Posted on 11/09/2012 4:38:36 AM PST by Zhang Fei
(Putting on my flak jacket). Let me say that I'm no fan of Romney's politics, but the guy ran a decent campaign, and he appeals to swing voters in a way that Santorum and Palin cannot. And let's face it - what's he going to do with the rest of his life? If there's one thing he's got, it's time and money. He can learn from his mistakes, just as Nixon learned from his, and perhaps lead the GOP to victory in 2016.
RE your point that Romney didn’t turn out the base:
First, you’re correct. And this cost us downticket candidates (eg Indiana, Missouri, Montana and North Dakota Senate seats) where it mattered how big we carried the state.
Second, it’s not clear you can convince the persuadable 6 percent. The Democrats didn’t even try. During the debates, they were GOTVing. Speaking to their base. Romney and Ryan were trying to be reasonable. Trying to appeal to the 6 percent.
Third, for a lot of people, both in the base and in the 6 percent, it’s not about reason. It’s about image. The “trust factor” and the “likability” factor. This means you have to actually attack your opponent’s manhood. Nice guys finish last. Romney did not call out Obama for being an empty suit. I don’t know, maybe he didn’t because of race. One of those “soft racism” things.
I am no longer a republican because of the cheating, lying, stealing that Romney and the gop was involved in this primary, not to mention Romney is a liberal in conservative clothing. People who actually did their homework (those 3 million probably) and did not believe the romney pushers on the right, KNOW romney could have and did not stop gay marriage in MA, forced innocent 5 yr olds to learn about every sexual perversion in kindergarden and would not allow their parents could NOT opt them out, did NOTHING to help the pro-life cause (you may speak all you want, but it's your actions is the only thing that matter), would not attend a single pro-life or traditional family event, but went to the Log Cabin Republicans event and said “it will take a republican, not a democrat president to make marriage legal accross this nation and I will do it”, oops, that was not suppose to get out.
To make things worse, I use to come to FR almost everyday for hours, but it was taken over by the mormon tabernacle choir, so I visited rarely in the past few months. I could not stand hearing, if you don't vote for liberal #2 your voting for obama. Then all the Clear Channel radio talk show hosts on the right was suddenly pro-romney, all of them. I thought Rush was going to let himself get fired and speak the truth on romney, but he bit his tongue, stuttered a bit and did the parties bidding. By the way, Clear Channel is owned by Bain Capital. Romney in someway is worse than obama. He actually had some prollifers and constitutionalist believing he was with them. He ONLY was their for those rich big wigs who give the most to the RNC. If they were the only ones who's taxes go up, I would smile. The RNC is owned by them. Republicans use to be different than democrats, in that they would not just obey the parties command and compromise their values and beliefs.
If the gop is stupid enough to run romney again, they will lose by 10 million votes. I had family who DESPISED and do not trust romney equally to obama and they did not vote at all. Running a filthy rich guy when people are losing their jobs was crazy. Anyone who wants romney again should join the democrat party or roseanne barrs' party. They are a liberal and are too ignorant to know it.
I was very dismissive of the fraud allegations I was seeing here, but now that I realize just how narrow the margins were (52K votes in FL, 107K in OH, those are the only 2 I remember but well under 1 mil. nationwide) I am willing to believe you could stuff that many ballots.
I think THIS must become the mission of the Tea Party, cleaning up the rolls, fighting for photo ID, whatever else it takes. Nobody else is going to want to do it, it will be tedious and labor intensive, but it has GOT to be done.
I know a couple of tea partys were taking this up and had some success with it.
We must, must, must get involved at the local party level and local gov’t level, work on election day, etc.
We could run just about anyone if this is the Dem candidate
You would think so but after what just happened I’m not so sure.
I have come to the same very sad conclusion. . . between mediafraud, and voterfraud, it doesn’t matter who we run.
Our drone was attacked on Nov 1st and we didn’t know? SO WHAT??? What we know or don’t know doesn’t matter. I’m sick of watching any political news, even Fox, as if what I know or what they know will somehow change an outcome.
The election is over. We can’t even impeach the guy for Biden.
How can we counter the media?
No, and hell no.
Thanks for your very informative response. I had the impression Romney might have rubbed some conservatives the wrong way, but it's interesting that there are freepers who know of non-freepers who decided to stay home rather than vote for him.
Well, the (D)s are the Party of Evil, I guess the (R)s have little choice but to be the Party of Stupid.
Sure, let the mittwit run again. If the nation is still functional enough to have an election in four years, another one handed to the Demoncrats would certainly be the final nail in the coffin.
In time, maybe the survivors can start to rebuild.
Maybe Romney shouldn’t have been the nominee, but nobody that ran would have done any better. Rick Perry probably had a better message and all three legs of the stool, but he probably should have waited until he was done with the pain meds before he jumped in. Now he is damaged permanently. Santorum had the social conservative leg well entrenched, but like Huckabee, has a poor record on the budget. Team Obama would have had a field day, and he also would have lost the “woman” vote by about 65-35.
I came to think very well of Romney as the race went along, and I am very disappointed we will not have the lovely Ann as first lady.
However, I keep remembering the piece I read somewhere which plainly stated that, as a candidate for office, Romney was (and sadly remains) a big time loser.
In fact, he only won ONE election in his whole career and after serving as Mass gov. did not even feel confident enough to run for re-election. That should have been our real warning sign.
Nixon was a congressman and he was a 2 time veep. I’m not old enough to know much about his early career and I know he had a big loss for something before the presidency (won’t have Nixon to kick around speech) but he had won several elections.
And may I add, Nixon wasn’t really a nice guy and Romney really is.
No more Mr. Nice Guys, we need someone with brutal and heartless ambition who will be happy at least fill the mud buckets even if he/she lets other throw them.
Forget appealing to people’s better angels, or whatever that expression is. Fear, fear is the motivator and Obama scared the cr*p out of his voters this time and we need someone who will do the same to our potential voters next time.
Totally agree.
Without PHOTO VOTER ID, the cheating Democrats will stuff the ballot box with illegal voters in the urban cities, and steal that state's electoral votes EVERY TIME!
“it’s pretty obvious to everyone that Joe Biden has a rapidly deteriorating brain condition of some sort...”
Interesting comment. It does appear that the man is losing it. I’m wondering if he won’t be replaced sometime in the next 4 years with whomever the Dems want to run in 2016. Running from the VP slot gives him instant “street cred.”
Not sure about them picking a Dem senator that would dilute their numbers in the Senate, but it is possible.
I do like your thoughts on “compromise” though :-)
I don’t really give a flying crap if the “GOP” wins. Why don’t we do something novel like running a conservative? It hasn’t been tried since Regan...
“I agree, and add, I dont think we can ever win again, regardless of who we run. UNLESS, the it is after the country completely folds, and then who would want it? The 47% have spoken, and I think they will grow and suck the country bone dry.”
Ditto.
That may not be far off the mark. A conservative politician who is also a rock/film star would pickup a sizable percentage of the voters simply for being a star. It could work to our advantage.
Romney, not being racist, thought he could pick a VP candidate solely on capability to serve as president, if needed.
He was wrong. - Having two white males on the ticket was a death knell.
He needed Sarah Palin or Condi Rice. He did not look at the demographics.
(Obama has Biden - why would he possibly pick Biden, other than demographics?)
And how in the heck do we implement that? What will it take to do that in every state?
“Having two white males on the ticket was a death knell.”
Interesting thought. Had he gotten Condi - or Martinez or Rubio - he could have pulled in just enough to squeak out a victory.
We keep fooling ourselves with such nonsense. THEY DON'T EXIST!!!! They are all "politicians" FIRST!!!! Take a look at the entire crop of primary candidates... they were all - ALL - old 'political' PROs.
About the ONLY politician that I could trust to do the right thing, would be, Jim Demint, and he's not running as far as I know.
Nah, next RINO up from the party that never learns is Chris Christie.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.