Reporters at the Washington Post need a refresher already on the November elections. Obama beat Romney 51-47; Senate Democrats gained two seats, up to 53; House Democrats gained eight seats, but still trail 234-201. Somehow, the Post says this is a “shellacking.” That’s a word Obama used more accurately after the wave election of 2010, when the Republicans added a historic 63 seats.
In Friday’s Post, reporters David Nakamura and Rosalind Helderman discussed whether Republicans would move toward the center on immigration: “Months after GOP leaders began signaling that the party would shift positions on immigration in response to their shellacking in the November election, Republicans are still working out their stance.” The Post website carried a similar line from an AP article:
All this suggests that the Republican Party seems to have gotten the message after its shellacking last fall, though it is still unclear whether softer stances will translate into broad enough support for an overhaul that includes a pathway to citizenship for the country's estimated 11 million illegal immigrants.
As Kyle Drennen reported on Friday, Post columnist Ruth Marcus tried to calm down fellow liberals on MSNBC by suggesting Obama won’t get everything he wants in the second term: “I want to add a little bit of a note of caution to all this presidential huffing and puffing. Which is, yes, he was re-elected and re-elected by wide margins, but he has an extraordinarily full agenda.”
There was no wide margin in the presidential race. Back away from the hype and look again at the facts.
