He is very very good and people see and understand that...America wants him to succeed and Republicans want him to fail.....

These results are not surprising to me. If not for voter suppression and probably vote fraud in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, and probably other states as well we would see the numbers even higher for Obama.

Gore won in 2000 - that has been proven. Kerry likely won in 2004. The Republicans haven't legitimately won a presidential election in a long time. And that's even with all their millions for lying ads and the fact that they own most of the media.

Unfortunately, the Republicans are still very good at winning congressional seats and other statewide offices.

It turned out to be dominated by folks he had deliberately and studiedly left out of his campaign appeal. Indeed, his campaign was often at odds with the majority of folks who ended up making the ultimate choice in this election.

Women were concerned about pregnancy rights and access to the medical care and insurance coverage that Romney promised to eliminate. In fact, their 'war on women' was definitely threatening to several initiatives and existing benefits and rights.

Latino voters had to defend their policy ground, as well; on issues like immigration and other rights that they wanted to preserve, like access to medical care, schooling, drivers licenses for undocumented immigrants, etc.

Youth were defending the president's initiatives on college loan repayment, availability of college assistance, access to health insurance through their parent's policies . . .

African Americans voted on a myriad of these and other concerns and community needs that Romney threatened.

So, it's a curious notion to view these 'demographics' apart from the very issues that related to them; policy and initiatives which were under assault from Romney in his bid for the presidency.

Their policies, and Mitt's policies, drip with disdain towards minorities and women.
Also, regarding policies, so funny and so clarifying to see a GOP guest on Joy Behar's show the other night, when asked about Romney's constant lying, just grinned and said truth is the first thing to go in a campaign.
(Forget who he was, but every time he talked to the woman on each side of him, he pawed at their arm and held their hands. Kind of creeped me out, and also felt condescending to me.)
I enjoy Joy's show, and it is hilarious to me how imperious and dismissive her GOP guests can be.

So anyway - did policies affect MY decision? Mitt had no policies to speak of and anyway he would have been controlled by the GOP unless he went rogue and that is scary. I don't like some of Obama's policies, but am terrified by the GOP. And a bit disgusted.
I don't think, concerning policies, it makes sense to vote for a person instead of a party at this point in American government and politics. I know that won't change things, but I don't want things to change for the worse, hoping a GOP candidate who sounds good on paper will not be controlled by his party. Or is not lying.

The alternative was horrifying on every level.

suppress the vote was going to backfire big time. People who were lukewarm about the election got fired up about the possibility of having their vote taken away. That and the unspeakable contempt for women were two of the most damning factors for the gop.

had it not been for all the long lines, voter suppression, purged ballots, and purged registrations.

I've been having a hard time processing it over the last few days.

First, keep in mind that the margin of victory wasn't incredibly wide, so there's still plenty of people on the other side.

Personally, I think the reason is the absolute over-the-top nature of Republicans lately. Every single aspect of this campaign had an absurd twist to it by the right. Seriously, could they have picked some who more resembled the monopoly man? Could Romney have been any more of a flip-flopper? Could the negative rhetoric against minorities, women, and gays been any more coded and common? Could they have demonized the right-of-center, center, and left any further? Rhetoric about rape? RAPE?!

Every time they win they act like it's the clearest mandate in the history of the country. Can you imagine what they would have done this time?

Anyway, it's been fun watching my conservative family members go out of their minds. It was such a strong victory on so many fronts they can't deny america is not with them. Yeah, they still think we're going to hell in a hand basket but now they can't possibly push the idea that they are in the majority.

I think that the extremism on the right this cycle highlighted just how positive our message was.

My cynical side, though, worries that the republicans just need to run a candidate who can maintain a moderate tone. Once he or she is elected then the bat shit crazy side can take over.

With the lies, bluster, and missteps, he lost a lot of moderate republicans who were not in the Fox news bubble. I don't think any of the Republican leaning pundits actually voted for him.

Mitt Romney, Karl Rove and their entire party was their own worst enemy!

That's why the primary battle lasted so long. Each time he had a high point, he immediately got smug,
pivoted to trying to take the President on headfirst as if even debating the other Republicans was beneath him,
and surely enough, Newt Gingrich was the next leader, before that it was Herman Cain, then after Gingrich and Florida, Romney
had the good Florida debate, got a big head again, and that's when Santorum made his run to the top. He's just so damn unlikeable on every level. Canceling his staff credit cards the night of the election was just another in a long line of jerk moves on top of his unrelenting lies and God "hero-worship" complex. Not to mention narcissitic. Hmm, so with all that, all he had was the anti-Obama vote, but for some, it was hard voting for him despite it even being an anti-Obama vote.

So our victory this time should come as no big surprise. It mostly comes down to demographics, but the Tea Party certainly helped too.

Not just the lack of any arithmetic in Mitt's "plans", but the way they conducted their operation. Stories of Romney camp "seeing voters they had no idea even existed", ORCA, relying on old-world GOTV techniques. Compare this to to POTUS' operation: data mining, targeted advertising, making it hysterically easy to make microtransactions for donations of small amounts, phone banking from home at targeted states, and constant, repeated, diversified contact with voters. It was never just emails from Jim Messina- it was an email from Barack, an email from Jim, an email from Michelle, an email from Joe, an email from Jim, an email from Michelle, etc.

It shows the different mentalities the sides come from.

On the right, you have the big jock mentality, the ones screaming about freedom and the flag. Who believe they're right...just because they are, dammit.

On the left, you have the nerds. The ones who prize information and cooperation above all. The ones who make these judgments based on what is really, truly occurring.

I have taken SOOOO much more satisfaction from the victories how completely, legitimately shocked the RW is at them, especially their scope. They really cannot process results that every piece of available, quantifiable data told anyone with even a basic grasp on math was coming. They can't process the idea that the Denver debate did anything but turn a looming blowout loss into a MASSIVE VICTORY.

They think 2+3=CHAIR

Even after everyone jumped out but Romney, the whole thing was still a joke.

People take for granted that we're still in the adolescent phase of this whole information revolution thingy. The further we get into it, the more political lies -- virtually the entire basis for Republican success in the past -- start to fall apart.

Most prominently in this past election:

1. Tax cuts for high-income earners leads to job creation/better economy (trickle down theory). Sure, it sounds kinda logical on its face. But the reams of studies and data and analysis that disprove it are being disseminated to a growing majority of people. And they are realizing that it's all bullshit.

2. Gay marriage threatens traditional marriage (the Focus on the Family position). They are losing this one faster than anyone could have imagined. Take a step back and consider this: the President of the United States came out as an unambiguous supporter of gay marriage rights and won a majority of the votes in the U.S. Stunning. And then there were all the state ballot initiatives (clean sweep).

3. The only way to ensure Americans' safety is to proactively kill people before they can get us (the neocon gambit). Setting aside the humanity costs (which is the only thing that matters, of course), these pre-emptive wars are too expensive to continue. War has always been, and always should be, a last resort and TEMPORARY state for a country. Permanent warring is not the answer. Plus, killing babies is bad.

4. Obama/Democrats/Liberals are actually socialists, and socialism is bad...uh...because...it's just bad, study it out (the right wing talk radio position). Crushed. America is starting to see that the political spectrum is complicated. Socialism is something that simply does not exist in this country. And moreover, Barack Obama is a pretty centrist leader.

Granted, not everyone who voted for The Prez in '08 was completely happy with him, but when it came right down to it, even those people started coming back around when they took a look at Romney, especially the younger kids like my daughter, sister and nephew, who have been pretty critical of him. Oddly, Obama was not even my 4th choice in '08, but he won me over, and I've watched this man and he proved to me that he was legit years ago.

I guess I'm astonished that it was so close, if you look at the popular vote, that is. Romney was a dismal candidate. But on the other hand, billions were pumped into this election and elections have been essentially won by the candidate who has the most money. I think there were a lot of factors, but when it comes right down to it, I really do think the American people are starting to swing back around from the misguided "values" from the Reagan Era. It's been a long time coming. While I do think demographics played a part, I truly believed that most Americans who vote still hold those values that President Obama represents. Sadly, a huge majority of Americans hold those values, but most of them don't vote.

On edit: I forgot to mention a big reason - Obama's ground game. It was remarkable! He got voters engaged in real time 3d, not just on the internets like Romney.

came about because Dems pressed them on what they meant by their "pro-life" stance. In doing so, we got the soundbites we needed - legitimate rape, gift from god, life of mother is never an issue, etc, etc.

That, plus the ubiquitous Internet, facebook, twitter, and the like, allowed these soundbites to propagate without the help of the M$M. Women got pissed, and rightfully so.

You can probably make the same general argument about other issues.

Advocating extremist policies are one thing when the country's in the crapper, but when things are basically going fine and in the right direction, why would anyone want to take a hammer to it?

That's talking about economics mostly, where the fox bubble was perhaps the strongest - in spite of the full GDP and jobs recovery, steady growth, and the Dow, exports, manufacturing and trade gap numbers, a bunch of them over there think that we are still in the pit of the bush-recession.

The rest is their bone-headed stupid attitudes toward women and minorities. You can't elect a lightly re-branded George Wallace in 2012 - there just aren't that many people backward enough!

Look at the RV #'s for Obama vs the LV#'s in a lot of polls during the election. RV's support Obama more. We don't always come out for midterms but we sure do for Presidential elections.
Bush barely won in 2000 and 2004 and we can argue he stole both elections. The Repubs are done without appealing to women, minorities, people under 45 and those under 30 epecially, and gays. They have an older base that is getting older. Women turnout in higher numbers during Presidential elections too.

Demos are going to kill them and Obama was a damn good campaigner. His team was amazing. He overcame a so-so debate because he is well liked personally.

High favorability, amazing election team and pure demos.

especially in Ohio. Once he doubled down on it with the tv and radio ads, Ohio was a goner for him. How he thought he could get away with that in the face of the auto company executives publicly admonishing him and correcting him is a mystery to me.

- a Democratic candidate with charisma, a known 'quantity', achievements and failures and a Democratic agenda, also a known 'quantity', Obamacare, Dream Act, Lilly Ledbetter Act, supporting a woman's right to privacy - issues families, women, minorities care about.

- a brilliant Democratic campaign team using state of the art technology, methodology, targeting

- a Republican candidate with no charisma, no character, an unknown quantity, his flip flops on everything and a Republican agenda that was from the 30s - taking away a woman's right to privacy, tax breaks for the rich while removing any tax relief for the poor and middle class, increasing the defense budget while cutting social programs.

- a Republican campaign team who made major gaffe after major gaffe, poor decision-making, antiquated campaign methodology, targeting. The worst campaign I have EVER seen.

- the social media - it's ability to instantly respond, by and to millions, to lies by the candidates instead of waiting for the media to pontificate on whatever they would choose. This was a big factor, imo.

masterful job of 'branding' Romney during the summer before Romney's team could create an alternate brand (of Romney as a moderate care-taker of the government). The brand of 'Out of Touch Plutocrat' stuck and, once it took hold, was not easily removed.

I also think Occupy's relentless repetition of "We Are the 99%" played right into the branding wars. Once Romney was branded as a 1%er, it was all over but the fat lady singing.

So there is still a hell of a lot of work to do. That said, I was also taken by surprise how many things went right and the various wins the Dems had all over the map in both house and senate races. It is a shocker when you think about it.

The GOPs amazing stupid people, like Atkin and the Mourdock and all those others.