In 2016, GOP Needs a Candidate Voters Believe In

Townhall.com ^ | November 18, 2012 | Byron York

[JCBreckenridge]

Answer the question strategerist. Will Romney cover McCain + 4 percent, or not?

You’re just so super skilled with maths.

[GenXteacher]

The GOP will need a candidate whose supporters can advocate for them in a sincere way- and that means someone who isn’t a milder version of the incumbent. I voted for the POS Romney but understood it as an act of hypocrisy on my part, being a conservative and voting for a left-winger like Myth. I certainly wouldn’t have told people “I am voting for Romney because I think he’d make a good president” because that wouldn’t be the truth. That’s the sort of support that Romney could not get. All he got was a grudging vote from a good many people on the right- and obviously, that isn’t going to be good enough.

[Aria]

Of those running who would you have preferred?

[JCBreckenridge]

Good thing we have you to run in and save your hero. “Oh no - after all the votes are counted, Romney might actually finish ahead of McCain’s numbers from 4 years ago.”

Maybe he can run ads - “Hey, people I didn’t suck as bad as you all thought. I’m still eligible for 2016!”

[trebb]

As FR recently demonstrated, it ain't gonna happen no matter who the candidate is. We're all human and most cannot separate themselves from their key concerns/hot buttons. Even Jesus Himself would be trashed by a number of us...

It is a result of being intelligent enough to think and analyze vs. the Left's penchant for moving as a consolidated herd. We would be arguing whether the best apostle was Peter, Paul, Mark, Luke, John, etc., and lose sight that failure to come to some sort of agreement will result in Judas holding the scepter of power.

[Heart of Georgia]

“Can you say Marco.....”

I’ve noticed they’re (conservatives) already starting to head that idea off at the pass.

[Strategerist]

You do understand the difference between talking points and numbers, don’t you?

There’s reality, and there’s what you want to believe. What you want to believe doesn’t match reality.

There are quite a few states that actually are done or almost done counting.

Go here for state-by-state totals for 2008:

http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2008/federalelections2008.pdf

And for 2012, some results:

Georgia:

http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/GA/42277/112424/en/summary.html

Kentucky:

http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/KY/43107/112742/en/summary.html

South Carolina:

http://www.enr-scvotes.org/SC/42513/112871/en/summary.html

So no calculations, no spreadsheet - actual numbers you can look at yourself.

You’ll notice Romney has more votes than McCain in all three states posted (and these are only 3 of the 32 states where that is true ALREADY, even with all the votes not being counted.)

How is it possible that Romney got more votes than McCain in Georgia, Kentucky, and South Carolina, yet millions of white base voters “stayed home?”

[Strategerist]

OK - here’s a question;

Do you think Reagan won in 1980 because he got a bunch of “true conservatives” that didn’t vote in 1976 because Ford was a moderate RINO, to turn out?

Or because he got a bunch of people who voted for Carter in 1976, including millions of Democrats, to switch to him?

[deport]

For What it's worth and subject to change pending final 2012 tallies.

                      Popular         EV  
Romney/Ryan        59,637,581 47.7%  206 EV  38.3%

McCain/Palin       59,934,814 45.7%  173 EV  32.2%

Net McCain/Palin     +297,233 -2.0%  -33 EV  -6.1% 

Whomever becomes the nominee in 2016 needs to be someone that can bring enough voters together to defeat the democratic candidate. We surely don't need a 16 year run of democratic control plus however many years into the future the Supreme Court impact of their nominees will be.

[gusopol3]

That has never been the thrust of my argument. I have said that the way Obama governed drove people away, I have focused on his losses more than Romney’s. But if you really want to talk about “people that stayed home” on the Republican side, where are the 62 m that voted for Bush 8 years ago? Or the additional 12 m who turned out for him in ‘04 compared to ‘00? Romney really should have made a gain on that order over McCain’s ‘08 total.

[rawcatslyentist]

Edwin Edwards is out of prison and available. Like Mutt, he’ll run on any ticket that’ll have him.

[JCBreckenridge]

I believe that Reagan clearly articulated what people were looking for - conservative principles.

I like to explain this - it’s really not that hard to figure out.

Suppose you have a girl that’s been raised in a family, where the father divorced the mother. She has never known a home where a real marriage occurred. Now that same woman goes out in the world what is she going to look for?

See - Reagan figured this out. People want to be happy, they want to be successful. But they don’t know how to get what they really want. You have to show them! You have to walk them through why conservative principles work, and why you are better off with them.

Reagan understood. Did Romney? No.

I was sitting on my couch earlier this election, and a good friend of mine was asking if I had heard about his 47 percent comment. She asked me what I thought about it all.

Here’s what I told her.

“I disagree with Romney”.

I myself have been written off by people who knew better, who said I would never be successful, that I had nothing to hope for - but we had a principal. And do you know what our principal used to say - “we are kids from this school, from this neighbourhood, if you give us half a chance, we’ll go far”.

My goal was to be the kid who won the award in the school for the scholarship, to be the best kid in my grade for that year. Everyone flat out laughed at me. Everyone. It was one of the proudest days of my life when they did award me it (and it wasn’t particularly close).

But it took years of hard work and effort to get there - years to position myself where I could be in a position to win. And then I still had to close the deal.

But I did it.

How many of the 47 percent believe the same?

[stanne]

Only if someone tells me anything they like about Marco. Just to start, he is scrambling to get Latinos over the border. Two, he adores the UN in favor of US rights.

NO.

[Colonel_Flagg]

The problem is that conservatives define a “good candidate” differently from liberals.

Conservatives expect a good candidate to have bona fides and a commitment to core values. In short, an actual conservative. Liberals expect a candidate to say the right things to make them feel good.

Hence, Baraq Obama. Hence, Mitt Romney’s failure to out-Obama Obama. The Republican Party will never be able to out-liberal a liberal.

[Chewbarkah]

Plouffe is correct that almost all voters are seeking a fantasy to believe in. That is why campaign managers market their candidate as an empty suit, who “cares about people like you.” Democrats have an edge, because their voters tend to be driven by emotion rather than rational thought. They start with the 50% of people with IQ below 100, supplement that with “interested” government employees, benefit collectors and cronies, add fearful “victims” looking for solace, and top it off with higher-IQ but emotionally-driven collectivist ideologues. The Democrats own a coalition of the easily-marketed: the believe-in-Santa voters.

Republican voters are looking for a harder-headed fantasy: a return to what the U.S. “used to be” (i.e., Mayberry in the 1950’s), with real patriotism, rugged individualism and self-reliance, a world where merit and hard work are rewarded, public officials act with decency, competence, prudence, and integrity, the Constitution and rule of law matter, the U.S. always does the right thing on the world stage, all overlaid with a mix of Judeo-Christian “traditional values.”

The Democrats enjoy a fantasy gap, because they market belief in the future (nebulous and perfect), whereas Republicans market belief in the past (concrete and imperfect). The Republicans have a dilemma: few candidates will ever measure up to their fantasy, because it tends to be specific. The fantasy that works for conservatives is not so appealing to moderates and independents, or groups like women, Latinos, blacks, and gays who did not fare so well in the Past.

[who knows what evil?]

Unbelievable...but I can’t say I’m terribly surprised. Thanks for the link...wasn’t familiar with FOM.

[Pardeeville Liberator]

The Republican Party has to tighten up it’s primary process. In the last 2 elections the Democrats played a big role in selecting our candidate. They seem to get who they want to run against.

[chrisnj]

Above all, they need to kill voter fraud before it infests the elections!

[TomGuy]

Voters want to believe in a candidate. If Republicans find that candidate, they will win.

From the 1st GOP candidate to announce until the final primary that put Romney on the ticket, none of the contenders met that qualification.

Several retreads. Some sort of flakey. Some with memory problems, both personal and policywise.

Regrettably, the 'next in line' for 2016 will probably be that Jeb guy. Just what the nation DOESN'T need.

[FreedomPoster]

>> Overall, Romney won fewer votes than John McCain’s doomed 2008 campaign.

Not mentioning Sarah Palin when making a statement like this, as many recent commentators have done, is borderline criminal. Almost no one was enthused about McCain as a candidate. He very much represented more of same.