Romney problems were Romney, no doubt about it, but why is Romney to blame for Akin stupid comment, Murdoch stupid comment after Akin’s? Is Romney to blame for Connie Mack? George Allen Jr? Ted Cruz did very well.
We won NE, all 5 electoral votes. In 2008, McCain lost an electoral college vote in Nebraska. This time Romney won all of them. Maybe Romney did poorly in OH, VA, and FL because of bad Senate candidates.
Romney is responsible because he had negative coattails that depressed the vote. Do you really think people show up to a presidential election just to vote for a Senate candidate?
Romney drove away plenty of conservatives who chose to stay home, and this lowered the vote for all these Senate candidates, robbing them of what would and should have been several percent in their favour. Hence ND, MT, and MA.
MO and IN - he destroyed the campaign of two conservative candidates (as well as his own campaign), by backstabbing conservatives. Do you know how many of my friends were calling me and telling me - “you were sooo right about Romney”, after he cut off Mourdock and Akin. “You told me he was not a friend of us, and not one of ours, and you were right”.
That’s 5 senate seats right there. Had he stuck with Mourdock and Akin - they would have won and he would have won as well.
I thought our Senate candidate in OH (Mandel) was actually pretty good. OH is a bit schizophrenic when it comes to Senate candidates, and, as a rule, in OH once a 'Rat gets into office, it is very, very difficult to dig it out. We had that old liberal fossil Metzenbaum for decades. Likewise John Glenn (apologies to his military and NASA service). Sherrod Brown is perhaps more liberal than Obama was as a Senator, and his politics don't really align with the majority of voters, but they don't seem to care, they just re-elect him because he's in office and he's a 'Rat.
Romney lost OH because of the electorate, not because he was a bad candidate. He tried very hard here. He came here a lot and had good crowds at his rallies. But the auto bailout and unions, combined with Santa Claus voters (i.e., the Obamaphone lady), put Obama on top.
Romney performed badly because of a terrible combination of groupthink and voter fraud.