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Let’s start with Republicans, who should actually be delirious with joy right now. For a few election cycles, analysts have warned Republicans that America’s demographics would so disfavor the GOP that they had to stop trying to eke out a victory on the strength of the white vote. This year, that’s still not actually true. If Romney loses, it’ll be close despite his reliance on white men. Republicans have already won four more years to figure out how to compete for the favor of nonwhite voters. (Or, as some seem to be doing, making it harder for them to vote.)But, honestly, many Republicans are thinking a lot shorter-term than that—after all, Obama will have destroyed America within the next four years, rendering all political strategy a pointless exercise.In reality, Obama is more likely to keep the country limping along in much the same way that George W. Bush did. In his final pre-election column for the New York Times, Catholic conservative Ross Douthat’s strongest condemnation of Obama is that he’ll make big government—Bush government—the new normal. “A vote for President Obama is a vote for a future where spending stabilizes well above its 40-year average, and where tax revenue gradually rises,” Douthat warns. Horrors!
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Likewise, if you think Mitt Romney is capable of nudging the country back into the dark ages, you should take a step back and consider what he is actually capable of doing. The worst it will likely get for Obamacare under a Romney administration is a few symbolic tweaks and twists. Even though Mitt has occasionally vowed to repeal and replace the thing, team Romney has never disavowed Romneycare, which everyone knows is the state-level model for what Obama took national. (And let’s not forget that president Romney can’t just wave a wand and repeal laws. There’s also this thing called Congress.)
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