Mitt Romney has fewer votes than John McCain received in 2008! Republicans stayed home

Various

[Arthurio]

Mitt Romney has fewer votes than John McCain received in 2008! Republicans stayed home!

As of right now, Romney has close to 56,000,000 votes nationwide. In 2008, John McCain had nearly 60,000,000 votes. (Per Wikipedia)

It looks like if all the people who voted for McCain turned out again and voted for Romney, we would have been rid of the Kenyan once and for all.

People stayed home.

It looks like all the Freepers who said they'd never vote for Mitt were not making idle threats

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

I would agree with that analogy a lot more, if you could provide specific examples of policy you thought Romney/Ryan were hawking that revealed they were running in the wrong direction.

I was replying to a post Here about how Rush said all the polls were wrong. If the GOP realized how stron the Dem turnout was going to be, maybe they could have put more work into that aspect. But drifting into victory clearly was not going to work.

Sometimes I think Romney could have said something different, or didn't say something he should have (Benghazi), but maybe there are too many dumb voters who were going to vote for O no matter what happened.

[sickoflibs]

HA_HA, he was asking me I thought. compare our answers

[DoughtyOne]

I would agree with that analogy a lot more, if you could provide specific examples of policy you thought Romney/Ryan were hawking that revealed they were running in the wrong direction.

The point of mine you were referencing was about how Romney campaigned as if he was winning when he was losing in critical state polls. So playing it light, dropping Benghazi, playing as if it was in the bag already was running in the wrong direction, not fighting aggressively.

I think that's a decent argument to make.  At the time he seems to have made it, he was rising in the polls without going negative.  The Benghazi story was getting lots of air-play without him having to push it.  Distancing himself from it, depoliticizing it had some positive aspects to it also.  The hurricane knocked that story right off the radar.  If he had clung to it, pushed it in that atmosphere, I'm not convinced it would have worked out positive for him.  It could have backfired too.

The broken compass was Rush and others here saying all the polls were wrong and to ignore them. (I can probably dig up >50 posts that say this) I am sure Romney knew this was not true but he acted as if it was.

There's a basis for saying that.  On the other hand there were reasons to think the polls may not have taken everything into consideration.

The polls did not seem to be taking into consideration that women, the youth, blacks, and voter fervor were waning.  Naturally we were going to look at some of this and make extrapolations.  Those extrapolations weren't all that hair-brained, when you look at the over-all vote.  The Democrat vote dropped considerably.  Where we were wrong, was thinking the Republicans would muster a larger vote based on the misguided and reckless Obama years.

I didn't see our side failing to get out the vote.  For that I do deserve to be taken to task.  I still don't think the take-away from the tea leaves I and others were reading, was all that misguided.  It was wrong.  It wasn't unreasonable.

As far as policies go :I don't take POTUS campaign promises seriously esp if they require congress.

Okay, some people will agree with that.  And if you and they do, then election campaigns mean nothing at all to you.  For millions of others, the campaigns do mean something to them.  I think we have to wage them, and do the best we can to present sound policies.

Look, I believe you and I agree that Romney was in ways a big North East liberal.  We probably also agree that once he was nominated, there were Republican across this nation who checked out.  I was one day short of being one of them.

Being someone who did not see Romney as our best bet, I none the less came to believe he was better than I had first thought he was.  I think there were things he would push, that I would appreciate.  Economic policy, national defense, eliminating most of Obamacare, not seeing our nation as a colonialist power needing to be taken down..., there were some things we could buy into.

IMO our downfall was that not enough Republicans were able to see this and buy in.  On the other hand, perhaps they shouldn't have.  We are left with the Kenyan, and his desire to take our nation down.

Now it is important the lessons we glean from all this.  This process is very important.  If we come up with the wrong conclusions and operate off them, we could make this loss exponentially worse.

[DoughtyOne]

What I hadn’t counted on was the drop in Republican vote.

Astounding...

[x]

It has to do with turn-out.

Nixon got more votes in 1960 when he lost than he did in 1968 when he won.

[x]

Allen West would have made a great VP attack dog and he is a vet. He could have taken the fight to Obama and America would know that the GOP is NOT just a club of rich white guys.

Do vice presidential candidates really affect things that much? When the media is so determined to take down the Republican candidate, they can pretty easily convince a lot of voters that his running mate isn't "really" Black. I know it shouldn't be like that, but there definitely is a double standard for Republicans and Democrats nowadays.

[Tunehead54]

reference bump!

[sickoflibs]

RE :”Do vice presidential candidates really affect things that much? When the media is so determined to take down the Republican candidate, they can pretty easily convince a lot of voters that his running mate isn’t “really” Black. I know it shouldn’t be like that, but there definitely is a double standard for Republicans and Democrats nowadays. “

So the solution is Rush is going to buy an island and form his own country for white male baby-boomers?

I don’t see where the MSM media ‘took down’ Romney and Ryan. They may have protected Obama some on negative stories but the attacks on R+R were by the Obama campaign and independent Dem groups, and they were divisive and hateful.

Dems got out their vote and Rs had no plan to discourage those from voting, and the white male baby-boomers alone don't have enough numbers.

[sickoflibs]

I will agree that Romney ran things and could mute any VP candidate so they cant be effective, After all Ryan came off as weak and had to repeat all Romneys promises.

So VPs candidates can be non-effective. Cheney helped Bush in his two elections though.

[GOPsterinMA]

“Today a caller told him that he(Rush) is the only one holding off Democrats. WOW, no amount of reality can wake up some.”

If one does the math, since RL went national in 1988, he’s 3-4 in POTUS elections. Some influence, eh?

[sickoflibs]

RE :”If one does the math, since RL went national in 1988, he’s 3-4 in POTUS elections. Some influence, eh?”

I first heard Rush just after the 1992 election and became a regular listener but I was paying close attention the past few elections and he was wrong on 2006 AND 2008 and now 2012 with his poll comments.

I think he just says that Rs will win no matter what.
But after 2006 it really dawned on me that I don't want non-information dressed up as information to make me feel good for a few short months till reality sets in and boom. But last night was still uncomfortable for me.

I had to give up watching the Dems on cable a few days ago because I cant stand the gloating. Seeing what FNC and Rush say is more interesting now. I always watch the Dems when they lose.

Bill O Reilly surprised me tonight with a somber and rational analysis and I rarely praise him.

[GOPsterinMA]

What did BOR say?

[sickoflibs]

I will record him as it is repeated in less than 30 minutes and then will post it to you so I don;t screw it up

When Laura Ingraham got on FNC about 8 to 9 pm and she started talking about how “If Romney loses then....” I knew it was over,

The way the FNC commentators were talking last night like Britt Hume early on it was obvious that they all knew what was going to happen.

[GOPsterinMA]

Thank you!

Yes, when Laura Ingraham got on FNC and said that...I knew.

[sickoflibs]

OK,
Tonight BOR said that Romney should have made Benghazi a center stage issue in the debates and after so the MSM had to pick it up.
I said that EXACT POINT a week ago and I got grief here from most. So I loved that one. SOL is always right :)

He said the hurricane Sandy changed things, we know that.

He said Hispanic voters came out to save O, we know that

He said Romney failed to come out and take the stage the last few days to change the direction back from sandy, good point

He said Romney had to convince independent votes that Obamas policies were dangerous and give details why warning of the cliff, good point

Obama ran as a populist not a liberal, but ruled as a liberal, good point

It was pretty good, and I dont like BOR. But it sounds like he was reading my comments LOL.

[GOPsterinMA]

Thank you for the info. The comments are pretty much spot on.

[sickoflibs]

Laura Ingraham just offered some words of wisdom:

“ Republicans are making a mistake if they see this loss as election fraud or the MSM. They lost because they lost big”

On her show she and Byron York pointed out that with the changing demographics you need a REAL conservative who believes in what he is running on to convince others,
not a phony who just says it because that is the party he won the primary in. They also talked about O running ads against Romney in the summer making R a rich elitist and Romney never took that on directly.

I like rational analysis.

The big losers : Coulter and Morris. Coulter specifically picked Christie and Romney because they could win.

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

The big losers : Coulter and Morris. Coulter specifically picked Christie and Romney because they could win.

In terms of reputation. Other losers, in terms of victims: Small businesses, churches, the military, small government

[sickoflibs]

RE :”The big losers : Coulter and Morris. Coulter specifically picked Christie and Romney because they could win.
........
In terms of reputation. Other losers, in terms of victims: Small businesses, churches, the military, small government”

Coulter was on Hannity and defended her GOP star power strategy in choosing Christie and then Romney. She also blamed the R primary saying those who cant win, those she don't pick, shouldn't be running.

She is blind on Romney,.

Back to the present.

Having won the election O is free to work with Boehner to do stuff that his lib base opposes like entitlement reform ..
If this is the path he takes House Republicans could work to make him look like a bipartision success, as with Clinton.

You see the market reaction?
Wouldnt it make sense for the House to not pass any tax cut extensions or spending cut repeals that Reid can get through the Senate? In other words :no more closed room deals?

The Bush blame excuse ended election day as O inherits his own accomplishments and so working with him to make him look successful seems self defeating, unless Boeher gets a really sweet deal. Like something O specifically campaigned against.
And stop their public statements that telegraph their punches, like bragging that they wont do stuff they are forced to cave on later anyway.

It would be nice if we had an effective opposition party, the last few ..(fill in) .. its been the delusional opposition party living in a fantasy world.

[Future Snake Eater]

If this is the path he takes House Republicans could work to make him look like a bipartision success, as with Clinton.

Clinton went with what was popular. Obama is an ideologue. Such working together won't happen.