The author (J.T. Young served in the Treasury Department and the Office of Management and Budget in the Bush administration from 2001 to 2004, and as a congressional staff member for various Republicans from 1987 to 2000) makes several crucial points in this article:
1. It was politically important for Republicans to build their campaign around emphasizing the economic issues à la "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" and "It's the economy, stupid."
2. The 23% of the electorate who thought that the economy was excellent is a "minority" group that is about the size of Hispanics and blacks combined but delivered significantly more votes to Obama than Hispanics and blacks combined. The shift to Romney of a small percentage (about 5%) in that group by convincing them that the economy is hardly "excellent" or "good" would require the equivalent of 20% voting shift from Hispanics and blacks - much harder, if not impossible effort.
3. Similar calculations apply to the respondents to the other two questions in the exit poll - the minor shift would give Romney and the GOP massive dividends in the electoral victory.
As usual, the GOP and its band of political and media consultants are drawing the wrong conclusions from the defeat in the elections in which they fielded one of the weakest and least electable candidate in a long time - Mitt Romney had no record of leadership, activism and/or achievement in politics, or as a Republican, outside of succeeding once in buying a governorship in a decidedly liberal state and running it in a decidedly liberal fashion, which made him far less successful than, for example, his fellow plenus-ergo-politico (rich-turned-politician) Jon Corzine or John F. Kerry.
Almost every demographic group - or in a broader sense, special interest groups which involve micro-issues / micro-communities, as Newt Gingrich aptly described them in his analysis (Gingrich: The challenge confronting Republicans - FR / HE, 2012 December 24) - has an economic interest that seeks more than an unsustainable permanent government welfare handouts.
That economic self-interest, as the author shows, is an overarching and an overriding principle that has been and can be very successful in attracting members of almost any micro-community to conservative-libertarian side, if this message is well articulated - both independently of the micro-issue and specifically tailored to the micro-community like particular "demographic" (age, gender, religion, education, ethnicity, preference in food/clothes/music/entertainment etc., etc.) group.
The inspiration of better economic opportunity rather than the goal of "bringing everyone down to the lowest common denominator of dependency" on the government should permeate the message of GOP and they need messengers who believe in that message and can sincerely and convincingly deliver it - this beats "You didn't build that!" and resonates with the majority of every "demographic" group every time it's actually tried!
Romney was particularly unsuitable candidate for this role because he was not any more credible than Obama when they sporadically mouthed off generic slogans about economic "opportunity." Pandering to Democrats on the "comprehensive immigration reform with path to citizenship" for illegals, based on Romney's predictable failure, instead of taking the "right turn" with the proper economic message, will doom the GOP to a minority status for generations, and the U.S. to a hybrid of southern Europe and banana republic.
Immigration reform could add millions of people under Obama health law - The Hill, by Elise Viebeck, 2013 January 26
Mr. RomneyCARE would NEVER attack Obama as he had
Gov. Palin and any GOP conservative. Never. Ever.
If you’re on 199 weeks of unemployment insurance, food stamps, section eight, government cheese, welfare, SSDI, worker’s comp., under-the-table cash and more it doesn’t seem like things are so bad, especially if you have 5 or 6 adults in a household all doing the same thing. Fire up the grill and break open the 12 pack, there’s a game on the big screen TV!!
Republicans were not trusted on the economy since 2008 to begin with so why was it supposed to be an easy issue for Romney to win? What did he pitch as different? All the samebbuzz phrases were repeated. "If any taxes go up on 'job creators' (aka 'the rich') the economy will tank"
And what in his background made him look like the economy doctor?
The one common theme I see in most flavors of the Republicans was that last year would be an easy win for any R candidate, a fatally flawed assumption.
The Left likes their dog whistles. They missed one.
When Romney described himself as a “severe conservative,” it was another certainty he was nothing of the sort.
Crappy product period.
We laughed at the stupid creepy 'life of julia' and other 'feminism issues'.
But Republicans can not shake the 'old rich whitey' image from their public school indoctrination, and college-level brainwashing. They were told and believe we became the 'old rich whitey' through ill gotten gains from stepping on top of the weak/minorities. Evil "Corporate Amerikkkkaa".
And our side did not do (have not done) a good job reaching out to them and break the bondage of 'their reality' in social circles (the media they are more susceptible to suggestions and peer pressure). Granted we have an uphill battle against the school system plus the mass media mis-information.
Look at today's young women, they see nothing wrong using sex or sex appeal for sugar daddy's, they see tv/movie showing sex/ambition/backstabbing/all the 'successful' young women moving up coporate ladders are ambitious baitches that won't stopped by any moral qualms ..... all kinds of wrong things I've encountered RARELY in entire my work life.
Their idols are not good role models. If one of them come along, media had to shred her to pieces ..... (anyway, I could go on and on. soorry for the long rant.)
rich MASS liberals may buy nominations, but they DON’T win elections!
regardless of party!
Romney and the GOP never connected to the working class citizens who desperately wanted a leader that could fight for their cause....freedom and liberty from the government gestapo.
Romney kept talking about matters that only the rich could understand and profit from. The average “joe” was not concerned with the stock market or high finance.
Another thing that disconnected Romney from the average citizen was the fact that he had never lived in the “real world” and learned to actually fight. He actually fought in strict compliance with Queensberry rules while his adversaries fought by street thug rules.
I can remember how sick I felt when he was selected to run for office. I knew that Obama was a “shoe-in” the minute I heard the news.
The Democrat party fights with the propaganda designed to SCARE the stupid people who vote for them and also the “stick and carrot” approach to all “takers” in our society.
The Republican party NEVER uses the scare tactic nor will even dare to take things away from the “takers.”
Nothing will ever change until we become the TAKERS and take back our liberty and freedoms granted under the Constitution.
The only logical explanation is that Obama stole the election. Maybe it’s Karma that he has cleanup his own pile of stinkin...
In my opinion, the Washington Establishment of the republican party could have lived with Romney being a moderate, it was the fact that a Conservative was his running mate.
The spineless republican party didn’t throw whatever power they had behind Romney because it would upset their ‘don’t make waves’ existence.
Ryan represented that threat.
He was cooked when he didn’t go after Benghazi. He looked spineless and overly deferential imho.
How the Republican candidate lost the presidential election:
F. R. A. U. D.
In the end, though he gave lip service to Country Class, Romney was seen as part of the Ruling Class. People who might otherwise have left home to vote if he had somehow included Ron Paul or Sarah Palin, simply stayed home. Any future candidate who thinks he can win without a visceral connection to majority Country Class, is deluding himself.
And if I had thought that Romney either didn't have a chance in Ohio or nationally (which have been basically synonymous in recent elections), or if I thought he was a sure winner, I would have jumped to a third party candidate.
I never once heard Romney talk about the economy! Its like it wasn’t on his political radar.
No wonder he lost!
Romney had image problems. So did the Republican party. It's possible that a different campaign strategy could have made the election closer, but the odds were against a Republican victory. The old hard to break Republican "lock" on the electoral college has been replaced by a hard to break Democrat lock.
Maybe another Republican could have won, but the candidate who could have done better than Romney did wasn't in the race. If that nonexistent ideal candidate existed and ran or if the Romney campaign were more aggressive, it might have made the election closer, and stopped a lot of the "mandate" talk short, though.