(OK, just a disclaimer before I write a very long post. I've got a cold, so excuse any typos and rambling. It's the drugs talking.)

Yes, victory for Obama. It's a good thing for many reasons, but I'm keeping the cheers to a minimum. This isn't one of those blogs. I am interested in other questions. Why did Obama win? How will the GOP regroup? What did the pundits get right? Wrong? What issues were the most important to the public? What does this mean for health care, climate change, foreign policy, education, the economy, and women? 

If a Democratic president can win reelection in this crappy economy, is the GOP sunk? What changes can they make? Should they drop the pro-life agenda? Should they change their immigration message? Should they distance themselves from the crazy wing of the party? Should Romney have distanced himself from Trump, the Tea Party types, and the birthers?

 My twitterfeed, which is made up of political wonks, saw this election as a validation of the Nate Silver's prediction model. Yes, Silver has a nice model and, certainly, there was a purposive misinterpretation of his methodology among conservative pundits. But this election was about more than that. Most people don't read Nate Silver. Sure, 20% of the visits to the NYT end up at 538, but that's a small part of the American public. Most people don't visit the New York Times website, even though it feels like everyone we know does. This election was about more than Nate Silver. We need to talk about that. 

 The Youth Vote. Big turnout in young people. Huffington Post reports, "Voters from ages 18 to 29 represented 19 percent of all those who voted on Tuesday, according to the early National Exit Poll conducted by Edison Research. That's an increase of one percentage point from 2008. Obama captured 60 percent youth vote, compared with Mitt Romney's 36 percent." 

FOX News. The punditry on FOX News were in complete disarray last night. It made for excellent TV viewing. It's hard to believe that they didn't have their spin in control before their went to the office that morning. They were in such a bubble, they were blindsided. Rather shocking. The pundits ended up turning on their own quant nerds. 

A Realignment of Voting Coalitions. Ross Douthat has one of the most level headed analysis of the election from a conservative perspective. He says that Obama's win represents the victory for the coalition of young voters, women, minorities, and liberal professionals. He concedes that he may have overstated the Republican coalition. "But even less starry-eyed conservatives — like, well, myself — were willing to embrace models of the electorate that overstated the Republican base of support and downplayed the Democrats’ mounting demographic advantage."

The Auto Bailout. This was a key issue in undermining the tradition Republican coalition. 

Where to place the blame? Why did Romney lose? Multiple choice: A) Crazy Republicans – Donald Trump, birthers, Tea Party types, and extreme pro-lifers. B) Gaffes, ie 47%. C) Romney was a rich dude. D) Obama made inroads into the Republican coalition with the auto bailout. E) Obama had a stronger coalition. 

Even I am getting annoyed at all the crowing about Nate Silver. He aggregated polling data. His success is due to the improvement in polling methods. Some of Silver's supporters don't understand math any better than his distractors. I'm also annoyed whenever polling data takes on more importance among the punditry than policy discussions. 

It would be incredibly bad form to write a blog post that included Facebook status updates by my conservative friends. Arg. I can't stop myself. Here's one: "I forsee gun sales going through the roof. Buy all you can before these bastards try to take them away."