Posted on 11/21/2012 6:23:35 AM PST by Kaslin
The post mortems on the presidential campaign continue to pour in, the ones on the botched Romney effort the more interesting (and more depressing for those of us who supported him). President Obama was clearly vulnerable, and Mitt Romney clearly positioned to defeat him.
So what went wrong? Let me add my analysis. Three words: Message. Messenger. Messaging.
The messenger was flawed, unwilling to take risks, unprepared for the Obama political wrecking machine, left dazed and confused Election Night.
If inept messaging could be deemed a felony, this campaign was a crime against humanity. I've never seen worse commercials more badly placed on the wrong media than this. In Virginia, we had to suffer through 10 gazillion TV ads attacking China for stealing American technology. China?
More can and should be written about the messenger and his messaging, but let's concentrate on his message. Or the lack thereof, which was the fatal problem.
The message was there in black and white. If only Mitt Romney had embraced Reagan's vision and philosophy and record and pitted it against Obama's on all counts.
Our commander-in-chief has spent four years wah-wah whining about the economic problems left to him by Bush 43, consistently labeling it the "worst recession since the Great Depression," which clearly it wasn't.
You want a nightmare to inherit? Try an economy with interest rates in double digits; inflation over 20 percent; unemployment skyrocketing, eventually peaking at 10.8 percent; gas lines blocks long and a predecessor declaring we live in a "malaise" at home, while abroad our hostages are the personification of America, ridiculed. That's what Reagan was handed.
Reagan spent no time blaming Jimmy Carter. Brimming with optimism he went to work immediately fixing the problem. He slashed taxes across the board, and lifted the yoke of crippling regulations from entire sectors of the economy. Domestic spending was kept under control and federalism extolled. Minimum federal oversight, maximum individual freedom and responsibility -- that was his clarion call.
By the end of his first term, the economy was roaring at 6.3 percent, unemployment was down to 7.3 percent (and would drop further, to 5 percent), inflation and interest rates were under control, and America was on her way to 92 consecutive months of economic growth, the greatest peacetime economic expansion in American history.
Obama? He did the opposite, growing only the federal leviathan while wasting literally trillions of taxpayers' dollars on "stimulus" programs that stimulated only his supporters, abducting entire industries with promises that would never be kept, while running trillion dollar annual deficits he cannot repay. Unemployment remains unchanged. The annual rate of growth is at 2.1 percent and slowing. The public mood is despondent. It's a mess, and the mess is his.
Reagan increased defense spending to rebuild our military decimated by the Left during the Carter years, which he needed to do in order to defeat and dismantle the Soviet Union without firing a shot, and which achievement alone merits his likeness on Mount Rushmore. American exceptionalism was championed. Patriotism was brimming.
Obama has consistently cut our defense capabilities to the point we can no longer fight two wars simultaneously, the imperative of military strategic planning. We face another $500 billion cut under sequestration, which will devastate us. American embassies and consulates are being attacked, our ambassadors and staff threatened or killed, and our foreign policy is an incoherent mess. American exceptionalism has been abandoned.
But Ronald Reagan was about more than economics and peace through strength. He believed in individual freedom and responsibility, yes. But he also believed in a virtuous society and openly championed it, constantly extolling the importance of the nuclear family and the sanctity of human life. He publicly invoked God, and publicly prayed to God. He called on Americans to honor the Ten Commandments. Can you imagine any of this happening today?
I write all this on the Transgender Day of Remembrance. The what you say? Yes, you heard me correctly. You see, "Transgender Day of Remembrance is commemorated each year on Nov. 20 to memorialize those we have lost as a result of hate and violence all too often faced by transgender people."
Who am I quoting, you ask? It must be some extremist nut job, you say. Actually, that's true, but let me continue. "I invite you to the Secretary's Conference Room ... for a special discussion with three transgender appointees doing tremendous [sic] throughout the Administration. Deputy Chief of Staff Mary Beth Maxwell will moderate an interactive discussion with Chloe Schwenke, U.S. Agency for International Development, Amanda Simpson, U.S. Department of Defense and our own Dylan Orr, Office of Disability Employment, U.S. Department of Labor." The memo is signed by one Ana M. Ma, chief of staff at Barack Obama's Department of Labor.
It was all such low hanging fruit for Mitt Romney.
Equally likely: if only he'd managed to transmute base elements into gold, or to fly. ;)
'You didn't buld that..'
These four words spoken in Obama's own words should have been the centerpiece of every ad on TV and radio form the R/R campaign in the last two weeks up to the election, but nothing...crickets.
Since the election was out and out stolen from the Stupid Party (and I do mean “Stupid”), there’s nothing that Mitt could’ve done. And since the Stupid Party is doing absolutely nothing about the stolen election, then we’re all in some serious trouble.
The sock puppet living in our White House and his rather rotund wife get to stare at us for 4 more years, at which time the rotund half of this marriage will run and surely win election and then re-election.
So, the muslim, Kenyan-born impostor and his clan will be in our White House for at least 12 more years.
Thank you very much spineless and gutless and incompetent Stupid Party!
I know a young woman who voted Obama because she was afraid Mitt would sign an anti-abortion amendment into law. I told her she’d been tricked.
But that’s the sort of thing the Obama campaign kept circulating. They used all the forms of communication available to them to spread ideas like the War On Women.
Pubbies can’t get that type of bandwidth.
In four years when unemployment is 15%, gasoline is pushing $6 per gallon and rationed, electric costs have many people shivering or sweltering in their darkened homes and businesses and terrorists attacks in the US are as common as IED bombings were in Iraq and Afghanistan, perhaps the GOP will find someone other than a moderate RINO to run for POTUS. That assumes of course that we still have free elections, talk radio and Fox News haven’t been censored and that Obama hasn’t declared himself president for life. Sadly I feel November 6, 2012 may be the last free election we will see in the US for a long time.
Romney lost 55% of the women, 60% of the 18-19 year olds, 71% of Latino voters, 93% of blacks, 100% of the dead voters, 100% of virtual voters and 100% of multiple voters.
The culture of the country has changed so much that I’m not sure Reagan could have won. The populace is largely ignorant, political correctness is rampant, the country is economically weak, and we now hava a totally corrupt media propaganda machine dictating the daily liberal narrative. IMO only a severe economic depression is going to wake people up and alter our course.
I’m still sad that Romney won’t be our next president. He’d have been a great one. There were just too many handout recipients out there that voted for the Obama-mainstream-media team.
I agree with you on that. In fact, a propaganda illustration of Reagan is rampant among many of the people I have known. Plenty of the people at a place I used to work, many of whom are union workers, expressed belief that Reagan was a homophobic, racist, anti-abortion, deficit-running, big business sympathizer. Yet this same president allowed many big banks and businesses to fail as president, something even libertarians like Ron Paul and Andrew Napolitano give him credit for, signed an abortion law as governor of CA under the premise that he would reduce abortions, when in fact it didn’t (which would give him the label of flip-flopper), and then he campaigned for a CA proposition to allow homosexual teachers to be open about their sexuality in the public schools. If anything, Reagan is actually more similar than most people would like to admit him being to none other than Romney. However, the propaganda machine is at work, and leftists will create lies andf distortions, much less stubbornly believe them, when mos ton the right refuse to stoop close to such an equivalent. You’re right, it’s certainly not 1980 anymore, but what’s worse, the propaganda machine has such an awful reach, and such a perverse distortion of reality, that there was little, if anything, to be done. However, the GOP could do more than let their candidates do all the running for office. And frankly, it’s irrational to expect a presidential candidate, regardless of how conservative, moderate, or liberal he/she is, to effectively fight for election on his/her own anymore.
How can conservatives indicate a vote of “no confidence?” One way would be to simply not participate in the entire meaningless dog and pony show that our elections have become. Let the post election records show that 45-50% of the voters did not show up at the polls. That certainly would get some attention.
The other choice is to establish an unapologetically conservative third party. It’s being done in Europe where people are waking too late to the fact that Muslims are taking over their countries. The Leftist media hates these parties for their “right wing” ideas....but those parties are growing as the last resort for the voters who see the destruction of their societies.
That, and massive voter fraud. How is it possible to get zero votes in some areas, get 141% of registered voters voting in others? America has been taken over by the goons.
Even with all the choices available, there was never a consensus, never a push for one candidate. None was ever pure enough. Romney outlasted them all. Reagan wouldn't be the nominee.
You think somehow you can start a successful third-party based on a repeatedly disorganized, self-defeating subsection of the second party?
Why not recruit one of the 30 GOP governors or 40-some Senators. There's even former office holders. Surely even ONE of them is conservative enough.
What we know it incumbents are hard to beat. Obama had his "historical nature" on top of that. He ran a campaign of demonization while begging for a Mulligan. More voters blame Bush than Obama for the economy even after four years. Voters late-30s and younger don't remember the Reagan recovery. They remember "Clinton prosperity" and the Bush wars and economic melt down.
Bush may end up nationally what Pete Wilson was to CA: twice elected but ultimately poisonous to the party brand.
Pure?!?!?!? Hell I would have settled for mediocre.
Republicans/conservatives/pro-lifers in politics (emphasis- in politics)need to be wise as serpent and go on the offensive. Do not get goaded into talking about hypotheticals (See Murdock et al). Focus on the law. SAY:
YOUR SIDE WON. ELECTIVE ABORTIONS ARE THE LAW OF THE LAND. WHY IS YOUR SIDE TRYING TO MAKE INFANTICIDE LEGAL?
Reagan would have easily won, any decent candidate would have.
Romney was a person who didn’t even belong in the party, a failed Massachusetts Governor, who left office with 34% approval, Obamacare and gay marriage as his only legacy.
What did a sane person expect.
Not when they are Jimmy Carter and as disastrous as Obama, whose voters stayed home by the millions.
The concern is, has Romney destroyed the republican brand.
Running the white version of Obama, with his Romneycare, and homosexual agenda, leadership in a non-Christian cult, his pro-abortion, anti-gun, liberalism, and a 20 history of defeat and lack of success in politics, was a mistake of potentially fatal proportions for conservatism.
Reagan would have easily won
******
Do you think a “shining city on the hill” would have resonated with the illiterati? Not at all; they could care less about high minded ideals. They just want hand outs and the candidate that promises the most government largesse wins. That’s where we are right now.
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