But losing elections was exactly what I was referring to with the Nixon comparison.
Nixon was not a very good politician either, in terms of relating to the voter in a national election. His wins in Congress aside, I also mentioned that his stint as VP where he was second fiddle on a ticket, led him to his win as president. I do not believe to this day, that he could have won the office in any other way.
So yes, he (Romney) does remind me of Nixon in so far as their election personalities and as far as their politics, they are also similar. Both are/were moderate to liberal Republicans. Nixon appealed to and took advantage of his popularity among the “hawks”. Just as Romney appealed to the neo- conservative movement. (new version of the hawks IMO)
I also voted for Nixon in his second term. First national vote I cast. I did it because I wanted continuity during the Vietnam war. Not because I am a liberal republican.
I can compare that support of Nixon, with the abuse I received here for supporting Romney. In Romney's case I was reading the tea leaves and viewed the electorate as being far too disengaged and anti-conservative. Totally back pocket voters and largely led by liberal views and women's issues. Totally unrealistic, as I saw it, and I believed Romney could negotiate through that, but he was tarred and feathered by both conservatives and liberals alike.
Today's tea leaves are not much different, except that there may be a anti-Obama factor. But that factor should have been evident in his re-election and it was not.(although everyone on out side expected it to be relevant)
Taking all that into consideration for this election, I think it's more important to run a conservative with great leadership ability and potentially lose, then it would be to run a moderate, thinking that a moderate would be more palatable to a more liberal, self interested, ignorant voter base and lose the Conservatives and the election again.
So in short, I am at the end of my rope..There is no more slack in it and it's pulled tight. I have already written off the United States of America as it was handed to me by my predecessors. I believe it is lost. I am not going to moderate that position in the face of total destruction if it comes to that and this next presidential election is going to be the equivalent of the Fat Lady sings...
So I would rather go down fighting, and fighting mad..
No compromises this time, and I believe most of us feel the same way, although we may have come to that belief using different routes.
Aside: people are forgetting Nixon’s ‘62 CA Gubernatorial loss that triggered his “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore” hissy fit.
Win/Loss elective office records tend to be poor indicators of good leaders. Look at how many elections Lincoln lost, for instance.
I don’t see the comparison.
I can tell you why Romney is lousy at politics, he is a pathological liar, with no center, no real identity, and it shows, people don’t trust him, and so they don’t like him, and they don’t believe him.
People don’t know why Romney wants to be a president or in politics, because they don’t see anything in him that indicates that he has any real interest in anything outside of his own isolated life.