The important question is why did Romney get less votes than McCain. Romney would’ve won if he just got the same votes as McCain. Where did those votes go?
Some of McCain’s former voters are deceased, however there supposedly were 10-15 percent of Barack’s former fans who turned sour on him and that should have at least equaled the dead GOP voters (unlike Democrats, they don’t keep voting from the hereafter).
We eventually warmed up to Mitt here, but ennui continued to reign where it counted.
Nationally just doesn’t matter. It was in the KEY STATES that the turnout counted.
Republicans turned out BETTER on Ohio in 2012, than in 2008, by at least 85,000.
Dem turnout was down 15,000.
It’s not that Repubs didn’t show up in the key states, it’s that the Dems ground game was far better, despite the Romney Campaign’s historic ground game.
USING SOCIAL MEDIA, they were able to round up enough voters to win, in the key ohio counties, in the last few hours.
I can tell you for a FACT that the Romney Campaign thought they had this thing WON about 3PM, based on historic R turnouts, in Ohio.
It doesn't boil down to just numbers IMHO. The kind of numbers is what astonishes me. That there are so many , the majority it seems, who are willing to set a match to everything this country stands for, for some short-termed benefit.
You and others do make a good point though about the turnout. The warnings of many, me included, that the GOP Establishment would ruin this election by sending out another moderate-liberal to fight turned out to be true. And maybe the lower turnout is because some folks will never vote for a liberal or a Mormon or a liberal Mormon...