2012 election

Over the last few weeks, pundits and politicians have taken to the airwaves to offer hundreds of explanations for the Republican losses on November 6th. Some insist it was the Hispanic vote, others say it was the Republican turnout operation, the messaging, or the candidate at the top of the ticket, Mitt Romney. Each person [...]

This past Friday evening, Science Center 199 was almost full. Around 80 Swarthmore alumni, professors, students and some residents from the local community gathered to hear a talk on the just-passed presidential election. Five panelists specializing in three different fields were invited to speak. “I want the audience to be able to get a broad [...]

The night after Election Day, Jon Stewart proudly boasted he had the winner of the 2012 election that night. His guest was Nate Silver, the man who had done the not-so-unthinkable: correctly predicting the presidential election and all but one congressional election using polling data and statistics. Silver’s models had been doubted, ridiculed, and belittled [...]

To argue that November 6 was anything but a major setback for young conservatives would be sophistry. It took some very strong coffee and a full boycott of the Drudge Report to pull myself out of bed last Wednesday. The past four years have marked my real political coming of age, as I learned of [...]

As media analysts from Karl Rove to James Fallows predicted, the outcome of Tuesday’s election has already had a profound impact on the American economy. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported one of the sharpest spikes in unemployment in history, with the overall unemployment rate jumping from 7.9% on election day to more than [...]

No matter what the Republican talking heads are saying, Tuesday was an excellent night for liberty. In three states same-sex marriage was recognized, and in two recreational marijuana was legalized. Minnesota defeated a voter ID law, and pro-life extremists Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock were defeated in Missouri and Indiana. All of these are questions [...]

Governor Romney’s loss Tuesday night gave me time to step back and think about why I care so much about politics. I was devastated by Romney’s loss, and my state of disbelief clouded my more rational senses. I came to see politics as some sort of irrational obsession of mine, rather than as an institution [...]

The 2012 election is over, and President Obama is the decisive victor after winning most of the battleground states by narrow but clear margins. After a lengthy reelection battle, voters have given the President the go-ahead to continue leading the country for another four years. The fight, however, is not over for President Obama; the [...]

As the election quickly approaches, much of Swarthmore’s student body will have the opportunity to vote for the first time. With several voting options — such as absentee ballots, voting in Pennsylvania and not voting at all — students are taking various approaches to voicing their right to vote. In a survey of 89 random [...]

With Election Day 2012 now less than a week away and countless bitterly fought campaigns hurtling toward their currently unknown conclusions next Tuesday, many Swarthmore groups remain fiercely engaged in the process, even as they reflect on a busy campaign season nearly passed and look into the future of political activism and engagement at Swarthmore [...]