Here's a NY Times article that talks about the Latino vote and why it was up this year [link]

One of the interesting things it mentions is

In many states, Latinos did not wait for either the Democratic or the Republican campaigns to come to them. Instead they mounted coordinated voter registration and education efforts, giving them a degree of independence as a voting bloc and creating popular networks that they said they planned to mobilize again to bring pressure on the White House and Congress.

And Salon had this interesting number 80% of Mormons voted for Bush, but only 78% voted for Romney

The bigotry is a big part of it. If you are non-white it is hard to miss the huge open bigotry and even hatred of non-whites within the Republican party. When a lot of Republicans went beyond opposing Sonia Maria Sotomayor on policy grounds for the Supreme Court and called her a "lightweight" and pretended that she got ahead because of the huge advantages that come with being born poor and brown skinned, what exactly they were saying was pretty obvious. The Republican leadership forgot that "dogwhistle" is a metaphor, and that in point of fact when they use coded racism, people of color actually can break that code. I mean if you suffer racism regularly, you probably get pretty good at spotting it.

Indeed, as a proportion of the total, more white women voted for Romney on Tuesday than voted for George W. Bush, in 2004, or for John McCain, in 2008.

I'd like to see that broken down by age. I know not a SINGLE white female friend of mine did nor my sister (mid 30's to 40) or my mom (68). And most of my /friends/family live in MO...yanno, literally 5 blocks away from me. And I very strongly suspect some of my white female relatives in MO who, sadly IMHO, voted Romney did NOT vote for Akin...

ETA: And Typo, ITA

One thing I need to say because it's starting to get to me:

4). This election will go down as the final chapter in the right-wing's "culture war." They lost.

I just don't think this is true, not by a long shot. HIstory just doesn't run that smoothly.

I mean if you suffer racism regularly, you probably get pretty good at spotting it.

This. What I have the hardest time understanding is why lower and middle class voters of any sex or race or religion would think that the Republican leaders they selected actually have their backs or even know they exist. They don't really like you! Stop voting for them!

There are lots of awesome Republicans out there that just believe in different solutions than me, but that aren't Evil. May they take back their party. If we are going to be a 2 party system I would like to see the best and brightest leading both sides. Yes, I know I am an idealist. Not likely to change my stripes at this stage of life.

Burrell, in total agreement. The Republicans have the House, and they will obstruct. It appears in the Senate that we will get filibuster "reform" but not filibuster abolition. So Republicans will still be able to obstruct in the Senate. And given that the Senate includes a number of so-called "moderate" Democrats who love to vote with Republicans on key issues, even abolishing the filibuster would not end Republican obstruction in the Senate for the next two years.

BTW, as I suspected, thanks to gerrymandering, the Republicans took a majority of the House with a minority of the popular vote. [link] Proportional Representation would have made gerrymandering fairly pointless.

I agree with Burrell, there is no way this is the final chapter. Bill O'Reilly is already using this to scare people and I think things are going to escalate with the "culture war."

I think fear of losing the majority is a big reason we saw the Tea Party spring up (the legit people of the Tea Party not the astroturfing at that happened) and people in the majority are afraid when change comes.

BillO talked about the end of Traditional America - that's White Protestant. Others are tolerated but they need to know their place, and their place is to stay in the minority and not try to "take over" America.

You have people who exhibit racist behavior and don't consider what they do racist. Here's an article on a woman who called the President the n word and called for his assassination. [link]

The Secret Service investigated her and here are what I think are the key quotes from her:

“The assassination part is kind of harsh,” Helms said. “I’m not saying I’d go do that or anything like that, by any means, but if it was to happen I don’t think I’d care one bit.”

FOX40 asked her to clarify.

“Really? It wouldn’t bug you if someone assassinated the president?” FOX40 asked.

“Well, it’s not something I would dwell on. It’s not something I would be upset about,” Helms responded.

and

“I don’t understand what I did wrong. I didn’t say, ‘Hey, someone go do this,’” Helms told FOX40.

Helms also said that, despite using a racial slur, she doesn’t consider herself racist.

I have relatives who've said racist stuff to me but it was "subtle" racism. You know, they insulted Mexicans but didn't call them dirty wetbacks in the process so what they said isn't racist. Or say that black people don't have the ability to own and run businesses which is why Obama shouldn't be President, but that's not being racist that's just how things are and how God made people.

I could not love Rachel Maddow more. Just LOVE! [link]

Oh yeah, that's just great!