10 Reasons Why Romney Lost And Obama Won -- A Two Part Series [Part One]

Conservative HQ ^ | 11/19/12 | Richard A. Viguerie

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

In the aftermath of establishment Republican Mitt Romney’s defeat in the 2012 presidential election, Governor Romney said he lost because he couldn’t overcome the effect of Obama’s “gifts” to key demographics; student loan modifications for young voters and amnesty for young and predominantly Hispanic illegal aliens.

We think Romney missed the mark with that analysis because conservative ideas have successfully countered the Democrats’ attempts to bribe voters in the past. However, the comment is a good place for conservatives to start analyzing the failures of the Romney campaign – and learning from the successes of the Obama campaign.

Here are our top 10 reasons Romney lost and Obama won – starting with five top reasons Romney lost.

Romney lost because he failed to nationalize the election and present a starkly contrasting conservative world view to Obama’s radical liberalism. During the campaign we criticized Governor Romney for playing “small ball” and not nationalizing the election. By nationalizing the election we mean presenting a stark contrast between conservative and liberal world views – the freedom, personal responsibility and traditional values of conservatives versus the state control, government dependency and radical secular humanism of liberals.

We can’t repeat this point often enough; Republicans never, ever win national elections unless they nationalize the election and include the conservative agenda – especially the conservative social agenda – in their campaign. Doing so isn’t a guarantee of success, but failing to do so is a guarantee of defeat.

Unfortunately, that advice fell on deaf ears and you couldn’t find conservative ideology anywhere in the Romney campaign, the establishment GOP’s national advertising or even from Karl Rove’s much vaunted Super PACs. Romney managed to eventually say all the right things to conservatives during the primaries, but he didn’t “run” or “campaign” on them in the general election.

Romney lost because he ran as a technocrat, not as a conservative. Making the welfare state more efficient is not exactly a compelling conservative vision of the future, or even a credible one given the recent Washington Republican record on spending, earmarks and pork. When Tea Party candidates stood for a constitutionally limited government in opposition to liberal candidates whose policies led to economic stagnation and suffocating government regulation being imposed upon this country by President Obama and his Democratic allies in Congress – overwhelmingly the voters chose the Tea Party candidates.

The Romney campaign and their allies in the establishment Republican Party rejected that proven model for political success, and instead ran a content-free campaign selling Mitt Romney the technocrat.

Romney lost because he and his establishment Republican allies distanced themselves from and alienated the Tea Party. In 2010, a fourth leg was added to the three legs of the Reagan coalition – the small government constitutional conservatives of the Tea Party Movement. As a result of adding this fourth leg to their existing coalition of economic, national defense and social conservatives, the GOP was swept back into control of the House of Representatives, brought within striking distance of a Senate majority, and a re-energized Republican Party elected thousands of down-ballot candidates.

Unfortunately, unlike the wise Party leaders who built the Reagan coalition -- men such as Nevada Senator Paul Laxalt, Lyn Nofziger, Dick Allen, Ed Meese, Marty Anderson, and Judge William Clark -- instead of solidifying the four legs of the new coalition, in 2012 Mitt Romney distanced himself from the Tea Party and did his best to alienate and marginalize the adherents of the new conservative voting bloc of the Tea Party Movement.

Romney lost because he wasn’t in the fight on many issues and failed to establish his own narrative on Obama’s radical secular liberal agenda. You are always going to lose a fight you’re not in. Obama and the Democrats threw down the gauntlet on the social issues -- such as same-sex marriage and abortion – and created a phony "war on women" revolving around rape, contraceptives and abortion. Romney never established his own narrative on these issues, or even fought back, and consequently an attack unanswered is an attack believed.

Romney and his establishment Republican allies ran away from such issues as same-sex marriage, religious freedom and Obama’s war on the Catholic Church. You couldn’t find any mention of the Constitution or the conservative social agenda in a Romney ad or in a Rove-run Super PAC ad or an ad run by the national GOP.

The “stand for nothing” strategy didn’t work for President Ford’s 1976 campaign, it didn’t work for President George H.W. Bush’s re-election and it certainly didn’t work for Bob Dole and John McCain. Governor Romney won the nomination by spending tens of millions of dollars knee-capping his conservative opponents in the primaries and then handed the election to Obama because he and his campaign team spent most of the campaign mired in the establishment Republican folly of trying to win by standing for nothing.

Romney lost because he failed to understand and effectively use the new and alternative media to get-out-the-vote and deliver a conservative message to voters who only get their information through online media. Romney’s ORCA get-out-the-vote technology was spectacularly bad and may have cost him the election in Ohio, Florida and Virginia, but that wasn’t Romney’s only online failure.

Romney’s team was stuck in the 20th century TV “air war” campaign mindset. They failed to grasp that the most dramatic change in the media environment, ever, has been the rise of digital media and social networking sites. The Romney team failed to craft conservative messages that would appeal to voters who use these sites – especially young voters.

This failure by itself may account for much of Romney’s deficit with young voters; among adults younger than age 30, according to a Pew study, as many saw news on a social networking site (33%) as saw any television news (34%), and just 13% read a newspaper in print or digital form.

Conservatives long ago recognized the power of the new and alternative media. Ron Paul and the various elements of the Tea Party Movement have built vast networks of voters connected by online communications and social media. However, at every phase of the campaign, Mitt Romney's digital operation was behind the tech savvy Obama team. By alienating Paul supporters and the Tea Party Movement, Romney missed the opportunity to tap into their established networks and connect digitally with those millions of conservative voters.

Tomorrow we will explore the reasons why Obama won and what conservatives can learn from the success of the Obama campaign.

[Christie at the beach]

Thank you so much for the prayers. I will tell him.
I have to get him there by 7:15 ..I will serve his dinner on a tray if necessary. Just won't be able to go see family until he's well. I think it's 50 in temp right now and windy, damp air/have to find him a long sleeved shirt.

[Smokin' Joe]

...and the Dems were able to build false votes where they needed them.

I think the Dems calculated where they could stuff enough ballot boxes to carry the POTUS election, and then did so. (Philly, Ohio, for instance).

I also think they may have done the same thing to keep control of the Senate, because without that, DUH-1 would be vulnerable to getting impeached over Benghazi, or fast and furious, among other things.

[kearnyirish2]

“I knew he would lose when he ignored Sarah Palin and the TEA Party, but I kept praying. He needed her to speak at his sorry convention. She was the VP nominee in ‘08 for crying out loud.”

I like Sarah Palin, but the media had marginalized her into a caricature; she wouldn’t have brought more votes than he would have lost because of her. Mitt Romney didn’t lose this election for ten reasons; he lost it for one: The media campaigned for Obama for four straight years, and suppressed Romney’s message. He was sabotaged in the same manner as Palin, and with the same effect. I’m no fan of Romney, but voted for him because he was clearly better than the alternative.

[onyx]

Good, please tell him. I’m praying his doctor can help him and that it’s only a slight or 24 hour flu. Weather and the time change cause me grief and sickness! It’s also important to wash hands very often. I keep sanitary hand wipes with me at all times and in the car.

[Christie at the beach]

Great advise and all very true comments. We just have to win more seats in the mid terms then onto 2016 with a conservative candidate that will be conservative every day in all political climates.

[Mozilla]

http://www.barackofraudo.com/

http://obamavoterfraud.blogspot.com/

http://noisyroom.net/blog/2012/11/13/patriots-declare-we-shall-not-let-vote-fraud-stand/

[onyx]

The media only marginalized her in the minds of the libtards and pro-abortion women.

She gained in stature with TEA Party conservative which Romney sorely needed and did not get.

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

The ‘Unskewed Polls’ guy who fooled a nation tries again [Grifter Not Quite Done Grifting Yet]

Placing your faith in a proven (and staggeringly inept) con artist? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

[kearnyirish2]

The media effectively marginalized her with enough voters to cost McCain/Palin the election. She is simply much more effective in grass-roots campaigning for other candidates in “real America” than on a national stage.

I don’t fault her; the media in this country has shown that it is in fact NOT dead, and has flexed its muscle in a terrifying way for the second time in four years. Americans are ignorant enough to respond to it, and the Dems, working with the media, will ensure that they remain that way. Without a grass-roots ground game, the Repubs are finished on the national stage; even as the economy continues to deteriorate over the next four years, the media has just shown that they have the power to get another Dem into office in 2016 nonetheless.

[StAnDeliver]

"The author seems to have omitted one of the key reasons for Romney’s loss - cheating on the part of the Democrats by ballot stuffing and multiple voting by voters, as well as getting out the vote by illegal aliens who sought a Democrat victory, with all of the government handouts and goodies - not to mention welfare scamsters and union goons, who sought a Democrat victory for precisely the same reasons, i.e., graft and payoffs."

One presumes Vigurie will throw that at the wall tomorrow with 4 other spitballs and see what sticks...

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

cheating

Meanwhile, back in RealVille: the functional maladroits of Team Mittens -- both online shills and campaign (*cough*cough*)"professionals" -- spent the entire first half of the campaign (when virtually every legitimate polling outfit showed them trailing Obama... badly) incessantly chittering and shrilling: "Don't Believe The Polls! DON'T BELIEVE THE EVIL, EVIL POLLLLLLLLLLLLLLSSSSSSS --!!!"

When the unceasing cascade of No Good, Very Bad Polling Data continued unabated regardless, said maladroits -- rather than dealing forthrightly with the increasingly dire reality of their candidate's situation -- actively CHOSE to relocate, en masse, to a happy, magical la-la land of talking bunny make-believe. (E.g. "unskewedpolls.com"; "Lunch Alerts!" featuring bucktoothed wish-casting from notorious grifter Dick Morris; Karl Rove's magical, mystical white board; etc., etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseum.)

... and now, today: rather than sacking up, like actual adults, and finally admitting that their cherished baseline assumptions ("Sacrifice the Conservative Base for 'Moderates'"; "You Really CAN Beat a Socialist with Socialist Lite!"; etc.) might have been, just maybe, wrong a teeny tiny little bit... they simply throw their hands up in the online air, and huff exasperatedly: "Well, then, nobody could have won, gosh darn it! They must have CHEATED -- !!!"

Pitiful.

Never, ever again will you (or I) live to witness such a perfect storm of mulish, blinkered GOP-e electoral incompetence and insanity as we've been treated to, these past twelve months or so.

God willing.

[HarleyD]

Romney lost because half of America (and others in this country) would prefer a socialist government to free enterprise. And conservatives should wake up to the fact that half of the Republicans feel the same way or are willing to move the country in that direction.

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

The primary (and fatal) logical fallacy underlying this whole raving, frothing TheySTOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLEIt!!! folles du FReep on the part of the nuttier, less intellectually anchored posters hereabouts, of course, is that it's predicated upon a demonstrable imbecility: namely, that Mittens was the perfect candidate -- running the perfect campaign -- and (therefore) no other possibility exists that might readily or conceivably explain his wholly inevitable electoral thumping.

In the eyes of his shriller, more spittle-fueled adherents and apologists hereabouts, you see, Mittens is much like a cow wandering placidly through the streets of downtown Cairo: immune to any/all criticism and/or impediment by divine principle, if not an object of abject veneration outright.

The cow is holy. The cow is perfect. If the cow, for whatever reason(s) -- by whatever unguessable confluence of events, in the course of its dull, plodding amblings -- doesn't end up wherever the hell it was it wanted to go to in the first place: that's absolutely and unalterably your fault, buddy -- NOT the cow's.

The CINOs and squishes neither can nor will admit -- now or EVER -- that their rote, repeatedly failed p!ss-on-the-base-and-grovel-for-disaffected-liberals campaign strategy is what's genuinely at fault, for the second presidential election in a row.

The cow is holy.

The cow is perfect.

... and thus, predictably: the cow is now last week's hamburger. ;)

[gotribe]

The people who won this for obama don’t surf the internet and don’t watch mainstream TV. Romney simply had no ground troops in black and hispanic areas nor does the GOP. None of these folks are in their database.

[Catsrus]

I tend to agree with you. Mitt wouldn’t do any conservative radio programs, and when he went on tv -he went on liberal programs. People criticized Obama for doing Pimp with A Limp and MTV, but he went where the youth were. Romney did look out of touch and a throwback to the 50s and 60s and well - old fashioned.

Yes, I still voted for him, but everyone noticed the Sarah Palin snub. Mitt would have done well to bring her on board and get rid of Karl Rove. He chose poorly, and maybe, just maybe because of some of these things - he might have chosen poorly on issues as president as well. Not that obama chooses well, but he out-foxed Mitt in so many ways.

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

None of these folks are in their database.

After campaigning for the nomination for six straight YEARS? And having spent nearly a cool BILLION on the campaign, itself -- ?!?

Wow. What a totally awesome business manager.

[Vendome]

Spot on¡¡¡ though point #1 is the salient issue.

Romney is a Tard and did everything to make the election about him, not the issues.

Sure, he’ll have his hackneyed explanations but, bottom in is he was not a standard bearer of conservative principles.

Moreover, he was for all intents and purposes barely Barrack light and there was no reason for his candidacy.

The diference between him and Barrack being so little the electorate, numerically, chose the same guy.

The outcome god be the same either way.

One who drives recklessly faster and more dangerously to the other who would only take a little easier to the same destination.

[Catsrus]

And I’m going to add - that many wouldn’t vote for a Mormon regardless of the fact that Obama is probably a closet muslim, who claims to have Christian values. I was very late getting on board for Romney because to be honest - I couldn’t stand the site of him during the primaries. And, yes, at times I found him creepy and stiff. Did he have a problem with moving his neck or something?

Anyway, like most - I got on board and voted for him because he was the nominee and I thought the better alternative to the libs.

And, I agree that he didn’t really stand for our conservative issues. I think only one time and that was during the first debate - he actually sounded like a conservative.

Oh well, we’re stuck with obummer for 4 more glorious years. (Sigh).

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

Moreover, he was for all intents and purposes barely Barrack light and there was no reason for his candidacy.

The diference between him and Barrack being so little the electorate, numerically, chose the same guy.

I always had to fight back the urge to guffaw out loud, back during the campaign, when Team Mittens' paid shills hereabouts would metronomically gibber and gurgle: "... look, are you really going to criticize a guy who votes with you 85% of the time...?!?"

News Flash, kiddies: if (based on his well-documented record as Governor) Mitt Romney actually does "vote with you 85% of the time"... you're a doctrinaire Kucinich Democrat.

OWN that. ;)

[Houghton M.]

He may be right about the new role of the social media, replacing both the old MSM and the “new” alternative media (Fox News plus the various websites and blogs). Both of these may be losing out to the new social media among the young.

But, if that indeed is true, then it only shows that we have moved fully into the bread and circuses demagogic world. I question whether the conservative message can win if enough of the populace is dumbed down enough.

Of course, perhaps the social media are only tools and not shapers of (non)knowledge. One may hope. They are too new to know for sure.

But I fear that they actually are changing the way people (don’t) think, and not for the better.

Furthermore, most of the analysis I’ve seen so far emphasized how Obama used the social media to grease his GOTV machine.

I think Viguerie needs to consider whether the real source of Rommney’s loss wasn’t the early voting system combined with a data-mining and sophisticatedly connected use of the social media, a combination of old-fashioned political hustle that could be more effective because of early voting with the new means of interconnecting the various pieces of the hustling operation.

It’s probably a combination of all of these. Alienating the Tea Party hurt him. Failing to deliver a strong conservative message as an alternative hurt him. Yes. But so too did a sophisticated GOTV operation spread out over more than a month—that’s just as new a factor as the social media are.

Put them all together and you’ve got bread and circuses, mobocracy, hell on earth.

Just how is the conservative message, even if GOPe learn to use the new social media, going to get through when the whole political landscape has become bread and circuses and race-baiting and when more than half the people are dumber than a bag of rocks.

I’ve been teaching college undergrads for 30 years. There’s been an appalling decline in ability to think for themselves combined with an appallingly exaggerated sense of their own preciousness.

They are next to unteachable now.