Posted on 05/08/2013 1:04:52 PM PDT by nickcarraway
“No single mistake cost Mitt Romney the presidency,” former Romney advisor Gabriel Schoenfeld writes in the opening page of a tell-all book centered on one mistake on a single day in the 2012 campaign: The Republican’s hasty and flawed reaction to the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya.
But Schoenfeld argues nonetheless that Romney’s inability to respond cogently to the Benghazi attack was a key component of his defeat. “A man celebrated for his management prowess delegated an immense mount of decision-making power to individuals who failed to carry out successfully that and other basic functions,” writes Schoenfeld, who held the title of senior adviser on the campaign. The author substantiates his critique with a biting assault on Romney’s campaign team, especially campaign guru Stuart Stevens and especially policy director Lanhee Chen.
“Chen was no Henry Kissinger.” Schoenfeld writes, noting that the policy director preferred to be referred to with the honorific of “doctor.” “Indeed, he had once self-deprecatingly boasted in a meeting that he could not find Finland on a map,” Schoenfeld adds. Stevens, he continues, was controlling about cosmetic issues like how to distribute the campaign’s major policy book—bound or on digital USB sticks—but wasn’t concerned by its contents.
Despite his campaign title, Schoenfeld worked mostly outside the candidate’s inner circle. Reporters who covered the Romney campaign publicly wondered who the author was after news broke of his 74-page eBook, A Bad Day On The Romney Campaign: An Insider’s Account.
(Excerpt) Read more at swampland.time.com ...
Benghazi means nothing to the LIVs.
That is to say that at least Mitt was better than McCain who 8 days before the election in 2008 told everyone that they had nothing to fear from an Obama presidency.
Where to we get such messed up candidates?
Reagan failed to beat Jerry Ford, who lost to Carter.
If Mitt couldn’t handle Obama and Crowley in a debate, he couldn’t handle being President.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That’s a little unfair. The debate was supposed to be fair and impartial. But when the moderator and the Kenyan schemed together along with a paper transcript at the ready....
It was rigged from the beginning.
Romney was too much of a hawk on Libya and wrote a pointless WSJ editorial about not wanting to rescue Detroit. These two items lost him the Midwest. Then Chris Christie piled on with his Obama love-in. In retrospect, if Romney had chosen Christie as his VP, he would probably have won. Christie had the kind of blue collar persona that won over New Jersey, and might have carried over to the Midwest. It’s pointless to ruminate over shoulda, coulda, though. It’s over and Obamacare is law.
Been fighting insider RINO assholes like these two forever. No fixed ideas or faith, just endless bullshiite about how to go to the mythical "center" to try and win an election with the likes of Soccer Moms and Hispanics. Little Karl Rove empire builders, just as wrong and twice as stupid.
Any FReeper worthy of his salt could and did give The Mormon Milquetoast better advice than his staff. That trick underwear Mitt wears must cut off circulation to his brain. Instead of kicking the The Mombasa MoFo's lying ass, he decided to kiss it. Just brilliant. And the supposed 'Tough-Guy Ryan?' How anyone could actually lose a debate to a drooling fool like Joey Plugs, who obviously does not know the difference between Shiite and Shinola is beyond me.
That stupid Romney SOB and his staff of RINO gay-lovers might as well have taken a gun and mugged us for the wasted BILLION dollars he went through with his nonsensical non-campaign. O wait, he's for more gun control, too. If we could, we should make him pay it back.
I sincerely pray that this Romney Geek is the last gd RINO the GOP runs for President in my (admittedly short) lifetime. Ah well, nothing serious. Civil war is just 15 years closer. No biggie.
Sorry to be Mormon-Bashing, but what we needed here was the kind of Mormon MF who ran the Mountain Meadows Massacre, not this Ken Doll phoney-baloney "me-Too" RINO.
You can always count on good old Alan Simpson to proclaim that having Marxist media people as debate moderators is a good idea and only a problem for silly right wingers. Ever notice that no one from FOX News or ANY Conservative never is a moderator — EVER. Now, just why is that? Because the leftist would have an absolute melt down and everyone - everyone - knows it.
I don’t believe that.
At the time of the 2nd debate, the Benghazi incident was basically off the radar. News junkies knew about it, but the ‘low information’ voters had only cursory knowledge via network TV news.
Romney could have, and probably should have, made it more of an issue in the 3rd debate — the foreign policy debate. But he didn’t. By then, he was coasting because he had won the first debate and survived the second debate.
The success of the Benghazi may have been a factor but the real reason he lost was because he was “a Commie atheist” (according to some whackjobs here at FR and elsewhere).
I agree that he had campaign team issues and poor campaign spending management. But despite that, it was a close race -- close enough for cheating to make the different.
If Romney had been more forceful on Benghazi... if the MSM didn't cover for Obama's lies on Benghazi... if they didn't conspire to kick the Benghazi can down the road until AFTER the election, it might not have been so close.
Romney didn't just lose the election. He also lost the convention bounce because of Benghazi, as well as the first debate bounce, too. The MSM savaged Romney over his statements on Benghazi. We now know that the MSM should have been aiming their fire at Obama's lies about Benghazi.
But like I said elsewhere... the cover-up worked. It kept Romney out of the White House. Even if Obama goes down, it's not Romney who takes over, it's Biden.
-PJ
Good points.
And perhaps when Soul of the South said.... “If Mitt couldn’t handle Obama and Crowley in a debate, he couldn’t handle being President.”
(s)he meant that because Mitt didn’t stand up and make an issue of this obvious colusion, then he indeed was too wimpy to be the president. Who knows? I myself APPLAUDED Mitt’s 47 percent comments. He should have stood by them. Campainged on them. He should have been more vocal, more direct and attacked the issues harder.
I remember when Bush I was being ripped apart by Dan Blather years ago during the campaign; what did he do? He reminded Danny of when Rather walked off a live newscast one time.
Anyhoo - not sure if being tough would have worked for Mittens. He may still have lost. But this one this is certain:
We never should have settled for Romney/Ryan.
Romney ran a really bad campaign and said a lot of stupid things. Chris Christie and Hurricane Sandy helped Obama as well as a totally corrupt and evil mainstream media. His connection to the Mormon Church hurt him as did his perception of being one of those rich guys.
He STILL would have made a better President than the bastard in office now.
I don’t believe that.
I guess you don't believe Tagg Romney either...
Notice how the voting public has long forgotten Harry Reid's partisan witchhunt demanding "papers please" from Mitt over back taxes.
Releasing the paperwork neither resulting in scandal nor criminal prosecution but it didn't silence the naysayers either. And Reid is still a piece of fecal matter.
His numbers went up after the first debate when he took it to Obama. Then his handlers got scared and he tried to play the :nice”. non-confrontational, me-too candidate. Like you inferred, people then could not tell the difference.
You mean people like Gabriel Schoenfeld
I wonder if he has signed on to the Christie campaign yet. It amazes me that these political hacks go from campaign to campaign, fighting like junk yard dogs against other pubbies, then rolling over and playing dead when a dem comes along.
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