I decided to give this dialogue a try. It's been something I've wanted to do for a while. Early November... It's the day after election day... You turn on cable news. Here's the conversation.
Host: Good morning! Last night, a heavy, bitterly contested election finally comes to an end, and Barack Obama is here to stay for another four years. I'm your host, and sitting with me here are our political pundits to tell you why he won, and why Mitt Romney didn't do as well as... well, as most Republicans thought he would do. Jim, you're a Republican. Why did Romney lose by so many electoral votes.
Jim (R): Well, he did better than John McCain, so I wouldn't say he did horribly. He won Indiana and North Carolina-
Denise (D): -Not by much-
Jim (R): - and he held on to all of the McCain states. I've heard reports of voter fraud in Virginia and Nevada, so we don't know if Obama won those fairly or not, and let's face it, Romney was not a great candidate. I've always said we should have nominated Santorum, and I'm convinced we would have won.
Host: Okay. Denise, do you agree?
Denise (R): That Romney was a bad candidate? Yes. However, that's not what Jim was saying just yesterday, when he said Romney was a great candidate and would win handily. But I don't know where Jim is getting these voter fraud allegations from. Republicans run Virginia right now, not Democrats, and they also run North Carolina, so it could be that voter fraud happened there and cost Democrats that state. And of course North Carolina also just elected a Republican governor as well, by a questionable margin. The truth is Obama won fair and square, but by the popular vote, and the electoral vote. He even got higher percentages in some of his states than he did in 2008, like in Ohio, Virginia, Michigan...
Host: But Denise, the Republicans got enough senate seats to make the breakdown 50-50, and Democrats only won 13 house seats. Clearly this must mean that Obama didn't have the coat-tails he needed.
Denise (D): Well, we were always going to lose senate seats. We had 23 seats up, plus 2 independents that caucus with us. The Republicans only had 10, and we took two of their seats in Massachusetts and Maine.
Host: Of course the seat in Maine is now held by Angus King, who has not yet decided who he will caucus with.
Denise (D): That's true, but his stands on the issue tend to be progressive, so I think he'll caucus with us. But when it comes to the house seats, we had to have gotten 25 to take back the majority. I think 13 is a good start. We'll of course work hard to get the rest in the mid-terms.
Jim (R): Come on Denise. The reason you didn't win back the house is because the American people know that the Democrats are job killers and want to raise their taxes.
Denise (D): Jim, the American people just REELECTED a Democrat, they gave 13 house seats to them. I don't know where you get that idea from.
Host: Let's look at the map here. As you can see, it's not much different from 2008. Indiana went red this time, as did North Carolina. Both of them only by a few thousand votes, just like last time. If we zoom in and look at Arizona, we see that Obama lost by only 5% this time instead of 10%, but of course, no Arizonan was running this time. If we look at Missouri, the president won fewer votes than in 2008, as turnout was down in St. Louis and Kansas City, but up in the rural areas. Florida and Ohio went decisively for Obama by 3 and 6% respectively, and Virginia went for Obama by 6%, with a lot of help from the northern part of the state, home of a lot of government workers.
Jim (R): If you look at the popular vote, Obama won by quite a bit less than last time. His vote totals went down in many states and-
Denise (D): What Jim neglects to say is that this is mostly due to the new voter ID laws, which was nothing more than a plan to disenfranchise minority voters. Also, the states where Romney did better than McCain did were mainly deep red states like Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho. Home to a lot of mormons and few electoral votes. Jim, we weren't even campaigning in those places. Look at South Carolina and Georgia! We did better in those states this time. We did better in Ohio!
Jim (R): But what about Pennsylvania? You barely won it! I think people are finally catching on to the fact that Democrats want to raise their taxes and gut Medicare!
Denise (D): WE want to cut Medicare?
Host: Okay, let's move on. Our station has just conducted a new poll. In 2016, will you vote for Joe Biden or the Republican candidate?
So what do you guys think? Sound right?