Posted on 11/07/2012 5:32:07 AM PST by SJackson
In this election the Republican Party ran two wholly inoffensive blue state Republicans on a platform of jobs at a time when the economy was everyone’s chief concern and the incumbent had absolutely failed to fix the economy. And they lost.
The Monday — or Wednesday — morning quarterbacks will have a fine time debating what Mitt Romney should have done differently. The red Republicans will say that he should have been more aggressive and should have hit Obama on Benghazi. The blue Republicans will blame a lack of outreach to Latinos. Some will blame Sandy, others will blame Christie and many will point to voter fraud. And they will all have a point, but the makings of this defeat did not happen in the last two weeks; they happened in the last two years.
Mitt Romney won the primaries because he was electable. But, as it turned out, he really wasn’t electable after all. Not when the chief criteria of electability is having no opinion, no point of view and no reason to run for office except to win. Not when the chief criteria of being a Republican presidential nominee is being able to convince people that you’re hardly a Republican at all.
Romney was a star political athlete who had an excellent training regimen and coaching staff. But to win elections, you have to change people’s minds. It’s not enough to try hard or to fight hard; you have to fight for something besides the chance to round the bases. You have to wake people up to a cause.
The Republican comeback did not begin with innocuous candidates; it began with angry protesters in costumes and Gadsden flags marching outside ObamaCare town halls. The 2010 midterm election triumphs were not the work of a timorous establishment, but of a vigorous grassroots opposition. And once the Tea Party movement started the fire, the Republican establishment acted like the Tea Party had sabotaged their comeback and cut the ties with their own grassroots movement. Separated, the Republican grassroots and the Republican Party both withered on the vine.
The stunning 2010 midterm election victories happened because a conservative opposition loudly and vociferously convinced a majority of Americans that ObamaCare would be harmful to them. And then that fantastic engine of change was packed away and replaced with political consultants who were all focused on seizing the center and offending as few people as possible. But you don’t win political battles by being inoffensive. And you don’t win elections by avoiding conflict.
Is it any wonder that the 2012 election played out the way it did?
The Democrats in the Bush years were about as unlikable a party as could ever be conceived of. They were hostile, hateful and obstructionist. They spewed conspiracy theories at the drop of a hat and behaved in a way that would have convinced any reasonable person not to entrust them with a lawnmower, let alone political power. And not only were they rewarded for that by winning Congress, but they also went on to win the White House.
Why? Because dissatisfied people gravitate to an opposition. They don’t gravitate to a loyal opposition. They aren’t inspired by mild-mannered rhetoric, but by those who appear to channel their anger.
When the Republican Party sold out the Tea Party, it sold out its soul, and the only driving energy that it had. And there was nothing to replace it with. The Republican Party stopped being the opposition and became a position that it was willing to reposition to get closer to the center. Mitt Romney embodied that willingness to say anything to win and it is exactly that willingness to say anything to win that the public distrusts.
The elevation of Mitt Romney was the triumph of inoffensiveness. Romney ran an aggressive campaign, but it was a mechanical exercise, a smooth assault by trained professionals paid to spin talking points in dangerous directions. But, what if the voters really wanted a certain amount of offensiveness?
What if they wanted someone who mirrored their anger at being out of work, at having to look at stacks of unpaid bills and at not knowing where their next paycheck was coming from? What if they wanted someone whose anger and distrust of the government echoed their own?
Romney very successfully made the case that he would be a more credible steward of the economy. It was enough to turn out a sizable portion of the electorate, but not enough of it. He tried to be Reagan confronting Carter, but what was remarkable about Reagan, is that he had moments of anger and passion; electric flashes of feeling that stirred his audience and made them believe that he understood their frustrations. That was the source of Reagan’s moral authority and it was entirely lacking in Romney. And without that anger, there is no compelling reason to vote for an opposition party.
The establishment had its chance with Mitt Romney. The former Massachusetts governor was everything that they could possibly want. Moderate, bipartisan and fairly liberal. With his business background, he could make a perfect case for being able to turn the economy around. They had their perfect candidate and their perfect storm and they blew it.
The Republican Party is not going to win elections by being inoffensive. It is not going to win elections by going so far to the center that it no longer stands for anything. It is not going to win elections by throwing away all the reasons that people might have to vote for it. It is not going to win elections by constantly trying to accommodate what it thinks independent voters want, instead of cultivating and growing its base, and using them as the nucleus for an opposition that will change the minds of those independent voters.
The Republican Party has tried playing Mr. Nice Guy. It may be time to get back to being an opposition movement. And the way to do that is by relearning the lessons of the Tea Party movement. The Democratic Party began winning when it embraced the left, instead of running away from it. If the Republican Party wants to win, then it has to embrace the right and learn to get angry again.
Side note: Much touted black republican candidate Mia Love in UT lost to white democrat challenger.
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OHHH! I didn’t know she was black. THAT explains why she lost in Utah. There are still a lot of Mormons who have pre-1978 views on Blacks.
Was the dem challenger also LDS?
According to Wiki, yep.
Side note: Much touted black republican candidate Mia Love in UT lost to white democrat challenger.
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OHHH! I didn’t know she was black. THAT explains why she lost in Utah. There are still a lot of Mormons who have pre-1978 views on Blacks.
Was the dem challenger also LDS?
LDS black female vs. LDS white ‘priesthood holder’. I can’t say I’m surprised. Mormons (as you well know), put things like color and sex over party and politics if both are LDS.
However, she would have more likely won if he had been a gentile.
Does anyone think someone like Newt could have won? I think so.
Exactly! Mitt was a loser from day 1-RINO & had no chance. These idiot GOP big shots are dumb as doorknobs. I’ve had it w/ the wussy GOP & am changing my registration to independent!
No.
“I’m exhibit #1 - a conservative who didn’t vote this year.”
Another Californian in Colorado. Why don’t you guys take the northern part of New Mexico and get them out of our lives and check books. Santa fe and Albuquerque would fit in well with Boulder and Denver. Colorado could be another Democrat Super State.
Takers vs Makers
Tytler was sloppy. I’d say Britain has a great civilization, and it’s been around for more than 200 years. But from the 12th(?) Century, when William The Conqueror came ashore and beat the Saxons into submission, mixing Norman French with Saxon German and other elements to make the English language, there were long periods of turbulence, such as the War of the Roses, the Puritan Revolution, the Restoration, etc. In all these periods, there was agriculture and commerce, and settled towns, villages and cities, all the trappings of civilization, and at some point, it became “great” and stayed that way, despite all the turbulence. Shakespeare wrote his plays. Queen Elizabeth fought off an Armada. The Magna Carta defined rights vs. a sovereign’s previously absolute powers. Philosophers philosophized. Poets rhymed.
It’s still here, but no longer “great”. But not because of voters voting themselves largesse. They were doing that during the “finest hour,” too.
Britain stopped being great when it started apologizing for being itself. When it felt guilty for its empire and all the dastardly things that imperial powers do, and started atoning for its sins with self-imolation, allowing itself to be invaded by its former colonies’ present inhabitants. It meant to apologize, to make up for the past. But the former colonists are more interested in taking whatever they could, and imposing their insane oppressive belief system on everyone. Whatever Britain used to do to others, is being done to it now. Not because their enemies are more numerous, technologically superior, or have more clever generals. Britain is going under because it doesn’t believe in itself anymore, and so doesn’t want to fight for its values, and the Islamofascists do. The same with the rest of Eurabia. The same with America, although it’s not as far along yet.
Ron Paul was way ahead of Romney on my list. Romney was only ahead of Huntsman.
Why did the Republicans stay home? Mitt’s campaign insulted them and he refused to press Caliph Hussein on the issues. So many people concluded (not without justification — remember “Etch a Sketch”?) that there wasn’t sufficient difference between the two. Romney is a chameleon.
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And - which is more - you’ll be a Man my son!
Get past this, people.
The prevent defense usually loses games. If we're going to rescue America, someone in the Republican party is going to have to wrench the nomination away from the establishment and run on principle and love of country, not necessarily in an obnoxious manner, but in an ardent, determined, fire-in-the-gut manner like Reagan.
I see Marco Rubio and Sarah Palin like that.
Maybe you're satisfied with perpetual loss. Many here and in the Tea Party and I are not.
“I’m exhibit #1 - a conservative who didn’t vote this year. I felt that no matter who won, things wouldn’t really change at all over the next four years. And they won’t.”
I have a rule: If you decide NOT to vote, I don’t want to hear any of your bitchin’ about the outcome!!
JC
“I’m exhibit #1 - a conservative who didn’t vote this year. I felt that no matter who won, things wouldn’t really change at all over the next four years. And they won’t.”
I have a rule: If you decide NOT to vote, I don’t want to hear any of your bitchin’ about the outcome!!
JC
“The Tea Party was dead the moment it was taken over by social conservatives and people like Palin, Glen Beck & Hannity.”
Are you a troll?
JC
Side note: Much touted black republican candidate Mia Love in UT lost to white and delightsome democrat challenger.
I’m not satisfied with perpetual loss. On the other hand, I’m not a politician, and neither are you. We didn’t lose. Had Romney won, the victory would not be ours, either. We all have lives to live regardless of who is the President. But so long as you take an interest in such matters, make sure that your brutally honest analysis turns into a doable strategy, and not just bitter ruminations, and don’t live vicariously through watching what the politicians get up to. Kipling has it right on that score. “Pick yourself up, brush yourself off, and start all over again,” as Nat King Cole paraphrased Kipling.
Side note: Much touted black republican woman candidate Mia Love in UT lost to white and delightsome male challenger.
Mia was put out on the trail in the election as the perfect candidate with many articles about her as a double minority in an attempt to bolster Mitt's chances. I'll bet she has had the political stars in her eyes dimmed to extinction.
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