Last Night's Winners & Losers

WINNER - Barack Obama.  He beat the odds historically.  He's the first President since James Monroe to win a second-term following two other two-term presidents.  He got 8 million fewer votes than he did in 2008 and still won.

LOSER - Paul Ryan.  No one expected Romney to win Massachusetts, but Ryan couldn't deliver Wisconsin, he lost his debate to Joe Biden, and he's a white guy.

WINNER - The Democratic Party.  They've increased their pull with women, minorities, and the youth vote, and the shifting demographic of the nation are all in their favor.

LOSER - White men. They went overwhelmingly for Romney, but it didn't matter.  And since white men are losers, no way the GOP nominates a white man in 2016.  They're tired of the "racist, sexist" cudgel from the Left and will do whatever they can to change it.  Marco Rubio, Nikki Haley, Ted Cruz, Bobby Jindal, Kelly Ayotte, Condi Rice have to all be on wish-lists for the GOP in 2016.  Sorry, Paul Ryan, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, Jon Huntsman, etc.  You have no chance.

WINNER - Pollsters.  Namely the RealClearPolitics.com average and Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com.  They wound up being right on just about every state.  Again.

LOSER - Dick Morris and Karl Rove. I seriously don't understand why Fox News hasn't fired these guys yet. They have been so wrong for so long and don't bring anything to the table, other than advertising money from their PACs, I guess.  Dick Morris was claiming a landslide for Romney after polls were closing and none of those numbers were baring out.  Karl Rove's meltdown when he thought Fox called Ohio too early was priceless.  They are millstones.

WINNER - Bob Scheiffer.  The best presidential moderator of the year, maybe ever. He did it perfectly.

LOSER - Candi Crowley and Jim Lehrer. Lehrer was about as effective as Larry King ("what's the difference between you two?") and Crowley incorrectly interceded to help push a false narrative and ruined her aura of impartiality.

WINNER - Negative campaigning.  It did its job. It supressed voter turnout, and Obama, whose ads were 85% negative, won.  2016 is going to be terrrrrrible.

LOSER - Big Money.  Six billion dollars were spent on this campaign, and we essentially got the same government we had last week.  What was the freakout about Citizens United again? Anyway, rich people can expect their taxes to go up.

WINNER - Harry Reid. He keeps his power in the Senate and he's still the most powerful Mormon politician in America.

LOSER - The Primary process.  Someone please explain to me why Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina get to be the first three states every year?  They always wind up determining the nominee.  Meanwhile, since Obama had no challenger, the Republicans went through one of the nastiest, most prolonged fights for the nomination in some time.  You had freaks and geeks like Michelle Bachmann and Rick Santorum and Herman Cain strutting their stuff when they had no business on stage and no one in the world believed they could actually be president, and yet they got to spout their stuff and have walking jokes like Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry take turns hammering Romney.  By the time he'd secured the nomination, the damage was done.

WINNER - Joe Biden.  HBO is going to make him a HERO when they make Game Change II.

LOSER - Game Change II: The Book. Can't see how it'll be as good as the first one.  And the HBO movie will actually probably make the main character Todd Akin.

WINNER - Claire McCaskill.  Missouri was ready to throw her out, but then Todd Akin revealed himself to be quite the idiot when it comes to how the female body works.

LOSER - Social conservatives.  Some states have made gay marriage and marijuana legal, and Akin & Mourdock helped frighten enough women that abortion rights might be curbed that women wound up citing "abortion" as their #1 issue in exit polls.

WINNER - Some Democrats in Utah actually won some races. Jim Matheson held on to his Congressional seat once again, and Ben McAdams is the new Salt Lake County mayor.

LOSER - Mia Love was poised to be a star in the GOP, but somehow she lost her race.

WINNER - The uninsured.  ObamaCare is here to stay.

LOSER - The economy. Did you see the Dow today? Did you notice the debt ceiling will need to be raised again pretty soon? Unemployment is still at 7.9%.  Gas prices are still high.  So... yeah. Precarious.

WINNER - The American People.  Decisive win means no lawsuits and no repeat of the 2000 mess. A peaceful transfer or maintenance of power.  The election's over so no more political ads popping up everywhere.  It's always right after an election when people are most willing to work together and get things done. The speeches by Obama and Romney last night were examples of encouraging in victory and gracious in defeat. And I'll end on that note.