Posted on 11/10/2012 6:53:22 AM PST by BobL
Yes, it's bad, but no the country has not (yet) completely rejected us or what we stand for.
So let me start by saying the next 4 years will be terrible (if I don't say all this, I will just be attacked as a nutcase). We'll likely end up with a hard-left Supreme Court (although the current court may give us a few good rulings first). The lower federal courts will all be hard-left too. Foreign and military policy will stink - but if we're lucky, nothing fatal or permanent will happen there, and we can hopefully build out of it. Other areas will be terrible too.
Rush says we were outnumbered and it cannot get better. I don't believe that was the case, at least not in this election. Yes, we were defeated, but NO it was far from inevitable. And yes, demographics are moving away from us, but no, demographics move very slow and there are at least a few more presidential elections before it becomes very difficult to win, but there are steps that can even delay that (although it's looking unlikely that we'll get enough of them).
So, the relatively optimistic vanity - simply because this election was not won by Obama, but rather it was lost by Romney and the Republican Party, and then only at the end - the last month. We had a candidate that ran a cool, disciplined, campaign - and then BLEW IT at the very end. They had a candidate that also ran a very disciplined campaign, but did not blow it at the end.
So here are my 10 reasons that we lost. If each of them could be worth a point for Romney, he would have won in a landslide.
1) ORCA - the Republican Get Out the Vote effort TOTALLY crashed on election day. Not surprising - Romney used computer programmers that drove junkers with Obama bumper stickers (just guessing here). Maybe that was all he could get, but he still should have had both independent electronic backup and hand backup at the same time. He didn't - he figured that since his laptop always worked, ORCA would always work. He was an IDIOT. Obama's people had their version of ORCA, but the guy working there likely drove the same car, with the same Obama bumper sticker - and Obama's people would have been a bit suspicious if they saw a well-dressed programmer with a Romney bumper sticker and no facial hair. The Romney people were IDIOTS here for putting all of their cards in one place.
2) Hurricane Sandy - took the spotlight off of the campaign, which didn't help things. It was a once-in-lifetime storm, and it was timed as the perfect October surprise. It gave the president a chance to get people's minds off the economy.
3) Governor Christie - he had NO REASON to invite Obama to NJ. This alone likely cost Romney the majority vote in the election. Bloomberg, who had political reasons to help Obama, told Obama to keep out and gave GREAT political cover to Christie. There was nothing stopping Christie from inviting Obama over on Nov. 7th (after the election). Romney's people did try to stop this sabotage, but could not. (p.s., I count these as different topics, because there was no reason for the second one).
4) Not believing the Polls - They figured that the polls were off by at least 5%. It never occurred to them that that's never happened before. They (and nearly all of us) were convinced of the same. So they figured they had it in the bag at the end. This leads into a number of other points.
5) Romney was winning - Given that the polls were right, after all, then Romney was actually winning after the first debate. If demographics were so bad, then how was it that Romney EVER had any lead - as Obama would have owned his 51% right through? Obviously this election was winnable for Romney - had it been held a week after the first debate. People were ready to support Romney and reject Obama.
6) Playing a pre-vent defense at the end. Going into the first debate, Romney was in huge trouble and was further down than he ultimately lost by. So Romney was aggressive (just like when he was on the ropes during the primaries) and picked up something like 10 points in that debate, and made Obama look like a fool. But then they had Ryan back off, and then Romney gave Obama a pass, especially on foreign policy. Dems will always screw up foreign policy, but Republicans have this thing about not using it against them. STUPID. You have to win, first. This was their biggest strategic mistake - Reagan would have also lost in 1980 if he had backed off of Carter and played defense (and he nearly lost in 1984 doing the same in the first debate). Pre-vent defenses ALWAYS fail, unless you're up by 30 points at the two-minute warning, which was never the case for Romney.
7) Rush falling into the Women trap. Rush had Obama's re-election plan called down to the tee, probably for over a year. Obama needed to get people's minds off of the economy, and the big group for that was single women. So what did Rush do (and sorry Rush, but this didn't help, at all) - he called Fluck (or whatever her name is) a slut. It was somewhat funny, but face it, most of his listeners cringed and the Dems had a field day making her into a victim (which she, of course, was not). Rush stuck with it and seemed more interested in showing that he could ultimately win-out over them (which he did), but the damage was done outside of his show - and the Dems thought Christmas came early.
8) Two IDIOT Senate Candidates. Again, the women trap. Is there ANYONE in the Republican Party that can train these types of candidates on how to handle questions on abortion and other sensitive social issues, or does the party just ignore them and hope they go away? Or maybe if The Establishment would support Tea Party candidates once in while at the start, they party might be able to train them a bit. A campaign is a pressure-cooker, especially for Republicans - the candidates have to be ready. A very easy answer to the abortion question regarding forcible rape is to simply say something like "It's not the baby's fault, and that's just how I feel - next question". If Akin had simply said that, him and 10 others would be taking over the Senate. But the damage, obviously, spilled over to Romney, as it got women thinking about something other than the economy.
9) The House stayed Republican. Again, if we're outnumbered, why isn't Pelosi the next Speaker?
10) Fraud and Voter ID. This is likely worth a million (or more) votes just on its own. Not easy to fix, but Voter ID would likely go most of the way. From what I could see in Texas, where we had the infrastructure in place, but was not allowed to use it - it can be very effective. Voters here had to show an approved ID (had it been in place, but we showed the ID anyway to speed things up), and then it was electronically entered. If it was a driver license or state ID, it was checked against state records and your name was checked off. If something else, not sure what happened - but passports are expensive to produce and there won't be many fake passports for one vote each.
And this is the best answer.
I've noticed that the liberal media rarely ask Democrat candidates to articulate their position on gun control. They understand that a truthful answer will only hurt these candidates so they give the issue a pass. Pro-life Republicans need to learn how to play this game as well and answering as above will help take the issue off the table and not drive away voters.
8) Why can't the GOP coach their candidates on how to answer controversial questions? They don't have to use the democratic approach - lie, but there is such a thing as tact.
"Do you think a woman should be forced to endure a pregnancy caused by rape?"
"Oh gee, I never thought about this before. But since the unborn child is innocent, I guess so"I can't conceive of a time when that would be the law of the land.
Is that sooo difficult? Does that compromise his precious socon credentials? If you want to make a better world, first you have to win elections.
Everything Benedict Judas Christie did after being passed over for VP hurt Romney, starting with his key note speech. You cannot convince me he wasn’t trying to sabotage Romney to further his career. I hope he enjoys the ninth ring of hell.
“Everything Benedict Judas Christie did after being passed over for VP hurt Romney, starting with his key note speech. You cannot convince me he wasn’t trying to sabotage Romney to further his career. I hope he enjoys the ninth ring of hell.”
Agree. But if Christie is planning to run as a Republican, he will have a LOT to answer for - we remember Charlie Crist (in Florida) and we CRUSHED HIM. Christie is welcome to try to make his case to the country (which was on very shaky ground even before this stunt - starting with gun control).
If Christie wants to run as a Democrat, he can forget that also - he angered the teachers. Maybe an independent - but how would that work?
I hope you’re correct, but the Republican establishment seems anxious to give Christie a pass. Can they force him down our throats? At this point, who knows. Rubio crushed Crist. Hopefully he will do the same with Obama’s lap dog.
yes, THIS election was winnable, but future ones won’t be. Obama will make citizens (Democratic voters) out of millions of illegal aliens, and register them in swing states, and that will be the end of the story.
“yes, THIS election was winnable, but future ones won’t be. Obama will make citizens (Democratic voters) out of millions of illegal aliens, and register them in swing states, and that will be the end of the story.”
Hopefully we can delay this a bit - but you are right, the threat is certainly there.
The big likely things I see here are:
* The abject failure of ORCA.
* Romney’s decision to take the high road in the last debate rather than taking it to Obama (although the latter might not have worked, either)
* Christie
* Todd Akin
* Campaign strategy based on a misinterpretation of the polls
If one takes the stance that abortion is murder than it is killing someone; I have not problem having people think I believe that, because it is true.
Funny, Roe v. Wade derives the right to abortion from a right to privacy... yet the Fourth Amendment specifically is about privacy (people, their persons, and effects) and the government abrogates this privacy, without warrant, every day: it is after all the express job of the TSA. (This is ignoring the arguments from no-knock raids, secret wiretapping & e-mail interception done without warrant.)
So then, if Roe v. Wade is valid then these other actions must be invalid. {If Roe v. Wade is invalid, it says nothing about these actions.}
First of all it is not us that lost. It was America and founding principles that lost. Everyone and not just those in this country will suffer as a result. I think it is better to be in the group that knows what happened than those who celebrate another four years of 0bammunism.
I think it is crazy to think that the press couldn’t have found something to demonize either Newt, Rick, Herb, Michelle, the other Rick or anyone else for that matter.
Reality doesn’t matter as much as press coverage. Look at Clinton’s career after Monica or Teddy’s career after Chappaquiddick.
Then you have stats out there like more voters even here in Colorado than populations of counties. 0bama won the Mormon vote. 0bama won the Cuban vote. Yeah, right.
I am reminded of the recent Venezuelan election where Chavez would turn out a few hundred, and his Latin male model opponent would have turn out in the hundreds of thousands. Yet when the Ministry of the Interior counted the votes Chavez won somewhere close to 63%.
Actually, here’s another perspective:
http://www.businessinsider.com/nate-silver-and-the-end-of-ex-post-facto-excuses-2012-11
We never really had a chance.
And that doesn’t mean the country’s lost. It more likely means: 1) The party in power almost always win a second term. 2) People vote for incumbents. 3) There were a lot of people for whom Obama was too black to fail.
Romney was not a bad candiate? WTF. He completely alienated the conservative base. He caused civil war on conservative websites like this one.
Romney was the worst candidate that could have come from among the primary contenders. Perry would have been better. Bachmann would have been better. Gingrich or Santorum. It doesn’t matter. Anybody but a rich liberal Masshole governor who supported socialized medicine, gay marriage and abortion.
Romney was the worst candidate the GOP could field, unless they were trying to throw the election to the Democrats.
This loss isn’t about Romney’s faults. It’s about the brats who decided to stay home and not vote for Romney because “it’s my way or no way.” Why is the onus on the candidate to cajole and please and coddle these brats out of their comfortable couches to cast a vote? There was clearly a huge difference between Romney and Obama, who will now be taking this country down treacherous paths Romney never would. In my opinion, these self-important self-absorbed non-voting brats are worse than the Obama voters who were simply looking for free stuff. The bread and circuses ploy is as old as time. It always works on a portion of the population and will always be with us. But there is no excuse for these so-called disaffected Conservatives or holier-than-thou Evangelicals who demand that everything go their way. Their arrogance and self-importance trumped their gratitude and sense of duty to this country and gave a close election to Obama. Now we will have to live with this.
The “Roe v. Wade argument was from Drew68. My argument boiled down to the fact that being legal does not make it right.
When they ram the UN Gun ban down our throats, just like they rammed govt health care, will us pro 2nd Amendment types be be told to “STFU?”
Romney was the worst candidate that could have come from among the primary contenders. Perry would have been better. Bachmann would have been better. Gingrich or Santorum. It doesn’t matter.
"On conservative websites like this one" maybe, but none of them could have done as well as Romney did in the general election. Santorum or Bachmann AND Akin and Murdoch? That would have put us down to 40% or below.
Tongue-tied Perry might have done a little better, if he didn't collapse completely. Gingrich the same or maybe a smidgeon better. Cain, after the scandal, worse than any of them, perhaps.
Some imaginary, non-existent ideal conservative candidate may have been able to win the race, but none of the other real contenders would have made it to 48%.
Right; but it's stupid to simply leave it at "it's legal."
We should destroy every argument legitimizing it that we can, and as you can see, frame it in such a way that keeping hold of it means we gain ground.
When they ram the UN Gun ban down our throats, just like they rammed govt health care, will us pro 2nd Amendment types be be told to “STFU?”
Hm, a very good question.
In my opinion, it would be better to force the [federal] government's hand, making them do something that either delegitimizes them or gives us an advantage: like this.
As if that had nothing to do with the GOP running a Masshole liberal Republican who pushed socialist ideas.
I held my nose and voted for Romney just as I did for Juan McLame. Still, it was made EXTREMELY clear that Romney would flop with the conservative base and that proved true. I agree with you that once the nomination was over, it should have been “Anybody But Obama”. But you can’t MAKE people vote. You have to appealed to them to vote, and Romney being socialist light did not appeal to the conservative base. That is an absolute fact.
The GOP would have done better running a hard conservative who hammered Obama on the economy and attacked him ruthlessly.
The GOP NEVER wins running socialist light, whether he is Romney, McCain or Bob Dole. The only winners the GOP runs is conservatives like Reagan and GW Bush (not conservative, but successfully posed as one in both elections).
For the GOP to win, they MUST run conservatives to energize the base. They may not win with a conservative, but they ALWAYS lose with socialist light.
The question is whether it still works -- whether that solid conservative basis is as large or as sure a winner as it was in the Reagan years.
I wish we'd tried that strategy this time, if only to get an answer, but I'm not sure it would have worked any better than what we got.
One problem is that the candidates are never what Ronald Reagan was. Also, we're not the same people we were back then when so many voters had gone through the Great Depression and World War II and were appalled by the Sixties and Seventies.
The situation is different from what it was in his time as well. A conservative can't campaign against the bad consequences of 50 years of Liberal/Democrat rule, since Republicans were in office in recent years and have to share blame for where we are now.
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