Ed Morrissey (and Bobby Jindal) was saying in this election, GOP was basically an opposition party, everything against Obama, nothing positive.
That WAS NOT Romney campaign! Romney was not my guy in the primaries, but his national campaign clearly laid out his would be a substance presidency, a clear choice than Obama’s same old same old.
To smear the 2012 election like that (no clear vision etc etc) do us no good.
In 2012, there was no way the GOP could lose, Carter II was doomed and the country approaching depression.
Mitt Romney, the failed governor of Massachusetts, who lost his chance for reelection and left office with 34% approval, and who has won a single election in 20 years of campaigning, was the problem, he was an artificial construct who had never been a part of republican or conservative politics, who was only focused on a personal drive to be president for no known reason or purpose.
We still don’t know what his politics are, or why he has been obsessed with being president for 20 years.
People here have different feelings on his election disaster, but everyone here can agree that they really don’t know anything about the man himself, or how the one term governor from Massachusetts ever came to be the leader of the conservative/republican agenda in America.
Mitt Romney, Karl Rove, and the anti-Reagan wing of the GOP are behind this mystery of the last 6 years in regards to William Weld’s protege, Mitt Romney.
Fundamentally, Romney suffered from being a liberal who early on tried to masquerade as a severe conservative and then later as a moderate. He came across as inauthentic. Romney probably doesn't really believe in anything other than his own career.
In terms of substance, many people understood him to be saying that we should fix the debt problem by lowering tax rates and increasing spending (on defense). I understand that he said he intended to make up for lower tax rates by reducing tax deductions, but no one ever understood what deductions he had in mind because he thought that information wouldn't matter much to anyone. As a result, the substance of his plan seemed like a lot of baloney to a lot of people. He promised to get rid of Obamacare, but he threatened to replace it with his own plan (Romneycare). He promised to lower spending on Medicare, but not until ten years from now! His whole program seemed like something his crack campaign staff put together on the back of an envelope.
All in all, I think Romney presented himself as just another ambitious politician who wasn't looking for ideas to really turn this country around, but was instead just trying to figure out what 50.1% of likely voters might like to hear. Romney is no Reagan and people saw through him.