Romney Adviser Blames Bad Messaging

Foxnews.com ^ | 07 Nov 2012

[US Navy Vet]

Romney Adviser: It Was the Messaging By Robert Costa | November 7, 2012 Boston — A Romney adviser partly blames last night’s defeat on a weak message. “Turnout was the big problem, since we didn’t get all of McCain’s voters to the polls, but we really should have been talking more about Benghazi and Obamacare,” an adviser says, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “Those are major issues and Romney rarely mentioned them in the final days.” The adviser expects Stuart Stevens, Romney’s chief strategist, to bear the brunt of the blame, but not all of it. “There is a Boston clique that will stick together,” the adviser says. “But blaming Stuart and the other newcomers means blaming Romney, so they will be careful. They know Romney always gave Stuart his complete confidence.”

[US Navy Vet]

...sigh...

[boomop1]

Morons.

[Yosemitest]

I've had it with our stinking "Establishment Republicans" who keep blaming conservatives for THEIR LOSES.
And yes, I DID cast a vote for LOSER and "Establishment Republican" Romney, and AGAINST the Arab-Kenyan Barack Hussein Obama II, (a.k.a. Barry Soetoro),
the one guilty of TREASON !
That last caller should have told Rush that Conservatives have little in common with "Establishment Republicans".
Every time "Establishment Republicans" tell us what to do, WE LOSE !
Every time "Establishment Republicans" sell us a COMPROMISING LIBERAL, we lose !
Don't you get it ?
No more MONEY or VOTES for "Establishment Republicans" !

Jack Kerwick's article May 24, 2011 titled The Tea Partier versus The Republican was right.

Thus far, the field of GOP presidential contenders, actual and potential, isn’t looking too terribly promising.

This, though, isn’t meant to suggest that any of the candidates, all things being equal, lack what it takes to insure
that Barack Obama never sees the light of a second term; nor is it the case that I find none of the candidates appealing.
Rather, I simply mean that at this juncture, the party faithful is far from unanimously energized over any of them.

It is true that it was the rapidity and aggressiveness with which President Obama proceeded to impose his perilous designs upon the country
that proved to be the final spark to ignite the Tea Party movement.
But the chain of events that lead to its emergence began long before Obama was elected.
That is, it was actually the disenchantment with the Republican Party under our “compassionate conservative” president, George W. Bush,
which overcame legions of conservatives that was the initial inspiration that gave rise to the Tea Party.

It is this frustration with the GOP’s betrayal of the values that it affirms that accounts for why the overwhelming majority
of those who associate with or otherwise sympathize with the Tea Party movement
refuse to explicitly or formally identify with the Republican Party.
And it is this frustration that informs the Tea Partiers’ threat to create a third party
in the event that the GOP continues business as usual.

If and when those conservatives and libertarians who compose the bulk of the Tea Party, decided that the Republican establishment
has yet to learn the lessons of ’06 and ’08, choose to follow through with their promise,
they will invariably be met by Republicans with two distinct but interrelated objections.

First,
they will be told that they are utopian, “purists” foolishly holding out for an “ideal” candidate.

Second, because virtually all members of the Tea Party would have otherwise voted Republican if not for this new third party,
they will be castigated for essentially giving elections away to Democrats.



Both of these criticisms are, at best, misplaced; at worst, they are just disingenuous.
At any rate, they are easily answerable.

Let’s begin with the argument against “purism.” To this line, two replies are in the coming.


No one, as far as I have ever been able to determine, refuses to vote for anyone who isn’t an ideal candidate.
Ideal candidates, by definition, don’t exist.
This, after all, is what makes them ideal.
This counter-objection alone suffices to expose the argument of the Anti-Purist as so much counterfeit.
But there is another consideration that militates decisively against it.

A Tea Partier who refrains from voting for a Republican candidate who shares few if any of his beliefs
can no more be accused of holding out for an ideal candidate
than can someone who refuses to marry a person with whom he has little to anything in common
be accused of holding out for an ideal spouse.
In other words, the object of the argument against purism is the most glaring of straw men:
“I will not vote for a thoroughly flawed candidate” is one thing;
“I will only vote for a perfect candidate” is something else entirely.



As for the second objection against the Tea Partier’s rejection of those Republican candidates who eschew his values and convictions,
it can be dispensed with just as effortlessly as the first.

Every election season—and at no time more so than this past season—Republicans pledge to “reform Washington,” “trim down” the federal government, and so forth.
Once, however, they get elected and they conduct themselves with none of the confidence and enthusiasm with which they expressed themselves on the campaign trail,
those who placed them in office are treated to one lecture after the other on the need for “compromise” and “patience.”

Well, when the Tea Partier’s impatience with establishment Republican candidates intimates a Democratic victory,
he can use this same line of reasoning against his Republican critics.
My dislike for the Democratic Party is second to none, he can insist.
But in order to advance in the long run my conservative or Constitutionalist values, it may be necessary to compromise some in the short term.

For example,

as Glenn Beck once correctly noted in an interview with Katie Couric,
had John McCain been elected in 2008, it is not at all improbable that, in the final analysis,
the country would have been worse off than it is under a President Obama.
McCain would have furthered the country’s leftward drift,
but because this movement would have been slower,
and because McCain is a Republican, it is not likely that the apparent awakening that occurred under Obama would have occurred under McCain.


It may be worth it, the Tea Partier can tell Republicans, for the GOP to lose some elections if it means that conservatives—and the country—will ultimately win.

If he didn’t know it before, the Tea Partier now knows that accepting short-term loss in exchange for long-term gain is the essence of compromise, the essence of politics.

Ironically, he can thank the Republican for impressing this so indelibly upon him.

I'm fresh out of "patience", and I'm not in the mood for "compromise".
"COMPROMISE" to me IS a dirty word.
Let the RINO's compromise their values, with the conservatives, for a change.

Mitt Romney and the "Establishment Republicans" can go to hell!

[Cowboy Bob]

Who is this Ben Ghazi guy the Republicans are NOW talking about? Geez, what a bunch of morons.

[Persevero]

I don’t understand why they keep saying Romney didn’t get the voters McCain got. . . I have seen several articles/references to the fact that tens of thousands of votes have not been counted yet (absentee, military, provisional) and that it is expected that Romney will actually exceed McCain’s vote totals by some.

[Red Steel]

Missed big openings and playing nice guy doesn’t win.

[Democrat_media]

Democrats committed voter fraud

This freeper txrefugee had a post that I think we all should read and spread around:

“On CNN today, they revealed that Axelrod & Co. had the 2010 Census sheets from the heavy-minority counties in the swing states. They supposedly knew every house where their voters lived and followed up with absentee ballots etc.(No one has moved in the last two years? Hard to believe.)

Now, if this isn’t a recipe for stealing an election, I don’t know what is. They could request the ballots, have someone collect them at drop boxes, fill them out and submit them. No wonder the turnout of Blacks, Mexicans, and students actually went up over ‘08, though the enthusiasm was obviously missing. That doesn’t make sense unless someone was doing something shady.

3 posted on Wednesday, November 07, 2012 7:53:38 PM by txrefugee

[ottbmare]

I’m having a hard time with this turnout thing. I don’t even live in a swing state, but the turnout was crazy here. People were in line forever. The lines were full of short-haired men and with women dressed in red; the parking lots were full of pickup trucks. Conservatives turned out in droves, in herds, in masses. You may have heard that in heavily conservative areas of Virginia like Norfolk, there were people (service members and their families) standing in line for THREE HOURS in the dark and cold after the polls closed, stubbornly insisting on their right to vote. We didn’t see this for McCain and Palin, sorry. So I’m mystified: where did all their votes go? Where?

[GlockThe Vote]

Yawn.

Romney should have promised a free rifle to every GOP voter and that probably would have worked better.

People now want free stuff - give it to them.

Democrats offer free condoms - we offer free rifles.

Lets see who turns out more peopler.

[Zathras]

Bet source was Stephen Schmitt.
Sounds dumb enough to be him

[GoodDay]

I don’t understand why Romney chose not to clobber Obama over Benghazi. Perhaps it had to do with some notion of being a “gentleman”, or “running a clean campaign.” Maybe he thought that if he aggressively criticized Obama on this issue, new facts might suddenly come to light that would make such a tactic appear foolish. Who knows.

But it’s no mystery why he was hamstrung with the issue of Obamacare: as governor of Massachusetts, he imposed the same program. It’s difficult to get around that fact.

[KSCITYBOY]

Obama has levraged the Demographics - Why do you think the Dem’s go further & further to the left. It’s their new base. That 47% Romney spoke of is 51% of the voting base.

[crosslink]

You wrote”I don’t understand why they keep saying Romney didn’t get the voters McCain got. . . I have seen several articles/references to the fact that tens of thousands of votes have not been counted yet (absentee, military, provisional) and that it is expected that Romney will actually exceed McCain’s vote totals by some.”

Ok you have posted this on about every thread discussing turnout so either prove with sources that the vote totals listed in the article is not true or explain why you keep posting it.

[Catsrus]

Most of us were saddened that Mitt tap danced around the Benghazi coverup. Most of the morons voting never heard about it - thanks to the lame-stream media. This would have brought the subject to the forefront, but as usual - the nice guy decided to let it ride. Mitt said he would repeal Obamacare, but then added - repeal and replace. Replace it with what? He stood by Romneycare, therefore, Obamacare was a losing issue. Most of us knew this when he got the nomination, but hoped that the failure of these past 4 years would overcome this. It didn’t. I also know they fudged the unemployment numbers to help zero.

We can second guess this election forever, but the fact is - the Dems stole this election. We all know it, but proving it is another story.

[fifedom]

I’m having a hard time with this turnout thing. I don’t even live in a swing state, but the turnout was crazy here. ... I’m mystified: where did all their votes go? Where?

Maybe they were Dim voters? If you look at results across the country, the Rats got out their vote. Here in CA, they have a 2/3 supermajority in the legislature for the first time in decades.

OTOH white turnout was down. Not in relative percentage but in absolute numbers. If whites had turned out in bigger numbers proportional to their fraction of the population, Romney and many other Pubbies would have won.

Was it evangelicals sitting it out? See my post,

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2957103/posts

[Forward the Light Brigade]

The Republicans are shattered now. Ran the wrong guys and didn’t support the. Gov. Christie betrayed the party by hugging Obama-—The ball is in Obama’s court now—if he’s smart he has two years to break the GOP to pieces and secure 50 years of Progressive rule.

Republicans need Cool people to run for office.
Drop the religion thing—it turns the people off.
We need comedians who can make people laugh.
We need a good War Hero! Some one like Audy Murphy or ???
We must be true to our colors.
Put Newt in charge! or even—dare I say it—Sarah Palin! Hey they might do a better job!
We must do more Talk shows and comedy shows—Even Dick Nixon did Laugh In—”Sock it to me?”

[trappedincanuckistan]

Neither does saying “I basically believe in what they believe....just less.”

[Cicero]

Well, it certainly true that Romney just wimped out and let Obama get away with murder without more than a brief complaint.

But the problem isn’t just that he didn’t speak out. The problem is, even if he had spoken out, who would believe him? His record is pro gay, pro abortion, and pro socialized medicine. He is a serial liar and flipper flopper, and the media would have torn anything he said to shreds.

So, his only recourse was to stand there with perfect hair and smile and pose with his wife. Sure, but that isn’t enough to cut it.

[D-fendr]

There’s an old saying about political campaign postmortems:

If you won, everything you did was right.
If you lost, everything you did was wrong.

[Hetty_Fauxvert]

I don’t understand why Romney chose not to clobber Obama over Benghazi.

* * *

I think that after Candy “Beeyotch” Crowley hamstrung him during the second debate on that (by backing Obama’s lie), Romney was afraid to bring it up again for fear of looking like he was a member of the tinfoil hat brigade. I hope Ms. Crowley loses her job as a part of “necessary downsizing” one of these days....