I knew the minority population was increasing quickly as a percentage of the US.
What I didn't realize:
Posted on 11/14/2012 2:41:57 PM PST by fso301
It is a different world, and a different America. Obama is part of that different America, knows it, and knows how to tap into it. That is why he won.
the most charitable way of explaining the election results of 2012 is that Americans voted for the status quo – for the incumbent President and for a divided Congress. They must enjoy gridlock, partisanship, incompetence, economic stagnation and avoidance of responsibility. And fewer people voted.
But as we awake from the nightmare, it is important to eschew the facile explanations for the Romney defeat that will prevail among the chattering classes. Romney did not lose because of the effects of Hurricane Sandy that devastated this area, nor did he lose because he ran a poor campaign, nor did he lose because the Republicans could have chosen better candidates, nor did he lose because Obama benefited from a slight uptick in the economy due to the business cycle.
Romney lost because he didn’t get enough votes to win.
That might seem obvious, but not for the obvious reasons. Romney lost because the conservative virtues – the traditional American virtues – of liberty, hard work, free enterprise, private initiative and aspirations to moral greatness – no longer inspire or animate a majority of the electorate. The notion of the “Reagan Democrat” is one cliché that should be permanently retired.
Ronald Reagan himself could not win an election in today’s America.
(Excerpt) Read more at israelnationalnews.com ...
I disagree strongly with the idea that Reagan could not have won. This is a Romney talking point from the primaries with no merit. Reagan appealed to people as people first. Mostly, Reagan was genuine in what he expressed, and people understood that. Reagan did not come across as a used car salesman, slick and contradicting what he told the last customer.
Reagan could have won. The problem the only people who actually believed Romney presented a REAL difference were liberal who thought he was an arch conservative. The rest of the world saw it as Romneycare vs Obamacare and then their level of participation in the election was governed by how much they hated Obama, even the hardcores didn’t actually expect Romney to do much of anything, maybe a couple of tweaks to Obamacare to make it slightly less odious. Slightly less odious doesn’t tend to win elections.
The country has changed since Reagan. Not as many people have the values that elected Reagan. We now have at least 47% dependent on the government - contributing nothing and faithfully voting democrat.
Granted, Reagan did connect better with people but the nation has changed so much in the past 30 years that I don't know...
I disagree vehemently. Reagan was a brilliant communicator and would have pulled people into his world view. Romney, despite doing a lot of things quite well, did not do that. He essentially closed the ABO crowd, and no more. Reagan would definitely not get the landslides of the 1980s in today’s world, but he could certainly win. Does anyone not think, he could have persuaded 10,000 people in Florida to vote for prosperity? Would not 300,000 people in the five key swing states consider changing course?
I agree, the author says the traditional values of work ethic and aspirations are different today, but there are many people who stayed home or voted for Obama that would have considered another option.
Self-serving Team Mittens bullcrap.
"Once upon a time, a pet food company created a new variety of dog food, and rolled out a massive marketing campaign to introduce the product.
"Despite hiring a first-rate advertising agency, initial sales were very, very disappointing. The agency was fired, and a new agency (with an expensive new campaign) was launched. Sales, however, stubbornly continued to crater. (If anything, in fact, they fell even further than they had before.)
"In desperation, the CEO called in all of his top executives for a brainstorming session to analyze what had gone wrong with the two campaigns, and how a new campaign might revive sales.
"The meeting went on for hours. Sophisticated statistical analysis was brought to bear on the problem. One VP argued that the mix of TV and print ads had been hopelessly bollixed. Another argued that the previous campaigns had been too subtle, and had failed to feature the product with sufficient prominence. Still another argued that the TV ad campaign had focused too much on spots during sporting events, and not enough on regular programming with a broader demographic. And yet another argued the exact opposite: not enough sports programming had been targeted!
"After the debate had raged for hour after fruitless hour, the CEO felt they had accomplished damned little. He asked if anyone else had any theories -- any at all -- that might conceivably explain the failure of their new product. Finally, one newly hired employee raised her hand and was recognized.
"'Maybe the dogs simply don’t like it,' she offered."
*****************
The GOP-e could stand to actually learn something from the humble makers of dog food, evidently.
And you may be correct but there was no candidate in the same league as Reagan this time around so, we'll never know.
Romney certainly had a lot of problems.
But the demographics look bad to me long term.
Non-whites (blacks, hispanics, and Asians) are increasingly voting Democrat AND becoming a larger percentage of the electorate.
With the Death Panels hastening the demise of baby boomer Republicans, I’m concerned about the future.
Good find...
They left out the bit about screwing over the Ron Paul delegates - they could have gotten some of those votes instead of disenfranchising them - not a time to make the tent smaller.
Which is why I’m pro-choice...abort as many Dems as possible.
The traditional conservative message should be independent of demographic. What is wrong demographically is that the melting pot is no longer being used. There is no reason why a minority should not aspire to have a stable job, stable household, safe neighborhood and hope for an even better future for their children.
I think conservatives are going to have to adopt messages that recognize a large part of the nation has not experienced the melting pot and that a helping hand is needed to help draw people from non-traditional backgrounds toward a more traditional conservative lifestyle and way of thinking.
Any decent candidate would have beaten Jimmy Carter II.
Romney has been a failure as a candidate his entire 20 years of running for office, he has always broken spending records, has injected 55 million dollars of his own money at crucial points during his campaigns, and he won a single election for governor, he was rejected for reelection and left that office with 34% approval, Romney then lost to the non-funded Huckabee and old man McCain in 2008, before Carter 2 thumped him in 2012.
Then there must not have been one. Unfortunately, I don't see the situation improving significantly for 2016.
Baloney.
Reagan won because people knew he meant what he said.
Everyone with half a brain knew Romney was a liar who would say anything to get elected -— just as he did in MA and just as he slandered good men running for the Republican nomination.
Seems like it.
I knew the minority population was increasing quickly as a percentage of the US.
What I didn't realize:
Of course there wasn’t one, that is the topic. Romney was terrible, he and the gope manipulated GOP politics since at least 2006 to get the white, mirror image of Obama as the nominee.
Romney shaped the pool in 2006 by hitting with massive, big donor fund raisers, and telling any potential republicans that he was prepared to devote his personal fortune to the primary, after he failed in spite of all that in 2008 (although he did keep his challengers to minor, unfunded players), all potential 2012 challengers knew that he was still going to dominate 2012, so they sat it out.
I think Romney got enough votes to win. Anywhere they don’t have voter ID “they” say he lost. And don’t get me started on electronic voter machines.
The U.S. adds one international migrant (net) every 36 seconds. Immigrants account for one in 8 U.S. residents, the highest level in more than 90 years. In 1970 it was one in 21; in 1980 it was one in 16; and in 1990 it was one in 13. In a decade, it will be one in 7, the highest it has been in our history. And by 2050, one in 5 residents of the U.S. will be foreign-born.
In 1980, the US was a nation of 227 million compared to 315 million today. We had 14.1 million foreign born in 1980 compared to 40 million today. In 1980 the foreign born made up 6.2% of the population compared to 12.9% today.
During the decade ending in 1980 we had 4.5 million immigrants entering the US compared to 13.9 million during the decade ending in 2010, which happened to be the highest number in our nation's history.
In 1980 non-Hispanic whites made up 85.9% of the population compared to 66% today. Blacks were 11.8% of the population compared to 13.1% today. In 1980 other races made up 2.3%. Today Asians alone make up 5% of the population.
In 1980 there were 22.5 million on food stamps, today there are 47 million. In 1980 there were 19.6 million people on Medicaid with a total expenditure of 25.2 billion (state and Federal) compared to 54.8 million people in 2012 with a total expenditure of 456 billion. This doesn't include the CHIPS program. Today there are 70 million people on Medicaid (including CHIPS) and Obamacare will add 18 million more.
Today essentially two-thirds of the federal budget is on automatic pilot and consists of the entitlement programs, other mandatories, and debt servicing. We have culture of dependency.
I don't think Reagan could have won today. We simply are not the same country demographically or culturally.
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