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 ...
I’m 55 and I hate to break to you but you are the one who is wrong.
In 1980 Magnus won the election with 55-56% of the White Vote.
Blacks voted as usual and latinos were a non issue as were orientals
Tuesday Romney got 59-61% (depends which exit poll) of the white vote and lost.
Hispanics voted 72-75%...for Obama
Blacks 93-95%...for Obama
The nation was 88% white in 1980
Now it’s 73%
There it is dear...it ain’t rocket science but no....Reagan would likely have lost too.
But we’ll never know will we.
Reagan would have had to pull 62-65% white vote...as good or better than 2010
and given northern and west coast liberal whites unlikely...
now where I come from 90% of whites vote GOP...God the irony of that lol..and they are rioting right now at my alma mater
and freepers fret about “wassism”
lord....the pitiful that be here
struck down with a captive bolt in the hands of the teeming non white masses on a mission of vengeance and still totally oblivious to what is happening
no wonder we lose and lose and lose..with nary a fight...just a whimper
hey I’m not talking about 1984 now... he was unbeatable then...totally different story.. but nobody in 1980 could have imagined what a great President RR would become.. some of us thought of him as highly as the koolaiders think of Obama but we never worshipped him and the country cetainly didn’t know he’d turn out to be the greatest President in the 20th century.. I first knew he was something special when he warned and then fired the PATCO air traffic controllers.. that’s when the country started to understand what a very special leader he was.. the left never thought he had the stones to do it... and they never forgave him for bouncing their boys....
That is the weakness of Romney, he lacked the ability to change anyone’s mind about anything during his years of running, Reagan formed the electorate to fit him, for when that election day came.
The good candidate decides what election day looks like, he inspires his own party deflates the other party, and converts voters to his agenda and his leadership.
“I hope we never hear from him again.”
He’ll be persistent as herpes.
More nonsense, millions of us were already seeing Reagan as a man of destiny, a world shaker, he had earned a reputation as a hard core right winger, and he had to convince the public that they could risk voting for him in exchange for a chance to neuter the Soviet Union, and save the world.
In 1980 there was an element of fear and tingling involved in voting for Reagan. We knew that things were going to be very, very, different, if we gave the presidency to the famous, fire breathing, already legendary, "Ronnie Raygun".
To this day, nobody even knows what Mitt's beliefs or politics are, or why he was so obsessed with wanting to be president.
Even on this politically sophisticated site, the pro-Romney points were, "He isn't Muslim", and "Anybody but Obama" mixed in with "no, he reversed all those positions in 2006".
“Actually, Romney has been a political animal all of his life”
Multi-generational too. Mother was for abortion and father admired Saul Alinsky. People forget that. Or pretend to.
Well what frickin’ seasoning did Barry have before he ran in 08????
Ding Ding Ding!!!! We have a winner!!!
Romney deserves to be trashed every bit. He had an opportunity to tell the world just who zero is and he decided to be the gracious loser which was exactly why he was chosen. No one else could have or would have done that. We all sat and watched an election stolen in broad daylight and no one did a thing. Navel gaze all you want but facts are a “difficult thing”. The GOP won’t do a damn thing about it either because if folks realized there ain’t any reason to mail them checks then the honey stops. Sad to say but people make mistakes and sometimes they make them in groups. Mistakes have consequences that, like gravity, can’t be turned off. Over the last couple decades we missed a couple opportunities to maybe blunt the impact or spread out the pain but we let “him who stalks the Earth” confuse and confound us and we just plain missed those opportunities. Sometimes being able to see what is really going on ain’t a blessing.
Barry read Rules For Radicals. If you want to win and that is all that is important play for a team that wins regularly. If you want to win what matters, well that is a different game.
Also base their pay on how well they deliver their precincts/districts,
Also base their pay on how well they deliver their precincts/districts,
Mitt Romney is a class act, a good man and a great candidate. He lost because as Rush said yesterday, it's hard to campaign against Santa Claus.
I wasn’t the biggest fan of Mitt for President. Voted for him, and will give him credit for the hard work he did put into the campaign. Let’s be honest, he was covering a lot of ground and had to battle the MSM who completely ignored: Fast & Furious, Benghazi, and the list goes on. I read or heard somewhere that some of the analysts were claiming Mitt was too scripted. When it comes to being scripted, Obama is king.
This election came down to a mass of people, I won’t even call them Americans, that were more concerned with either race or handouts. I fear it really is that simple. What does concern though is the exit polling and the number of military Obama received.
The even larger issue is that the RNC doesn’t embrace a conservative message, and is incapable of explaining what that really means.
So he spoke the truth, tangentially about the rule of law and how it was destroyed by this bankruptcy and he looses OH? No, the question should be why is OH and MI as dumb as a box of rocks. Beam me up Scotty we have an uninformed electorate...
Ha, That's complete B.S.! In fact most conservatives would have beaten Obama!
I find it ironic to be in the position of defending Mitt given my opposition to him. Mitt ran a competent campaign. It’s convenient to try to attach blame to him, but the reality is that he did his job. He also put himself wholly into it and made a genuine effort to win, which couldn’t be said about McCain.
American voters had a stark choice between a radical socialist and a moderate. Between a candidate that offered jobs and one that offered a welfare check. They picked the radical socialist and a welfare check. The culture has shifted and the voters aren’t buying what we’re selling.
Uh, illegal immigrants are by their very illegal nature somewhat persecuted and that what I was talking about. Not Latino citizens.
The hard line taken during the primaries with”self-deportation” or a rougher equivalent of otherwise hardworking, good people is the problem citizen-Latinos appear to have. Otherwise they are very family-values oriented.
The gay marriage aspect is totally out of the picture. It’s a lost cause so give it up. The majority of Americans support it and so it is no suprise that Latinos as a subset do too.
As an admitted fiscal Republican, I just don’t give a flip about what people do in the privacy of their own homes and if two people want to get married so be it.
We need to come to the realization that the full GOP platform simply does not appeal to enough Americans. Individuals within the tent are welcome to be more conservative than others, but if the party actually wants to get in power and stop the liberal tide, we may just have to accept that certain issues need to be abandoned for the time being. Purity of belief may be the way into heaven, but it is surefire loser in democratic politics.
Mitt should Get a JOB!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.