Why Romney Didn't Get Enough Votes to Win

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.

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.

Probably. Arnold pulled it off. The whole “demographic change” argument is silly. The political reality of America remains the same, basically we’re divided into thirds, one third of us break fairly conservative, one third liberal, the final is the mushy middle. To win an election you need to energize your third and win over a chunk of the mushy middle. If you don’t energize your third you lose, if you can’t draw a healthy percentage of the mushy middle you lose. Romney did neither, he lost. The fact that he didn’t get WHIPPED shows how beatable Obama was.

In both 1998 and 2002 election results made people think there was a long term demographic change, 1998 supposedly gave the liberals control for the next 20 years, 2002 the conservatives. We see how both of those predictions turned out. And that’s a big reason why I don’t believe in the whole “demographic change” argument. The only thing that really changes is the candidates, and 2 elections in a row the entire GOP field sucked rotten eggs, and the eventual deeply flawed nominee that annoyed the base and had no cross over appeal lost. Next time around we’ve got an election where the mushy middle will be pre-disposed to like us (historically the longer one side is in charge the less the middle likes them, which is why sitting VPs almost never win). Now we can screw this up again if we put forth another crop of pathetic candidates, or we can win it in a walk with a decent conservative that knows how to talk to people. The choice is ours.

Probably. Arnold pulled it off.

LOL Arnold was a real RINO. His positions on the issues were liberal. Comparing him to Reagan is laughable. This isn't about whether a RINO could be elected in CA, it is about whether a real conservative could be elected statewide.

The whole “demographic change” argument is silly.

It is only silly to delusional Reps who still believe that they can somehow convince minorities to accept the GOP message.

If you accept the exit polls, Obama won the age groups 18-29 (60% to 37%) and 30-44 (52%-45%). They totaled 46% of the electorate. Romney won the age groups 45-64 (51%-47%) and the 65+ (56%-44%). They totaled 54% of the electorate.

Drilling down further, according to the CNN exit polls, whites 18-29 voted for Romney 51%-44%. Latinos of the same age group voted 74% to 23% for Obama. And Blacks voted 91%-8% for Obama.

It is obvious that the Reps are losing the lower age groups. Why? First, these groups are increasing their minority percentages due to immigration and higher birth rates among minorities compared to non-Hipanic whites. By 2019 half of the children 18 and under will be minorities as defined by the USG. Hence, each year that goes by adds to the Dem electorate and subtracts from the Rep electorate as non-Hispanic whites die and are not replaced in their ranks at the lower age groups.

Immigrants and minorities grow old as well, but their percentage of the total population is constantly increasing. By 2042 half of the country will be minorities as defined by the USG. We are also an aging population. By 2030 one in five residents of this country will be 65 or older--twice what it is now. Whether immigrants and minorities will become more Rep as they grow older is problematic since one's political affiliation is more akin to religion than anything else. You are literally born into it.

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. It is not a stretch to say that these immigrants, once they become citizens, will vote Dem 2 to 1.

Since the Immigration Act of 1965, the Democrats view U.S. immigration policies as a vehicle to accrete political power and promote their agenda. The ultimate objective is to make them the permanent majority, free to impose their worldview on the American people using our existing democratic institutions and the ballot box. They are willing to sacrifice the long term national interests of this nation to gain political advantage.

87 percent of the 1.2 million legal immigrants entering annually are minorities as defined by the U.S. Government and almost all of the illegal aliens are minorities. By 2019 half of the children 18 and under in the U.S. will be classified as minorities and by 2042, half of the residents of this country will be minorities. Generally, immigrants and minorities vote predominantly for the Democrat Party. Hence, Democrats view immigration as a never-ending source of voters that will make them the permanent majority party.

We do not have an Hispanic problem. We have an immigrant, minority, and younger voter problem. The changing demographics of this country have electoral consequences and have for decades except the Rep political elites and pundits have failed to recognize it. Some of it has to do with the huge influence the Chamber of Commerce has over the GOP. They have been pushing more guest workers, more immigrants, and amnesty to keep the flow of cheap exportable labor coming into this country to reduce wages and increase profits. In the process they have privatized the benefits and socialized the costs, which are killing our schools, healthcare, and law enforcement.

I believe we have reached a tipping point. We can see the impact demographics has on states like Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, Florida, and Virginia. They are turning purple and will be eventually blue as immigration and minority birthrates change the composition of the electorate.

We may be on our way to creating a white identity, not a good thing but understandable as this society becomes more polarized along racial, ethnic, and cultural lines. This romanticized idea of a melting pot may be crumbling as the demographic mix changes. The US is not immune to the same kinds of forces that affect many other societies. In many cases, it is just a function of numbers that can set off the dynamic of political tribalism.

The problem with the stats you’re waving around is they ignore the people that opted out. Yes young people tend to break liberal, and grow conservative as the get older.

The part that matters is the part I stated and you studiously ignored, I bet you’ll ignore it again, we’re in 3rd, have been for a long time, will continue to be. A candidate needs to energize his base AND grab from the mushy middle. Romney did neither, and lost, but he lost in a squeaker. The small number of votes Romney lost by shows there isn’t a massive demographic change.

Again I point you to 1998, people on both sides of the aisle were pointing to all the same stuff you are as indication that the dems would have a majority for 20 years. They lost the presidency 2 years later, and lost both chambers 2 years after that, we STILL have the House majority that was built in those years immediately after the dems supposedly got a permanent majority. The empirical evidence says you’re just as wrong now as the doom criers 14 years ago, and the rejoicers 10 years ago. There are no permanent majorities in a country divided in thirds.

Baseline: a genuine conservative -- gifted with the incredible bounty of a six-year head start, campaign-wise, AND several hundred million or so in loose sofa change -- might conceivably accept some meager portion of the blame unto himself, for being wholly incapable of closing the sale against a sitting president responsible for real unemployment whipsawing somewhere between 18% and 22%, depending...

You make it sound easy. Actually it's not at all easy to unseat a president. Most of those who've been defeated lost after their party had held the White House for eight or twelve or more years. That's enough time for voters to be really sick of the party in power and forget any grievances against the opposition party. Four years usually isn't enough to turn voters against a President who won a majority of the vote only four years before.

Of course, Jimmy Carter is the great exception in modern times. He had no foreign policy successes and some embarrassing failures. We saw high unemployment and double digit inflation in the Carter years. Carter faced a strong challenge in his own party's primaries and a third party candidate. He was weak both with his party's base (Northern liberals) and his own base (White Southerners). He faced a strong Republican opponent as well.

Carter was pretty clearly an exception to what usually happens in politics. There's no point in taking what happened to his reelection campaign as the norm and thinking that unseating even an unpopular or incompetent chief executive after his party has held the White House for only four years is going to be easy.

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