So, how did the bloggers on the right side of the aisle take the news of Obama winning the election? (Actual quotes in blockquote, "shorter" version (cf. "awareness of internet traditions") hyperlinked.)
MELISSA CLOUTHIER: By which I mean, get down off that cross, because we need to burn it, on someone's front lawn.
The South wasn't as solid Republican as it should have been. Can it be reenergized?
JAMMIE WEARING FOOL: Now, the Democrats will learn the perils of being in charge of the entire government, and they'll be sorry.
So let the Democrats celebrate and enjoy their victory. Now comes the hard part: actually governing and holding their majorities. When they last had such edges following the 1992 elections, they lurched too far to the left and paid an enormous price in 1994.
CAPTION THIS: Doubling down on shrill.
If only one good thing has come from this election, it's that it is crystal clear who the enemy is. We don't have to compromise any more. We're liberated from having to back mushy moderates just because if the alternative gets power, it would be worse. Well, now the worse alternative is in power, and we have nothing to lose.
LITTLE GREEN FOOTBALLS: Hey! Let me make total sense for just a second!
If the GOP decides to go in the Bobby Jindal direction (fundamental Christianity, creationism, hard-line anti-abortionism, aggressively anti-gay rights), it will be committing political suicide. As much as anything else, this election was a referendum on the social conservative agenda, and the social conservatives did not win.
BLACKFIVE: Hurry! Before all the guns are gone!
Screw the coronation and start of the Obamanation. 1 20 09, the day we begin the fight to stop the left from telling the rest of us how to live our lives and pussifying American society. I went with Chuck Z today to his favorite local gun shop and where last week there were dozens of AK and variants for sale, today there were half as many and a line to buy.
"Republicans complained about voter intimidation in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania this morning. Via Hot Air, it turned out to be two Black Panthers - one with a nightstick - who were guarding the polling site doors and reportedly were intimidating voters."
Preliminary indications are that the youth vote (ages 18-29) was way up: an increase of somewhere over 2.2 million (maybe way over) from 2004 (a year in which it was very high), and as much as 13% over 2000. The Left's dominance of the academy is now having a material impact on electoral politics. As we think about the future of conservatism, we ignore that at our peril.
MOONBATTERY: Lift those tiny fists in denial!
Congratulations, moonbats. You finally have your revenge for being forced to look at all those flags after 9/11. This is a day of celebration for everyone hostile to America and the principles of individual liberty for which it stands. Enjoy it while you can.
There are people lowdown enough to know in advance who and what was elected yesterday, and to have voted for the Moonbat Messiah anyway. What they have done to this country is beyond forgiveness.
But an ultra-radical leftist like Obama could not be elected in a center-right country, or even a center-left country, without a great deal of deception. Thanks to a radicalized liberal media willing to sacrifice its own long-term credibility to put a leftist in power, Obama was never publicly vetted. Moderates did not vote for a real person, but for a two-dimensional phantom temporarily conjured into being by hype.
RED STATE: One more naive insistence, before sleepy-time!
Point one: There's no need to start pointing fingers within the party. This election was on style, not substance. No faction's to blame, and no policy is at fault. We know this because Obama won. He ran on no ideas at all.
LUCIANNE.COM: Onward, fearmongering Hobbits!
"In regard to attitude, America's conservatives could do worse than to be moved by those lines of Robert Blake."
POWERLINE: Sure Obama won, but why couldn't he win by EVEN MORE? Huh? HUHHHHHH?? HUHHHHHHHH!?!? [Head Explodes]
Obama won around 52 percent of the popular vote, defeating John McCain by between five and six points. That's nothing like the true landslides of the past: Reagan by ten points in 1980 and 18 in 1984; Nixon by 23 in 1972; or even Bush by eight in 1988. And yet, with hindsight, it is remarkable how much Obama had going for him. After breaking his pledge to take public financing he raised more money, by far, than any Presidential candidate in history, outspending McCain nearly two to one. Millions of new voters, many of them minority voters, were registered, and they went heavily for Obama. Obama enjoyed the monolithic support of the entertainment industry and was something of a fad among the young. He benefited greatly from being an African-American; the idea that his victory would be a good thing for America, on that ground, was widespread even among his opponents. He ran largely against a retiring President who, for three years, has rarely seen his name appear in a sentence that did not include the word "unpopular." He had the active support of essentially 100 percent of the nation's news media. And, perhaps most important, he benefited from a financial crisis that struck at the most opportune moment (for him) and was unfairly blamed on the Republicans by most voters.
Despite all of this, Obama mustered only a five-point win.
As I see it, Obama won the presidency because of two key decisions. The first one enabled him to win the primary, and the second clinched him the general election.
In both cases, Obama (or his team) looked very carefully at the rules of each contest and found the loopholes that they could best exploit to win.
RedState stands at the front lines in the fight against the left. We fight hard here. We are not always meant to win. This is a never ending war. Often we view the fight for the White House as the war, but it is just one battle along the way. The war in politics between left and right does not end.
MICHELLE MALKIN: What do we do now? We issue generic blogger platitudes!
What do we do now? We do what we've always done.We stand up for our principles, as we always have -- through Democrat administrations and Republican administrations, in bear markets or bull markets, in peacetime and wartime.
We stay positive and focused.
We keep the faith.
We do not apologize for our beliefs. We do not re-brand them, re-form them, or relinquish them. We defend them.
We pay respect to the office of the presidency. We count our blessings and recommit ourselves to our constitutional republic.
We gird our loins, to borrow a phrase from our Vice President-elect.
So some of you today are exhausted. Many of you are disappointed and depressed. You need a break. I understand completely. Here is my advice and my caution.
Lots of readers are putting words in my mouth about my general happiness about having a black president. I'm not going to spend the day, or even the next few minutes, arguing with a lot of strawmen.
Why would you argue with strawmen, Jonah, when they are basically the underpinning of your entire career?