Explaining the long delay to concede...
... some have pointed to Rove and his "private map". Others have pointed to conspiracies that a box full of LBJ style, hacker generated e-votes would have been "found" if it looked like it would have made a difference.
Here's what I think: I think the Republicans DID NOT, as Romeney said, leave it all on the field. I suspect they still had a big war chest full of contributions that were held back to fund massive litigation. Those were two hours of damage control planning... more "kill the vote" spirited hegemony, until finally when NH, Colorado, Wisconsin, New Mexico and even Nevada pile on, it is just too much.
The very plausible specter of deep pocketed Republican litigation would have tried to toss out local board of election vote counts and send things "upstairs" to Republican controlled state capitals a la Bush v. Gore.
So why didn't they? Well, for one, holding a state's votes hostage will cost you goodwill. If Bush v. Gore is instructive, holding one, or even two close states hostage with pinstriped lawyers fighting to disqualify ballots won't actually have long term repercussions for the candidate/party once the dust settles. But beyond that you risk alienating voters and upsetting the apple cart for the next election. If you think political adds are a game of outspending the other guy, that pales in comparison to some large scale litigation. Can you begin to think of the resources and cost of conducting discovery on hundreds of poll workers and campaign observers? Conducting e-audits of all the voting machines in a state? Verifying chain of custody. Calling in expert ($$$) handwriting analysis of the voter rolls. That would be the true battle of the bigger war chest, and couldn't possibly be completed by certification deadlines without mobilizing, ahem, a paid army of lawyers! And if the clock runs out, you guessed, it, the state government is positioned to step in an "resolve" the issue.
If we don't fix this mess of uncapped campaign finance rules, that is what I fear we can look forward to in the next actually close election (thank Vishnu that this time the electoral college turned out not to be close!)
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that several voter suppression issues seemed to have iffy roots in Republican enthusiasm. Raising a recount could uncover things they did not need to see the light of day.
I had a passing thought when President Obama was declared the projected winner last night. It's really crazy - what if Romney fulfilled the White Horse Prophesy by losing? Take that in. This has been one of the nastiest elections when it comes to lies and the people's voting franchise. Our Constitution has been hanging by a thread when it comes to electing a President in terms of Citizens United and campaign finance. Women's healthcare rights, guaranteed by the Constitution, were in real danger.
What if in that delay between projection and concession, Liberal Mitt rode in on his white horse, overriding the TeaOP handlers, and said he wouldn't contest Ohio? Clearly the Fox News / Karl Rove freak out was planned. Meghan Kelly even says she practiced walking down the hall in the video. (This appears at about 1:05 - 1:20)
I certainly don't believe the White Horse stuff, but it isn't about what I believe. Bishop Romney believes it. He seemed like a weight was off his shoulders in the concession speech - and I can't stand the guy. The Fox freakout was planned. Someone made the executive decision to stop the nonsense.
But all that would mean someone in the Republican party actually thought that acting like a bunch of litigating jerks might hurt the country, so this whole theory is probably not true.
Also, Four More Years for President Obama. It doesn't matter!
The way I saw it last night was on CNN's streaming of the Romney party on the big screens at either side of the stage. No audio and small and a bit blurry, so it was hard to tell what was going on. I said to Mr. beac "Is that Ann Romney being called in to stabilize Mitt before his speech?"
A few minutes later I read on DU about Megyn's spontaneous-rehearsed Karl-haz-a-sad "confrontation" of their numbers guys. Hilarious that they moved them down a long hallway just so Meggie could do a dramatic reality-TV hall walk if needed!
I had switched over to FOX when the freakout started so I saw MK head down the hall.
My first thought was, Rachel would just take off in her sneakers, none of this clompin'.
I thought it was funny too.
