Posted on 11/07/2012 6:21:33 PM PST by Arthurio
Inside the ballroom in the Boston conference centre where Romney gave his perfunctory concession speech last night, his supporters were stunned by the scale of his defeat when just hours earlier they were confident of success or at least a nail-biting finish.
But hindsight will probably view Mitt Romney a poor presidential candidate who appeared to have no core values, was selected only reluctantly by his own party and campaigned as if the whole experience was deeply uncomfortable for him.
He made plenty of mistakes but his biggest failing was that even after running for the White House for the best part of six years it was hard to fathom exactly who he was or what he really believed – as opposed to what he thought voters wanted him to believe.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2229083/US-Election-2012-analysis-Hindsight-view-Mitt-Romney-poor-candidate-says-Toby-Harnden.html#ixzz2BarVWZ5u Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
I wholly agree with everything you wrote. Romney wasn’t my preferred candidate during the primaries and in fact he ticked me off at times, but i thought he ran a strong campaign and certainly deserved to win far more than his opponent. More than that it looked like his was well on his way to victory right before Sandy stormed ashore and rescued Obama, perhaps the luckiest politician who has ever lived.
So was Romney really that bad?
In the end blaming him doesn’t help much and isn’t even fair in my opinion. He picked a conservative running mate and campaigned much more to the right than most of us expected. He also fought hard and was drawing huge, passionate crowds everywhere he went. From my perspective Romney did more than well enough to not only win, but win easily.
Obama didn’t beat Romney. Ultimately the money (how much of it was foreign) and the media combined with the last-minute flukey storm was what swept him back into the Oval Office. Perhaps too Romney’s Mormonism hurt him with Evangelicals more than anyone anticipated and way too many of them stayed home for that reason.
But in any event i really hope that we’ll all be united in directing our anger at the mainstream media, at all those in their ranks who have betrayed the country along with every journalistic principle that they are supposed to aspire to. That is far more constructive than tearing ourselves apart, which is exactly what the left wants us to do.
My hope is that 2012 will live in infamy for the media. May they never live down their deplorable conduct.
also mittens comes across as a used car salesman, is an anti Christian and didnt mind throwing lots of people under his own bus, and well, with a further dumbed down and third world demographic, it was the perfect storm to be seen from miles away...
then how many of us said "HELL NO !!! we will not stay on the rin-o-p plantation and hold noses" ???
do you believe me [us] now that the votes aint guaranteed when thr 'R' guy is a progressive pos ???
One RNC worker who tweeted conservative critic Debbie Schlussel noted that the GOP relied on phone banks while the Democrats had a get out the vote army.
After four years, the RNC did nothing to build a modern get out the vote organization. It failed utterly!
Besides the mechanics, Mitt Romney’s lack of principles, his inherent liberalism and arrogant confidence in victory contributed to his defeat.
America’s demographics are changing but “me too, only bigger” is not what what voters what. People will pick the Original Coke liberal over the generic pretend New Coke liberal every time.
Put it all together, the scale of Romney’s loss doesn’t exactly come as a surprise.
The GOP needs to be gutted from top to bottom, everyone associate with the debacles of the last 4+ years needs to be gone, anyone associated with the Bushes, or any of the candidates from the 2008 and 2012 campaigns need to find other lines of work.
The truth is he WAS a poor candidate and conservatives overlooked all their misgivings about Mittens even though he and his inner circle despised conservatives and wanted nothing to do with them. He was a liberal Republican and wasn’t the party’s first choice for its nominee. 60% of Republican voters wanted someone else. Romney got the party nod only because he had the least damaging political baggage of any of the candidates in the field. Unfortunately, the political baggage he carried was still a significant enough liability enough to sink him in the general election.
If the GOP establishment continues to insist on nominating liberal Republicans, the party will continue to lose elections. The GOP needs to stand for something, not just to agree with the prevailing liberal ideology. If it can’t remake itself, then it will die. If we get another candidate like Mittens, we’re guaranteed another loss in 2016, only bigger.
Scott Walker and Mike Pence are the kind of conservatives who can win.
You need to have Reagan’s character, optimism, ability to connect with Americans and a brand of conservatism that makes a difference in people’s lives.
The GOP is still the majority party in the country but it keeps being hobbled by the lousy presidential candidates it keeps on nominating. The GOP needs to revisit a nominating process that allows the next primary loser to win the GOP nomination by default.
And the GOP needs to find a way to compete on the new political terrain in this country or its faces extinction! This is not exactly rocket science. We were forewarned of this four years ago but the party did nothing to change and prepare for the future. Conservatism has remained stuck in the past. Reagan is history! If we’re not willing to build a new coalition, we will never again see a Republican President in our lifetime.
You have the WRONG FR name here :/
You are correct.
I don’t think the Romneybots will ever shut up... I see, 16 years down the line... them still blaming us ‘purists’ for the major malfunction... (BTW, I voted for the lesser of 2 evils.. Romney)... So, for all of you squishy Romneybots, FU.
Next time you put up a candidate, pick one that’s not a pale copy of the Democrat and maybe you’ll get some votes.
Your essay: you are much more optimistic than me. It reads like a description of where we were in 1993. Please tell us what happened, now that it is 20 years further down the road.
Congratulations, Pete! Little by little, we will take our country back.
This blame game misses the point that just as capitalism was from 1920 to about 1980, conservatism is entering a period where it is uncool, hard, and generally unpopular. That doesn't mean we change the message, but like Fredrich Von Hayek in the 30s, we must prepare for a very long haul until the cycle turns.
However ranting about the moral condition, even if correct, doesn't address the solution. Simply saying, "we need mor stable families," or "we have to end the gimme mentality" aren't strategies.
We erroneously took the 2010 victories as evidence of a larger sentiment. Now, it looks as though those were the ceiling that can be reached in a non-presidential election (I.e. 40% of the regular turnout). Also, the 2010 elections came immediately after Obamacare. But 2 years later, that anger subsided. I could see it---but ignored it as most here did---when I spoke to these groups and they grew smaller. More important, they grew older.
Likewise, no amount of ranting about he moral correctness of conservatism is going to attract the majority of these younger people who are the energy of any movement. And four years ago when I saw how uniformly these college student and 20s disliked Palin and how even this could be observed at CPAC (despite her popular speech there) it finally dawned on me that they are gong to have to com to the realization on their own that not only is conservatism correct, but it is cool for civilization.
I agree that the other republican candidates were worse than Romney, but we should have had more candidates, including Judd Gregg, John Hoeven, Bobby Jindal, and Butch Otter.
Uh, no. It's the demographics, Sgt. Vincennes. The illegals, fags, feminazis, junkies, drunks, permanent malcontents, etc. with their hands out outnumber us and that’s it.
What’s the solution? Secession? Didn't work so well the last time that was tried. Besides, the West Coast is lost, so unless a current “Blue” state allows a portion of “Red” to break off, there's no Pacific access (Alaska notwithstanding). And Florida and Virginia ain't what they used to be either.
We've lost; game over.
Ronald Reagan would not win a national election today. I did not make a typo. Tuesday night confirmed that the USA is dead and decomposing. Now the rate of decay will be more rapid.
I read with amazement the comments here for days saying that Romney was winning because of high turnout at his recent events, or the ones here from fellow Marylanders (a very Dem state) citing high voter turnout at the polls, meaning they must be Republicans voting, when they were Dems. I even got a few mad at me for challenging this last point.
As I said, you cant win a race when you throw away your compass and run the wrong way. Not only did Rs focus mainly of shoring up the white baby-boomer vote but Romney had the problem that to win the primary he had to play act someone else and then in the general try to avoid many of those things he never believed in.
And he really looked like an out of touch white male rich elitist, perfect for O to use, remember Newt called him out on it before O did.
In the shorter term is there any reason why Boehner should make things easy for O now ?
O won big now (at least it looks that way to the bread and circus crowd) and shouldnt Boehner talk like O is charge of the congress so if all the taxes go up and the spending cuts go into effect O can get all the credit/blame, and those who voted for him won't look too smart?
Helping O by delaying the tax increases and spending cuts didnt too work, well it worked great for O.
I am seriously considering this.
“I am seriously considering this.”
Count me in as liking it. At this point, f*ck it.
Who is the next Reagan? I want to know now, not in August of 2016.
Palin and Ryan are now losing VeePee candidates. Only one has been elected and that was FDR. Remember Nixon was 2-0 in Veepee races therefore not a losing VeePee candidate.
Who has the right combination of skill and ideology to pull us out of the fire?
Mike Pence
Scott Walker
Coupled with an AA VP, after TSHTF, MAYBE could eek out a small EV win. MAYBE, but I seriously doubt it.
I think the RAT nominee will be either Deval Patrick (did I just type that?), Bloomberg or O’Malley. Most likely Patrick, do I have to say why?
NO on Palin and NO on Ryan. Palin is a Republican media commentator. Time to give that one up is long past due. And I don't want to repeat my Ryan complaints again here.
I answered your question here already:for The next Reagan see #33
Nixon was not a losing VP candidate, but he was a loosing Presidential candidate.
I like Governors who have been re-elected and successful in their states. Actions and a record tell me more about their principals than words. Also, they must be able to articulate conservative principals concisely, clearly, and simply, and be able to think on their feet.
Combine Newt, Rubio, and Jan Brewer - anyone out there like that? Anyone have an especially good Governor they want to talk about? Someone whose parents were citizens when he/she was born, born on US soil, and raised in USA? No citizens of the world need apply.
Are there any who are not dedicated to the Global Cabal?
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