommed in my mouth a little. Anyone have the fortitude and/or the stomach to see what Fox News is saying and then report back to us here?

10:01 am. Hey y’all, just did some research and you’re not supposed to take pictures of your complete ballot because different states have different rules about it. So I’m going to follow the “Don’t Tweet Your Ballot” rule from now on. Only give me pictures of you and your stickers!

10:04 am. Okay, I just figured out where the Joe Biden 2016 rumor came about. Someone asked him if it’s the last time he’ll be voting for himself as he was walking out of the polling place this morning. He said, “No, I don’t think so.” Thoughts? I’d be really pumped if he ran in 2016.

10:09 am. I wanted to highlight a comment from Amanda:

I voted at 6AM and now I’m running a huge phone bank for Obama allllll day.

If anyone out there wants to make some calls into swing states and make sure our supporters get out and vote look up your local OFA office and stop in – they’ll all be going hard until the polls close on the West Coast.

Have the day off? Go make some calls!

10:14 am. Here’s a picture of Olivia’s sweet sticker!

10:23 am. Omg, my girlfriend just sent me the link to Your Fucking Polling Place. It will help you find your fucking polling place.

10:28 am. Wanted to highlight a comment from Evidux–

Guys, please remind everyone to stay in line at the polls. As long as you’re in line when the polling closes, they still have to let you vote.

10:30 am. MSNBC says “nobody knows nothin'” at this point in the day. Exact quote.

10:32 am. Just got the following email from Daneille: “We can do this, Ohio!”

10:44 am. Hey y’all, just changed the order of the live blog. The other way was too confusing for readers. Now everything is in regular chronological order!

10:47 am. Rachel Maddow just told me a lot about voter suppression in 31 seconds. You should also see this.

10:52 am. Renata voted from Edinburgh and she doesn’t get a sticker for voting absentee, so she made a sign. VOTING SPIRIT, EVERYONE!

10:56 am. HOLY ELECTION DAY, BATMAN! I pronounce this the best Election Day outfit. Becca, you win all the things!

11:00 am. Hey everyone, I’ve gotten so many emails and comments about how upset people are that their polling places don’t offer cute stickers. So Intern Geneva is going to rescue you all because she made you this:

 Click on it to make it full size and put it on your Facebook! Or Tweet that sucker! Heck, make it your profile picture on all the things.

11:05 am. Vanessa‘s girlfriend just sent her these chocolate covered strawberries and this note for voting in her first election today! We should congratulate Vanessa not only on her first vote as a US citizen, but also for her pick of human.

11:11 am. MSNBC is having Guiliani and the anchors debate the Sandy effect on voting. It’s actually kinda weird to watch, Guiliani is really panning the response. Everyone affected by Sandy, how are you voting today? Everything okay?

11:22 am. Mitt Romney arrives in Cleveland for a campaign event, says MSNBC. You guys, I hate reporting on Mitt Romney’s moves today. I never claimed to be fair and balanced. :0)

11:24 am. They’re debating the idea of popular vote v. electoral vote re: the broken system. Do y’all have popular vote feelings? Send them my way.

11:26 am. The headline on MSNBC says Ohio is the Top Prize in Election.

11:29 am. Renelle from San Francisco reminds us that local elections matter too: “Not every day you can vote to keep your English teacher from hell off the school board!”

11:33 am. Hey everyone, wanted to remind everyone not to send me pictures of their ballot. I’m following the Don’t Tweet Your Ballot rule. But pictures of your stickers, you dancing around, your election day outfit and whatever else you can think of that’s not your ballot are all welcome. Send them to ali [at] autostraddle.com and they might be included here!

11:38 am. Katlyn just cast another vote against Todd Akin! SEND INTERNET LOVE TO KATLYN!

11:39 am. Even my favorite news networks sometimes make me headdesk. They just showed footage of Obama casting his vote moments ago. But he voted early in Chicago days ago. I even covered it on AS.

11:43 am. MSNBC is running a constant ticker of poll closing times that I’m finding super helpful in terms of when to cast your vote. So I found a list online for those of y’all who don’t have access to a TV to see said ticker, via Ballotpedia.org.

11:46 am. Community, everyone! Check out yet ANOTHER adorable, voting-related thing that happened to Vanessa.

11:51 am. Funny story. When I was 18 months old, I knew every word to this song. My mother used to stand me on chairs at family gatherings to sing it. This is hundred percent true.

[yframe url=’https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kvk1NZDFvZU&feature=player_embedded’]

11:58 am. Xan votes for Tammy Baldwin!

12:03 pm. Check out this comment from Hansen:

My brother looked up his polling place online to see where to go and it said he wasn’t registered in the system and he started to panic about wrongly being kicked off the lists, but he went to the polling place anyway and there wasn’t a problem! It was just something like a wrong address.

WHEN IN DOUBT: go to the polling station and try to vote regardless.

THIS! There was a problem with my registration when I went to get my absentee ballot. They fixed it on the spot. GO ANYWAY. Republicans may not want you to vote, but most likely the person helping you really DOES want you to vote.

12:05 pm. They’re yelling on TV about how people who don’t vote are idiots. People, do go vote! If you don’t vote, you give up your right to complain! Talk about community, it makes you a strong part of the community you live in.

12:10 pm. Want to remind everyone who didn’t get a voting sticker that we’ve made one for you, thanks to the mad skillz of Intern Geneva. Go put it on your facebook! Twitter! Print it out and stick it to your forehead!

12:15 pm. Contributing Editor and link finding extraordinaire Kristen just found this amazing interactive graphic novel about the U.S. election on the Guardian. EVERYONE MUST SEE THIS.

12:18 pm. Jezebel reports that at least one voting machine in PA isn’t taking votes for Obama.

12:27 pm. Marni in line to vote, sent to me by Riese. It’s Marni’s first election too, everyone. LET’S GIVE MARNI SOME INTERNET LOVE.

12:32 pm. A cute story from Riese about that photo: the lovely woman at the polling place asked Marni if it was her first time voting. Riese was like, omg, can you really tell that Marni is Canadian that much? But no, apparently that poll-worker confused Marni for a 19 year old boy. Marni was all, I’m 30, even though she’s actually 29. Riese says it might be the first/last time she’s told a lie about being 30.

12:40 pm. Just received an email from the Obama campaign about making calls. Wanna make some calls?

12:44 pm. Just got the following email from Joleen: “I would much rather have Claire McCaskill in my vagina than Todd Akin!”

12:50 pm. Just got a super cute picture and super articulate email from Casey!

I voted this morning in Chicago – I didn’t get a sticker, but I did
get a receipt.  I also had to snap this in a bathroom stall at work
like a total creeper, so there’s that. Thanks for having the live blog
up today – somehow, it’s lowering my stress level to be watching this
unfold with all you wonderful ladies!

Also, you should remind people that voting on judges is also
important! If there are any other Chicago ladies who haven’t voted
yet, they can go to http://voteforjudges.org/ for more information
about who is on their ballot.  I’m sure that other cites and states
have similar resources.

Thanks!

1:00 pm. Has everyone seen Contributing Editor Cara‘s Election Day Team Pick? Head over to her post to take a look.

1:04 pm.  This tweet is relevant to our interests:

1:06 pm. Contributing editor Carmen just sent over this gallery of 92 Years of Women Voting. This needs no commentary.

1:10 pm. I really want Rachel Maddow on my TV to happen. Like, a lot. So as a result, I’m about to give you all a barrage of election-related Maddow clips, some from readers, some from contributing editors. Are you ready?

1:14 pm. Reader Jen submitted this one. Apparently Maddow says “lady time” at the 2:20 mark. About pot, marriage equality and tons more.

1:19 pm. Cara emailed me this Maddow video about all the awesome stuff Obama has done.

1:25 pm. More Maddow! Reader Jen says she likes this one because Maddow is a prop comic. This is from last night’s episode.

1:30 pm. Do you like polls and predictions? Join editor Rachel in closely monitoring FiveThirtyEight, Nate Silver’s political calculus blog. Obama is listed as having a 90.9% chance of winning. Is it weird that my stomach is bubbling like a hot tub of nervousness none-the-less?

1:34 pm. Reader Arls sent this great article about voting machines and the hype over them not working correctly. It’s a heavy, but amazingly informative. Thanks for this!

1:37 pm. Joe Biden, looking swanky.

1:39 pm. Let’s all give a shout out to the interns working on this post today! Geneva, Chelsey and Naimah! Much love for finding some great tweets and making some great “stickers.”

1:45 pm. AS reader Christina, voting her heart out in California so that student fees won’t go up. The Presidential election isn’t the only thing going on today, make sure you read all the ballot questions that change state by state.

1:52 pm. Some great recommendations for Oakland voters, but it doesn’t stop there. Check out these recommendations for California voters at large, including state initiatives.

1:55 pm. Okay, y’all. I have to eat lunch. Obama would want me to eat lunch, and editor Rachel thinks you all should make me sandwich. Sandwiches for freedom. Be back soonest!

2:19 pm. After lunch, the nerves are really getting to me. I keep having to employ deep breathing techniques. But Steve Garfield has a reminder for us:

2:22 pm. It’s just talking heads right now on TV, you guys. So head on over to Laura and Vanessa‘s post on Sally Kohn, because they tell me that Sally Kohn is going to be the next Rachel Maddow.

2:27 pm. Contributing editor Kate is going to do a queer strip-tease if she gets 100 likes on this post. The catch? You can only like it if you voted.

2:29 pm. MSNBC tells me the voting machine that Jezebel reported on earlier, the one that changes Obama votes to Romney votes, has been taken out of service.

2:33 pm. Everyone send internet love to Carolyn, who is watching the election from South Africa. Here’s her election night all-nighter schedule. The time difference is a bitch.

2:35 pm. Reader Arls just drew my attention to My Fair Election, where we can gather data to give viable, legal feedback on our polling places.

2:40 pm. Reader Katie wants to remind us all to vote yes on 1 in Maine. This is voting FOR marriage equality.

2:57 pm. Kristen found this great video on what happens if the Electoral College is tied. This is not something I want to think about, but since a whole bunch of the headlines I’ve read all insist that Obama and Romney are coming into this election tied.

[yframe url=’https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHEDXzOfENI’]

 3:00 pm. The reporters on “The Cycle” look like they’re having a ton of fun reporting this. “People have many questions, like who’s running? And be specific.” If you have access to a TV, these guys at least look like they’re gonna have a good laugh about this. MSNBC, y’all.

3:05 pm. Reader Sonia sent a picture and a link to the very first California Asian American Pacific Islander Voting Guide, which is a thing I didn’t know existed until right now. Thank you Sonia!

3:10 pm. I have really strong feelings about Election Day being a federal holiday on par with Christmas. Or at least maybe we vote on a weekend? Vanessa found this great piece on the tradition behind voting on a Tuesday. It makes no sense anymore, but we keep it anyways, because TRADITION!

3:14 pm. Want a preview of what’s on your ballot? Use TheBallot.org to get a preview before you get to the polls.

3:20 pm. Contributing editor Gabrielle‘s polling district has been declared a disaster area due to Sandy. Here’s what she did to vote:

Hi friends. Just some personal voting updates: I’m registered to vote in Suffolk county, which is a federally declared disaster zone. Because of the gas shortage, I didnt have a way to get there, but was able to vote via an affidavit ballot in Queens.

3:24 pm. The MSNBC anchors are talking about how to make voting easier. They had some interesting arguments against voting on a Tuesday, and some really compelling arguments for keeping voting on a single day. The thing is, I’m not sure I agree with that. I like Election Day being more of a deadline.

3:28 pm. To piggy back off Gabrielle’s story, did you guys know that Governor Cuomo has declared that New Yorkers can vote in any polling place?

3:33 pm. Reader Stephanie got displaced by Sandy and she’s voting at the LGBT center. “I should get extra gay unicorn points.”

3:37 pm. The MSNBC talking heads are scaring me because they just said that it’s likely that Republicans will keep the House. Terrifying.

3:39 pm. Do you live in Washington? Vote to approve Referendum 74 and keep marriage equality alive and well in your state.

3:41 pm. Intern Geneva found this tweet for you guys. DO IT FOR CANADA!

3:47 pm. Reader Dena wore a Legalize Gay shirt to vote and received compliments from the poll workers!

3:50 pm. MSNBC is talking about Warren v. Scott,  McCaskill v. Akin and Baldwin v. Thompson. They just called Clare McCaskill “Claire Thank-God-I’m-Running-Against-Him McCaskill” and Todd Akin “Todd Legitimate-Rape Akin.”

3:51 pm. Polls show Tammy Baldwin up by 2 points. More on Baldwin maybe winning.

3:54 pm. MSNBC talking about how women are voting. “You don’t mess with women and politics. You just don’t do it.”

3:59 pm. Intern Geneva isn’t the only one who can make voting stickers. Reader Emily made her own too!

4:06 pm. Reader Julie voted NO in Minnesota! Don’t limit the freedom to marry!

4:10 pm. Reader Naomi wants to draw our attention to Prop 35 in California, a poorly written referendum against sex trafficking that’s actually bad for sex workers.

I’m voting to end CA’s death penalty and reform our three strikes law, as well as against an unfortunately badly written trafficking proposition (no on 35, everyone!).

4:19 pm. Autostraddle writer Rose sent over a picture and wants to direct our attention to the Warren v. Brown race in Massachusetts.

Here I am outside my polling place in Boston this morning! (Don’t worry, I didn’t put the buttons on until I was safely outside.) Voted Obama, Elizabeth Warren, yes on all the ballot questions. There was an adorable class of elementary school kids sitting on the floor watching us and talking about who they would pick; I was so happy to help show them democracy in action! After I voted I went up to the nearest Elizabeth Warren campaign office to make phone calls reminding supporters to vote.

4:23 pm. We talked about the marriage equality ballot questions on Autostraddle before, but here’s another link to The Four, a website dedicated to the four states where marriage equality is on the ballot. I always vom in my mouth a little when the majority get to vote on the minority. So let’s queer these effing elections, guys! Let’s take them back!

4:27 pm. Does anyone else think the ice rink at Rockerfeller Center turned into the map of the US is really badass? Are they gonna turn the states different colors as the night goes on, because I am going to lose my shit if that happens. #nerd.

 4:38 pm. Looks like I’m not the only one nerdy about maps! Intern Rebecca plans to color this hand-drawn map in during her election viewing party in Amsterdam.

4:45 pm. Want more internet stickers? Intern Chelsey made this one in response to a commenter from this morning. Whiskey Kitten for POTUS! Put this on your facebook and twitter machines, queermos! Happy Election Day!

4:47 pm. Breaking! NJ, you have until 5:00 to request an email ballot. Huge confusion about New Jersey’s electoral votes! Guys, that’s where my vote lives!!! I’m so nervous. Update: only people displaced by Frankenstorm Sandy can request electronic ballots.

4:53 pm. AAAAHHHAHA! Thanks reader KD15! “re: the 4:27pm comment – per MHP from this weekend, they are apparently going to color in the states in red/blue as they are called for Romney or Obama.” You guys, a giant map made of ice that is totally live updating and in color?! Please tell me you’ll all be watching MSNBC with me?!

4:56 pm. New Jersey, you still have to mail a ballot if you request an electronic one due to being displaced.

5:01 pm. Reader Nate voted in his first presidential election today and also sends us this picture from his college campus. There are no words.

5:02 pm. Intern Chelsey’s dad is gonna make me cry you guys:

so you know, i voted in florida this morning. its a battleground state! woot. my dad, an ALWAYS republican, voted for Obama because he “followed his daughters heart”. I may have cried/my heart died.

5:07 pm. Polls are starting to close in an hour! I’m blogging live on Eastern Standard time, and some polls in Kentucky and Indiana are expected to close at 6 pm my time. Check this map and get to your polling place on time. Map via Politico.

5:08 pm. On Hardball with Chris Matthews: “I’ll be shocked if we get the results from Ohio before midnight.” Then someone just said “I’ll be shocked if we get results out of Ohio in two weeks.” You guys. I can’t be doing this that long.

5:15 pm. Nine battle ground states, according to Chris Matthews. Does everyone know why we care about battleground states? Here’s a handy guide to why these states seem to count a little more. Basically, there are some states that are almost certainly going to Obama, some that are almost certainly going to Romney. Based on those predictions, each candidate needs a certain amount of electoral votes to win. So the votes from the states that are harder to call based on polling and predictions become incredibly important.

5:18 pm. McCaskill leading Akin, according to the Huffington Post.

5:25 pm. Style editor Lizz: “I’m trying to decide if I should make a “Dress Celebrate Obama Winning” article or a “Five Ways to Show Your Mourning Over Romney’s Win WIth Your Clothes” situations.” Do what the newspapers do and have both prepared? Naw, be optimistic and only have the Celebration one ready. We can do this, U.S.

5:29 pm. Thanks, reader Andrea! Colorado is a toss-up so your vote means A LOT!

5:35 pm. As we’re nearing the first poll closing of the night, I have something from Riese here for you.

on election day 2008, i was standing on a newly-assembled ikea end table/nightstand/mini-shelf-thing to hang a curtain rod because we’d just moved in to the apartment a few days earlier, and the table broke, sending me plummeting through it with a newly-exposed screw searing its way up my right leg. i refused to go to the hospital though, because OBAMA!

the reason i’m telling you this is because people who say Obama hasn’t accomplished anything over the last four years obviously haven’t seen how much progress my leg has made!

Here’s a photo of Riese’s Leg Progress.
5:38 pm. As polls start to close and we all start to watch results, I want to see the following in my inbox from all of y’all: reaction shots to states being called (youtube videos encouraged also), photos of your election watching party and SOME PATRIOTIC JELLO SHOT PHOTOS because jeez, someone has to make Election Boozey Things. Send them over to ali [at] autostraddle.com.

5:43 pm. Okay, if you are an exit polls person, Huffington Post is doing a live-updating exit poll post. But take these with a grain of salt, guys. In races that are this close, exit polls don’t mean much and races are almost never called on this data alone.

5:47 pm. And we have our first election food shot! Here are the patriotic strawberries that Vanessa‘s girlboifriend got her:

5:50 pm. Richard Wolffe on MSNBC says he thinks we will have a decision tonight. Here’s hoping, because I can’t sustain this level of stress for more than 24 hours.

5:56 pm. Chris Matthews on Hardball: “Voting is the best revenge” against people who want to stop you from voting.

6:02 pm. RACHEL MADDOW IS ON MY TELEVISION! MSNBC! GO GO GO!

6:05 pm. You guys, I’m such a Maddow fan girl. It’s embarrassing. And! And they’ve promised Melissa Harris Perry will make an appearance as well. MHP is wonderful!

6:06 pm. NBC news poll: 46 % believe the country is going in the right direction, 52% in the wrong direction.

6:09 pm. Six of the battleground states will be closed by 8 pm.

6:11 pm. Florida voters beware, you’re in two different time zones! Your polls close at 7 pm local time. Ignore coverage that says your polls close at 8 pm.

6:13 pm. I just noticed that Rachel Maddow is the only female commentator on this panel. At least she’s in charge of it.

6:16 pm. Lizz sent over video of the PA voting machine that magically transformed votes for Obama into votes for Romney.

6:19 pm. Intern Naimah in her post voting blazer!

6:20 pm. MSNBC is calling Paul Ryan a deadbeat running mate. Stand by for a good Paul Ryan video.

6:23 pm. Like I promised. Bad Lip Reading does Paul Ryan’s video diary.

[yframe url=’https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewP01X5x9Nw&feature=player_embedded’]

6:26 pm. Maddow is talking about Edith Childs, who turned down going to an Obama rally with the President because she was knocking on doors in North Carolina. Are you all fired up?!

6:28 pm. You guys, Melissa Harris Perry is the Chicago correspondent tonight! MHP all the way!

6:37 pm. A great graph that actually outlines what the world thinks about this election. The only country that wants to elect Romney: Pakistan. And not even by that much.

via http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc7/602324_10151302741592990_1627228818_n.jpg

6:44 pm. Ha, omg, reader Briana hitting us with some XKCD election love. Sometimes I feel like this. Like when I’ve been in this post for almost 11 hours.

6:50 pm. Commenter Sophie wins all the things. Super true:

I think the tumblr posts from non-Americans are evenly split between “If Romney wins you can all come live in my country” and “If Romney wins I’m coming to your country to punch you all”.

6:52 pm. Chris Hayes was just going through the Akin and Murdock rape commentary. It just makes me so, so angry to hear. I just can’t get used to it.

6:55 pm. We’re starting to get tickers across the bottom for Kentucky, New Hampshire and Indiana. But I refuse to report on them with only 1 and 2 percent in.

6:56 pm. You guys, my girlfriend brought me snacks! All I’ve had today is veggie sausage and coffee. So. Much. Coffee.

6:58 pm. Reader Lynne emails: “I voted! Time to start drinking!”

7:03 pm. Polls closing in Virginia, Indiana, Kentucky, Vermont, Georgia, South Carolina, New Hampshire and parts of Florida.

7:05 pm. Indiana and Kentucky predicted to go to Romney, Vermont predicted to go to Obama. The media seems to be pretty sure about it, but Imma say predicted because they’re saying things like 4 percent counted.

7:07 pm. Virginia still too close to call. No shit, sherlock. Polls closed 7 minutes ago.

7:13 pm. Looking at Virginia data from 2008 in specific counties. Saying we should be paying attention to Fairfax and Prince William counties. Am I the only one that just can’t be optimistic until we see real numbers from this year?

7:16 pm. Rachel Maddow reminds us that if you’re in line when the polling place closes, they still have to let you vote. STAY IN LINE, QUEERS!

7:18 pm. This comment by Riese. This. This. “seriously thank jesus for rachel maddow, her presence is so comforting to me”

7:19 pm. Aaaahhh! My first glimpse of the ice-map in color. You guys, I’m so excited about this ice-map.

7:21 pm. Y’all, Ellen also wants your stickers. Send her the Autostraddle ones!

7:25 pm. Another contribution from Brianna. This may perhaps fuel your panic, however.

[yframe url=’https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1kIGa31HR8′]

7:27 pm. Polls close in Ohio at 7:30 pm. Maddow says this one is the most important for Romney. Her sources say they don’t see much of a path to the White House without it.

7:30 pm. 

7:31 pm. Polls just closed in Ohio, West Virginia and North Carolina.

7:34 pm. West Virginia predicted to go to Romney. As of right now, it’s Obama with 3 electoral votes and Romney with 24. Remember, a candidate needs 270 to win, so we’re still super far away.

7:35 pm. South Carolina projected to Romney. Bringing Romney to 33 electoral votes.

7:40 pm. Reader Piper emails:

i’m having a lot of feelings right now, ranging from exhausted cause i’ve been running around boston like a crazy person for the past two days and only got an hour and a half of sleep last night, to excited/proud to have voted for obama and warren, and SCARED FUCKING SHITLESS of the possibility of a romney win.  it’s all somewhat confusing for me. OH GOD OHIO POLLS JUST CLOSED.

7:45 pm. Autostraddle editor Laneia voted for the first time in person: “a little old lady put a sticker on me and ali, it was like being knighted.”

7:56 pm. Commercial break! Time to beast this Indian food I ordered!

8:00 pm. Polls close in Pennsylvania, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Tenn, Maryland, Alabama, Oklahoma, Connecticut, Mississippi, Maine, Rhode Island, Delaware, DC, New Jersey and Missouri.

8:05 pm. Called for Obama: Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Illinois.

8:07 pm. Romney has a projected 82 electoral votes, Obama 64. Here’s an online version of the map I’m looking at on MSNBC.

8:09 pm. Too early to call, but McCaskill and Warren are in the lead in their states.

8:11 pm. “Chuck has been replaced by an animated map.” I love Maddow.

8:17 pm. Florida elected a democratic senator!

8:19 pm.

8:24 pm. 

8:28 pm. Apparently you can send a pizza to the polls? Helping people stay in line, one pie at a time.

8:30 pm. FUCK YES! DOWNTHEWATERSPOUT MADE PARTISAN JELLO SHOTS! MY LIFE IS COMPLETE!

8:31 pm. Arkansas to Romney. Chris Murphy wins the Senate in Connecticut.

8:34 pm. That puts Romney up to 88, Obama still at 64.

8:36 pm. A quick primer on the Electoral College for those of us who are a little fuzzy from four years of forgetting about the Electoral College.

8:43 pm. A color your own Electoral College map, submitted by reader Cary, who hopes it will calm some stress.

8:49 pm. Contributing editor Malaika sent over this video of the American electoral system as explained by  Canadian sketch comedy show “This Hour Has 22 Minutes.”

8:51 pm. Since all that’s happening right now on MSNBC is men yelling at each other, here’s a hand-drawn Autostraddle badge from Kristen!

8:53 pm. You guys, if I sound panicked it’s just because there’s a lot happening at once and I’m trying to keep up with everything. It’s not because I think we should panic yet. Yes, Romney is in the lead right now. But the really important states haven’t been called yet. So it’s not time to panic. I’ll tell you when it’s time to panic.

8:55 pm. Tons of polls closing in the nine o’clock hour. Too many for me to list. I’m going to list them as they’re called for one candidate or the other by MSNBC.

8:59 pm. From my girlfriend, re: Massachusetts going to Obama. She says she found it on her Facebook.

9:00 pm. Rachel Maddow describes this as “a giant batch of poll closings.” Michigan to Obama. Texas to Romney. New York to Obama. Louisiana to Romney. Kansas to Romney. New Mexico to Obama. Nebraska to Romney, but they split electoral votes in Nebraska so 4 out of 5 electoral votes go to Romney. North Dakota to Mitt Romney, South Dakota to Romney. Arizona to Romney. 114 to Obama, 153 to Romney.

9:04 pm. Ugh, MSNBC projects the Republicans hold the House. If that’s true, that’s more John Boehner. Ugh ugh ugh.

9:06 pm. People are still in line in Virginia. STAY IN LINE, EVERYONE!

9:07 pm. Jersey is projected to Obama! MY VOTE HELPED WITH THAT!

9:09 pm. Katlyn made some white wine with patriotic fruit.

9:10 pm. Bob Casey wins for Senate in Pennsylvania. My girlfriend: “Oh Bob Casey, you’re not really much better than Republicans. But at least you’re a Democrat.”

9:14 pm. A screen shot of the MSNBC map that I’m looking at, if you don’t have cable.

9:15 pm. MSNBC projects Obama as the winner in Pennsylvania! You guys, both candidates really wanted that one. This is a good thing!

9:17 pm. Kirsten Gillibrand projected to win in New York.

9:19 pm. As per some of the commenters, keep in mind that these are ALL projections. They’re probably pretty accurate, but they’re still projections.

9:22 pm. Malaika sent us more This Hour Has 22 Minutes. Thank you, Canada, for this Big Bird sketch.

[yframe url=’https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNmPNiYT4tI’]

9:23 pm. Commenters! I have two rules for you! One, NO PANICKING! It is just not that time yet. Two, you must be sober enough to recognize a concession speech.

9:27 pm. Guess what everyone?! It’s Intern Grace’s birthday! We will probably win in Ohio because it’s Grace’s birthday.

9:28 pm. Wisconsin called for Obama! *”On Wisconsin” plays in my head / on the live blog*

9:32 pm. Style editor Lizz trying to bake cookies for all the donors to Autostraddle’s new website, but instead watching the election. I feel you, Lizz.

9:34 pm. Reader Lauren checking people in to the Democratic Victory Party in Nevada.

9:36 pm. Maddow just told me that, while her race is too close to call, Tammy Baldwin is in the lead. I WANT A LESBIAN IN THE SENATE!

9:38 pm. See? No panicking yet please! 158 for Obama, 153 for Romney.

9:42 pm. Voters Don’t Care That Tammy Baldwin is Gay.

9:43 pm. ELIZABETH WARREN PROJECTED TO DEFEAT SCOTT BROWN! THEY JUST CALLED IT.

9:45 pm. Joe Donnelly defeats Richard Murdock, the guy that said children born of rape is God’s will.

9:46 pm. Some Elizabeth Warren worship:

[yframe url=’https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htX2usfqMEs’]

9:50 pm. Reader Katlyn summarizes all our feelings about Rachel Maddow in one picture.

9:51 pm. New Hampshire goes to Obama!

9:52 pm. Obama 162. Romney 153.

9:55 pm. Same-sex marriage in Maryland is hella close.

9:56 pm. Iowa, Montana, Nevada and Utah. All closing in the 10 o’clock hour.

10:00 pm. Utah and Montana to Romney.

10:01 pm. Obama and Romney are tied in electoral votes.

10:04 pm. Chris Hayes tells us that the Senate promises to be more polarized than it is now.

10:06 pm. Clare McCaskill projected to win against Todd Legitimate Rape Akin. Rachel Maddow says McCaskill wanted to run against Akin so badly that she ran ads for him.

10:08 pm. What some of us feel like right now. (Even/especially the person who’s been live blogging this shit for fourteen hours.)

[yframe url=’https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1-xK3eDHrw’]

10:09 pm. “The war on women is breaking for the Democrats.”

10:11 pm. MSNBC: Chris Murphy’s victory speech. The new Democratic Senator from Connecticut.

10:12 pm. Mitt Romney wins entire state of Nebraska, all 5 votes.

10: 15 pm. Chloe voted for the first time today too! I’m so proud of all you queermo first time voters!

10:16 pm. Romney would have to get 5 of 6 remaining battleground states to win.

10:18 pm. Here’s where we can all keep up on the Maine marriage equality initiative. Question 1 is too close.

10:20 pm. The Tammy Baldwin race is still too close, guys. I know some people have called it but I’m not comfortable with that yet.

10:22 pm. People are still in line in Florida! Laneia hopes that someone had “stay in line” in their drinking game.

10:25 pm. A big shout out to my girlfriend, who has played a huge role in keeping me watered and fed while I obsessively follow this election. Thanks honey!

10:28 pm. Just putting out the MSNBC map again.

10:31 pm. Massachusetts appears to have legalized medical marijuana.

10:32 pm. Good point, MSNBC. Where are the concession speeches? We’re hearing from victors before concession speeches have been given.

10:34 pm. Romney gets Arizona.

10:37 pm. Romney 174, Obama 162.

10:38 pm. Differing accounts of whether or not the Romney campaign remains optimistic. “Based on what?” Guys, even though it looks like he’s leading, Romney literally has to sweep the remaining battleground states to win.

10:42 pm. Reader T-Bone showing off his election pride with reader Mary’s sticker.

10:43 pm. Minnesota for Obama!

10:44 pm. Romney 174, Obama 172.

10:47 pm. Voters on Staten Island vote by flash light.

10:48 pm. My girlfriend re: Todd Akin’s concession speech– “He should have lost on that comb-over alone.”

10:49 pm. Missouri for Romney.

10:50 pm. “I’m so tired of listening to old white men talk.” – Marni

10:54 pm. Brandy Howard with the queers at the Victory Party in Chicago.

10:55 pm. Elizabeth Warren on MSNBC!

10:56 pm. She’s really wonderful. “We’re gonna fight for a level playing field and we’re gonna put people back to work.”

10:56 pm. “i hope todd akin walks into a concrete pillar tomorrow on his way to get a coffee” –laneia on g-chat just now

11:00 pm.

11:01 pm. California, Washington and Hawaii for Obama. Idaho for Romney.

11:03 pm. Obama 243, Romney 188.

11:04 pm. North Carolina to Romney.

11:08 pm. 

11:10 pm. Iowa for Obama!

11:12 pm. Oregon for Obama too!

11:13 pm. IS THIS REALLY HAPPENING? DID OBAMA JUST WIN!?

11:14 PM.  IT’S REALLY HAPPENING! HE’S AT 274! OBAMA’S GOT IT!

11:15 pm. He got Ohio, guys, that’s what did it!

11:17 pm.

11:19 pm. “tbh i’m mostly glad ohio didn’t ruin everything forever” –Intern Grace.

11:21 pm. I’m now adding a purpose to this open thread: we are now also an internet birthday party for Intern Grace.

11:22 pm. We even got this despite Citizens United! Unlimited money doesn’t always win. Sometimes humans win instead.

11:24 pm. MHP in some big ass headphones tells me how wonderful things are. The night is lovely, queermos! Let’s get unsober!

11:28 pm. “i’d like to thank my grandmother in ohio for voting obama” – Riese.

11:30 pm.

11:34 pm. Colorado legalizes recreational use and commercial sale of marijuana. You guys in CO, please enjoy your celebratory Obama party tonight with this extra special news in mind.

11:38 pm. Oy, Romney, concede already. I need to sleep.

11:41 pm. Romney campaign is not conceding Ohio, doesn’t believe that Ohio is decided.

11:44 pm. 

11:47 pm. You guys, if marriage equality wins in all four states and Tammy Baldwin gets elected, Imma die of perfect.

11:52 pm. When everyone at Intern Naimah’s house heard that Obama won:

12:00 am. MAINE!!!

12:07 am. Mainers United says thank you to everyone for winning equality for all families.

12:10 am. For what it’s worth, Colorado for Obama.

12:14 am. Huffington Post has a live updating post full of marriage equality ballot referendums.  Who’s getting married in Maine?

12:18 am. Maddow tells me Maryland has legalized same sex marriage!

12:22 am. Still no concession from Romney. Lesbian Jesus, doesn’t he know I need to go to bed?

12:37 am. Tammy Duckworth wins her race!

12:38 am. Minnesota, do the right thing and oust Michelle Bachmann.

12:44 am. Obama is winning the popular vote too, y’all.

12:45 am. Cory Booker on MSNBC! Fuck yeah Cory Booker!

12:46 am. Cory Booker tells me that Washington is leading in our favor, re: marriage equality. When Cory Booker says something, I believe it. Still too close to call though.

12:47 am. Romney allegedly speaking in 7 minutes. Concession?

12:51 am. Romney has called President Obama to congratulate him on his victory.

12:54 am. TAMMY BALDWIN WINS IN WISCONSIN!

12:55 am. We have a lesbian in the Senate and Romney is conceding. I might die of perfect.

12:57 am. Well queermos, I am signing off for the night. We have a concession from Romney, now we’re waiting for a victory speech from Obama. But you don’t need my commentary to enjoy that. Just sit back and cry wildly at everything President Obama says. Don’t fight it, you know it’s going to happen. And thank you. Thank you to everyone who voted today, because we all made this happen together. As a community. Pat each other on the back, buy each other some beer. Because yes we did. Good night everyone.

Things I Read That I Love: U.S. Presidential Election Edition

Every Friday I regale you with my longform journalism suggestions in “Things I Read That I Love.” These suggestions cover a myriad of topics but today, in honor of tomorrow’s election, I’ve whipped up a thematic edition of Things I Read That I Love.

Politics and The New Normal America (October 2004), by Joan Didion for The New York Review Of Books – Joan Didion on “the apparently intractable enthusiasm of American reporters for covering political conventions,” John Kerry The Candidate, media spin, how Americans frame their ideologies, hypocrisy, polling, focus groups and all this other stuff. It’s Joan Didion so it’s really fantastic, obviously.

Vote of Confidence (January 1993), by Gretchen Reynolds for Chicago Magazine – “A huge black turnout in November 1992 altered Chicago’s electoral landscape—and raised a new political star: a 31-year-old lawyer named Barack Obama.”

The Politics of Personality Destruction (June 2007), by Jennifer Senior for New York Magazine – In addition to bringing me back to a time in American history when John McCain wasn’t the enemy, Mitt Romney wasn’t the front-runner and Hilary was still slightly favored over Barack — this is a really entertaining and interesting look at how fucked up and crazy and fake the whole campaigning thing is, and the psychological toll it takes on its less affable participants.

The GOP War on Voting (August 2011), by Ari Berman for Rolling Stone – “As the nation gears up for the 2012 presidential election, Republican officials have launched an unprecedented, centrally coordinated campaign to suppress the elements of the Democratic vote that elected Barack Obama in 2008.”

The Big Lie: “I Love My Gay Friends, But I’m Voting Romney Anyway” (October 2012), by Christopher Hennesy for The Huffington Post – You’ve likely seen this one already or already posted it to your Facebook, but you know. Just in case.

The Week In Greed #18: They Were Carless People (November 2012), by Steve Almond for The Rumpus – “It is hard to overstate the degree of cynicism at play here: If you can’t win based on your policies, lie about them. If that doesn’t work, make sure those who support your opponent can’t vote. Confuse them. Inconvenience them. Scare them.”

Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital (September 2012), by: Matt Taibbi for Rolling Stone – “How the GOP presidential candidate and his private equity firm staged an epic wealth grab, destroyed jobs – and stuck others with the bill”

Red State, Blue State (November 2012), by Ira Glass & Friends for This American Life- You can’t actually read this one, you have to listen to it, duh! “Everyone knows that politics is now so divided in our country that not only do the 2 sides disagree on the solutions to the country’s problems, they don’t even agree on what the problems are. It’s 2 versions of the world in collision. This week we hear from people who’ve seen this infect their personal lives. They’ve lost friends. They’ve become estranged from family members. A special pre-election episode of our show.”

Rock, Paper, Scissors (October 2008), by Jill Lepore for The New Yorker – The strange and wacky history of voting in America, which began with literally voting out loud, evolved into “paper voting” with bring-your-own ballots (during a time when voters were often wounded or sometimes even killed on their way to the polls) and eventually became the super-special system we’ve got today.

The Ballot Cops (October 2012), by Mariah Blake for The Atlantic – “Thirty years ago, the Republican National Committee was accused of violating the Voting Rights Act and ordered to cease its “ballot security” efforts. Now an organization called True the Vote wants to pick up where the RNC left off, by building a nationwide army to root out voter fraud—or, some would say, to suppress voter turnout.”

George W.’s Personal Jesus (February 2005), by Guy Lawson for GQ – I still remember reading this piece for the first time. It was a revelation/terrifying. “He uses his religion as a political tool better than any president in history. Christ is his number one adviser. And yet we don’t really know what he believes. It’s all part of the plan.”

Voting Rights Watch 2012, by Brentin Mock for Colorlines – Colorlines has heaps of really compelling pieces about voting rights and attempts at voter suppression categorized under its Voting Rights Watch 2012 page. I would particularly recommend Aura Bogado’s How Native Voters Are Routinely Disenfranchised in Arizona.

The Percentages: A Biography of Class (October 2011) by Sady Doyle for Tiger Beatdown – This essay has really stuck with me for its insight on the class tensions between low-income whites and the “liberal elites” they don’t want to vote for. It was in a previous edition of TIRTL.  – “you called us hicks, you made costumes out of us, you made jokes out of us, you have a bar in your big fancy city and it’s called “Trailer”: of course we want to hear that the “coastal elite” is worthless, of course we want to hear that we’re better than you, that we’re “real.”

I could go on forever, but I think this is good for now! Also if you’re looking for a solid endorsement of Barack Obama, The New Yorker’s got a good one.

Republican Anti-Gay Attack Texts Create Unnecessary Noise, Not Much Truth

In a perfect example of how this campaign is becoming an elementary-school-style cry for attention, many Americans’ evenings were recently rudely interrupted when they were texted anti-gay and anti-Obama messages. Tuesday night, D.C residents were going about their lives, free from thoughts such as, “Gosh, why won’t the Republican party text me already?”  Unfortunately, to spread hatred on a more intimate level, a company linked to former Republican Virginia State candidate Jason Flanary thought it could help Romney win by sending citizens messages such as “Re-electing Obama puts medicare at risk” and “Obama supports same-sex marriages.” The 13-year-old daughter of New York Times reporter Jonathan Weisman even received a text which read, “Obama denies support to babies who survive abortion. Obama is just wrong”. Rather than explain how these text messages are lies, full of false assumptions (many Americans support same-sex marriages) and in horrifying bad taste (I’m sure there’s a section in Miss Manners on how old men should not text 13-year-old girls about abortions), the real issue in this text scandal is the lack of transparency.

via msnbc.com

When residents tried to text a response, they weren’t able to. They also had no immediate way of telling who the messages were coming from because the sender was disguised under pseudonyms such as “슠sms@gopmessage.com,” “슠sms@aicett.com,” and finally, “‘SMS@Aicett.Com.” It took some digging to figure out that the spam was linked to a company called ccAdvertising, which is in turn linked to Republican Jason Flanary who unsuccessfully (no surprise there) ran for Senate in Virginia last year. According to CBS news:

WHOIS, an Internet protocol that provides the name of any website’s owner unless he or she pays for anonymity, on Wednesday showed that voteett.com – suspended for ‘spam and abuse’ – is registered to Jason Flanary and managed by a Centreville, Va., company called ccAdvertising. Flanary is the chief operating officer of ccAdvertising, which according to the company’s website provides robo-calls to ‘commercial, Political, Congressional and non-profit clients.

Unfortunately in America if you have enough money you can potentially hire a group of people to make a PSA ad that says, “Obama Farts,” and it will be played on television to a soundtrack of scary music. This is because in 2010 a Supreme Court ruling determined that corporations, unions, and third-party interests groups are “people” entitled to spend as much money as they want to get a political message across. The only silver lining is that information must be given on who exactly is paying for the ad. “Paid for by the hypothetical Coalition against Obama and Farts” would have to be included at the end of the aforementioned nonsensical ad.

More than 800 million dollars have been spent on advertising so far this election season. It seems a bit ridiculous to fund an ad tying Obama to Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez instead of, say, funding a citizen’s hospital visit; but at least the names of the advertisers are out in the public. It’s not much, but it’s a start. If your day is going to be rudely interrupted by lies and nonsense, you want to know where it’s coming from.

via thestar.com

According to The Atlantic, the texters avoided the illegality of non-transparency of distributing unsolicited messages by using an email addresses to send the texts. The domain names of the sender were registered, but blocked; but obviously not blocked that well. It makes me wonder what the point of the messages was. Did Flanary really how to persuade voters with information from a mysterious source? He seems to have wanted so desperately to make some noise that he forgot to think about his actions.

Of course, for the unlucky recipients of anti-gay and anti-Obama text messages on Tuesday, the lack of information regarding the sender was frustrating. But  the good news is it’s unlikely the texts have harmed Obama. Michigan State University’s advertising expert Richard Cole believes that at this point in the campaign, instead of being persuaded by them, Americans are just tuning attack ads out:

We’ve reached the point now where people’s minds are pretty much made up and whoever is left, you have to conclude, is pretty much mindless. Once the decision takes hold, more and more people just put their hands over their ears and shout, ‘I don’t want to hear about it’ over the ads.

He also went on to explain that of the world’s 175 democracies, the United States is alone in allowing so much influence from non-democratic sources: “Frankly, I’m embarrassed, knowing that the people of Canada and elsewhere must be scratching their heads at how much we’ve allowed money to take hold.”

via optoons.blogspot.com

While Team Obama spent most of its budget this summer, Team Romney has saved up for a grand finale attack. I hate to say it, but this last week of campaigning, the noise is only going to get worse.  But like with an annoying stupid classmate, if you just ignore his or her noise and draw pictures of dragons in the margins of your notebook, sooner or later, you’ll feel at peace.

Lest We Forget: Five Of The Most Recently Reported Reasons Romney and Ryan Suck

They say there’s too much of a good thing, but I don’t think they knew how much fun it was to point and laugh at Mitt Romney.

This election season, the Romney/Ryan campaign has engaged in everything from subtle manipulation to all-out, balls-to-the-wall fuckery of a previously unseen caliber. I’ve enjoyed following the Romney/Ryan campaign as an act of political absurdist theater, or a long sketch comedy show about someone who wishes they got paid more to be a douchebag. I’ve enjoyed watching as the pair told outright lies, denied fact-checks from within their campaign, and wrestled with embarrassing photos.

I’ve laughed deeply at Mitt Romney’s “verge of tears” debate face (RIP) and Paul Ryan’s insistence that he is, in fact, somehow a real human being. (I still don’t believe.)

this is a man who is crying inside

It’s almost time for America to decide on a President. It’s November of 2012. And I’ve been laughing so as not to cry since the whole thing started. Here at Autostraddle, me and the rest of the team have kept you abreast (sexy) of Romney/Ryan’s gaffes, antics, and bad person-ness for a while now. But as election day nears, I want to do a quick refresher of some of the most recent bullshit to come from America’s Most Attractive Crooks.

Lest We Forget: Five Recent Reminders of How Much Romney/Ryan Suck

5. Capitalist Jerks: According to The Nation, Romney made at least $15 million off of the Detroit bailout. But hey – he’s unemployed.

GREG PALAST: As part of a massive government bailout, U.S. taxpayers paid $12 billion to save auto parts maker Delphi Corporation. Out of that taxpayer money, three billionaires and their partners took in a profit of over $4 billion. One big winner, with a profit of over 4,000 percent, were the billionaires’ silent partners, Ann and Mitt Romney. The Romneys made at least $15 million, and as much as $115 million.

4. Spreading Misinformation, Bold-Faced Lies: Despite numerous fact-checks from various sources over a mounting period of time, Mitt Romney simply refuses to stop lying about Obamacare’s impact on seniors! How sweet. He also insists that Jeep is outsourcing to China, which is a huge LOL.

3. Everlasting Ignorance: Andrea Saul, Romney’s press secretary, worked for Exxon during Hurricane Katrina. Aside from selling her soul to an evil corporation, she also went out on a limb to claim that global warming and climate change were not threats and had nothing to do with a massive storm causing unprecedented destruction at emergency levels. I’m sure those assertions are appreciated by those who are now without access to basic necessities or medical care from Hurricane Sandy, which many experts say “fits the general pattern in North America, and indeed around the world, toward more extreme weather, a pattern that, increasingly, can be attributed to climate change.”

“Coming off one of the most devastating hurricane seasons in recent memory, many are quick to blame the strength and frequency of these storms on global warming. Leading climate scientists, however, say there is no link between increased storm activity and a massive change in global climate.“

2. Douchebaggery and Deception: Remember when Paul Ryan faked a photo op at a legally bound non-partisan soup kitchen, fucked up everyone’s day, and then caused backlash from their donors and within their internal administration? That was so polite! He looked like shit, and actively made life worse for those he was purportedly “helping,” but who cares!

Well, don’t call it a comeback, but Mittens definitely used Sandy as a tool to garner good publicity and more votes by campaigning in Ohio under the guise of a “relief rally” – which he staged! The Romney campaign spent about $5,000 buying “donations,” which they then passed out to supporters who could then bring them into the rally and “donate” back to the Romney campaign. And as a crowning touch, the items the Romney campaign bought (and are encouraging others to donate more of) are things the Red Cross doesn’t want or need, and in fact actively ask people not to donate! The Red Cross now has to use valuable resources to figure out how to deal with all the canned goods they didn’t ask for, and are in the meantime urging people to donate money or blood — you know, the things they can actually use. Mitt Romney will destroy America one Wal-Mart trip for bottled water at a time. Now that’s the image of an American Douchebag.

(As a refresher, Obama took time off to head to New Jersey and talk to suffering humans, and also urged his supporters to give money to relief aids instead of his campaign.)

1. Downright Cheating: The recent news that Mitt Romney owns stock in the company producing Ohio’s voting booths should be really shocking and disturbing, but it will probably come as no surprise to anyone alive during the 2000 election. This is a big yawn for the Republican party, in my opinion. They need to step up their game with new methods of deceit.

(The Romney/Ryan campaign has also been training poll watchers to mislead voters in Iowa, and potentially in other states. Who knew you could rig a glorified popularity contest!)

A new ThinkProgress investigation has found that in Iowa, Romney poll watchers are being trained to watch for voters who show up without a photo ID, even though no voter ID law exists in the state. […]

This [training] video is part of Romney’s massive nationwide poll-watcher effort on Election Day. The campaign is training 34,000 volunteers to fan out in swing states across the country and monitor for voter fraud. Romney personally touted Project ORCA in avideo released Wednesday evening, telling poll watchers that they’ll “be the key link in providing critical, real-time information to me.” Because of the program, Romney said, “our campaign will have an unprecedented advantage on Election Day.”

BONUS: By far one of the Worst Moments in Human History, I’d like to remind you that in 1983, Willard Romney was outed as being the worst Puppy Papa of all time when he ‘fessed up to attaching his dog’s cage to the roof of his car, leaving the animal in there, and then driving on the highway for multiple hours. CLASSY!

A Last Minute VAG: Support Your Election with Volunteering and Jello Shots

November 6th is almost here, queers! Are you ready? I am so ready! Yes, voting is probably the single most important thing you can do on Election Day (if you haven’t done so by now.) But it’s not the only important thing you can do on Election Day. Our civic involvement doesn’t have to stop with the submission of our own ballot. Here’s a few things you can do on Election Day to help get out the vote and to stay involved passed casting your own.

+

Volunteer or Work as a Poll Worker

+

via ehow.com

+

Many deadlines have gone by, but some states may still allow you to work or volunteer as a poll worker. Check your state’s election board website to see if there are any more volunteer opportunities left. You can get a list of links to state board of election websites here.

+

 Drive Voters To Polls

+

via reflector.com

+

This is something your local Democratic Committee usually coordinates. Plenty of people aren’t close enough to their polling places to walk and they also don’t have a car or don’t drive. You can help them get there to cast their vote! There are too many counties in the United States for me to provide a list of Democratic committee websites, but I’ve had pretty good luck just googling the name of a county and the words “democratic committee.” If they aren’t organizing a drive-people-to-the-polls situation, give your local nursing home a call and see if they need help. Heck, knock on your neighbors doors and see if they need a lift. Offer yourself up on facebook for your car-less friends. Be accessible for transportation in general and even if you help one person get to the polling place that day, you’ve done a tremendous thing.

+

Phone Banking, Knocking On Doors, And Otherwise Telling People to Go Vote

+

via Daily Kos

+

Your local democratic committee will definitely have this on lock, so give them a call or drop by their headquarters. Or you could festoon your car and buy a PA system off a taco truck and DIY your own volunteer opportunity as Modern Family has told us to do. Here’s an example!

+

+

Election Protection

+

via Daily Kos

+

I’m sure you’ve heard about the scary intimidation tactics allegedly employed by organizations like True the Vote. If you’re a lawyer, or even if you’re not, Election Protection is trying to make sure people are not intimidated by bullies at the ballot box. Lawyers, law students, and paralegals can be on call to answer questions if something seems fishy at a polling place, or even to participate in legal deployments. If you’re not a lawyer, law student or paralegal, you can volunteer to be a grassroots poll monitor. These grassroots poll monitors aren’t watching for “voter fraud” (something that’s way less common than the right would have you believe) they’re watching for people watching for voter fraud. Basically, they’re just there making sure people don’t scare voters away (something that is so very illegal, so so illegal). They’re looking for volunteers of both kinds in Arizona, California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia.  This website also has excellent information on voting state-by-state if there’s still any confusion about where and when you can vote on election day. They also have some pretty scary stories about deception tactics that are already happening.

+

Make Election-Themed Jello Shots

+

via celebration.com

+

I had a political science teacher in high school who is one of my big political influences. She had a theory. Why don’t we treat Election Day more like a holiday? Why aren’t schools closed, businesses closed? Why aren’t we all partying and celebrating this phenomenal right to vote that we have, that not everyone in the world gets to take part in? Why aren’t we hosting Election Day parties, cheering on our candidates? What is with this country’s attitude on voting?! I agree. Which is why I prescribe Election Day jello shots. I’m dead serious. We should be making a bigger deal out of Election Day. The idea of having a bunch of friends over to get a bit tipsy and watch President Obama win again (please please hopefully please) would do wonders to change the mindset behind Election Day. I actually did do this for the last Presidential Election. So how do you make election-themed jello shots? Use a standard jello shot recipe and only use red and blue jello. Or if you’re me and my friends, only blue jello. I also found these badass election themed cocktails. So party it up, y’all! WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO VOTE!

+

Read Autostraddle’s Election Day Liveblog/Feelings Thread

+

via goodmorningkitten.tumblr.com

+

And one more thing. Autostraddle is going to Live Blog the election! Come join me on Election Day so we can share our large amount of political feelings and color in our election maps together! (this is also a thing I did during the last election. Yup. Mmhm.) I can’t wait to see your shining internet faces on Election Day!

VIDEO: “Binders Full O Bitches,” Featuring Haviland Stillwell As An “NRA Bitch”

The comedic team at Forty-Seven Percent Records, a division of Happy Panda Productions, have put together a catchy Black Romney video entitled “Black Romney: Binders Full O Bitches” in which Romney expresses his disinterest in a variety of human beings, such as the unemployed and single mothers.  Created by the very funny Deborah S. Craig and starring Burl Moseley, this biting piece of political satire also features your favorite Out Lesbian Actress Haviland Stillwell, star of Unicorn Plan-It and lots of other things, like your pants. She dances and sings along with a variety of other females. I don’t know, I think you might really enjoy it! See for yourself:

Joss Whedon Endorses Mitt Romney And The Zombie Apocalypse

Carolyn’s Team Pick:

Joss Whedon (Buffy, Firefly, The Avengers, seriously, you know who he is, right?) has released a political “parody” ad detailing the dark Walking-Dead-esque future that awaits if America elects Mitt Romney. If you aren’t stockpiling spam already due to Hurricane Sandy, or aren’t planning to vote early, maybe do that now. Transcript follows the video.

You know, like a lot of liberal Americans, I was excited when Barak Obama took office four years ago. But it’s a very different world now. And Mitt Romney is a very different candidate. One with the vision and determination to cut through business as usual politics and finally put this country back on the path to the zombie apocalypse.

Romney’s ready to make the deep roll-backs — in healthcare, education, social services, reproductive rights — that will guarantee poverty, unemployment, over population, disease, rioting: all crucial elements in creating a nightmare zombie wasteland. But it’s his commitment to ungoverned corporate privilege that will nose-dive this economy into true insolvency and chaos — the kind of chaos you can’t buy back. Money is only so much paper to the undead. The one percent? It’ll no longer be the very rich. It’ll be the very fast. Anyone who can run, fight, make explosives out of household objects or especially do parkour of any kind — you’ll want to stick with them. Unless they read Ayn Rand.

I don’t pretend to see the future. No one knows for sure if they’ll be the super-fast 28 Days Later zombies or the old-school shambling kind. But they’ll be out there. And they’ll need brains. So, whether you’re a small businessman just trying to keep his doors open; a single mom so concerned for her son’s welfare that she’ll run to embrace him when he’s clearly infected and going to bite her; or a strung-out ex-military type who’s been out there too long and is taking the kind of damn fool chances that’ll get us all killed, you need to ask yourself, “Am I ready? Am I ready for the purity and courage of Mitt Romney’s apocalyptic vision?” Mitt’s ready. He’s not afraid to face a ravening, grasping horde of sub-humans, because that’s how he sees poor people already.

Let’s all embrace the future, stop pretending we care about each other, and start hoarding canned goods. Because if Mitt takes office, sooner or later, the zombies will come for all of us.

Paid for by the Committee To Learn Parkour Like Really Soon, Like Maybe Take a Class Or Something.

He’s Got The Whole World In His Binders: What Romney/Ryan Would Mean for Women Globally

To the untrained ear, it might seem as though Mitt Romney is, in these final weeks before the election, making some last ditch efforts to board the women’s rights train. And to be sure, he’s made some semantic strides. From not really mentioning women’s rights at all to talking about binders full of women (which were forced into his hands, did you hear about that?) to Monday’s debate in which he employed  female pronouns as “rhetorical pawns,” someone seems to have given Mitt the memo that women do cast votes/have political importance.  In the foreign policy debate, Romney actually said things like “gender equality” and “women in public life,” phrases that he may have learned specifically for last night’s debate. But it’s important to remember that for all his pandering to female-identified voters, a Romney/Ryan administration would disastrous for women not just in this country, but literally all over the world.

A supporter of reproductive rights in the Philippines

If Romney’s busy busy first day in office goes according to schedule, international women’s rights will be soundly and immediately demolished: as Rachel mentioned in her recap of the debate, a Romney administration could mean a reinstatement of the global gag rule — in fact, he has pledged to do so. The global gag rule, or the “Mexico City Policy” as it’s officially named, bans international women’s health organizations from receiving USAID funding if they mention abortion to their clients, even as simply a word included in sexual health education. As explained on ThinkProgess, “Health clinics are forced to choose between censoring the health programs they have developed to serve women’s needs or being denied the funding they need to keep their doors open at all.”

And since Paul Ryan doesn’t want anyone to have an abortion because he thought a fetus looked like a cute bean, we should all take this threat very seriously. It’s estimated that 40 million abortions will take place in the developing world this year — from which 47 thousand women will die. But the global gag rule would mean more than just a loss of abortion rights: without funding from the US, women’s health clinics would have a hard time providing safer-sex supplies. It’s also bound to lead to an increase in back-alley abortions, and since it would cut off funding to the organizations that would provide care to women suffering from abortion-related complications, the global gag rule directly puts women’s lives at risk.

Additionally, Romney has promised to block the US from contributing to the United Nations Population Fund (a George W. Bush policy that was ended by Obama). The United Nations Population fund “supports programs in some 150 countries to improve poor women’s reproductive health, reduce infant mortality, end the sexual trafficking of women and prevent the spread of H.I.V.” The current federal contribution to the fund reaches 31 million women, and according to the Guttmacher Institute, prevents 22,000 maternal deaths annually. Despite those numbers, Romney justifies his desire to stop giving money to the fund by claiming that it provides support to coerced abortions in China, though a State Department investigation found this idea to be totally false, according to the New York Times.

At the heart of the United Nations Population Fund is the belief that reproductive rights are at the intersection of human rights, gender equality and population dynamics, and a lack of access to reproductive rights marginalizes women and young people — more so for those living in poverty. Likewise, at the heart of Romney’s foreign policy is a global, systematic take down of women’s rights, starting with the poorest and most vulnerable.

Log Cabin Republicans Endorse Mitt Romney Because Who Needs Love When You’ve Got Money

this is weird

The rich white men (and allies) of The Log Cabin Republican Club For Assimilationist Souls, from time to time, have done great things for our community, like fighting to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. But they also have a storied history of problematic political endorsements, and today’s was no exception: “the nation’s only organization of Republicans who support fairness, freedom, and equality for gay and lesbian Americans” have astoundingly (but alas, not surprisingly) announced their wholehearted endorsement of Mitt F*cking Romney.

If anyone doubted that the Log Cabin Republicans would eventually endorse Romney, it would have been because the Log Cabin Republicans invested heavily in defeating Romney (and supporting McCain) in the 2008 primaries, even inspiring Romney campaign spokesman Kevin Madden to declare, “Governor Romney supports a federal marriage amendment and so it makes sense that a national gay rights group would attack him.” Then, in August, the Log Cabin Republicans made a strong statement against the Republican platform and its anti-gay agenda.

But times have changed.

From today’s press release:

If LGBT issues are a voter’s highest or only priority, then Governor Romney may not be that voter’s choice. However, Log Cabin Republicans is an organization representing multifaceted individuals with diverse priorities. Having closely reviewed the candidate’s history and observed the campaign, we believe Governor Romney will make cutting spending and job creation his priorities, and, as his record as Governor of Massachusetts suggests, will not waste his precious time in office with legislative attacks on LGBT Americans.

Firstly, drawing any conclusions from what Mitt Romney did in Massachusetts is downright foolish — he’s made it abundantly clear that he’s ready and willing to flip-flop and flip again on just about everything he’s ever claimed to believe in, ever. Furthermore, as ThinkProgress points out, Romney’s allegedly not-negative attitude towards LGBT equality was hardly on blast during his term as governor:

Despite once pledging, as a candidate, to be “better than Ted” Kennedy on gay rights, Romney made his opposition to marriage equality one of the benchmarks of his one term as governor. He fired two state employees ostensibly for marrying their same-sex partners, dissolved the Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth, blocked an anti-bullying guide because it contained the words “bisexual” and “transgender,” and his testified against marriage equality to the Senate Judiciary Committee after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled the state’s ban was unconstitutional. A Boston Spirit article recently noted his stunning insensitivity to LGBT people, including reportedly telling a lesbian constituent, “I didn’t know you had families.”

Think Progress also notes that as a presidential candidate, Romney signed NOM’s pledge to support a federal marriage amendment and his website promises Romney’s intention to “appoint an Attorney General who will defend the Defense of Marriage Act” and “champion a Federal Marriage Amendment to the Constitution defining marriage as between one man and one woman.” Furthermore, the Log Cabin Republicans focus on economic prosperity over LGBT issues is a bit backwards when many of Romney’s discriminatory policies have direct impact on the economic well-being of LGBTs: Romney is against anti-discrimination employment protections for LGBT people and opposes same-sex marriage, which comes along with tax benefits for same-sex couples. Then there’s the whole “gay marriage is good for the economy in general” argument as well.

Within hours of the Log Cabin announcement, openly gay congressman Barney Frank made a video expressing his outrage, which includes the line “we have never in American history had a sharper distinction between a very supportive candidate/platform and one that’s very very opposed.” :

In the video, Frank also addresses Paul Ryan’s outrageously anti-gay record and points out that The Log Cabin Republicans’ claim that Romney will advance LGBT rights in any way is particularly ridiculous. In addition to agreeing wholeheartedly with that belief, I’d like to point out that in fact the LCR endorses a number of candidates they erroneously claim “appreciate that all Americans seek to enjoy the same freedoms and inalienable rights, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.” Although many of these endorsed candidates are in fact mostly pro-equality, such as Charlie Bass (NH-02), Bob Dold (IL-10), Judy Biggert (IL-11), Mike Fitzpatrick (PA-08), Nan Hayworth (NY-18), Richard Hanna (NY-22), Gary DeLong (CA-47), Andrew Roraback (CT-05), Gary DeLong (CA-47), John Dennis (CA-12), Chris Fields (MN-05), Charlie Dent (PA-15) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL-18), many are not. The LCR has also endorsed the following candidates:

Senate

Scott Brown (MA) – Has worked to repeal marriage equality in Massachusetts, voted to suspend same-sex marriages in DC, opposes federal recognition of legally married same-sex couples in MA, opposed an anti-miscegenation law, doesn’t support ENDA, attempted to obstruct the DADT repeal, allied with Mitt Romney to oppose funding gay & lesbian youth services, wants mentions of “alternative sexual behavior” eliminated from public schools and has referred to same-sex parents as “not normal.”

Michael Baumgartner (WA) – Opposes same-sex marriage.

Elizabeth Emken (CA) – Believes marriage is between one man and one woman. (this is pretty damning as well, from a childhood friend of Elizabeth’s.)

House

John Campbell (CA-45) Given a 0% rating by the HRC on gay rights. He does oppose employment discrimination against LGBT.

Joe Carvin (NY-17) – Though considered socially liberal for a Republican, Carvin does oppose same-sex marriage (but is okay with domestic partnerships).

Kevin Raye (ME-02) – Does not support same-sex marriage.

Dave Reichert (WA-08) – In 2010, supported amendment to prevent same-sex marriage, voted yes on constitutionally defining marriage as one-man one-woman and given a 25% rating by the HRC because he did vote for prohibiting job discrimination based on sexual orientation.

I doubt the Log Cabin Republicans’ endorsement will have much of an impact on election results come November, but their persistent willingness to throw their civil rights under the bus doesn’t do much for our overall cause, either, because there’s a giant swath of American People who think the gays are doing just fine, like Will & Grace. As Gary M. Segura, Professor of American Politics and Chair of Chicano/a Studies in the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity at Stanford, pointed out during the Prop 8 Trial in 2010:

“The public sees only gays and lesbians in larger cities. The public thinks that all gay men have advanced degrees. But people who are in the closet are likely to be lower status. The public has a misperception of the level of treatment of gays and lesbian, they don’t realize that not every gay man is Will from Will and Grace. Will is an attorney in New York with a large apartment. When people see this, they think gays don’t need protection. It makes public less sympathetic and makes public view numbers of gays and lesbians as smaller, which diminishes their political power.“

By publicly stating that basic civil rights are less important than corporate tax breaks, the Log Cabin Republicans contribute to a growing national illusion that LGBT people don’t need protection. But perhaps the truth is that the Log Cabin Republicans specifically don’t need protection — they’ve got health insurance, can afford neighborhoods or private schools that enable quality education for their offspring, and are apparently unconcerned about issues such as homeless gay teens and police violence against transgender folks.

I personally believe that as queer people, we are in a unique position outside of the mainstream which enables us to question dominant culture and fight on behalf of all outsiders and disenfranchised citizens — The Log Cabin Republicans clearly disagree. As Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore writes in That’s Revolting: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation, The Log Cabin Republicans “have more in common with the National Rifle Association than any sort of left agenda, queer or otherwise.”

By endorsing Romney, the Log Cabin Republicans are standing for much more than “a strong economy.” They’re standing against universal healthcare, they’re standing against education equality and they’re standing against women’s rights. As I’ve stated in the past, Planned Parenthood is one of the only places in the country where LGBT women and sex workers can obtain non-judgmental low-cost health care, and Mitt Romney wants to defund Planned Parenthood.

The Log Cabin Republicans argue that things like Mitt’s endorsement of the NOM pledge are superficial gestures and that his administration poses no real threat to the advancement of LGBT rights. It’s worth mentioning that if I told my mother that although my girlfriend didn’t really think I was a stupid self-entitled ugly bitch, she still called me a stupid self-entitled ugly bitch several times a day to keep me in my place, my mother would encourage me to break up with said girlfriend and perhaps attend therapy — even if said girlfriend was paying the rent. My mother would probably characterize that relationship as “emotionally abusive.” Or, as Barney Frank said in the video: “If you’re trying to change people, you don’t change them by rewarding them for continuing to act the way they’ve been acting.” Amen.

News of the World: Foreign Policy and The Last Presidential Debate

Last night we got what may be the last opportunity to have the Presidential candidates make intense eye contact with us through a television screen while leaving us with inspiring words about their vision for the future – at least, the last one before election night. This last debate was on foreign policy, something which most Americans feel a little unfamiliar on, and which it seems like Mitt Romney does too.

best friends

There were a few things going on with this debate – it was an opportunity to talk about America’s relationship with the rest of the world, not to mention our deep-seated national anxiety around the Middle East, but also the last debate, where candidates had their final opportunity to leave voters with a specific impression. The big issues in the room were Libya and Iran — Libya, because of the controversy over whether intelligence about violence in Libya was handled properly, and Iran, because the threat of professional extremist Ahmadinejad gaining access to nuclear weapons is the new Cold War — and while those issues may not have been resolved to viewers’ satisfaction, we did have an opportunity to learn a lot about what the individual candidates believe about the world and America’s relationship to it. Also, the debate happens to have occurred on the anniversary of JFK’s declaration of the Cuban missile crisis, which really set the stage as far as alarmism about security threats and unearned references to Massachusetts (shoutout Kevin Costner in Thirteen Days).

In terms of the discussion over Libya, there’s been criticism of Obama and his administration by the GOP because they claim that he mishandled intelligence that could have prevented the September 11th attacks on the American consulate in Benghazi, which left four Americans dead. (For a good primer on the longer-term situation in Libya, this is a good read.) Romney also claims that Obama didn’t respond appropriately immediately after the attack, expressing sorrow for the loss or labeling it as a terrorist act. There’s also theorizing on the GOP’s part that the Obama administration’s handling of violence in Libya and the unseating of Moammar Qaddafi allowed for increased terrorist and/or extremist penetration into the region (an incoherent explanation of this via Rush Limbaugh can be read here). Many expected Romney to heavily criticize Obama’s Libya stance during this debate. But in fact, not much was said about it; TIME speculates that this is because Romney may have “come to realize that determining who is to blame in Benghazi is extremely tricky at this stage, and that seizing on a still-opaque situation can be politically hazardous. New details are emerging almost daily, shifting the world’s understanding of what happened that night and what the current situation is on the ground.” It seems as though Romney gave up the opportunity to try to pin Obama with the blame for an oversimplified version of events, because it wasn’t worth taking the chance that he would be forced to acknowledge the real and non-simple reality of the situation.

The fear of Iran gaining nuclear weaponry has been a specter looming in American foreign policy for a while now. Ahmadinejad claims that Iran is working with nuclear materials for peaceful purposes, and America on the whole doesn’t believe him. Their proximity to and strained relationship with Israel, America’s ally, is also cause for concern. As important and contentious as these issues may be, however, there wasn’t really much disagreement on them. Obama and Romney are both on the same page that “crippling sanctions” are necessary to discourage Iran, and that military action should be a last resort, although Iran’s gaining nuclear power would be each of their “red line.” They also both agree that their support of and relationship to Israel is of great importance. Essentially, this issue boiled down to bickering about who did it first and who did it better – who supported the idea of sanctions before who, and who is Israel’s absolute bestest friend ever. Probably the high point of this part of the discussion was when Romney was asked how he would respond as President if Israel announced military action against Iran, and was unable to respond to it other than a blustery insistence that that would never happen, because he and Israel would be so close that they would obviously have been involved in those plans together. Sure, Romney. Uh huh.

In large part, though, more than individual issues, this debate showcased how each candidate would approach the fact that America is only one citizen of the globe, and has to interact with many other nations and governments. Romney made a point of what he called Obama’s “apology tour,” in which Obama visited a number of Middle Eastern nations and delivered speeches on their relationship with America. Romney accused Obama of “apologizing” for America’s actions and demonstrating “weakness,” which he connected to compromising American security. Aside from my previously expressed feelings about how sad and damaging it is to frame decisions in terms of “strength” and “weakness,” the fact is that Obama’s speeches in the Middle East weren’t particularly different from the statements of past presidents. Obama mostly spoke about legitimately awful things that the US is responsible for, like “the destruction of Korans in Afghanistan, and abuse of prisoners in Iraq.” Anyone who thinks those aren’t things we very much deserve to apologize for is a horrifying candidate for President, because they clearly think that by virtue of being American and perhaps by being “a Christian nation,” anything we do is justified and above reproach, regardless of who it hurts. Some of the other things Romney has claimed Obama has “apologized” for are as follows, according to fact-checkers:

“The United States certainly shares blame” for the global banking meltdown, Obama told the French. The George W. Bush administration had “lowered our standing in the world,” he told the English. And to the Turkish parliament, he said: “The United States is still working through some of our own darker periods in our history,” which included slavery, segregation and treatment of American Indians.”

A president who acknowledges that we are still “working through… our own darker periods” is better for America, and also perhaps better suited to recognize and respond to inequality and marginalization abroad. Which brings us to Romney’s disturbing rhetoric about promoting “a civil society” and “teaching” the people of the Middle East to turn away from extremism. A reading of the situation in the Middle East, extremism included, that doesn’t think any reaching out on the part of the US is necessary but does think that we just need to train its citizens to behave better is a colonialist and utterly backwards point of view, and also frankly embarrassing. Combined with the fact that Romney literally verbatim said that our strategy should be to “get the bad guys,” it seems clear that he’s a candidate whose approach to foreign policy takes more inspiration from Rambo than it does from any kind of understanding of international relations.

Ultimately, much of the discussion about foreign policy (at least the parts that weren’t derailed into Romney talking about jobs again, as if there weren’t already perfectly good jobs supercuts of him) was actually about military policy, and how issues abroad impact American security. It would have been nice if there had been more discussion of America’s responsibility to other nations — for instance, how Romney and Ryan’s anti-choice and anti-woman policies would affect the health and safety of women abroad who rely on American aid and support, and could mean a re-institution of the global gag rule. To the extent that anyone brought up these kind of concerns, it was Obama, who thankfully made some excellent points about women’s access to education around the world. All in all, Obama’s understanding of what “foreign policy” means seemed to encompass an understanding of working towards global peace and prosperity, whereas Romney’s focus seemed to be very much on what our world could do for our country, not what our country could do for our world. And while criticisms of President Obama’s complicity in drone attacks and the continued operation of Guantanamo Bay are very much valid, it’s worth remembering that Romney very much approves of those same policies (and explicitly confirmed that in this debate), and also has a view of foreign relations which figures the entire rest of the world as merely the context in which the superpower of America exists. Obama at least seems to understand that we have to be invested in the fate of the whole human race because we belong to it, and that we aren’t just invested in the fate of other places because they might in some way impact us.

What The Women Outside of The Binders Make Of Romney’s Debate Performance

By now, you’ve heard dozens of variations on jokes about Romney and binders full of women. Regardless of the content (binder halloween costumes! Bill Clinton popping out of nowhere excitedly!) the context is that Romney tried to use a single anecdotal reference that didn’t make a lot of sense on the sentence level (it’s hard to imagine that repeating “binders full of the dossiers of women campaign professionals” would have been as funny). Because of course, the point Romney was trying to make – that he’s invested in women and feminist concerns because he made a concerted effort to hire women to his staff as governor of Massachusetts – is undercut by the fact that he didn’t support the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, along with a multitude of other facts, several of which Barack Obama has helpfully tweeted about.

And there’s one more fact, as explained by Ann Friedman at the NYT:

“Boston journalist David Bernstein reports that while Romney did indeed find himself with a binder full of women’s names, it wasn’t something he requested. The binder was put together by MassGAP, a bipartisan group of women who joined forces in 2002 to push Romney’s incoming administration to hire more women. Did you catch that? The binder of women was assembled by women and pushed onto Romney’s desk, unsolicited.”

So we learn that while the “binders full of women” were in fact real, and not an imaginary item to be mocked, they weren’t exactly something Mitt can take credit for (much like every claim he makes about how successful Massachusetts is as a state). And even after the binders were introduced, Friedman points out that Romney still didn’t exactly promote the women in them to prominent positions within his administration:

 MassGAP claims that between January 2002 and July 2004, 42 percent of Romney’s new appointees were women. Bernstein follows up with some sobering details, however: “Those were almost all to head departments and agencies that he didn’t care about — and in some cases, that he quite specifically wanted to not really do anything. None of the senior positions Romney cared about — budget, business development, etc. — went to women.”

For most of us, these revelations are not really revelations. The fact that Romney wants to defund Planned Parenthood and may well nominate Supreme Court justices who would repeal Roe v. Wade is enough to signal to us that Romney’s vision of America doesn’t really include equality or opportunity for women. But “us” in this sentence refers to a select demographic that is immersed in the feminist blogosphere, who furiously reblog Mansplaining Paul Ryan, and who had already decided we weren’t voting for Romney before he had even won the GOP nomination. What about the person who actually asked the question that Romney was responding to with his binders? According to Salon, Katherine Fenton truly is the unicorn of our times, an undecided voter – and while she considers “women’s equality in the workforce” and reproductive rights to be very important, she doesn’t identify as a feminist. She’s far from being alone. What does Romney’s misleading answer mean to her?

When Salon asked her what her feelings are now on the respective candidates’ approach to the wage gap, she said “I think people around the president making choices would be more more susceptible to action on that. I don’t think Mitt Romney’s people might be as concerned as they ought to be.” As much as we sometimes want to gnash our teeth and shake our TV sets and shout about how transparent everything is, because we already know the answers. But it’s important to remember that there are people who don’t feel like the answers are already obvious, and that’s really who the debates are for. One can learn more about parties’ actual platforms and track records by reading fact checks of the debates than watching them. People who watch the debates for insight onto the candidates may not be looking for the facts or statistics outlined here; they may be looking more for what Fenton describes as her “gut” feeling about candidates. And so depending on how earnest Romney’s binder explanation felt, it may not have been the huge gaffe that so many of us experienced it as. In which case we would have to hope that as far as addressing “the war on women,” Obama’s explanation of his stance towards contraception, fair pay and Planned Parenthood came off as at least as important and sincere as Romney’s binders. Because while the facts may be on Obama’s side (and ours) in this case, those unfortunately aren’t always the deciding factor.

Tweeting For Freedom: The Second Presidential Debate

In an attempt to recreate the fun-filled, adrenaline-packed atmosphere of having a debate-viewing party in your very own home, we–the a-team of the twitterverse–have decided to do our debate coverage in the form of tweets featuring Editor-in-chief Riese, Senior Editor Rachel, Contributing Editors Carmen, Vanessa and Fonseca, Community Managerette Lemon (whose “real” name ftr is Kate Bennert #TheMoreYouKnow) and Contributors Carly and Taylor. They are qualified for this job via their strong feelings about the candidates, marginally competent knowledge of the issues at hand, and propensity for being funny on twitter. This will be more fun to read if you’ve watched the debate, but if you haven’t, we’ve embedded it for you!

And so it begins. Our fearless leader sets the tone (Riese, not Barry, duh).

Carmen, per usual, is conducting her work life from a bar on her iPhone, and let’s be real we’re all super impressed by it. Also, for those just tuning in: Barack Obama and Mittens Romney are debating. Let’s move forward.

Wait but honestly how do they choose who gets to attend? Can we all attend next time? I want to attend.

Fair and reasonable questions. Not met with any fair and reasonable answers from the tiny humans on my teevee screen, of course, but hey, we’re trying here.

Hmmmm, what’s that? Mittens trying to confuse people so they don’t know what they’re actually voting for? SHOCKING! Mittens is honestly like that dude in college who tells you it’s fine that you’re gay, you can totally still be friends, he gets it, you’re cool, and then a week later you find out he’s told the entire football team that he’s gonna help you find god and exorcise your inner demons, because we are all His Children.

Real talk: I cackled loudly thanks to Carly’s tweets throughout the entire debate. Lemon can confirm these facts. (Remember, Lemon is Kate! You may see some tweets from @katebennert, but HEYO! That’s Lemon! Aren’t pseudonyms fun?) Okay but back to Carly’s accountant.

Ugh, back to being That Guy. Did this confuse you? I tuned out so I wasn’t confused, but it would be fine if you were confused. Romney relies on confusion because that’s legit the only way anyone with half a brain and 1/4 of a conscience could ever really vote for him, amirite?!

Look, Carly had a point. I don’t like numbers either. But I’m NOT RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT WITH AN ALLEGED TAX BREAK PLAN OF WHICH I REFUSE TO DIVULGE THE DETAILS.

Okay, now we’re getting to the Olympics trope. I’m surprised this hasn’t been more of A Thing. I guess #binders kinda took the cake…but this was weird and funny!

Should I bother? That kinda sums up my feelings with this debate in general. Did you watch? Did you miss it? I think it’s actually okay if you missed it. The whole thing is a farce. The people who care are the people who already know who they’re voting for. #LOSINGALLHOPE

As always, Riese is here to clear up any/all confusion.

OMG BFF!

NOPE, NOT TALKING ABOUT ANYTHING RELEVANT EVER! HAHAHAHAHA JOKES ON YOU, CITIZENS OF AMERICA!

And now we begin Carly’s flurry of enthusiasm toward Our Moderator Candy.

YES HE DID.

Getting a little overzealous but I ain’t even mad about it…

#HOPEFUL #SOHOPEFUL #HOPEANDCHANGE

#neverstopyelling (Side note, Lemon & I watched the debate on our couch in our pajamas. It’s fine, Carmen has enough zest for life for all of us!)

God I never thought I’d love a man’s smirk so much. Hey Barry, heyyyyy.

Carly’s enthusiasm is the best. #GETITGETIT

You guys, have we established that Carmen was in a bar? She watched the debate in a bar.

Trying really, really hard not to roll my eyes over her “I’m absolutely not a feminist” comments from today. Okay I’ll be honest with you, I’m failing. #EYEROLL

Shit, who let her out of the binder?!

You hush your mouth about Ann Romney, Carly!

Does he know how horrible he sounds? Does he know how out of touch he seems? It’s so confusing. Are you there, Romney? It’s me, truth and logic. WHY HAVE YOU ABANDONED ME FOR SO LONG?!

Spoiler alert: CHECK THE BINDERS!

BINDER! BINDER! BINDER! Did you watch the debate? Doesn’t matter if you didn’t! I bet you heard about BINDERS today. I bet you woke up and thought, “OMG THE QUEERS HAVE FINALLY TAKEN OVER THE WORLD, HALLELUJAH!” Not yet, young child. Soon. The Gay Baby Army is preparing. But not quite yet. Okay onward!

#binders

#bindersbindersbinders

#bindersbindersbindersbindersbinders

Hello are we all clear that Romney is a FOOL and he made a dumb comment about #BINDERS?!

Which is why they HAVE to leave work at five, no exceptions.

Women are basically just extensions of kids, obvi.

#Grrrr

Eye of the Sparrow: Because Sometimes Politics are Hysterical

feature image via survivingcollege.com

Ali’s Team Pick:

Much like Joe Biden did whenever Paul Ryan opened his mouth last night, sometimes you just have to laugh at politics. If I didn’t, I’d be enraged all the time. That’s why I need Eye of the Sparrow, otherwise known as what you get when you mute the television during the presidential debate and use your imagination. The result? Silly fun and a catchy tune that I can’t stop humming. Ladies, gentleman and everyone in between, courtesy of Bad Lip Reading and without further ado, I give you Eye of the Sparrow. And please dear sweet Lesbian Jesus, let there be many more of these re-dubbings to come.

It’s not a bad idea to check out their Paul Ryan video diary either. Just sayin’.

GChatting For Freedom: The First Presidential Debate

In an attempt to recreate the fun-filled, adrenaline-packed atmosphere of having a debate-viewing party in your very own home (and/or this post), we have decided to do our debate coverage in the form of a gchat between Senior Editor Rachel and Community Managerette Lemon, who are qualified for this job via their strong feelings about the candidates and marginally competent knowledge of the issues at hand. Due to time constraints, the debates had to be watched after their original airing, but great care was taken to avoid Twitter (although avoidance of Big Bird references was impossible). This will be more fun to read if you’ve watched the debate, but if you haven’t, we’ve embedded it for you!

This debate, the first of three Presidential debates, focused on domestic issues, such as the economy and heatlhcare reform.

are you ready for this jelly

dotted-divider2

Rachel: LEMON ARE YOU THERE
LEMON CAN YOU HEAR ME (A LA TOMMY)

Lemon: Her her her
Here
Not her

Rachel: My glasses are broken and I have no computer charger but I have a giant glass of wine so I’m feeling pretty good.

Lemon: Perfect. I’m three beers in so waking up AGAIN.

Rachel: Also, this wine has turned fyi, but it’s not gonna stop ’em.

Lemon: There you go.

Rachel: Ok! Are you ready? How ready are you?

Lemon: Debates!

Rachel: Do we have any drinking game rules?

Lemon: When Lehrer grunts. When either candidate says “a woman came up to me.”

Rachel: Does Obama say “let me be clear?” I like it when he says “let me be clear.”

Lemon: Haha I am almost positive he does.

Rachel: Ok. Excellent. Also when Romney says either “killing jobs” or “creating jobs.”

Lemon: Both of those happen.

Rachel: Ok, great.

Lemon: Is it cheating to already know these things?

Rachel: Nope! Let’s do this.

Lemon: Alright.

Rachel: Pressing go NOW.

Lemon: And here we go!

Rachel: What is Jim Lehrer from? Like, how is he already a person? Is he just famous for being old?

Lemon: “PBS NewsHour”

Rachel: Oh ok.

Lemon: Which no one watches.

Rachel: I mean, clearly not Mitt Romney.

Lemon: Definitely not Mitt Romney.

Rachel: How are you feeling about Lehrer’s tie? Don’t know that I’m into it personally.

Lemon: It looks like spores. Or just a science experiment in general. Also he looks like a muppet.

Rachel: I like how the rule about no noise really sets the tone of this being essentially a school assembly. Oh wait JOBS. #jobs also YEAH MICHELLE

Lemon: “sweetie”

Rachel: Died
I’m dead
I mean would have preferred he called her “goddess on high” but whatever

Lemon: And now the economy..

Rachel: Side note, is that the constitution on the backdrop?

Lemon: Trying to discern that as well
I see “pursuit of” so yes?

Rachel: So far he seems to be making an effort to be very respectful of Romney

Lemon: And Lehrer
Romney also being very respectful

Rachel: Have we heard “economic patriotism” before? Did Obama just make that up?

Lemon: lol
That joke wasn’t even awkward

Rachel: Oh we have to drink now
because of the woman from Dayton, Ohio.

Lemon: Yup

Rachel: Is Romney answering this question at all? Seems like no.

Lemon: (know that I’m on Gatorade now)
NO

Rachel: (get that Gatorade girl)
Oh wait now he sort of is
Five part plan

Lemon: What was the question now?
I forgot

Rachel: How does “cracking down on China” create jobs? They’re talking about how they’d create jobs. I thought cracking down on China was about global economic concerns.

Lemon: “Champion small business” was his answer. Not right now it’s not (drink)

Rachel: (drink) Obama really pushing this bipartisan thing. So when obama talks about education, is he talking mostly about higher education/job training? Or also about routing more funding to secondary education? This is not clear to me.

Lemon: I think more the former at this moment. (Although in the past he has talked about the latter)

Rachel: Ok. Yeah, Romney’s military spending sounds wack, real talk.

Lemon: And here we go. “Middle income Americans.”

Rachel: Wait, is this a true fact, what he’s saying about not reducing the tax burden for wealthy Americans?
That seems incommensurate with everything else I know about his campaign.

Lemon: Right he doesn’t want to sell it that way.

Rachel: I don’t feel like that’s part of the Ryan budget.

Lemon: But Ryan and Mitt are known to not be consistent on that, right?

Rachel: Yeah. I think in the hour since this debate officially ended there have already been a number of
scathing fact-checking reports on this, also. Which I cannot wait to read.

Lemon: “I like coal.”

Rachel: Jesus, Romney, anyone who’s ever played SimCity knows coal is a terrible choice.

Lemon: hahaha. Cannot reduce the burden to high income Americans, but will to middle income Americans.

Rachel: Obama literally just tweeted this link: OFA.BO/MFE4E1 saying “Romney’s tax claims challenged by nonpartisan report.” So there’s that. Although I mean duh Obama tweeted it, so. I do think Obama’s making a good point re: loopholes. Like, what loopholes? Has any republican ever explained how this would work? Can we take a moment for how perfectly Obama’s tie matches the backdrop? Did an intern do that?

Lemon: Not to my knowledge.
Oh, I’m sure.
Rachel: Interns are America. Romney really protesting the tax break for the wealthy thing. He has at least inspired to me research that more thoroughly. Oh wait now he’s not talking about the wealthy, he’s talking about middle-income families? FLIP-FLOPPER

Lemon: Right but we also have to remember that his definition of middle income is up to $250,000

Rachel: That’s a lot.

Lemon: $200-250 K

Rachel: Isn’t the President’s income capped at like $200,000?

Lemon: It is.

Rachel: Well that’s a fun fact. (Ed. note: The President’s salary was upped from $200K t0 $400K in 2001)

i mean, middle income definitely can’t be higher than $300k. that would be crazy.

Lemon: “Lowered taxes for small business 18 times.” What does that mean?

Rachel: I don’t know? Maybe like 18 different sessions of Congress? I keep thinking about how this debate would seem to someone who has no political literacy, if it’s this confusing to us. It seems like it would be pretty inaccessible!

Lemon: Yes! I think more than other things this debates is just catch words. Poor Lehrer.

Rachel: And sort of like posturing in front of the camera? Real talk, Romney is doing a lot better than I thought he would. Do we drink for “I talked to a guy?”

Lemon: I think that debates are really more for social graces and body language. Yes.

Rachel: Do you remember that viral “omg shoes” video?

Lemon: God yes.

Rachel: I feel like an “omg jobs” supercut would be good.

Lemon: Yes yes!

EDIT: Look what Brianna made!

Rachel: Ok, can I be honest? are we even talking about real money when we say “5 trillion dollars?” That seems to me like imaginary unicorn money.

Lemon: Ha! I think yes and no. The national debt etc is in the trillions.

Rachel: I think when someone says “trillion” i just hear “infinity.”

Lemon: Which are the same thing if trillion exists for eternity.

Rachel: God, I just want someone to come rescue Lehrer. He’s like a Willow that needs a Buffy.

Lemon: How could you even do a “5 trillion $ tax cut”?

Rachel: Also they’ve been going back and forth about the same alleged $5 trillion in tax money for the entire 23 minutes. Let it go, guys. Just breathe.
READY GO PART 2

Rachel: I feel like the deficit thing is going to get really ugly.

Lemon: How is Romney saying it’s a moral issue?

Rachel: Ugh ugh ugh. “taking care of it for future generations.” Because that’s something republicans seem clearly interested in, the next generation
based on their attitude towards education, healthcare, and our generation’s debt problems.

Lemon: Right. Oh boy.

Rachel: “I use [Obamacare] with all respect.” Also, he finally said Big Bird! Oh good. So glad.

Lemon: “When I walked in the oval office.” Obama really likes to remind people that he is Prez.

Rachel: Also, wait, does Romney understand what inflation is? “As much deficit as all prior presidents combined?” Yes, because a trillion dollars was like 75 cents in 1850.

Lemon: Hahaha “All prior presidents.” Good catch.

Rachel: Isn’t the Medicaid fraud that Obama is talking about what Ryan was lying about? Like he said that they burned X amount of money but they had in fact recouped it from Medicare/Medicaid?

Lemon: YES!

Rachel: Good move, Barry.

way to be

Lemon: They pulled out some number like 7 mil.

Rachel: Gross. I think the conversation about revenue/spending cuts is actually helpful to me, I hadn’t thought about it that concretely before. Although I’m not sure I’m really qualified to judge the differences in approach to that

Lemon: Nor am I. What are they talking about right now?

Rachel: Isn’t Simpson-Bowles also a Ryan lie? Like he said that Obama had ignored it but in fact the Democrats had tried to make it work, and Ryan himself had voted against it?

Lemon: Wait I don’t even know what that is

Rachel: Um like a budget plan I think? I may change my mind later. (Ed note: Simpson-Bowles is a proposed plan for spending cuts and tax changes proposed by the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.) But I feel like what Romney just said about the economy growing more slowly now than it was 4 years ago isn’t true. Also he said “killing jobs,” so

Lemon: Drink. Yeah, I don’t see how it can be true, because the economy was way worse four years ago.

Rachel: Yeah, it wasn’t growing at all, and there are quantifiable signifiers of change now. Also I’m not sure that Romney’s “plan” is workable, where more revenue will magically come in via taxes once more people have jobs. Partially because you need that revenue ahead of time to help create jobs, if you aren’t going to increase the deficit. Also most of these are going to be minimum wage and/or part time jobs, they wont’ make a big difference on taxes. We have to drink again because Obama met a woman in Las Vegas

Lemon: 46 percent. I think his thing is that lower taxes will encourage people to participate in the economy right?

Rachel: I guess? Stimulus?

Lemon: Buy shit and invest

Rachel: But I know that if I had more money right now it would go to paying off all my debt. Which so many of us have, older people too.

Lemon: Exactly which is there because of the stuff that isn’t subsidized

Rachel: I think they’re talking about energy now? I know nothing about this. Ok real talk tho: Romney ships SO MANY JOBS overseas. Just sayin’

Lemon: What?? “We can care for our poor so much better without having the federal gov’t tell us how to care for our poor.”

Rachel: Ugh.

Lemon: Part 3?

Rachel: Yeah.

Next: Social security, healthcare, and “the role of government!”

Let’s Be Frank: Mitt Gets Worse and Worser on Gay Rights

As the leaves change, and the wind picks up, and our thoughts turn to pumpkins, I’m reminded of one thing – this election season is long. We’ve survived two conventions, endless gaffes, and Dem Invisibility. We’ve celebrated, we’ve laughed, we’ve cried, we’ve danced.  We’ve planned (and failed to need) Dinner with Barack outfits for three separate seasons, and gotten carpal tunnel from deleting coquettish, excessively bolded emails from liberal celebrities. But as I start to burn out, the most dedicated among us just burn hotter. Take Mitt Gets Worse, for example – for months, they’ve made it their mission to chronicle Romney’s backwards LGBT agenda, and they’ve only started bringing in the big dogs this week.

SO TRUE

Since we last checked in with Mitt Gets Worse, they’ve drafted a letter to the Log Cabin Republicans urging them not to chuck their wood behind the Romney/Ryan ticket, and drummed up tens of thousands of signatures for it (the LCR has not endorsed Romney/Ryan so far, although probably not because of the petition, which LCR executive director R. Clarke Cooper implied went “right into [their] spam filter”). They’ve put together a thought-provoking video compendium about the resignation of Richard Grennell, the former Romney staffer who quit after his sexual orientation caused a right-wing fringe group firestorm that the campaign failed to put out. And they’ve added several videos to their oral history project – one from actor Anthony Rapp, who reminds us of Romney’s tendency to drag kids along as he moves backwards:

“As an actor, over the years I’ve had the privilege of meeting many young people who have shared with me their stories of struggle and triumph as they’ve fought to be recognized for who they are, to live openly and freely as LGBT Americans. Massachusetts had been a state that had been on the forefront of empowering LGBT youth, providing programs and services to them. Mitt, through executive order, abolished the LGBT youth commission.”

FIVE HUNDRED TWENTY FIVE THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED REASONS NOT TO VOTE FOR ROMNEY

And one from Danny O’Donnell, the first openly gay man to be elected to the New York State Assembly and the person responsible for the state’s Marriage Equality Act. O’Donnell recalls looking to Massachusetts for inspiration while writing his landmark anti-bullying bill, and wishing he hadn’t:

“I was very distressed to learn that Governor Romney refused to send out a booklet to schools because it included protections for transgender children . . . if we elect Mitt Romney, my life will get much worse.”

On Thursday morning, the group unveiled its most high-profile oral historian yet: Massachusetts Representative Barney Frank.

+

Frank is one of the most prominent gay politicians in America, with political and personal experiences that make him uniquely qualified to judge Romney’s record on LGBT rights. Frank founded the National Stonewall Democrats, a grassroots network that connects Democratic LGBT activist groups across the country, way back in 1999 (before it was cool!). He regularly sponsors civil rights-related bills, and consistently earns downright nerdy voting record scores from the ACLU, the NAACP, and the HRC.  Now he’s enjoying the fruits of some of his labors – he was the first openly gay congressperson, and he recently became the first openly gay-married congressperson as well, when he tied the knot with longtime partner Jim Ready earlier this year. Frank’s three decades of involvement in Massachusetts politics have brought him into contact with Mittsy several times – in the video, he remembers watching Romney claim, during the 1994 senatorial election, that he would be “better on LGBT rights than Ted Kennedy.” Ten years later, after the same-sex marriage bill passed in Massachusetts, Frank saw Romney do this instead:

“[Romney] put all of his political energy . . . into trying to defeat state legislators who were not opposing same-sex marriage. He singled out particularly some women, and frankly particularly some Roman Catholic women, and tried to defeat them on the grounds that they were not opposing same-sex marriage. And it was a very vigorous campaign; of all the time he was in Massachusetts I saw more energy out of him then until the health care bill, which he of course now repudiates.”

BARNEY FRANK IS TIRED OF ALL THIS NONSENSE

Romney also ignored Frank’s attempts to reach him when Frank was sponsoring the Employment Non-Discrimination Act in 2007 (although Romney supported ENDA during his 1994 “better-than-Ted” days, he’s since decided to let the states figure out whether or not you can get fired for, you know, quietly being yourself).

Most of the Mitt Gets Worse videos focus on things that Romney has already done – coldly tell Julie Goodridge that he “didn’t care” what she told her daughter about why her parents couldn’t get married, for example, or flip positions like a gasping fish. As November 6th draws near, though, the project has started to focus on what Mitt might do if elected. The data indicates a clear downward trajectory, from bad to worse to what Frank deems “worser,” but where exactly does it lead, and what does it hit on the way down? Frank predicts three specific actions Romney could take that would push us backwards on LGBT rights. Although Frank is experienced and knowledgeable, he’s also notoriously blustery and his verbal high-kicks sometimes leave him with a foot in his mouth, so it’s worth it to go through his predictions and see how likely they are.

“OH, UH. EXCEPT THAT.”

First off, Frank says Romney “might very well reinstitute Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.” The Boston Globe points out that although Romney didn’t agree with DADT’s rescission, he has said that he wouldn’t reinstitute it – “I’m not planning on reversing it at this stage,” he told The Des Moines Register last December. Ryan recently said something similar, telling a Florida TV station that “the issue is past us . . . and we need to move on.” But it’s worth pointing out that other top Republicans, like Ohio representative and Republican Study Committee chair Jim Jordan, support reinstating it, and – as the Grennell incident makes clear – Romney has not always been able to stand up to his own party.

Next, Frank predicts that Romney “would certainly appoint Justices of a Scalia sort . . . and much of our progress comes through the courts. Mitt Romney being elected means that the Supreme Court would be, for the immediate future, shut to us.” If given the chance, Romney would definitely elect a conservative Justice – he even signed a NOM-authored pledge about it – but whether he’ll actually get that chance is uncertain, and will remain that way unless someone figures out how to read Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s mind.

PLEASE DON’T LEAVE US, RBG

Finally, Frank points out that Romney “is in favor of a constitutional amendment that would not only prevent future marriages… it would invalidate the current ones.” Romney indeed opposes same-sex marriage, and supports a constitutional ban – it’s on his website, it’s in the Republican Party platform, and it’s something he has consistently told pretty much anyone who asks.  Ryan’s with him on this one, too, and as recently as four days ago told a Cincinnati audience that traditional marriage is “an American value, a universal human value,” just like “family and entrepreneurship,” and, presumably, lying about absolutely everything.

So that all looks like fun.  But to me, Frank’s specific predictions are less interesting than his general insights into Romney’s motivations. Frank points out that “it’s kind of hard to accuse Mitt Romney of misrepresenting his positions, because he clearly doesn’t have any . . . there is not an issue of public policy (except that rich people shouldn’t pay much in taxes) on which he’s shown any consistency.” Frank’s not saying anything new here – there are memes, items of clothing, and even Fox News articles about Romney’s little switcheroo problem.  His own staffers and confidants are finally owning up to it, too, and they seem to think it might be what scuttles him:

“[Romney’s] past willingness to change or shade his views for apparent political advantage resulted, over time, in one of his biggest political vulnerabilities. One close confidant said Romney sees the process like buying a company from a reluctant seller: Just do and say what you need to do to get the deal done, and then when it’s done, do what you know actually needs to be done to make the company a success… this do-and-say-what-it-takes tendency is reflected in his constantly changing message… Romney is cautious by nature, which paid off in business. But in politics, rather than chart a bold course and stick with it, he winds up trimming and dodging in ways that, cumulatively, sink in with voters.” 

{VIA UPWORTHY.COM}

In his own mind, and to his most fervent supporters, maybe Romney is like Mulan, or something – lie as much as you need to in order to take your father’s place get in the door, and then let that down that gorgeous hair and save the world. The ends justify the means, and all that (it is a pretty strong indictment of the American political system that I’m finding myself able to consider this an argument that is worth typing up, but that’s life). A few people I know (and a misguided group or two) have used this logic to justify supporting him – “oh, he won’t really take away anyone’s rights,” they say, “and he doesn’t really hate gay people!  He’s just saying that stuff to get votes.  All he’ll really do is fix the economy.” Then they pat me on the head and go get married in all fifty states. But they are missing the point, which Frank makes, eloquently, via a comparison to George Wallace, the famously pro-segregation 1960s Alabama governor:

“I’m not sure that George Wallace hated black people and I don’t know that Mitt Romney really dislikes lesbian and gay people.  They were both consumed by ambition and willing to trash minority groups and appeal to prejudice against them for political advancement… [Romney] is a man who has no principles, obviously, on this subject… it is clear that he attaches no independent value to our rights and our issues.  He will trade them off.  And while I hope that the Republican Party will emerge from this right-wing death grip that it now suffers, I don’t see that happening right away, so the prognosis is that he will get worse.”

REALLY, REALLY TIRED.

Maybe Romney won’t reverse or block groundbreaking pro-LGBT legislation.  Maybe he won’t get the chance to elect a new Supreme Court justice, and perhaps he’ll be too busy installing power windows in Air Force One to remember to invalidate about 600,000 legal unions, and prevent new ones.  And yeah, he probably doesn’t hate us (unless we’re part of the 47%, or have “wrong”-looking hair).  Hate is too strong a feeling; it takes too much energy.  He just doesn’t care!  He’s already trading us off.  And if it gets worse than that, I don’t really want to see it.

Secret Mitt Romney Video Leaks, Is A Cluster F*ck

On May 17, a small group of people paid $50,000 a plate to congregate in the Boca Rotan home of private equity manager/infamous sex party host Marc Leder. There, they gathered around presidential candidate Mitt Romney to finally hear some Real Talk about his campaign strategy and foreign policy feelings. Romney spoke candidly and with abandon, for he was among friends — also known as fellow millionaires — and didn’t have to censor himself as he would for the media. But the media was there, in the form of a hidden camera on an anonymous attending guest. The video was subsequently leaked to Mother Jones, who broke the story of Romney “raw and unplugged” yesterday. Didn’t Mittsy’s mother teach him to never say anything he wouldn’t want to (literally) see on the front page of the paper?

I think it’s safe to say that we all already knew that Romney is a slime ball. But now we know that he doesn’t think so highly of us, either. Of his thoughts on Obama supporters, Romney said:

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax… [My] job is is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.

Well screw you too, Mitt Romney. It’s not my job to worry about you either, but now I have to, because you are a worrisome individual.

Romney added that he hasn’t criticized these lazy, irresponsible Obama supporters publicly because he doesn’t want to alienate anyone. Speculating that there are about 5%-7% of voters that he’ll have to win over to be elected, Romney postured that the way to these voters hearts is to not lay blame on them for what he sees as Obama’s failings. He revealed a manipulative strategy of capitalizing on voters disappointment in Obama, suggesting,

When you say to them, “Do you think Barack Obama is a failure?” they overwhelmingly say no. They like him. But when you say, “Are you disappointed that his policies haven’t worked?” they say yes. And because they voted for him, they don’t want to be told that they were wrong, that he’s a bad guy, that he did bad things, that he’s corrupt. Those people that we have to get, they want to believe they did the right thing, but he just wasn’t up to the task. They love the phrase that he’s “over his head.”

When an attendee expressed concern that Romney’s attack on Obama didn’t involve intellectual firepower, Romney responded that intellectual discussions of important topics don’t win elections. He’s counting on his ads to defeat his opponent, whom he described as naively confident in the power of his own perceived magnetism, charm, persuasiveness to navigate foreign policy. Ouch!

Romney went on to complain about how hard it is to be a rich little white boy, bemoaning his heritage and saying that if he was Mexican, he’d have a better shot at winning. Of the Latino community, Romney also said, “We are having a much harder time with Hispanic voters, and if the Hispanic voting bloc becomes as committed to the Democrats as the African American voting block has in the past, why, we’re in trouble as a party and, I think, as a nation.”

And in terms of foreign policy, Romney revealed an attitude towards Israel/Palestine tinged with racism. Speaking of Palestinians as a single block of people with singular opinion, he said, “I look at the Palestinians not wanting to see peace anyway, for political purposes, committed to the destruction and elimination of Israel, and these thorny issues, and I say there’s just no way.” The only road to peace that Romney said he could foresee is the vague hope that “something will happen and resolve it.” How’s that for a foreign policy strategy? Let’s just cross our fingers and hope that “something will happen.” Though when speaking publicly about the issue, he claims to support a two-state solution, it appears that Romney privately dismisses chances for peace at all.

After the initial video was revealed, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina responded in a letter to reporters, saying,

It’s shocking that a candidate for President of the United States would go behind closed doors and declare to a group of wealthy donors that half the American people view themselves as ‘victims,’ entitled to handouts, and are unwilling to take ‘personal responsibility’ for their lives. It’s hard to serve as president for all Americans when you’ve disdainfully written off half the nation.

And the Romney campaign is scrambling to defend their boy, though it’s hard to imagine what they could possibly come up with to redeem him. In a last minute press conference Monday night, Romney announced that he stands by his statements, and his only mistake was an inelegant delivery. When asked what insurance he could give voters that he’s not saying different things to funders than people on the stump, Romney responded with a classic non-answer:

…At a fundraiser you have people say governor how are you going to win this? And so I respond well, the president has his group I have my group I want to keep my team strong and motivated and I want to get those people in the middle, that’s something which fundraising people who are parting with their monies are very interested in knowing can you win or not and that’s what this was addressing.

Whatever that means!

Despite the dire implications of this massive cluster fuck, it could have been worse for the GOP darling: the donor party could have turned into one of host Marc Leder’s “sex parties,” which are apparently the talk of the Hamptons, described by the New York Post last year as “Playboy Mansion met the East EBond…  guests cavorted nude in the pool and performed sex acts, scantily dressed Russians danced on platforms and men twirled lit torches to a booming techno beat.” I would have liked to see a video of Mitt Romney go-go dancing, though. We should be so lucky.

New GOProud Video Explaining Gay Conservatism Is GOPathetic

I’m always interested to hear from queer Republicans. Trying to understand how someone can reconcile two identities that seem so contradictory to me tends to be a worthwhile mental and empathetic exercise. So when I saw that a bunch of queer attendees of the Republican National Convention had decided to talk to some cameras, I had to press play, and then I had to ask myself why I pressed play, and then I had to get a glass of water to calm my nerves, and then I had to figure out what the heck these people are doing and let you guys know about it. Autostraddlers, meet GOProud’s newest attempt to rationalize voting their own rights away.

Buzzfeed filmed this video outside a GOProud-sponsored RNC dance party called “Homocon” (thus the neon, which was notably absent from the rest of the convention).  GOProud was founded in 2009 by Christopher Barron and Jimmy LaSalvia, both of whom are in the video — Barron’s the one who is “married to a man in Washington D.C.” and LaSalvia is the one who “happens to be a pro-life social conservative” (if that’s true, he’s the only person with genetically determined political beliefs). The group bills itself as “a national organization of gay and straight Americans who seek to promote freedom by supporting free markets, limited government and a respect for individual rights.”

JIMMY LASALVIA INVITES REPUBLICAN PARTY TO TREAD ON HIM

This is pretty standard so far, but GOProud takes it farther. As of right now, it’s also the only national gay group to have endorsed Mitt Romney. The Log Cabin Republicans, despite participating in the party’s platform drafting process, were unhappy with the end result, especially “the obsessive exclusion of gay couples . . . from the rights and responsibilities of marriage,” and have so far declined to endorse any candidate. The newly launched Young Conservatives for the Freedom to Marry, who attempted to sway the platform committee in early August with a letter emphasizing how marriage equality aligns with Republican ideals (including “more individual freedom, personal responsibility, and the importance of family”), and citing the public’s increased support for the idea, were also disappointed and have withheld official endorsement.

So what makes the GOProuders different?  Why is each one able to look into the camera, show his shiny teeth, and in one breath espouse his support for gay marriage AND his intention to vote for a candidate who signed a NOM pledge? I watched the video over and over again, did some supplementary research, and tried to figure it out. My first theory was that they, like Zen masters or preteens, have a unique ability to hold two contradictory ideas in their heads at the same time – any pro-lifer who also “wants government out of peoples’ lives” must be great at this. Indeed, many of their statements sound like unparsable koans (“I’m a conservative and I share my conservative values and principles with others in the conservative movement”; “I think the government should stay in the government”; “what is the sound of one Mitt clapping?” (fine I made that last one up)), or topic sentences from that middle school paper you wrote on the bus (“being conservative means a lot of things, you know”).

Then I thought maybe they believed that Romney, who has continuously yo-yoed on social issues during his political career, will swing forward on this one again – LaSalvia has called the Republican platform “a meaningless document,” and board member Lisa De Pasquale said there were more people at the Homocon party “than will ever read [it].”  The idea that anyone gung-ho enough about a political party to attend a convention would be willfully unaware of that party’s plans is scary enough. The idea of gay people dancing happily from Homocon to the voting booth without reading what they’re signing feels like Soylent Green-level treachery.

LASILVIA IGNORES SHADOW OF A DOUBT

In the end, though, it seems that the people of GOProud, like many other gay conservatives, consider their partial blindness a matter of priorities – a kind of martyrdom of civil rights for the sake of economic well-being. “For far too long,” said LaSalvia in his Romney endorsement statement, “the gay left in this country has been allowed to dictate what they believe qualify as “gay issues.”  We think jobs, the economy, healthcare, retirement security, and taxes are all “gay issues.”” According to the “Beliefs and Tenets” on their website, reducing the size of government will “improve the daily lives of all Americans, but especially gay and lesbian Americans” – privatizing Social Security will “give gay and lesbian couples the same opportunity to leave their accounts to their spouses as their straight counterparts.” Leaving the gay marriage question to the states will ensure that the federal government can’t outlaw it (although this isn’t actually Romney’s position, and Senator Orrin Hatch recently got in some trouble for disagreeing with him on it). “Protecting the rights of parents to homeschool their children” will do more to stop bullying than any sort of federal initiative. These arguments overreach themselves (to leave your money to your spouse, you need to be legally allowed to have one), deny vital historical precedents (see Loving vs. Virginia), or just make any sane person’s heart hurt (“They’re making fun of little Jimmy?  Well, better keep him in the basement.”). And the core belief that drives them, that minorities can possibly benefit from a government that ignores them, is wishful thinking at best and unforgivably backwards at worst. It’s really only ever espoused by people who have been lucky enough to be born into a societal position where they will be ok if they’re left alone. I’m not saying I want the government in my bedroom, but I do want them acknowledging that I exist.  If the people of GOProud were truly proud, they’d want the same thing.

Read ad-free: join AF MEDIA