This election was very close. There are 101 things that might have tipped the balance. FWIW, had the vote been a week earlier, or had the hurricane veered back out to sea, Romney would probably have won, about as narrowly as Obama won on election day. It's clear that Obama gained ground in the last couple of days. Dominance of the news cycle thanks to the storm was probably enough to do the job.
Focusing on the nominee won't do us any good now. Four years from now, we will have a different group of candidates running in a different policy and economic environment. We will reinvent all the arguments about who is the best standard bearer. Conservative purity vs. appeal to the moderates is an irrepressible, ongoing issue, and we ain't gonna solve it now.
Two lessons need to be driven home to any Republicans who don't yet understand. First, the MSM is a more dangerous enemy than the democrats. There's no question in my mind that Romney would have won easily with a balanced press.
Secondly, the democrats are no longer a civic party. Obama's campaign was based from day one on character assassination and lies, and the dems rallied to it out of a sense of resentment and identity politics. We are dealing with a very toxic, utterly cynical, and systematically dishonest opposition.
I think most people here understand that and I don't want to just vent. But we need to push our candidates and office holders into fighting back. Obama was largely insulated from personal criticism because of sensitivity about race. That can't happen again. We are going to have to become much more aggressive about calling out the liars. If it gets ugly, it gets ugly.
Agree 100%. Rather than spend countless millions on super PACs, big-money conservatives would do well to purchase some of the foundering TV outlets, newspapers, newsmagazines and the like, and use them in the same way that the libs have been doing.
Nice job.
Magnificent and dead on.
“I have no interest in circular firing squads.”
Then you should not support Karl Rove. He is king of the circular firing squad.