Why Mitt Romney Lost

With the 2012 election results in, there are no short- or even medium-term "silver linings" for Republicans.

President Barack Obama has won a decisive victory and the GOP, expecting to gain Senate seats, actually had a net loss of three.

The "morning after" will bring the expected explanations and after-game quarterbacking. Still, it is important that the GOP understand why we lost this one in hopes of future victory.

Perhaps the easy explanation is that two hurricanes and two betrayals by Chris Christie killed Mitt Romney's chances.

The first hurricane was Isaac, the one that skirted Tampa in late August during the Republican convention. That one seriously disrupted the official schedule.

GOP star Marco Rubio — who gave the best speech of the convention — was bumped off prime-time TV coverage, and so was the video biography "introducing" Mitt to the nation.

Aging actor Clint Eastwood was scrambled into the schedule to offer a funny but often incoherent monologue with an empty chair. He stole Mitt's show. And prime-time keynoter Chris Christie barely mentioned the nominee or Obama in a speech that sounded like the New Jersey governor was pumping his re-election.

The ground lost in Tampa wasn't regained until the first debate in Denver, when Romney shined. It was the first, best, and last time he would really sparkle.

As a result of the debates, by late October polls showed that Romney was finally beginning to see a surge.

Then the second hurricane, Sandy, struck on Oct. 29. The campaign went into “freeze” mode while Obama swung into “commander in chief” mode. Romney's surge was suddenly frozen too.

It was perfectly fine for Chris Christie to join with Obama in the wake of the crisis. But...

Romney lost because he alienated the Tea Party and evangelical voters during the RNC. Those are the groups that stayed home. And as the GOPe continues to parade moderates and RINOs as presidential candidates, the GOPe will continue to lose more and more ground.

They are destroying any chance of bringing a viable candidate to the people, and they are helping to destroy the nation.

Exactly. I left the party and will work to help a third party. I don't trust or like what the gop has become. . The gop hand-picked romney KNOWING conservatives would be angry & they ASSUMED we would kiss their ring and obey their every command. Romney & the gop cheated in the primary, lied to us, refused to go to a single pro-life event, trashed good men, and treated obama with more respect than his opponents and conservatives. If republicans had to hold their nose to vote for romney, why would anyone else vote for him? Very few people liked him and most thought he was phony. Look back on threads right here. Everyone knew he flipped back and forth for political power and he is in a cult; a leader in the cult. My daughter-in-law and her family did not vote at all because they could not stand obama and romney equally. Conservatives did not lose this election; forcing a rino on people; someone who cheated and lied like obama, by romney and the gop is what lost it.

But then again, the vast majority of the Obama supporters will not be affected by the sunsetting of these cuts nor will they care about the ultimate outcome of them.....

Fact is, the majority of Obama supporters will be affected, they simply do not understand that fact, and will not recognize who is at fault even when it hits them, which it will.

Single women, even those in the top 10% of income earners, think Republicans want to take away their birth control. Blacks think almost to the person that Republicans want to put them back in slavery. Hispanics think that Republicans hate them. Young people think Republicans are greedy evil bastards and mostly aren't 'cool.' enough. These people do not think through the issues because they really have no idea what the issues are.

The Republican "Brand" is is such a turn off to those people that they will never vote for a Republican. But the Republicans didn't create that Brand Identity that is killing them. The Democrats (and their subsidiary in the MSM) created that brand for the Republicans. Through this election season, the Republicans did noting to dispel that brand image, and have never attempted to impose a negative 'brand image' on the Democrats -- which would be easy as hell, IMHO.

I have heard the term used before, so I claim no credit for coining it, but those people who buy into that negative image of Republicans are 'Low Information Voters' and the sad fact is that the majority of the voting population in this country now fall into that category and the vast majority of those are Democrats. These people simply do not even know what the issues are let along have an opinion on the best way to deal with them.

By 'low information' I mean that they will side with one party (i.e. candidate) based not upon any rational analysis of the issues, but upon their perceptions of either the candidate or the party that candidate belongs to. They will most often vote totally opposite of their own best interests simply because of feelings.

In our current society where many people can name the last nine winners of American Idol, few could name even one Supreme Court justice, or who their congressman or Senators are. But they still vote.

Perhaps it has always been this way, but the thesis I am toying with at this point is an issue of 'branding.' I think yesterdays results were not a indicative of people approving of the job Obama has done, but of a rapidly growing percentage of the population's unwillingness to even consider voting for a Republican. Issues really make no difference to them... they don't look at the issues.

The Democrats have managed to stamp a 'negative brand' on the Republican party, and using logic or facts on these 'low information' voters just does not work.

I do not think the Republicans need to change anything on their positions. If they could get people to even listen to those positions, they would have an overwhelming majority. But the 'Republican Brand Image' is killing them. What they really need to do is change their brand perception.

We have zero chance of running millions of people through 7th grade civics followed by a Econ 101 class and sprinkled in with a dash of Western Civilization. Those low information voters do not understand even the basics of those as a result of 30+ years of degradation of the public school systems. We can not change that fact at this point.

But some good marketing and rebranding could work.

Interestingly, I think the OWS crowd may have been much more tuned into this nation's affairs in 2012 than most of us might think. One exit poll number I saw last night that startled me said that Obama had only won something like 56% of the 18-29 age group. That was shocking, when you consider how enthusiastic they were about him in 2008. Upon further reflection it made more sense. Those 18-22 year-olds from 2008 -- many of whom ended up camped out at OWS rallies -- are now college graduates who haven't been gainfully employed in four years. Some of them may have voted for Romney, but I'm sure a ton of them simply sat this election out.

I met an OWS performance artist this past summer. She was college educated, lived abroad in France and loved their health care system. She had started her own business and she was a RonPaul supporter. She was anti-big business and the evil WallStreet. I ask her if she realizes in large part WallStreet money went to back the Obama campaign in 2008. She was not fawning over Obama and his policies but she wanted something different.

Yup, it is my fault the stupid party picked a candidate without morals or principles.

Fear is not a campaign platform; sucking less is not a campaign platform.

For what purpose is it to gain the whole world and lose your soul in the process?

You want to talk about "tools".....how many times are you going to vote for candidates that have no conservative principles and don't represent your values......in the hopes their VP may be quasi conservative so you can vote for them.......in 8 years?

What has the stupid party done to demonstrate they have any principles? Was it when they got Scott Brown in? When they ran McCain? Romney? Maybe the effectiveness of Bohner? Perhaps when they voted down the bank bailouts, loaded it up with pork, and then voted for it? Perhaps it was the REPUBLICAN that voted 0care out of committee to be voted on?

But I suppose those don't count and I'm the tool.

In case you haven't figured it out, we are supposed to have a representative government. Outside of running yourself, there will never be a candidate you agree with 100% of the time and the goal is to find the 75% of the time. Romney and the GOPE do not and will never represent me even 50% of the time.

For me there are moral absolutes....I will never vote for a pro-sodomy, pro-baby murder, anti-gun, socialized medicine supporting liberal. I don't care if they put an (R) after their name or not.

Try blaming the crappy candidates and the worthless elitists in the party instead of the voters they wish to represent. So long as they have tools without principles to cave........the GOPE will continute to run piss poor candidates. They may represent your lack of fortitude; not mine.

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