except, of course, we delivered our EC votes to Obama & Tammy beat Tommy.

Repubs (but I don't live there now). But try to take solace in the fact that the opposite happened in many other places ... NH went not only almost all-blue, but almost all-women, even, just for one example.

... the truth is that it is easier to burn a house down than to rebuild it.

In so many ways NC is a progressive state that has been built over many years of constant effort. To watch how quickly all of that will be dismantled is going to be torture.

Maybe others will learn from our mistakes ... we can only hope.

IF you take nothing else from our misfortune, DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE IMPACT OF CITIZENS UNITED OUTSIDE $$ IN FUTURE STATE AND LOCAL ELECTIONS.

which obviously should've never been made in the first place.

STUPID.

I'm so ashamed. I predict buyer's regret when the stupid ones realize that they were simply tools to used then cast aside as useless tools are apt to be.

Time to hunker down and organize.

it's not over the rainbow.

split right down the middle. It'd be different if Obama won by a landslide in '08 or Romney won by a landslide in 2012.

We're going to have to get ourselves together - like mentioned in this thread, voter ID laws will come here on a fast track now. We're going to have to deal with getting our people ready for that first or we'll creep faster and faster back to red.

And as a Floridian, I sympathize with you.

It seems like a really wide sweep.

For more than 100 years the Democrats held the majority in the NC state legislature. Most of our governors were Democrats, too. And we had a Democratic majority in the people we sent to Congress. The money flooding into the state from the Koch Brothers as a result of Citizens United changed that in 2010. With the Republicans suddenly in control during a census year, they had the opportunity to redistrict. They gerrymandered the entire state, eliminating many Democratic slots.

Over the past ten years there were high-profile scandals involving Democrats. Our former governor, former speaker of the state house, former secretary of agriculture, others - highly publicized scandals, corruption, jail terms, etc. The Democrats got complacent in North Carolina and the Republican machine, funded by the Kochs, went to work.

With the gerrymandered districts and the anonymous money still pouring in from out of state it's not clear how to turn this around. Personally I think that the Republicans will screw up, but not before they destroy a lot.

Unbelievable how much money the Kochs put into things. They must have certain states on their radar.

and Bev Purdue really screwed us. In NC, the general assembly has full control of redistricting so they gerrymandered like crazy and we lost the Governors race due to having an ill prepared candidate since Purdue waited so long to retire. I posted a thread about how effective the gerrymander was for the US House. We actually got more US House votes than they did but we ended up with a 4 - 9 split.

into getting teabaggers elected. He is pretty powerful, actually, and it's been disastrous.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/22/1148259/-What-s-at-stake-in-NC

He and some others are ALEC conduits into North Carolina.

I think I'm going to have to scout out Vermont.

Lots of people won't want to be there (for anything).

I must have watched over 100 Repub tv ads on our local tv stations the last 48 hrs before election day. Many ads were run back to back and over and over. It was like a sledgehammer.

And with so many of the tv ads being deceptive and just flat out lying in many cases, that $$ drop for Repubs made a huge difference.

EDITED TO ADD: Another factor is that there is no longer a member of the Main Stream Media that does not push the corporate/Repub point of view. That has been a big factor in growing the Repub influence in NC.

This little present will be done under the new administration of the Duke Power Company puppet and his cronies.

Cronyism at its finest and this new Gov. is up to his neck in it. Wonder what he's hiding in HIS tax returns that he doesn't feel is important enough to show the public?

He's hiding and sold it and too many bought it and now we all pay.

is what me and hubby talked about.

Republicans should, if they have any sense whatsoever, tread carefully. We are not Alabama or Kentucky.

As a South Carolinian, I feel your pain. I really hope this is just a bout of temporary insanity, and that y'all aren't trying to become like this state.

and their corruption, since we won't be playing any offense.

The biggest fear is that the Republican controlled General Assembly and the new Republican Governor are going to change the rules to allow them free reign to do whatever they want to do with a bare majority vote, and they will intentionally force opposition groups to resort to the Courts for relief --which is a slow process, and will be even slower as Repubs drag out litigation process with their attorneys' help.

I doubt the people here will forget that and it might look like sour lemons if we try to expose the corruption on the opposite side.

Re-read your post. Denial isn't pretty, no matter who is spinning.

... and that was in an election in which less than 50% of registered voters turned out.

CAll us what you like, but you could run the same election again right now and NC would likely go BLUE by a larger number than 1%.

Don't underestimate the power to alter election outcomes by dropping millions of $$ in your State by unidentified outsiders supporting Repub candidates.

He, like Romney, is an empty suit for the big business agenda. Also, I found it interesting that he refused to disclose his tax returns even after Dalton brought attention to it. He was almost definitely hiding something.

... and consistently refused to explain exactly who he worked with --making it impossible to determine if he would have a conflict of interest with them if he were elected Governor.

He stuck to a folksy line when explaining why he would not disclose his tax returns. It was his Mama's rule not to ask or tell what kind of money you made, and he was not going to go against his Mama's rule.

He has been just as opaque as Romney about his contacts and his income and financial holdings.

Given we have a brand new Repub Governor that is not going to be a big deal. Whatever the Repub controlled General Assembly sends to him to sign, he will.

But it is going to take more than one or two election cycles to turn those Repub majorities into Dem majorities -- UNLESS we unearth Repubs participation in Penn State like child sex abuse conduct.

Even if we elect a Dem Governor in 2016, if there is still a Repub controlled General Assembly all the efforts to fix Repub damage will be like trying to repair a leaking boat on the open sea.

all night and today. While of course I am very happy that President Obama won and has been re-elected my own State has severely let me down. I just can not see how we lost this State this election. God half the people in this State are fucking brain-dead.

That's how they steal elections. They poured SO much money into the STate gov races and SoS races, that it was obvious that they have a particular plan in mind.

I was so glad we could do as well as we did, considering the fucking CU ruling that nearly destroyed our democracy. I had SO hoped that we'd get control of everything in DC so we could get rid of that stupid ruiling.

We may well lose our jobs when the draconian budget cuts come through. My stupid coworkers vote R just because they hated Perdue, who is gone anyway. Now, when they lose their jobs (or bitch about the low pay, which the R's will never do anything about either), I am going to laugh at them. They voted for these assholes, they get what they deserve.

Why ANY government employee would ever voter R is beyond me.

I'm hoping the overreach and then have their asses handed to them next time.

You can be sure that they will not only protect certain jobs, but will create new jobs, which they will fill with their supporters.

AS to state employees as a whole, you are right about the pay cuts and loss of benefits headed their way.

There were fewer than 400 political patronage positions in NC state government before. Now there are 800. They will all be given to Republicans. Hundreds of people are going to lose their jobs to make room for political appointees. I worked in state government once. There was a political appointee in our unit. He was diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, for which he refused treatment, and he could not function. Nevertheless he had an important job with significant responsibilities and nobody could touch him.

We're about to see 800 more like him in North Carolina, and they'll be running things.

We could also use a few more good people to help flip the rest our red area's to blue.

I have lived here in this once red area for the last 26 years and it just flipped blue this election. Its a great day and please don't give up the ship wherever you are, we can win

I think back to the Howard Dean Meetups and the Progressive Convention. I think when Dennis Kucinich won a county's vote here in NC. Jerry Meek...others.

Those were the days of hope for the Progressive wing. Lots of young people mixed with older working together. Then...John Kerry.

you rock for posting this excellent thread.

2014 and 2016 cannot come soon enough

NC IS NOT A RED STATE

People need to understand how easy it was for outside influences to come in here and do this.

Not everyone has the time to be ultra informed before going to vote in an election.

There are Dems who work 2 or 3 jobs, many have several kids with needs, and with the big $$ that came into NC this time they were bombarded with tv and radio ads which tend to be what they remember.

Keep in mind that these Dems would be on guard against an ad that states it was paid for by the REpub Party or Repub candidate. But these ads pretend to be concern ads by groups with names that create confusion. Who knows who these people are who made the ad when the attacks on Dem candidates are not direct, and they play over and over.

$$ is influence, plain and simple.