12:05 am. <\/strong>Mitt Romney has three \u201chome\u201d states: Michigan, Massachusets, and Utah. He lost Michigan and Massachusetts. Paul Ryan only has one home state, Wisconsin, and he couldn\u2019t 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\u2019s or 1990\u2019s, 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.<\/p>\n 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\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n 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\u2019t they have no future. MG<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n 11:57 pm.<\/strong>\u00a0 Minnesota\u2019s Congressional District 6: the one vote I cast that actually matters.\u00a0 Michele Bachmann has a 51-49% lead over Jim Graves with 45% in.\u00a0 Ooh, and better news:\u00a0independent Angus King just won a senate seat in Maine.\u00a0 Stephen Colbert says goodbye to bipartisan gridlock, hello to tripartisan gridlock. JS<\/em><\/p>\n 11:20 pm.<\/strong>\u00a0 All the networks are calling the election for Obama, but apparently Romney still has about a 1% lead in the popular vote.\u00a0 2000 in reverse? JS<\/em><\/p>\n 1:16 pm.\u00a0 <\/strong>\u00a0 PBS just called it 275 electoral votes for Obama. DCU<\/em><\/p>\n 11: 14 pm. <\/strong>Barack Obama has retained the White House by winning Ohio. MG<\/em><\/p>\n 11:06 pm. <\/strong>The thoroughly non-magisterial \u201cfive non-negotiables\u201d meme has been rampant in certain precincts of the Catholic community. The five are abortion, euthanasia, ESCR, cloning and SSM. Personally, I\u2019m fine with a non-negotiables list, but I\u2019d like to see it expanded to more closely represent the fullness of Church teaching. MG<\/em> 11:03 pm. <\/strong>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<\/em> 11:01 pm.\u00a0 <\/strong> Networks have just called California and Washington for Obama, giving Obama a substantial lead.\u00a0 DCU<\/em><\/p>\n 10:57 pm. <\/strong>Many thought that the bishops\u2019 \u201cFortnight for Freedom\u201d was transparently political, designed to pump the Romney campaign in mid-summer. Fr. Peter Daly has some thoughts<\/a> on why the Fortnight for Freedom fell flat with Catholics in the pews. MG<\/em><\/p>\n 10:52 pm.<\/strong>\u00a0 Minnesota called for Obama.\u00a0 I am selfishly relieved that my Democratic friends here won\u2019t get mad at me for voting independent. JS<\/em><\/p>\n 10:45 pm.<\/strong>\u00a0 Waiting for the polls to close in California.\u00a0 Prop 34 is the biggest ballot issue in nation:\u00a0 whether CA, with over 1000 people on death row, should abolish capital punishment.\u00a0\u00a0 Bill O\u2019Reilly came out today in favor of abolition, so I am hopeful that this pro-life measure will pass.\u00a0 DCU<\/em><\/p>\n 10:38 pm.<\/strong> CBS called Nevada for Obama.\u00a0 Good news for my niece Cristina who took a leave from grad school to do organizing work there.DCU<\/em><\/p>\n 9:50 pm. <\/strong>New Hampshire for Obama. There are no escape routes left for Romney. He has to win Ohio and Florida or it\u2019s over. Right now he\u2019s behind in both, a small deficit in Florida but a large one in Ohio. MG<\/em><\/p>\n 9:47 pm. <\/strong>The percentages on assisted suicide in Massachusetts have changed considerably. The question is now losing 51% to 49%. MG<\/em><\/p>\n 9:30 pm.\u00a0 <\/strong>Two networks just called Wisconsin for Obama.\u00a0 Tammy Baldwin, one of the most liberal politicians in the state, has a very good chance to win the senate seat.\u00a0 The very conservative Green Bay Press Gazette endorsed Baldwin.\u00a0 Their endorsement was, roughly, \u201cShe is the spawn of Satan, but at least she is competent.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 DCU<\/em><\/p>\n 9:26 om. <\/strong>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 \u201cfiscal cliff\u201d after January 1st. MG<\/em><\/p>\n 9:24 pm.<\/strong>\u00a0 The local paper has called the Senate race in CT for the democrat, Murphy.\u00a0 His opponent, McMahon, spent $40 million of her own money.\u00a0 Both candidates went ugly early.\u00a0 In desperation, McMahon broke with the national party and started running ads touting \u201cObama and McMahon.\u201d\u00a0 It appears that swing voters did not buy it.\u00a0 DCU<\/em><\/p>\n 9:20 pm. <\/strong>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<\/em><\/p>\n 9:17 pm <\/strong>The folks at Radio Free Babylon (Coffee with Jesus) have called the election for Obama, based solely on \u201cthe smug giddiness of MSNBC anchors versus the downcast seriousness of Fox News anchors.\u201d MG<\/em> 9:10 pm.<\/strong> NBC calls Warren in Massachusetts. KC<\/em><\/p>\n 9:06 pm. <\/strong>It\u2019s early, but same-gender marriage is losing in Maine, winning in Maryland. MG<\/em><\/p>\n
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