Posted on 11/09/2012 1:09:23 PM PST by COUNTrecount
SCARY THOUGHT: Did “Project Orca” Cost Romney the Election by Diverting Resources to Failing Computer Program?
One of the big differences between Democrats and Republicans is that when Republicans lose an election, the knives come out and they eat their own. We’ll be seeing this for the next few years — much like we did after the McCain campaign — with Cocktail Party GOP operatives lashing out at various members of the Romney staff, blaming them for the loss in order to elevate themselves and get exposure for their own careers on tee-vee. Steve Schmidt, McCain’s campaign manager, is a classic example of this. He jumps at every opportunity to badmouth Republicans and would appear on MSNBC every day to do so, if they had him.
Today, Breitbart.com’s running a shocking article about “Project Orca”, which was billed as the most technologically advanced Republican GOTV effort ever. Democrats were genuinely terrified of this project, and it was part of the reason that it seemed Mitt Romney would win this election in a big way. If you believed that Americans were eager to defeat Obama to prevent Obamacare from taking effect and that the Romney guys had an advanced tool to turn out the vote, then it was hard to see how Romney would lose.
We don’t know the name (or the motives) of the “Romney insider” who’s telling Breitbart that Project Orca was technologically flawed and crashed on election day, but anecdotal reports throughout the day do show that people had trouble using the system, activating their pin numbers, etc. The “Romney insider” could be telling the truth when he says that Orca diverted 40,000 Romney volunteers to a failing computer program instead of having them do traditional GOTV efforts…or this guy could be positioning himself to be the next Steve Schmidt by pushing a story like this just to sink knives into the Romney campaign. We won’t know the reality for a while.
I’m always suspicious of campaign operatives in Republican ranks because I’d think they wouldn’t reveal something like this and give Democrats the satisfaction of knowing Project Orca flopped (if that’s what happened). It’s like during the Cold War…the US and the Soviets never told each other what really happened when some new vehicle or weapons system failed.
So why come out and reveal what happened with Project Orca so that Democrats can benefit from it? That seems strange. Unless, of course, the guy doing this wants to become the next Steve Schmidt and land a seat on the talk show circuit revealing more and more about the Romney campaign’s failures.
I’m shocked to read this, though, because the big selling point about having Romney be the nominee was that he’d been working on his campaign for over 6 years and he had the best and the brightest that money could buy in terms of loyal advisors and brash young turks who would do things with GOTV that no Republican had ever succeeded in doing before.
Romney and his senior staff were legitimately shellshocked on Election Day as the first set of polls started to close, because they really thought they were winning until vote totals started coming in. Obama and his supporters seemed resigned to losing in the weeks before election day…and all throughout November 6th the talking heads on MSNBC kept talking about “voter suppression” being the only explanation for Obama’s loss, really setting the stage to push that narrative when Romney won. Everything pointed to a Romney win that never came.
If people really were counting on Project Orca to deliver the turnouts needed — and everyone assumed it would work — then maybe it’s failure is part of why Democrats ended up with the (D+7) electorate they needed to win Obama a second term.
It’s still hard to believe we really do need to suffer through four more years of Leftist control of this country…but in those four years I hope we can finally break the ugly cycle where Democrats constantly have a vaunted “turnout advantage”. Surely there is something that can be done in Republican ranks between now and 2016 to avoid another “Project Orca” failure or to allow Democrats to keep having a better “GOTV ground game”.
It’s mind-numbing and soul-killing that the Romney guys would have failed in this, because the Romney guys were supposed to be better at this stuff than anyone (better than Democrats at it, even).
Read more http://hillbuzz.org/
“Project ORCA” was Chris Christie.
I am wondering if there was some malware or hacking involved. Remember, there were problems here on FR.
No, there just weren’t enough votes. I was a poll watcher and they were calling these votes in through the ORCA system, but the problem is that there simply weren’t enough Republicans to make up the difference.
We need to increase our registration, stop relying only on elderly white males, and realize that we have a message and any American of any race, age, or creed should be thrilled by it. This wasn’t a computer failure; it was a message failure.
We’ve got to do better and we’ve got to start NOW.
What beat Mitt Romney was black racists, Young women whores who want their contraceptives and abortions, Hispanics who want half of Mexico’s citizens on the dole in the US, and Homo’s and their families that support their perverted lifestyle.
THAT is what beat Romney.
Huh?
Which DNC poll showed Mitt winning?
Project Santa Claus trumps Project orca every time and forever.
No, Chris Christie was Project Blue Whale.
I’m right there with you. When my wife texted at 0615 with a picture of a 200-deep line of Obama voters, I knew it was over.
Our brand needs to be reinvented and we have some serious studying to do. As my wife might say, “you don’t know your market.”
But we also need to relax a bit. In 1996 it was “Soccer Moms”, in 2000 it was “The Moral Majority”, in 2004 it was “Nascar Dads”, in 2008 it was “Anybody But Bush”, in 2012 it’s “Pale, Stale and Male”.
Politics is cyclical and Obama has already shown he’s prone to missteps. Who thought in 1996 that Clinton would be getting impeached? I don’t think Obama will be impeached, but there’s a very real probability that the “Curse of the Second Term” will get him on something and we’ll see an R back in the White House by 2016.
It’s the candidates, Stupid!
Can't answer that question but I do believe the head of the project was some youngish looking woman which usually means the project is in trouble.
I think one of our big problems is that the GOP leaders are embarrased by our message, so every time a new election rolls around, we try to accomodate ourselves to the opposition and pretend we’re just like them but nicer on a personal level. Some message.
Reagan was one of the few who didn’t do that, and GWB (before he was beaten down by the press) was also quite proud and confident. They were both very generous and inclusive but did not compromise their principles. ANd that’s what gets people elected.
Romney may have been a decent person, but he didn’t have a lot of confidence in the project he was supposed to be selling, outside of a limited economic sphere, and it showed.
So we have to clarify our message, build up some candidates, and also get out there right now and start trying to convince people. The GOP acts like it’s a surprise every four years when an election rolls around again.
So why come out and reveal what happened with Project Orca so that Democrats can benefit from it? That seems strange.
Because Republican campaign operatives and consultants are gutless, soulless hacks?
Romney's candidacy was a whole lot of empty hype. We have to go back to the primary, look at the people who backed him early and heavily like Coulter and Drudge, and ostracize them from the movement.
Venturer, that still wouldn’t have been enough to beat him if Obama wasn’t able to create ugly negative ads highlighting all the people that got laid off at the hundreds of companies Romney was involved with at Bain. That kept working-class whites away from the polls and decreased turnout. We can’t afford to nominate candidates with that kind of baggage. We need to spend time defending our positions, not defending our candidates personal lives and histories.
“Politics is cyclical and Obama has already shown he’s prone to missteps....”
The both of you .... quit providing sanity, sound logic, and reason when nervous breakdowns, character assassination, capitulation, and prognostications about the end of life as we know it are known to solve all of life’s problems (/sarcasm off).
opticks pointed out 1996.
I wish I could have taken a poll of FR right after the 2008 elections with the question “How many seats will we pick up in the House in 2010?”. I was guessing 20 at best, personally, when I was upset after 2008. I was wrong. I recall a lot of people claiming that 2008 was the last election we’d ever have.
It’s not over. It’s always darkest before the dawn. Who knows what the next couple of years will bring. All I know is that I am fired up to see a couple of people post something sane! :-). That’s a start!
If this is what Romney was counting on to ride to victory, then no wonder he got dunked.
Lets be perfectly honest:
90% of us here on Free Republic didn’t like Romney to start with.
Subtract those who stayed home rather than vote for a Mormon? Liberal RINO? Bain Capitalist? Not Ron Paul?, and you come up the two million votes he was short of to catch McCain.
We cannot let the RINO’s select our candidate and we MUST stop a Democrat Iowa and New Hampshire from picking a Republican candidate for us.
Repoublicans letting New Hampshire and Iowa pick who we get to run for us is suicidal.
I don’t give a flying fig what New Hampshire state law says, Republicans should ignore the New Hampshire Primary.
Make their law unenforcible by not going there.
Glad I could be of some help. Now, back to the Petraeus/Benghazi theater. I’m making popcorn.
Just look at GOP websites compared to Dems. I recall have many issues with McCain GOP website and for Romney, I wanted some signs in my yard and kept clicking and clicking to find something about signs. Finally I found a link but I had to pay for the signs. I called the contact number to ask a few questions and it just rang and rang and rang. My neighbor finally got me a few signs for free at the HQ in my town. Which was not mentioned anywhere on the website.
Add to that- I sent so many emails with ideas for ad’s or replies Romney could give to the media, etc. No one ever called or replied.
Today I heard that Obama had 130 offices in Ohio for GOTV and Romney only had 6.
Then heard Romney ran out of money early spring. Did Romney ever put any of his cash in this campaign? I never read that he did.
Just a few things I noticed.....
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