Posted on 11/12/2012 5:42:55 AM PST by Kaslin
Ok, I was wrong. I thought the Republicans would win the Presidency. I was not the only one. Smart people like Michael Barone and Karl Rove thought so also, in addition to people like Dick Morris. A knowledgeable friend called me the Saturday before the election and told me John McLaughlin, the pollster, just told him Romney wins it going away. So what happened?
First there is the big picture. I think there were three issues that hurt the Romney campaign along the way. The first is his turn to the right to win the primaries. My now politically-astute son asserted we need to take the party back from the Todd Akins and Richard Mourdocks. While few would be supportive of these yahoos, I told him many in the Republican Party would argue we did not win because we did not put up a clear conservative. I think that is wrong. If we are going to put up a moderate then he has to run as a moderate, and if we are putting up a conservative he has to run as such. The problem is that Republican primaries bring out the conservatives and force moderates to appease them. Mitt muddled his message and Obama’s team jumped on it.
Second, John Robert’s contrived decision to approve the health insurance mandate saved Obama’s neck. It largely muted the issue despite a high percentage of voters being against it.
Third, the campaign badly mishandled the issue of Mitt’s past with Bain Capital. The structure of the campaign allowed them to attack him between the primaries and conventions with a meager response from the Romney campaign.
But here is a bigger question. It was clear structurally that whoever the Republican candidate would be, he or she would likely be short on money after the primaries while waiting for the convention to spend general election funds. Who made the decision to have the convention so late? Historically late! It could have moved it up two weeks to be after the Olympics, or even had it before – July 23-26. Just think how that may have changed the message and minimized the unanswered attack period Obama leveled at the short-on-cash Romney campaign.
The next part to look at is the campaigns. The Obama people flat-out beat Romney’s campaign. The polls were close enough and most of the month of October Romney was ahead, but those annoying people like David Axelrod and David Plouffe apparently know what they are doing. No doubt they had a distinct advantage because they set up the reelection campaign in January 2009. That comes with incumbency. Also, not running against a field of wannabes makes it easy to focus your message. But how in the world, when the main issue of the campaign is the economy and Romney is polling better, can the Democrats turn out between four to six percentage points higher. Every poll for the last six months showed Republican intensity levels up substantially and all of the favorite Democrat sub-groups (blacks, unmarried women, Hispanics) down. But as Brit Hume of Fox News said “A low intensity vote counts as much as a high intensity vote.” Romney’s team did not get the people to the polls and Obama’s did.
Which bring us to the next point. This is not Monday-morning quarterbacking. This is knowledge I have had for a while and kept my mouth shut. If I discussed it, it would only serve to discourage supporters of my interest so not being stupid, I kept quiet. Here it is folks – the people running Romney’s campaign were not inept, but they weren’t much better. There was no Karl Rove there. A lot of these people worked on Meg Whitman’s campaign in California and we know how that turned out. Stunningly, they were doing opposition research on Bain Capital this past summer -- as if there was some surprise that Obama’s team would attack his business career. Just about anyone in a significant position on this campaign should be permanently retired from working on running and strategizing any Republican campaign. On top of it they were arrogant when they should have been humble. On the other hand, the money people did a buffo job so all of them should be kept.
Reince Preibus has largely done a very fine job at the Republican National Committee (RNC), but they have done a miserable job on outreach to minorities. Another item I kept my mouth shut about is that I found out we have a non-existent Asian outreach program. Asians are the fastest growing minority in America and a natural Republican constituency. A source of mine told me they tried to get outreach to targeted Asian communities and had to do it on their own. We lost the vote big time.
Republicans need to get it in gear with addressing all interest groups. Some Republicans reject that idea because we do not like to classify people, but we can address them Republican style. That means we can treat them like Artur Davis said that he was treated once he became a Republican. As a Dem he was treated as a Black man; as a Repub he has been treated like a man.
But let us get perspective while the legions are talking of the end of the Republican Party. First, they still control the House of Representatives. Second, they have 30 Governors who preside over a large majority of the American people. The number of 30 is the highest either party has had in over a decade. The next election in 2014 will not have Obama and his team and, after another disastrous two years of Democrats in charge, there should be major Republican gains. So they did not beat an incumbent President -- it is rarely done. Romney made a valiant effort.
The question moving forward becomes will we survive as America after another four years of Barack Obama. Most of the people I know fear we have already become a dependency society. Four more years of Obama will only bring more. Wait until the EPA starts rolling out more rules. Wait until the 157 commissions and panels in ObamaCare tell us what to do about our healthcare. How many people will be getting food stamps four years from now?
I guess I can think of a personal bright spot out of this. My tax clients will be in need ever more help than they did before. That is unfortunately also a sad one.
We’re gonna have to learn to cheat.
The above statement doesnt add up to the point or argument the author tries to justify it:
My now politically-astute son asserted we need to take the party back from the Todd Akins and Richard Mourdocks.
If relevant, this occurred before Election Day and it's impact would have prevented the feeling that Romney wins it going away
Second, John Robert’s contrived decision to approve the health insurance mandate saved Obama’s neck. It largely muted the issue despite a high percentage of voters being against it.
If relevant, this occurred before Election Day and it's impact would have prevented the feeling that Romney wins it going away
Third, the campaign badly mishandled the issue of Mitt’s past with Bain Capital.
I probably agree with the above. But, my point is the same with the rest of his argument - all of this was known before Election Day - why the heck did he and others think Romney was going to walk away with this thing?
It’s amazing to me how few people on this thread are willing to be introspective and analyze the loss, but rather chalk it up to fraud. They refuse to believe that Todd Akin turned off a record number of women. They refuse to believe that the democrats actually did a good job of painting Romney as an out of touch millionaire.
As long as these people keep screaming “fraud,” we won’t win another election.
I believe we should do away with the “straight party” ticket vote at the polls...
It is too easy for the opposition to bus in these knuckleheads who thye know do not know any better than to do what the nice people who are fetching them, giving them whatever they can dole out to the masses and tell them how to vote to win their side of the races up and down the ballot...
I think we need to challenge those that wish to exercise their right to vote as “real” citizens of this country and force those that want to cast and educated ballot to click or punch each and every candidate and meqasure to be voted on that day...
If people don’t want to spend the time to do the research, and pay attention to the details in a campaign season, well, you can just plain stay home...You can cry all you want about my position, I am tired of the whining from both sides of this nonsense...
Making it easier (for the voter) is not something that I am willing to support ANY more...
It’s my opinion and I am sticking to it...
I wasn’t surprised.
Obama did not win the election. The democrats stole it for him. We will never get our Republic back. Obama will ‘serve’ a third term.
We have gone to hell in a black handbasket.
Read "The Manchurian President" by Aaron Klien to see why the Marxists won and why they will continue to win unless drastic measures are taken starting yesterday!
IMO:
We had a fine candidate.
We had plenty of money—which, BTW, was not coming from outside the country, against all election laws, like Obama had flowing into the campaign.
We had a good message—which will come home to roost in the following years.
We cannot let the standards on which this country was built go down the drain to try and ‘make everybody happy’. Those who have been riding in the wagon for years will continue to do so until the horse has died- or run away. I see many of the productive people pulling the wagon now preparing to run away....they will not be a target for parasites any further. The wagon will be abandoned in the wilderness & those who chose to ride for the past 50 years will find themselves abandoned....even by the Democrats.
What we apparently do NOT have is the SPINE to go after the massive voter fraud which was used against us.
Voter fraud by the Democrats has been going on for over 20 years, IMO, and it has gotten larger & more ‘in your face’ this year than ever before.
Go to www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2958155/posts and read it all. All those incidents cannot be fiction.
I don’t believe for one little minute that those instances of voter fraud & voting problems on that thread and others are ‘just sour grapes’.
WE have allowed Electronic machines, Unions registering illegals and then ‘helping’ them vote, busses loaded with Somalians who cannot speak English, DMV motor voter laws, early (month-long) voting, ‘provisional voting’, students who vote at campus & by absentee from their family homes,and outright intimidation by Democrat poll watchers & New Black Panthers to affect true voting outcome.
We need to revert to paper ballots, with a record of your vote given to you, and the count needs to take place in each precinct in front of local, recognisable people. WHY is a hot-shot high priced CHICAGO lawyer sitting all day in a Sheboygan polling place in WISCONSIN??? Who allowed him in there?? What was his purpose??
This ‘election’ found many locations where the voter turnout was above 100%—in one county in Colorado—the turnout was 140% !!!!
In pennsylvania, Romney draws 30,000 people at the end of the campaigning & then the ‘election results’ are such: Obama 9955 Romney 55. That isn’t one bit logical.
The leaders in the GOP need to attack this——hard & fast to prove that we were cheated over our citizen right to vote. I am bone tired of seeing my vote cancelled by 2 illegals, 3 students & Democrat poll watchers who manipulate the machines.
Each of us has to be asking our local officials what they intend to do about such shenanigans.
I am tired of hearing: “You can’t do anything about it”.
These issues need to be thoroughly investigated and very quickly. We have until Dec 17 to prove that this election was straight up stolen from Conservatives.
The GOP will lose their base to the Tea Party if they don’t get on this immediately, IMO.
I have been a registered Republican for over 52 years. I am ready to sign off if they cannot show some starch.
The problem with third parties is that there are hundred to choose from which does not help at all imho
Expecting voters to know what’s going on and their reliance on MSM is just part of why our great loss .While there are examples of fraud the totals suggest we did lose legitimately...Expecting GOP E’s to address media bias is another but this is where the fault lies..
Romney ran a “Johnny One Note Campaign”. Used a poison dart blow gun when he should have used a cannon loaded with grape shot because he had pleanty of stuff he could fill that cannon barrel with..
They failed to hammer away on what will happen when Obama gets returned; The Obama 2013/14 Tax Increases. The impact of Obama’s energy policies..(a socialist construct never branded as such) and a bread and butter issue which reaches every into “demographics” pocketbook...The impact of Supreme Court Appointments.. 18,000 new IRS agents and on and on. Including rampant corruption . Some were very briefly touched most weren’t and Benghazi was left to languish. Then there is Obama’s personal extravagance and behavior refusing to visit Nashville after its disaster showing up at New Orleans after Mitt visited it.
Instead we got a sales pitch on executive ability but not the reason why one should toss the old model and buy his.
In addition Rove who I understand was handling the Senate PAC campaign played games. His material
never warned voters that IF OBAMA GETS REELECTED AND SENATE RETAINED OBAMACARE AND ALL THE TAX INCREASES THAT GO WITH IT WILL NEVER GET REPEALED Let alone tie into or cover the formentioned grape shot which would have perhaps changed that body.
Finally they didn’t believe the polls which turned out were dead on. Even going as far as setting up focus groups which could have looked into what’s going on . Even to the point of going out to local eateries and bars and eavesdrop into conversations and pick up on topics being discussed.(chat rooms twitter too contrived)
Our local small population (-8000) rural blue county GOP had at the outset good and growing attendence at their meetings 50 plus. At the meeting the Thursday before the election only about a dozen people showed up and I knew we were in trouble .
Nuts...This loss is inexcuseable but, and I don’t think Romney would allow it, was it by design?
Interesting you mention that, I work with a lot of union construction guys out here in CA, and to a T, all of the ones I had talked to up to the election weren’t going to vote for the douchebag-in-chief...
>My now politically-astute son asserted we need to take the party back from the Todd Akins and Richard Mourdocks.
No, I am assured the only reason women did not vote GOP is because there was not enough support for forcing rape victims to carry their rapists child.
One just has to “get their mind right” to understand this.
I wasn’t the least bit surprised that Romney lost...He couldn’t beat McCain and McCain lost...
Makes me think the loss was intentional...
To wit, U.S. demographics are changing more rapidly every year that passes and those changes are all in favor of liberal governance and socialistic taxation/spending policies. The Dims gain strength from the demographic changes and we lose strength. To make matters worse yet, we can't join them in appealing to that rapidly growing liberal vote bloc without abandoning our own principles in re government and economic/social issues. If we do abandon those principles and adopt the opposition's principles, or lack of same, simply in order to attract liberal voters, we would lose a large number of right wing "told you I would" voters who up until now now have held their noses and voted for moderate Republicans who they neither like nor agree with, what good purpose would that serve other than the ability to boast that we won and the Dims lost? Furthermore, if after winning the people who we elected return to governing from a more conservative standpoint on the issues that are most important to that rapidly growing Hispanic/black/feminist bloc, i.e., economic and social/moral policies, we would not only lose the next election we would probably never win another one thereafter. I don't have a solution myself, but I don't think anyone else does either at this perplexing moment in time.
Of course as an evangelical Christian I believe the only lasting answer to our situation is a return by government to the founders' practice of enacting laws and establishing policies in accordance with God's moral laws, and along with that, by we the people ourselves honoring His principles of generosity and kindness to others in our day to day relationships with our fellow citizens. And I have little hope for that to take place as our moral standards continue to slide toward the proverbial gutter. I believe that all things are possible with God, but there is a point at which He reaches His limit of tolerance, takes His hands off of a nation or people group, and allows it to go it's way into wreck and ruin. I'm very afraid that we are drawing close to that point, but I continue to pray that we will wake up in time to reverse course.
Some of us were not surprised. We got called “Eeyores.”
Social Media and Twitter have revolutionized the communications landscape in the way that talk radio did in the early 90’s.
The Dems were able to microtarget voters (particularly younger voters) with carefully tailored single-issue messages about amnesty, government-funded sluttery, Big Bird or whatever their particular pet issue might be.
This allowed them to remain under the radar and create the public impression that the Dems “lacked enthusiasm”.
TX has straight party voting, but most states do not. In fact, isn’t it only about eight states that permit this. Not even MA has it.
I said on here a while back that Obama would win and was told I was wrong. Actually I was hoping I was wrong too. lol
I was not as surprised by Nov. 6 as much as I was disgusted. I haven’t had faith in my fellow Americans wisdom in a long time. Bush was NOT my first choice by a long shot, I knew from the first time I heard him talk he was a moderate. But he was better than Gore and Kerry. I’ve been voting “against” more than voting “for” for the last 20+ years. Let’s just put it this way - last time I was excited about a candidate was Reagan. Would we get another before it’s too late to undo the mess.
The article begins:
“Ok, I was wrong. I thought the Republicans would win the Presidency. I was not the only one. Smart people like Michael Barone and Karl Rove thought so also, in addition to people like Dick Morris. A knowledgeable friend called me the Saturday before the election and told me John McLaughlin, the pollster, just told him Romney wins it going away. So what happened?”
It wasn’t just “the economy, stupid”.
That’s not at all that important any more. There is a large cohort of Americans to whom this is of little or no importance.
It’s now about things like group identity, “fairness”, redistribution of wealth (on this last note, the “takers” certainly showed up at the polls last Tuesday, did they not?).
It’s very much about “ladyparts”. The “ladyparts voters” (I take credit for coining that term) voted for Obama @ 70% of their numbers or so. They are going to continue to vote that way, and they are a growing cohort, not a shrinking one (as are we old white guys).
The “Republican brand” ain’t sellin’ as well as it used to. It’s certainly not selling to “the new demographics” that are sweeping over America. They are shopping for some other product. And we all know who offers that.
Also from the article:
“Reince Preibus has largely done a very fine job at the Republican National Committee (RNC), but they have done a miserable job on outreach to minorities. Another item I kept my mouth shut about is that I found out we have a non-existent Asian outreach program. Asians are the fastest growing minority in America and a natural Republican constituency. A source of mine told me they tried to get outreach to targeted Asian communities and had to do it on their own. We lost the vote big time.”
Blacks voted for Obama @ 93%
Hispanics voted for him @ 71%
Asians voted for him @ 73% (HIGHER percentage than Hispanics!)
(source: NY Times)
I just don’t see how any “outreach” will work on these groups. Change the “Republican message” — to WHAT? Perhaps from the “Republican party” to the “Social Republicans”? What can we possibly offer these people to persuade them to come to our side, unless we change OUR SIDE to something that more closely resembles what the ‘rats are selling them now?
I had my eyes opened about a week ago. Someone from FR, either in a public post or by email, pointed out to me that in the deep South, Euro-Americans essentially “vote as an ethnic block” to keep control of states like Alabama, Mississippi, etc. (where the minority populations are upwards of 30-35%).
For decades (since William F. Buckley purged the paleo-conservatives from the party) it has been the mantra of Republicans and conservatives that the concept of group politics or “identity politics” has no place in the thought processes of conservatism.
Yet, it is what nourishes and sustains Republican majorities down South.
McCain got around 55% of the Euro vote in 2008.
Romney got 59% or so of it in 2012.
If he had received, say, 63% or more, he might have won.
My questions to anyone reading this who cares to reply:
If appealing to Euro-Americans in the South is a successful strategy for Republicans, why can’t that same tactic work elsewhere?
If we can’t “change our message” to attract more minorities, what’s wrong with changing it to attract more of the Euro folk?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.