Romney bet that playing nice and running on conpetence would be enough, but bringing a knife to a gun fight leads to getting shot. He never respoded to Obama's attacks in kind, betting that playing nice would appeal to the mushy middle - he lost that bet.
This piece is long, but well worth the read if you want to understand the lessons of the election.
Without paper ballots you can never prove those votes existed or not
I read this earlier today and was going to post it.
The key factor was the Bain attacks in swing states. That kept blue collar types who were not at all keen on Obama home. They didn’t like Obama, but didn’t feel motivated to vote for Romney.
Down the road I’d really be curious to see what the change in turnout (2008-2012) was in blue collar areas that were targeted with those ads vs. areas that weren’t targeted.
It would not have made a difference in Mississippi... but out of 20 whites (random) that I have asked if they had voted... 8 said they were not registered... I asked why and a couple just said they hated politics but 6 of them said that they do not want to serve jury duty. Lazy pos parasites!
LLS
Conservative knew very well what was at stake in this election so these after action results are sounding very implausible. I could understand a few apathetic and protest wonks staying home .... but 7 million??? ..... give me a break.
This is exactly my thought, and unfortunately the opposite of what the Republican establishment seems inclined to do next time. Obama did terribly compared to previous presidents reelections. Has a president ever won reelection with fewer votes before? This was the Republican's election to lose, and somehow, against all odds, they managed to do that. And I don't think that a brown Mitt Romney is going to be the Republican Party's salvation.
I’m going to guess it was a lot of Ron Paul voters. They didn’t like Obama. They didn’t like what happened at the convention and they said screw it and didn’t vote. Look at it like a hidden “Perot” vote that cost Bush against Clinton. There’s also a lot of people out there that think the system is broken and don’t think anyone can fix it. They’ve given up.
Aren’t all bad things in America the fault of whitey/crackers/neocons?
Perhaps this is the bitter fruit of those who refused to vote for Romney because he was not conservative enough, not enough better on abortion than Obama, or because they hate/distrust Mormonism.
We are screwed now with some deeply destructive Supreme Court appointments looming (I’m guessing a couple of red diaper babies in their forties), and a string of UN treaties which will cede our advantages, technology and wealth to Socialist and Islamist competitors. Only the Presidency and Senate are needed to enact these long term structural realignments. God only knows how they will use this opportunity to sabotage this country.
Shot self in foot.
I wonder if their was change in the Catholic and Jewish vote this election cycle? Did the Evangelicals sit this one out? I have not heard yet.
As a Newt supporter, I did not like how the Romney campaign carpetbombed him in Florida to get the nomination. That being said, I put that aside and still voted for Romney to at the very least - remove Obama. Unfortunately, Ron Paul voters don’t see it that way. It’s either their way or no way and it just might have cost Romney the election.
After the first debate, which Romney won impressively, he went on cruise control.
He backed down in the 2nd debate when Crowley and Obama both jumped him about Obama’s timeline for calling Benghazi attacks terrorism.
He coasted through the 3rd debate, not wanting to make waves. He got lauded with praise for appearing presidential.
He tried, like McCain did, to take the high road to the White House. Meanwhile, Obama was throwing everything, including binders and Big Bird at him. The ‘small things’ won the day.
Then, there was that incumbency thing. Incumbency is hard to defeat. I recall the shock when Bill Clinton won reelection. I was similar stunned Tuesday night.
“It’s not the people who vote that count. It’s the people who count the votes.” (attributed to Josef Stalin)
There are still millions of absentee and provisional ballots that have not been counted yet
Contemptible. Bastards ought to be taken out and bullwhipped. Now we’ve got Obama for another four years. Stupid mf’ers.
325,000 ballots remain to be counted in your state
Those seven million VOTED. Their votes were deliberately lost.
If white voters sat out the election because they did not like Romney then they are as much to blame for Obamacare and all the other crap that will be flung at us.
Libertarian candidate Johnson got 2 million votes - the record number of Libertarian votes since the party was founded in 1972. They usually get 300-500K votes in a Presidential election. These votes would have given the election to Romney.
In which states did these white voters stay home? If they stayed home in Wyoming and Idaho, the point isn’t really consequential. If they stayed home in Virginia or Ohio, that’s a totally different matter.
I wonder in retrospect if Romney’s decision to stay mute on the attacks against Chick-fil-A caused some white voters to stay home. That was a golden opportunity for him to stand for religious liberty and remove some of the doubts Evangelicals had about him. Also, he said very little about Obamacare’s contraception mandate, which may have caused some devout Catholics to stay home.
There were other reasons he lost, of course, but these may have been contributing factors.