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.
Without question Reagan would have had the same effect that he had in 1980, nobody knows the specifics of how he would have shaped his campaigned, but he would have defeated Jimmy Carter the II, and he would have helped the entire ticket, and would have educated the public while doing it.
Romney just can’t overcome being what he is, and people can see it in him.
Romney and a lot of the GOPe do not grasp that many of us are suck of the garbage:
1. Government abuse like war on drugs, TSA, NDAA, civil forfeiture laws, etc
2. Govt mandates
3. Meally mouthed political speak
Etc etc.
Romney cam across as just as big an advocate for big govt and intrusive govt as obama did with an unlikable way about him.
Bill Whittle "Where do we go now?" - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuL41ohlfZY
I disagree.
Romney is a degenerate liar and coward from a family of cowards that have avoided military service en masse for 170 years.
Thank God that blood sucking vampire is gone, he would have conspired with the communists in Congress to push an agenda of higher taxes and less freedoms, wouldn't have done a damn thing about the homosexual problem either.
Reagan would have had a very steep hill to climb to get to his shining city. The country has changed dramatically in the last 30 years and it’s a totally different ball game. Obama is more than Jimmy Carter II; he is the magic negro and has an media propaganda machine and a visicous, if not lethal, political apparatus behind him. Bread and circuses are all that matters to most people nowadays. The public really doesn’t want to be educated; it just wants handouts.
And winning means more than just getting people to vote for you. It’s now all about manufacturing and counting the votes a la Stalin.
Reagan was a great man for the times. But the times they are a changin.
The liberal Massachusetts governor was the least social conservative candidate in GOP history for sure.
“Thank God that blood sucking vampire is gone,...”
No he isn’t! Obama was just re-elected, didn’t you hear?
I’m taling about civil liberties issues that the GOP is just as bad as the demos are lately. We are not even offering a choice anymore.
Reagan was a great man for anytime, as he proved every decade of his long life, from student politics in college to Hollywood and national politics of the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970, 1980s, and 1990s.
Romney never liked Reagan or his politics, was always against him and has smeared him since his death.
Romney has never been a great man, or had good politics or been successful at winning people over as a 20 year politician.
Reagan would have rolled over Carter the second, won the Senate and smashed the democrats.
America has changed to the degree that Reagan would not have been alone this time, this time Reagan would have the tea party and Sarah Palin, conservative media, the Congress, Governorships, state houses, talk radio, advantages that he didn’t have, and that Mitt largely rejected as they were the hated conservatives.
Reagan was principled and high minded (and I mean that as an admiring compliment) but that no longer sells in certain high population density areas of this country.
I was saddened to see the Tea Party marginalized and do think it could have energized more conservatives. But the stark political reality of today is that America is now a left-of-center country. Reagan’s vision would be a tough sell to the increasingly large number of Takers in our society.
Those people want a nanny state, and they want income redistribution. They could care less about individual liberty, personal freedom, or even upward mobility. Until that system breaks down (and it inevitably will) true conservatives are going to have strong political headwinds against them.
Jeez give it rest and sell your rinoisms elsewhere, to someone else, the republicans ran a man who hated Reagan, hated conservatism, who gave us Obamacare and gay marriage, who is an incompetent, gaffe ridden politician and anti-Christian cult leader who ran AGAINST Reaganism and the tea party and lost, Reagan didn’t lose anything.
Reagan would have rolled over Obama and we would have the Senate, and America would be better educated on conservatism.
Reagan and Romney are the opposites. Reagan would have had it easier today, Romney has always been a loser.
This time Reagan would have the tea party and Sarah Palin, conservative media, the Congress, Governorships, state houses, talk radio, advantages that he didn’t have, and that Mitt largely rejected as they were the hated conservatives.
Jeez give it rest and sell your rinoisms elsewhere, to someone else
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Sounds like somebody is frustrated and can’t acknowledge that this is no longer a center right country. And you’re flat out wrong; I’m not selling rinoisms, only reluctantly recognizing the insidious inroads that liberalism has made and its effects on our national politics.
Just look at the major cultural, demographic and economic shifts since the prosperous Reagan era. What used to be the good ole US of A is gone, at least until there is an economic castrophe and the pendulum starts to swing the other way out of necessity and desperation.
Reagan was a great man, but being a conservative white man is now a liability and I don’t believe he could have won in this environment. Elvis was great too, but hip hop rules now.
No, it is someone tired of romneybots using every approach they can to rationalize how such a lefty ever became the nominee, and them fighting to keep duplicating it.
Romney is no Reagan, he wasn’t even an adequate candidate, and no, 2004 is not the last presidential victory for the GOP.
Romney only won a single election in his entire life with less than 50%, and he was run out of that office with 34% approval, he is the bottom rung of politicians, and you compare him to Reagan, jeesh.
“and you compare him to Reagan, jeesh.”
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You are continually ignoring my points and worse, misreading my posts. In no post to you did I ever compare Reagan to Romney. That was not the theme of anything I said. Bye.
I ignored nothing, you started out using Reagan and kept using Reagan throughout the thread.
You were trying to defend the anti-Reagan liberal Mitt’s loss, by claiming that even Reagan couldn’t have won.
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.
More like the voters were the ones that missed the message.
Romney promised to create jobs, jobs, jobs.
The left wings mooches took it as a threat.
Romney offered his assistance, it was turned down. He will now take his hundreds of millions and retire with a clear conscience. He doesn't need us, we needed him.
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