12:05 am. Mitt Romney has three “home” states: Michigan, Massachusets, and Utah. He lost Michigan and Massachusetts. Paul Ryan only has one home state, Wisconsin, and he couldn’t carry it for Romney. The GOP is caught in a real bind. Election after election their geographic base retreats further and further into the deep South and the barren Plains. At the same time, their demographic base grows whiter, older and wealthier, even as the nation is growing browner, that brown population is getting younger, and the Middle Class is disappearing. Sometime in the 1980’s or 1990’s, the GOP became largely a regional party. It is now poised to become a marginal party, fighting a rearguard action to defend privilege, whiteness, and the prerogatives of a global military, economic and cultural empire that is, frankly, collapsing.
If it is to survive, the GOP must come to represent a conservatism that hews closer to the vision of Burke, Kirk, Fleming, Oakeshott, Burnham, Weaver, Scruton, Berry and Blond; a conservatism that stands opposed to the corrosive cultural influence of laissez-faire capitalism and the mass consumer society; opposed to the concentration of economic and political power in the hands of private interests or the state; opposed to empire and the militarization of foreign policy; a conservatism focused on the care of creation, including the land and sea, as well as the small human ecologies of family, congregation, town, and small business; a conservatism that privileges the farmer, the industrial worker, the teacher and the Main Street merchant over the financial baron, the defense contractor, the big box retailer and the Washington lobbyist; a conservatism of the town hall meeting, not of slick ad campaigns; a conservatism of communities, not corporations. And yes, it must be a conservatism that defends the unborn, but also one that supports and honors their mothers, both before they give birth and long after. And yes, it must be a conservatism that defends marriage, but not by demonizing or marginalizing families that don’t fit a certain mold. Yes, it must be a conservatism of limited government, but within limits defined by justice, equality before the law, peaceableness, and the care of the aged, the infirm, the poor, and the unemployed.
A friend of mine tweeted that the big loser tonight was Ayn Rand. Thanks be to God. In the years ahead, may Republicans come to see this as the night when they began to fashion a different kind of conservatism. If they don’t they have no future. MG
11:57 pm. Minnesota’s Congressional District 6: the one vote I cast that actually matters. Michele Bachmann has a 51-49% lead over Jim Graves with 45% in. Ooh, and better news: independent Angus King just won a senate seat in Maine. Stephen Colbert says goodbye to bipartisan gridlock, hello to tripartisan gridlock. JS
11:20 pm. All the networks are calling the election for Obama, but apparently Romney still has about a 1% lead in the popular vote. 2000 in reverse? JS
1:16 pm. PBS just called it 275 electoral votes for Obama. DCU
11: 14 pm. Barack Obama has retained the White House by winning Ohio. MG
11:06 pm. The thoroughly non-magisterial “five non-negotiables” meme has been rampant in certain precincts of the Catholic community. The five are abortion, euthanasia, ESCR, cloning and SSM. Personally, I’m fine with a non-negotiables list, but I’d like to see it expanded to more closely represent the fullness of Church teaching. MG
11:03 pm. Fox News now (reluctantly) has Obama at 244 electoral votes, Romney at 193. Florida alone would put Obama over the top. 94% reporting there has Obama with a slight lead. MG
11:01 pm. Networks have just called California and Washington for Obama, giving Obama a substantial lead. DCU
10:57 pm. Many thought that the bishops’ “Fortnight for Freedom” was transparently political, designed to pump the Romney campaign in mid-summer. Fr. Peter Daly has some thoughts on why the Fortnight for Freedom fell flat with Catholics in the pews. MG
10:52 pm. Minnesota called for Obama. I am selfishly relieved that my Democratic friends here won’t get mad at me for voting independent. JS
10:45 pm. Waiting for the polls to close in California. Prop 34 is the biggest ballot issue in nation: whether CA, with over 1000 people on death row, should abolish capital punishment. Bill O’Reilly came out today in favor of abolition, so I am hopeful that this pro-life measure will pass. DCU
10:38 pm. CBS called Nevada for Obama. Good news for my niece Cristina who took a leave from grad school to do organizing work there.DCU
9:50 pm. New Hampshire for Obama. There are no escape routes left for Romney. He has to win Ohio and Florida or it’s over. Right now he’s behind in both, a small deficit in Florida but a large one in Ohio. MG
9:47 pm. The percentages on assisted suicide in Massachusetts have changed considerably. The question is now losing 51% to 49%. MG
9:30 pm. Two networks just called Wisconsin for Obama. Tammy Baldwin, one of the most liberal politicians in the state, has a very good chance to win the senate seat. The very conservative Green Bay Press Gazette endorsed Baldwin. Their endorsement was, roughly, “She is the spawn of Satan, but at least she is competent.” DCU
9:26 om. On CNBC, Carly Fiorina, former CEO of HP and former GOP Senate candidate from California said that if the Senate remains Democratic, and if Obama wins re-election, House Republicans might just take the country over the “fiscal cliff” after January 1st. MG
9:24 pm. The local paper has called the Senate race in CT for the democrat, Murphy. His opponent, McMahon, spent $40 million of her own money. Both candidates went ugly early. In desperation, McMahon broke with the national party and started running ads touting “Obama and McMahon.” It appears that swing voters did not buy it. DCU
9:20 pm. Fox is projecting Pennsylvania for Obama. He has also taken Michigan. Romney now has to pull out Florida and Ohio in order to have any chance. CNN and Fox are both projecting that the GOP will hold the House. MG
9:17 pm The folks at Radio Free Babylon (Coffee with Jesus) have called the election for Obama, based solely on “the smug giddiness of MSNBC anchors versus the downcast seriousness of Fox News anchors.” MG
9:10 pm. NBC calls Warren in Massachusetts. KC
9:06 pm. It’s early, but same-gender marriage is losing in Maine, winning in Maryland. MG
8:56 pm. Exit polls on religion from CNN (via Religion Dispatches) KC:
In Ohio, exit pollsters did ask voters if they were “white born again Christian;” 31% said yes, and they went for Romney over Obama, 68-31%. (The Pew Religious Landscape Survey has Ohio’s white evangelical population at 26%.) 25% of the respondents were Catholic, and they favored Romney 55-44%. Romney is only doing marginally better among white Catholics only (21% of the electorate), 56-42%. Obama is winning among everyone other than white born-again Christians, 60-38%.
8:55 pm. Assisted suicide is winning big, 55%-45%, in Massachusetts, with reporting in from a representative sample of towns across the state. MG
8:48 pm. If my sense about an Obama victory is correct, there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth on the right. The American Conservative magazine, a paleocon journal, has an interesting piece about the likely fallout in the Republican Party. MG
8:45 pm. I’m starting to get the sense that Obama may be coasting to victory. Romney is leading in Virginia, but trailing in Florida and Ohio, with significant percentages of precincts (60% in Florida and 25% in Ohio) having reported. If Romney doesn’t come back quickly and with strength in Florida and Ohio, it’ll be an early night. MG
8:33 pm. Florida is leaning Obama 51% to 48% with 56% reporting. Florida is really a must state for Romney. MG
8:32 pm. Former VN Contributor Nate Wildermuth posted on his Facebook page today: “Wow. The election has been called already… America lost.” MG
8:31 pm. Watching ballot questions in five states. Assisted suicide in Massachusetts. Gay marriage questions in Minnesota, Maine, Maryland, and Washington. The MA question to allow assisted suicide is leading by 18 percentage points, but it is early. MG
8:08 pm. According to the Boston Globe, Obama is projected to have won IL, CT, ME, DC, DE, RI, MD, MA & VT. Romney has carried SC, WV, GA, OK, MS, AL, IN & KY. MG
7:47 pm. Polls that have closed already include big portions of New Hampshire and Florida (7:00 pm EST); and Virginia, North Carolina and Ohio (7:30 pm EST). At 8:00 pm EST, polls close in Pennsylvania and the remainder of New Hampshire and Florida. The battleground states of Colorado and Wisconsin close at 9:00 pm EST, and Iowa closes at 10:00 pm EST. MG
7:45 pm. Opening our election night live blog. Keep it civil and brief. We’ll do our best to get your comments moderated very quickly. VN Contributors will identify ourselves using initials to close individual entries. MG
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