Look at the facts, we are outnumbered, pure and simple. Lincoln could not have won this election. Why is this so hard for people to grasp? Obama should have been HATED for what he has done, and what he plans to do. Instead he got about 53% of the vote.
Until we accept the simple cold truth, and re-adjust we are going to fail every time.
The takers outnumber the makers and we cannot win until this is reversed!
I cannot understand why you cannot understand it.
The blame lies 100% on the shoulders of Mitt Romney who is such a rotten politician, who ran such a smelly campaign, that even a discredited, disliked, failure beat him.
This post by Roger Magnuson on Powerline explains it 1000X better than I can:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/11/roger-magnuson-thoughts-on-the-debacle.php
John,
For what it’s worth, a few thoughts on the debacle.
As I mentioned in our intermittent club pub conversations on the subject of Moderate Mitt, I never thought he would have any real chance of beating the worst president imaginable. I never thought otherwise at any stage of the campaign.
While I respected your always incredibly informed political acumen, the simple truth for me is that wets never win. Never. Or as I mentioned to Herman Cain in LA a few months back, you never beat a demagogic vision with no vision.
Put another way, if I tried high profile cases using consultants like Stuart Stevens, I would spend boatloads of my clients’ money, and end up lamenting that it seemed impossible to lose because we had such great arguments, and ultimately blame the stupid fact finders and the demographics of the jury and their “baggage.” We’ve both seen our share of big firm litigators in that mode, haven’t we, thankfully usually on the other side.
I only know one way to win these arguments: by putting overwhelming intellectual, moral and affective pressure on the other side until my metaphors imprison and prevail. Get the theory and attack and define relentlessly, albeit of course with charm. :)
My almost visceral reaction to a relatively smart and decent guy was his manifest propensity to lose the unlosable.
Demographics? They haven’t changed much since the 2010 shellacking of the Democrats, ditto the so-called tipping point or 47 per cent.
What happened is in my view less complicated.
1) Romney let himself get defined early in the same brutal way we would define a litigation adversary early and often. The definition largely stuck and there was no early response, and no aggressive defining of an opponent who was a walking, talking incredibly rich target.
2) Romney organized a colorless and utterly insipid convention the point of which was to establish that he wasn’t as bad as the other side made him out to be and he really loved and some of his best friends were women.
3) Romney’s campaign then stumbled forward on a benign, six basic metrics referendum on the economy tack, leaving a treasure trove laden rich armory of munitions undeployed. Obamacare, the explosive issue of 2010 ignored. Social issues tied to huge avenues of attack on Obama viewed as too controversial, foreign policy neutered, Dukakis competence thought able to carry the day, all from the conventional Tory playbook, without sharp edges or ideological vision.
4) When he finally showed a pulse in the first debate and acted like he could almost be a decent trial lawyer, he got an immediate bump in the polls, and, immediately, lapsed back into a play it safe, sit on a lead, be nice and bipartisan mode. He couldn’t even do the Benghazi battle.
5) His everybody loves this country, reach across the aisle close was the final insipid wetness.
I hated to be Nate Silver but Mittens never had a chance against a terrible President with the silliest of demagogic campaigns.
So John, if we’re ever on opposite sides of major litigation again, please retain consultants like Stevens. It might be my only chance…
Love that Power Line!
We are now the Secular Socialist States of America.