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Why Mitt Lost and it Wasn’t Very Close
Townhall.com ^ | November 8, 2012 | John Ransom

Posted on 11/08/2012 6:30:05 AM PST by Kaslin

Memorandum to the GOP: When running an election campaign it is often valuable to select a nominee who represents the rank and file of the Party. This is how other Parties do it. Perhaps you might get on board.

Who?

Well let’s start with who not to select.

There was George H.W. Bush, who, while a nice, honorable public servant, won primarily because of the record Reagan established. He lost because the rest of us thought that when he mouthed the words “Read my lips, go to Texas,” he meant “Read my lips, no new taxes.”

There was Bob Dole, a very honorable man too, but not exactly full of policies ideas. Or convictions. He’s the guy who thrilled us with the ringing cry: “I’ve never read the Republican platform.”

Then there was the other George Bush, W.

He also is a nice man; a man full of character, but he led the largest expansion of government power since Jimmy Carter and took us into a war that he stubbornly refused to win until he was all out of options. And while there remain good reasons to fight in Iraq, he also refused to tell the rest of the Party what they were. .

W squeaked out the election in 2000, with a Supreme Court ruling necessary to finally seal the deal. Then in 2004, he fought tooth and nail in a close election contest that in some respects the Party still pays for.

That brings us to McCain, who was decidedly not a nice guy. He was really grumpy. He was grumpy to everyone except his opponent. He was very grumpy to his VP choice, Sarah Palin. And did I tell you that he was really nice to his opponent? Because he was. Maybe that’s because many of his policy ideas fit better in the Democrat Party, than they did in the GOP.

Of course he went down to Barack Obama in 2008.

Which bring us to the next “next-guy-in-line,” Mitt Romney.

Mitt too represented the far left of the GOP. But at least he returned us to the tradition of making sure our guy was considered a “nice” guy.

In any election campaign, if you want to avoid it becoming just a popularity contest based simply on personality- note to Mitt, you wanted to avoid that- it’s very important to bring some real policy contrast to your campaign. For every Obama policy that was an equal or worse Romney policy. The animatronics that make up the Mitt Romney mechanism are good, but they aren’t gonna win too many popularity contests or act as a substitute for real conservative ideals.

Change needs to start happening at the state and local level where top-down party central committees have refused to create coalitions at the grass roots level.

Hence, in the ground game too the GOP is kind of old fashioned, missing critical components that allow the Party to drive the must win contests, like Allen West’s.

It’s great to the ride wave years, but you have to be able to win the close elections. The Democrats aren’t beating Republicans by virtue of ideology so much as mechanics and logistics.

There is a trend at the grassroots level with get-out-the-vote that demonstrates the Democrats’ ability to precisely micro target an additional 4-to-6 percent of the vote, some of which escapes the polling until late in the race.

Simply put, the models that the GOP relies upon, including those relied upon by myself, have failed to adequately account for this. Again, it makes no difference in a wave election, but we pay dearly for it in close contests.

The grassroots on the other side has spent ten years in community organizing, going door-to-door, creating coalitions of issues-driven, ideologically-funded third party groups that can do a lot of heavily lifting for GOTV. The GOP on the other hand has eschewed groups like the tea parties, seeing the grass roots as a hindrance to our chances at being the cool kids at school.

You saw it the results on Tuesday.

The progressive activists worked for it, while GOP worked their top-down magic and expected to ride the wave.

The results in too many cases have been disappointing.

As my friend Greg Graves once explained to me “You gotta win the ones you are supposed to win, and you have to pick off a few you weren’t supposed to.”

The GOP, as usual, picked off the one we were supposed to win.

Again.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: 2012analysis; 2012electionanalysis; blame; romney2012; romneylost
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To: Vinnie

Thank you. You are right. I keep waiting to hear Rush, Sean, Glenn, or Fox News say the same thing. Maybe they have and I’ve missed it...but I lay the fault for Romney losing at the feet of the MSM. If they had not covered up the Benghazi story like they did, Romney would have won, period.


81 posted on 11/08/2012 4:08:54 PM PST by Haddon
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To: Cringing Negativism Network

For sure! Globalism serve citizen of the world, globalists.

Axe Homeland Insecurity, hand rape at airports and restore the constitution.

Go after the gang bangers and all crime by condemning the crime in the cities. Run against the lib VIOLENT crime rate and less police state micro-management in our lives. (Safety attracts the empty head vagina voters! We can appeal to Mexicans who had to flee murder.)

Now about the drug war...we need to figure this out because the cops are are acting like apes in the jungle with the excuse of the drug war. The DOJ are conducting themselves like we are a thrid world nation war ground where they pal up with one drug operation and use them to conduct war on the other drug lords - slaughtering citizens in the mean time.

If we legalize drugs to kill the cartels and the cop abuse, what do we do with drug addicts who can’t keep themselves out of the gutters because Liberals will use legalization to coddle them with socialist housing, health care, EBT cards, drug treatment programs and programs and programs, etc. What do we do to protect children from themselves and teen temptation.

Libertarians, you have nothing to contribute on this question. You are darwinistic retards.


82 posted on 11/08/2012 4:20:13 PM PST by SaraJohnson
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To: SaraJohnson
If we legalize drugs to kill the cartels and the cop abuse, what do we do with drug addicts who can’t keep themselves out of the gutters because Liberals will use legalization to coddle them with socialist housing, health care, EBT cards, drug treatment programs and programs and programs, etc.

That why you tax the stuff. It provides a revenue stream that pays for all of the above.

Taxing drug sales to provide rehab actually makes sense if you think about it. The users fund their own programs and you can have a HUGE tax rate on it. Think about tobacco taxes and how high they are. Then apply that principle to the drugs you legalize.

It also gets people out of jails. If its a tax issue then it is handled differently, usually with little jail time at all if any.

83 posted on 11/08/2012 6:03:31 PM PST by superloser
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To: HiTech RedNeck
Mitt was a heck of a closer approximation to that than Barack is...

So are any number of Democrats, but I sure don't want them running things either.
84 posted on 11/08/2012 6:38:20 PM PST by SoConPubbie (Mitt and Obama: They're the same poison, just a different potency.)
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To: SoConPubbie

You have to realize that where you’re going, you really ought to vote only for Jesus Christ.

However, Jesus Christ will need no ballot.


85 posted on 11/08/2012 6:43:24 PM PST by HiTech RedNeck (cat dog, cat dog, alone in the world is a little cat dog)
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To: D-fendr


Anybody but somebody like Mitt Romney who supports Abortion and the Gay Agenda and whose Progressive record as record should make any honest man blush. Add in that he can arguably be called the Father of Gay Marriage and the Father of Socialized Medicine in America, and he should have been the last man the GOP-E picked if they really wanted to win.

Many of us spent months warning conservatives on this site that this would occur.

Conservatives need to stop playing the abused wife to the GOP-E and just say no, and mean it, whenever they attempt to force us into voting for their latest Progressive loser.
86 posted on 11/08/2012 6:47:17 PM PST by SoConPubbie (Mitt and Obama: They're the same poison, just a different potency.)
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To: HiTech RedNeck
You have to realize that where you’re going, you really ought to vote only for Jesus Christ.

However, Jesus Christ will need no ballot.


That really was a disengenous reply.

All Mitt Romney had to do to win this election was to reverse course on his Abortion and Gay Agenda stances, and actually provided a credible plan to reduce dramatically the size of government which would have shored up his right flank and the independents, and he would have trounced Obama.

If you want to falsely equate that with Jesus Christ, go right ahead. What a joke of a response.

Given Obama utter and complete failure as President and his lousy record, if Romney had just tried to be a conservative, and present a clear differentiation between his approach and Obama's, this election would have been a cake walk.
87 posted on 11/08/2012 6:52:58 PM PST by SoConPubbie (Mitt and Obama: They're the same poison, just a different potency.)
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To: svcw
Well, guess what he lost and you are still hysterical and panicked.

Hey svcw, you do know I'm on your side on this one, right?
88 posted on 11/08/2012 6:54:17 PM PST by SoConPubbie (Mitt and Obama: They're the same poison, just a different potency.)
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To: SoConPubbie

But who?

Who is that you would have run that would have beaten Obama?


89 posted on 11/08/2012 7:08:57 PM PST by D-fendr (Deus non alligatur sacramentis sed nos alligamur.)
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To: SoConPubbie
Conservatives need to stop playing the abused wife to the GOP-E

You likely don't even realize how insulting that is.

We have an admittedly weak field of candidates, but that's who stepped up for battle. We pick our favorite and fight against each like crazy throughout the primary - perhaps 20 percent behind any one, but when the fight is over we unite behind the winner against Obama. And we go down fighting.

Then some conspiracy theorist above it all sideliner, who has done nothing but throw rock all along, calls us abused wives.

Shame on you. I have lost all respect.

90 posted on 11/08/2012 7:32:37 PM PST by D-fendr (Deus non alligatur sacramentis sed nos alligamur.)
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To: SoConPubbie

Try to chase down a sinless man... you won’t.

So your threshold is quite arbitrary. I am not at all “disingenuous.”


91 posted on 11/08/2012 8:40:45 PM PST by HiTech RedNeck (cat dog, cat dog, alone in the world is a little cat dog)
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To: Kaslin
Although he was my last choice, Mitt Romney was a great candidate. People need to quit this second guessing the GOP and focus on the fact that half the country believes in a socialist government. They can argue that there were groups of illegal voters, people want government handouts, the GOP are catering to certain groups, etc. But the real bottom line is that half the people want socialism. This election shouldn't have been close.

This isn't unlike post-Nazi Germany where the people abandoned democratic principles and voted in Hitler.

92 posted on 11/09/2012 12:46:39 AM PST by HarleyD
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To: Kaslin

Is the article than saying that what the GOP is a mean, angry man? Cause, we here is Germany have some experience with a particular leader of that variety and it didn’t turn out too well. Reagan was a nice guy too.


93 posted on 11/09/2012 1:23:36 AM PST by Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit (Using profanity gives people who don't want information from you an excuse not to listen.)
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To: shhrubbery!
“we need to stop doing that! I.e. throwing way too much taxpayer money at public schools teachers’ unions, for way too little educational result”

You are saying that public schools are dysfunctional, ineffective and waste taxpayer money. I agree.

When someone says something is dead it means it no longer exists. Actually, “brick and mortar” can't be “dead” but I will accept the intended meaning.

To say brick and mortar education no longer exists is simply incorrect. Online education is becoming more common. My kids took online courses. But brick and mortar education still uses billions of taxpayer dollars each year.

94 posted on 11/09/2012 3:12:21 AM PST by detective
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To: HiTech RedNeck
Try to chase down a sinless man... you won’t.

We're not talking about a sinless man.

We're talking about finding leaders who don't purposefully do the wrong thing.

Like I said, disengenuous.
95 posted on 11/09/2012 6:13:06 AM PST by SoConPubbie (Mitt and Obama: They're the same poison, just a different potency.)
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To: Cringing Negativism Network
I am a protectionist. More-so every single day.

Me, too, brother.

A global economy requires a global lawgiver and a global police power.

I want none of it.

If you need to eat by feeding Chinamen, then move to f***ing China.

96 posted on 11/09/2012 6:46:28 AM PST by Jim Noble (Diseases desperate grown are by desperate appliance relieved or not at all.)
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To: Cringing Negativism Network
I am a protectionist. More-so every single day.

Me, too, brother.

A global economy requires a global lawgiver and a global police power.

I want none of it.

If you need to eat by feeding Chinamen, then move to f***ing China.

97 posted on 11/09/2012 6:46:34 AM PST by Jim Noble (Diseases desperate grown are by desperate appliance relieved or not at all.)
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To: Cringing Negativism Network
I am a protectionist. More-so every single day.

Me, too, brother.

A global economy requires a global lawgiver and a global police power.

I want none of it.

If you need to eat by feeding Chinamen, then move to f***ing China.

98 posted on 11/09/2012 6:46:34 AM PST by Jim Noble (Diseases desperate grown are by desperate appliance relieved or not at all.)
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To: Cringing Negativism Network
I am a protectionist. More-so every single day.

Me, too, brother.

A global economy requires a global lawgiver and a global police power.

I want none of it.

If you need to eat by feeding Chinamen, then move to f***ing China.

99 posted on 11/09/2012 6:46:36 AM PST by Jim Noble (Diseases desperate grown are by desperate appliance relieved or not at all.)
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To: Jim Noble

You can say that again.

:D


100 posted on 11/09/2012 6:48:06 AM PST by Cringing Negativism Network (America doesn't need any new laws. America needs freedom!)
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