Tried to post a vanity -— my second in 15 years -— and it didn’t go thrugh, did something wrong, so I’ll just state it here.
The Democrats could have run Donald Duck (cartoon character) or Charlie Chaplin (dead actor)and they would have won.
Television is so powerful, so unprecedented in human history, that it can make people think whatever it, or they, want the population to think.
Never before in human history have we had anything like television. People sit 40 hours a week, still and inactive, and stare at it. They will believe anything. That Bush caused Katrina, that Obama cares, and so on. Totally unprecedented.
TV has been around for over 50 years now, and viewership hours are trending DOWN thanks to the internet. So there’s nothing “unprecedented” about it. In the meantime Romney didn’t inspire a lot of the conservative base, and thus couldn’t beat a guy that got 10 million votes less than last time. The way to win an election is first get your base out, and second woo the mushy middle. He didn’t do the former (2 million less votes than McCain) and subsequently any advantage he gained in the later was too little too late.