“The Case of the Missing White Voters (7 Millions White Voters Stayed Home)”
I’m wondering just how many of these were white Christians and white Evangelicals who just could not vote for Romney because of his Mormonism — even though they might be reluctant to state as much openly...
This was a serious problem and something many were unwilling to talk about during the campaign. Yes, it did receive a little lip service, but I sense that there were undercurrents here not visible on the surface that affected the final outcome.
Where do those numbers come from? Texas doesn’t have a place for race on their voter registration applications.
Condemnation from others about someones vote is un-American. Freedom of thought is an American value. Dumping on conservatives who didn't vote for Romney, calling them horrific names, is a despicable thing to do.
When a conservative is the Republican candidate, the base of the party will come back. However, I don't think the GOPe will ever get behind a conservative to make sure he is the candidate (as they did Romney). I don't think the GOPe will ever let a conservative be the candidate.
Remember, the mantra of the GOPe was, “Romney is electable.” Don't vote for the others in the primary, because “Romney is electable.” I heard that over and over and knew it wasn't true - and it wasn't.
As for me, I don't vote for liberals, period.
Where things drop off are in the rural portions of Ohio, especially in the southeast. These represent areas still hard-hit by the recession. Unemployment is high there, and the area has seen almost no growth in recent years.
My sense is these voters were unhappy with Obama. But his negative ad campaign relentlessly emphasizing Romney’s wealth and tenure at Bain Capital may have turned them off to the Republican nominee as well. The Romney campaign exacerbated this through the challenger’s failure to articulate a clear, positive agenda to address these voters’ fears, and self-inflicted wounds like the “47 percent” gaffe. Given a choice between two unpalatable options, these voters simply stayed home.
I'm in total agreement with this article. This is an astute analysis. The numbers add up and it makes perfect sense with reality. The article shows that in at least Ohio, the lower turnout came from white, blue-collar areas. The Bain ads worked, just as they did in Romney's 1994 Senate race and in the South Carolina primary when Newt Gingrich released the "King of Bain" video.
The primary voters were warned by Newt's campaign that Romney was unelectable, but the Republican establishment continued insisting he was the most electable candidate. The GOP elite is so out-of-touch with working class people that they could not understand how unappealing and unlikable those ads made Romney look. Either that or they didn't care.
If you remember, Newt was savaged by the elites for daring to criticize Romney's business career. I think he backed off after that or just ran out of money in Florida.
The elites and the voters alike failed to accept the fact that these were exactly the kind of ads the Democrats would run and that if they hurt Romney in a Republican primary, they sure would in a general election.
This election was lost in the primary because the voters nominated an unelectable candidate. He was unelectable not because of ideology, but because of unique vulnerabilities to him based on his private business dealings. The conservative base probably did turn out just to vote Obama out. But the swing voters we needed were poisoned by the Bain ads.
If we had nominated Newt, he would be president-elect right now. He had even floated Hispanic governor Susana Martinez as a potential V.P. pick for him. Because of Newt's political astuteness, he would probably have selected either Rubio or Martinez as his V.P., giving him another boost in the final vote.
I say the missing GOP was there, but their votes were siphoned off to bama
Be prepared to hear all about lots of “voters staying home”...the Bipartisan Oligarchy would rather we all stew in that mess..than having us all bothered, and deciding to investigate, about all the voters voting who never voted...
Listening to descriptions of how “Democrats got out their ground game” with “superior ability to bring those to the polls who normally would never go” by the commentators on Fox election night..made me realize..what they actually have done is track names that HAVE NOT VOTED IN MANY, MANY elections cycles....and vote them.
A well-funded project, county-by-county..to examine the names signed in at at the polls..and going out to find those individuals..you’ll find they were never physically at he polls..or they themselves never filled out the absentee ballot....or their names in the death registers.
Many who live near the cities were afraid that blacks would riot if their messiah lost.