Posted on 02/01/2012 8:23:50 AM PST by Vigilanteman
I think Newt has been hurt by his immigration stances more than we realize. About the time the Romney Super-Pac was running the negative ads in Iowa, there was also the debate where Newt was leading the polls, and where he again laid out his amnesty plan for illegal aliens who’d been in the country for 25 years, put down roots, go to church, etc.
Because Newt was in the lead then, viewers really paid attention to that, but the voter reaction to that got lost in all the negative ads and the shifting polls during Iowa. But I think it hurt him then and in every state since.
Downthread, Will88 commented that Newt acting as his own hatchetman was not an effective strategy, or perhaps not an ideal strategy. I agree, but a little more pointedly;
Frankly, I don’t think Newt made nor makes effective arguments FOR himself. And he does not make effective arguments AGAINST Mitt. There was and is a fundamental omission in his “connection” strategy. He can rail about “conservative principles” all he wants but relative to Romney that is a losing tack with his divorces, the Nancy couch, Freddie Mac, and his former advocacy of univ health care. I think he needs to connect at a more visceral level. People cannot buy food nor pay their rent with principles. And while I am obviously not advocating abandoning principles, going straight for principles skips over the stomach-shelter connection, fatally, in this case.
For example, there is this idea that Mitt, with his business experience, is the one who will bring back jobs. Mitt has successfully welded together the concept of Mitt = business = jobs. I believe the case could have been made that Mitt’s business experience which was and is nothing to sneer at, but to *accurately* and in *I can reveal truth to you* mode portray as one of wringing out inefficiencies in EXISTING businesses...not STARTING new businesses. Huge difference. Sucking the fat out of an existing business (and I am not being insulting, I am just trying to encapsulate, if overbriefly) more typically results in the offshoring of jobs. It’s definitely not the same thing as starting a business from scratch. In Mitt Romney’s world, Mitt being a successful business is far, far more likely to COST you your job than CREATE your next job. This thought connection was never made effectively. It was made CLUMSILY, and turned into an attack on capitalism. The point MIGHT have been made that the offshoring tycoon wants to fool you into thinking that he is the originator of businesses that might furnish you with your next job, but that is demonstratably not so. That illusion might well have been deflated WITHOUT having the effort turn into a clumsy attack on capitalsim, which is exactly what Newt did. See, some things he says concisely, some he says klutzily. This clumsiness turned off some numbers of GOP voters, there can be no doubt. Newt should have CONGRATULATED Mitt on his business success, but he NEVER MADE the connection that Mitt’s success is your unemployment.
Another example: Newt’s marital goofballism is out there, there’s nothing to reveal in terms of landmines. Newt never made the case that the number of divorces and/or affairs he has had will not affect you and your job prospects one iota.
He should have joked that his affairs put plenty of money into the economy in terms of the lawyers he had to hire.
At the same time, Newt’s track record of reduced deficits IS something that can be positively linked to legislative leadership and a positive-going economy. Newt says Mitt will “manage the decline”. Yeah, OK, huh? Newt is being too cerebral for his audience, who can appreciate him for cerebralism BUT NOT UNTIL he connects it with their guts.
Newt is IMO making the most fundamental error in modern selling, which is to obscure or ignore the notion that people never, ever walk out of the store with the thing they think they are buying. The corny old example is the best one: People do not buy electric drills. They buy holes. When a man walks into a hardware store and buys an electric drill he is not buying the drill...he is buying THE HOLES he believes the drill will produce for him, and the freedom to place those holes, of different sizes, where he wants them, in various materials. So if you are trying to sell a man a drill, talking about the esthetic features goes nowhere, most of the time. You sell drills by paving over and smoothing, in the buyer’s mind, the gaps between his freedom to place holes and the instrument of his enhanced ability to do so. The buyer WANTS those gaps filled. If you, as seller, fail to do so, there’s nobody to blame but yourself.
How do you figure? The numbers I've seen show the total Republican primary vote was about 1.67 million. In 2008 it was 1.94 million.
Newt was way off his game in Florida, but I think you have missed the main reason for it. I believe he went to Florida completely unaware of, and therefore completely unprepared for, exactly how deep the establishment GOP was willing to wallow in the mud to detroy him PERSONALLY.
They went far beyond endorsing romney, the candidate, and all the way into trying to mortally wound Gingrich, the MAN, in such a massively dishonest and perverse onslaught that it shocked even him.
It was like watching the fourteenth round of Mancini vs Kim except Newt’s coma didn’t kill him...and G-d willing, he now knows what he is actually fighting.
Here’s another reason why Newt lost. Newt has a lot of supporters and fans but he doesn’t have that many friends. He has great ideas but when attacks focused on his character, he had few friends to vouch for him.
I'm comparing only candidates which brought voters to the polls with the expectation that their vote might actually make a difference in 2012 vs. 2008.
The raw turnout comparison is counting all candidates, even those who polled less than a quarter million actual votes.
“When Newt first began to respond to the Mitt Super-Pac negative ads, I commented that if Newt decided to become his own hatchet man that it would hurt him with the voters. Mitt’s Super-Pac might have started the negative ads in a big way, but when Newt began to retaliate personally during the debates, that hurt him.”
It also contradicted his entire approach to previous debates which was to recognize that the media wanted to divert attention from Obama by getting candidates to attack each other.
At this point, I'm personally hopeful that the continued slugfest between Newt and Mitt will drive both their negatives so high that the GOP will settle on the unifying candidate which polling shows can beat Obama handily in key swing states: Rick Santorum.
I know the man well. He was my district's congressman for 4 years and U.S. Senator for 12. He is far from perfect, but he is honorable and decent.
There is a lot of crap they can throw at him, but far less than what has already been unloaded on Newt and Mitt.
Still, any of the three would make a far better POTUS than what we have now, despite the hyperbole you read.
So basically you’re saying that the 2012 turnout exceeds the 2008 turnout if you exclude the 300,000 more people who voted in 2008.
I see little to be gained by attacking Mitt’s business experience. If Newt created his own company then he could talk.
But when you have Romney, who knows how the private sector actually works, even if it is flawed, versus Newt who has his own ideas of how the private sector ‘ought’ to work, based on what he read from a book, the debate is over before it even started.
The debate should’ve focused on Romney’s role in government because that’s what proves he’s a liberal.
V-man, you make a good case that your guy has a path to the nomination.
If you seriously believe he could defeat Obama in November (with the electorate of 2012, not 1950), please make the case.
I just don’t see it at all.
Yeah, your prediction was spectacularly wrong. Not even in the ballpark. Virtually every poll showed Mitt winning by a large margin. No matter how politically savvy you may be, ignoring overwhelming polling evidence like that is a true rookie mistake. You basically missed by 17 points (you predicted Newt up by 3 and instead the chameleon won by 14) which is sorta of like analyzing a race and missing a coming landslide. Still, your analysis is interesting and it seems like you had a good handle on SC.
What's with the 7 reasons thing. You listed 7 reasons Newt would win, 7 for why he wouldn't. Do your predictions usually have 7 bullet points?
Its called taking responsibility for a spectacularly wrong prediction after I bragged about making a spectacularly right one.
Do you think you will ever see Dick Morris do the same thing?
Theres only one reason... Most Republican women vote for Romney because of the Newt wife thing.. The men voted for Newt or Rick... or even Ron..
Its that simple.. everyone knows Willard is Eddie Haskell(Beavers friend)..
Nope. Dick Morris is useless. His "predictions" have virtually no value. The only thing you get from Morris is essentially a political hack thinking out loud and trying to kiss up to a new political block (lately the Tea Party). Lost in all the excitement of our 2010 wins, was Morris' staggering wrong predictions of gains upwards of 100 seats and the likely capture of the Senate. 2010 was a significant electoral
I wasn't criticizing you, just stating the facts. You missed by 17 points which is big time fail if you are wanting to make a habit of making political predictions. The overwhelming polling evidence indicated a significant win for the chameleon and you shouldn't have ignored that no matter how much you may have wanted to. Primary polling isn't very good, but taken collectively it was obvious RINO Mitt was going to win big.
As to the 7 bullets, I was just wondering if you offered 7 reasons as part of your standard predictions/commentary. No sleight intended.
I think it’s really very simple.
The premise of the loose coalition called the “tea party” is that the status quo cannot continue, that bankruptcy or hyperinflation (or both) loom, and that cutting spending is necessary for our national survival. Which is all true.
The problem is that there is a majority of voters, split up among Democrats and GOP-e, who either don’t believe it, or don’t want to.
2/3 of the Florida economy is spending by greedy geezers stealing from young families. Romney is selling the fantasy that the issues are not structural but rather caused by Obama’s incompetence.
The People are not ready for cutting. Oh, yes, they are OK with cutting “fraud”, and “waste” , and some want the immigration laws enforced, with resultant cuts in spending on Mexicans.
But fixing our problems will involve much, much more than that. Palin knows. Gingrich knows. Ron Paul, in his squirrelly way, knows too.
What Florida reveals is that no one who understands is electable. Not until things are much worse.
And this insures the one worst possible outcome, the reelection of Obama, who after all is very, very competent for his purpose, which is our destruction.
Well said.
Sorry, forgot to finish my comment about Morris.
I meant to say 2010 was a very significant electoral wave, but not the tsunami Morris was predicting. Dick was so busy trying to attach himself like a barnacle to the tea party that he become too biased (and probably didn’t want to be a wet blanket) and didn’t see the fact that our wave had little effect on the coasts. We won big in the heartland (especially the rust belt), but the left still dominates the coasts for the most part.
ping
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