Posted on 11/07/2012 10:26:27 PM PST by Steelfish
Life After Defeat For Mitt Romney: Public Praise, Private Questions
By Philip Rucker November 7
BOSTON — Mitt Romney began his retreat from public life Wednesday at a private breakfast gathering with a couple hundred of his most loyal and affluent campaign benefactors. The former Massachusetts governor, humbled by the thumping that ended his six-year pursuit of the presidency, reminisced about the journey and tried not to cry.
Romney waxed about the roaring crowds in the campaign’s closing days and the feeling that he was winning, said donors in attendance. He commended Stuart Stevens, his chief strategist, as well as his senior aides, and then went around thanking donors one by one.
“Mitt was vintage Mitt,” said L.E. Simmons, an oil investor on Romney’s national finance committee. “He was analytical, no notes, spoke from the heart and was very appreciative.”
But Romney’s top aides, who only a couple of days ago were openly speculating about who would fill which jobs in a Romney administration, woke up Wednesday to face brutal recriminations.
Some top donors privately unloaded on Romney’s senior staff, describing it as a junior varsity operation that failed to adequately insulate and defend Romney through a summer of relentless attacks from the Obama campaign over his business career and personal wealth.
“Everybody feels like they were a bunch of well-meaning folks who were, to use a phrase that Governor Romney coined to describe his opponent, way in over their heads,” said one member of the campaign’s national finance committee, who requested anonymity to speak candidly.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
You make good points. Even Reagan lost a few times and gained valuable experience as a candidate. He carried heavy duty respect by the time he ran in 1980 .
Gays = Because HE'S ONE and Repeal of DADT too!
Females = Free contraceptives for their Lady Parts / 'War on Women' B.S., and the 'arousal' phenomenon
Babies = They can't vote so KILL THEM.
Blacks = (They'll vote for him NO MATTER WHAT HE SAYS OR DOES!!)
Asians = (No comment)
Hispanics = Overturn Federal Immigration Law (Amnesty)
Youth = "mmmm mmmm mmmmm" (0bama's union teachers hijacked our youth)
Whites ('Honey Boo-Boo' trailer trash variety) = Miscellaneous Entitlements (Brrrrp!)
The great American 'melting pot' has become a jumbled 'tray of sponges'
ATTENTION WHITE MALES: You are irrelevant and/or expendable.
We picked the guy, who couldn’t beat the guy, who didn’t beat the other guy the last time, because the woman is a Christian.
Even Mitt would tell you that depending on the time of day. And he has.
Too many “immigrants” are coming in from one culture. That’s far from diverse and most of them are not even “immigrants” because they illegally arrived and Obama signed his executive order and John Boehner did NOTHING.
Ok, thanks for the info. I stand to be corrected. So, Mitt really didn’t like President Reagan? The best president of my lifetime? Hmmm, I guess those liberal Northeast roots of his go very deep - right into the Democrat pocket.
Oh well, he ran his campaign, gave it his all, and the results are what they are. I believe he would have been a good president and probably have been able to head off the crash that is going to come. I wonder what the takers will do when the well runs dry? Mitt and his family are very gracious, classy people and I would have been proud to call him my president. That doesn’t mean I would have agreed with him on everything, but at least he loves America, something I can’t say about the current squatter in the WH.
Hispanics are not "persecuted" in the USA. To the contrary, they are protected as a "minority" group and benefit from affirmative action. And they are NOT "natural" conservatives.
0bama literally started campaigning for his re-election since the day he took office. Being president of the United States of America was just an afterthought. His focus on 0bamacare while jobs tanked was all about the 2012 election. He worked on providing health insurance BECAUSE of his tandem mission to willfully kill off the private sector in the United States, thus forcing more onto entitlements ensuring their vote. Sinister plot.
It won't survive as a management Party.
I forget that some people don’t know this stuff, Mitt reregistered republican in October of 1993.
Romney had to give up his hope of running for reelection as governor, and left that office with 34% approval, not normally the thing that makes a party want to make you president.
Mitt Romney, was the anti-Reagan. He also spent five years trying to convince people that Reagan had been “adamantly pro-choice” in an effort to explain away his own pro-abortion positions.
“I think Bill Weld comes as close as anyone,” Romney said when asked whom in his party he aligned with.
“I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush. I’m not trying to return to Reagan-Bush,”
“I’m not a partisan politician. My hope is that, after this election, it will be the moderates of both parties who will control the Senate, not the Jesse Helmses.”
Yes! A bit how Gingrich did it except for one thing. Gingrich appeared to be angry (a liberal may also claim he acted “mean”) but Reagan could do it and turn it into a humorous event that just happened.
Groucho Marx and William Buckley
Rove is greatly overrated.
We tried pointing out -- over and over again for 4+ years -- that picking somebody like Romney to run in this multi-cultural environment vs. Obama -- was ludicrous and would result in a loss.
Yeah, Obama "had" the minority vote...but Romney didn't need to even split it to win...
Instead, the GoP establishment picks somebody who at age 31, belonged to a church where if you were black, you couldn't get married in their temple...Or be a member of their priesthood -- somebody they gave/(& still give) to 12 yo white boys.
This lack of "cultural vision" inevitably played out on this turf -- if only even sub-consciously in many voters' minds...
That was entertaining. I love Groucho in Duck Soup, but don’t think I’ve ever seen him interviewed before.
Great clip, thanks for posting it. Groucho is so funny. I had no idea of his political views.
I actually worked on a senatorial campaign in 1980(a college semester credited project) and I can tell you Jimmy Carter couldn’t inspire a cat to walk out of a paper bag... pretty much any other of the top Republcans who ran for the nomination including George HW Bush in 1980 would have beaten Carter in 1980.. all it took was a decent showing in a debate and Carter was done.. Romney (of 2012) would have destroyed Carter too.... 53% of the electorate were not ready to toss out Obama yesterday no matter who would have run against him..
If McCain/Palin total vote-tally was greater than R/R's, could it have been due to the womens' vote? (...and turnout...)?
Whatever. Like I said, he won 49 states in 1984. I don’t GHWB could have done that. And maybe Romney would have beaten Carter. But that still doesn’t make Obama Reagan. Let’s see how his second term goes, and then we can start comparing him to Reagan. It’s not going to happen.
My own sense is that Romney's Mormonism had a negligible effect on the election.
Obama's voters vote for reasons of tribalism, government dependency and cultural brainwashing.
I would bet most Obama voters didn't even know that Romney was a Mormon, or even what a Mormon is.
Heck, I think they would be doing well if even 50% of Obama's voters could even correctly name his own running mate if asked. I bet most could not name the senators of their own state. And I bet most could not name their own congressman.
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