Saw a story on Slate today, about Mitt Romney and his 47% comments. Imagine being saddled with that for the rest of your life. But then he’s rich so the hell with him. Just kidding. He’s a job creator. But that Slate story reminded me of a piece I found that I’d written the day after the election that discusses that very same percentage point, 47%. (the final was Obama 51.1%, Romney 47.2%). I published it on the blog back on November 7th and promptly forgot about it. It’s old news now, a nearly forgotten story and almost entirely irrelevant…but here it is anyway.

Looking at the votes still being counted in the west, it’s looking like Romney’s final vote national tally will come to 47% Maybe I’m wrong, but some quick math and county projections (using a calculator and the CNN interactive map) sure make it looks like Mitt Romney got the support of 47%, just not the 47% he wanted.The talk today about just how close an election this was is not borne out when you include the votes from the Pacific coast. Romney got creamed out here, and the popular vote was not anywhere near as close as the Media is insisting today. Right now Obama has a lead of about 2.75 million. By the time the rest of the west coast is tabulated I suspect Obama’s lead will be more in the four million range (it was actually just shy of five million). That’s over three percentage points. Maybe I’m wrong, but the counties on the coast that are less than 100% tabulated (some barely half counted) are running anywhere from 1.5 to 1 up to 4 to 1  for Obama, and all are significant population centers.. That’s where that extra million and a half Obama votes come from. This pushed Obama well over 50%. Right now he is at 51%. This will only rise as the last votes are counted. Continue reading →