Posted on 11/22/2012 5:38:02 PM PST by Steelfish
November 22, 2012 The GOP Turnout Myth To win future elections, Republicans will need more than better get-out-the-vote software. By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
To win the next presidential race, the GOP will have to understand what went wrong in 2012. To do that, they've got to come to grips with what did, and did not, happen with turnout.
Even as Republicans have engaged in some agonizing over their candidate and agenda, many have sought comfort in the notion that a big part of the loss came down to simple mechanics. President Obama had a stunning Election Day operation, which turned out his base. Mitt Romney's shop, by contrast, failed to get people to the polls. That explanation is soothing because it suggests that, in the future, all the GOP needs is a slicker piece of get-out-the-vote software.
It's also broadly wrong.
The turnout myth comes from a statistic that has been endlessly repeated: Mitt Romney got fewer votes than John McCain in 2008. This isn't quite true (Mr. Romney this week eked past the McCain totals), and in any event it is somewhat irrelevant. The Romney vote count reflects a nationwide voter turnout that was down nearly five percentage points from 2008. What matters is how the GOP did in the battleground states.
And there? Mr. Romney beat Mr. McCain's numbers in every single battleground, save Ohio. In some cases, his improvement was significant. In Virginia, 65,000 more votes than in 2008. In Florida, 117,000 more votes. In Colorado, 52,000. In Wisconsin, 146,000. Moreover, in key states like Florida, North Carolina, Colorado and Virginia, Mr. Romney turned out even more voters than George W. Bush did in his successful re-election in 2004.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
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https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/lv?key=0AjYj9mXElO_QdHpla01oWE1jOFZRbnhJZkZpVFNKeVE&toomany=true
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2012-exit-poll
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2008-exit-poll
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32793-2004Nov7.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2004
Correcto. More so the Obama buzzsaw than anything else.
The GOP was close with Mitt Romney! The Dems won't get numbers like this again for a while.
Every year that passes brings a new cohort of voters that are more Democrat while those dying each year are predominantly non-Hispanic whites and their ranks are not being filled behind them.
2012 Election RINO File.
The greatest opportunity for the Republicans lies in suppression of the union vote. That’s going to happen, as public employee unions are going to find austerity measures at all levels of government are going to undermine their solidarity with other groups in the Democrat identity politics coalition. Federal workers are already moaning about their lack of COLA raises, etc. I don’t know the details on the Michigan vote , but the headline is that it was a big loss for the unions despite Obama’s win there. “Where are they going to go? To the Republicans?” Nope, just back to bed.
a lot of counting still to be done.
most states have yet to certify
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/lv?key=0AjYj9mXElO_QdHpla01oWE1jOFZRbnhJZkZpVFNKeVE&toomany=true
That’s because Romney highlighted the economy only and everything else from Benghazi to Fast and Furious to DNC delegates booing God and Obama’s embrace of gay marriage were all taken off the table. This gave Obama a free and open field.
The moderate in most states did no better. The problem was with the “brand” Even when they voted for Romney, they did not vote straight ticket.
The Rockefeller republicans have dominated the party since Eisenhower, except for Goldwater and Reagan. Even Reagan was unable to restrain the growth of government. It became obvious when they joined in the discrediting of Palin and in their resentment of the Tea Party Movement. They will never give up their control of the Presidential nomination. That is, unless we can find candidates who will take them on.
While I do not doubt that, I think suppression of a couple of other voting blocs would be in order:
The dead, the double voter, the nonexistent voter, the fraudulent voter...just for a beginning.
For Obama to carry any district 100% is statistically unlikely (someone would mark the wrong spot on the ballot out of that many people, even if they all intended to vote for Obama).
For him to carry several districts (all in battleground states) with 100% is beyond being suspect, it's obvious.
Ohhh, I’m with you on that. We need drones over these precincts on election day. Plus I’m sure the reason why Nate Silver has such Nostrodamus-level prophecy skills is that the Obama camp forwards him their quotas for each precinct and he knows the on-the-ground community organizers are going meet those goals by any means necessary. I wonder how many electrical hook-ups there are in some of those 108% turn out, 10,000 vote precincts.
If Republicans bend over and vote to deliver the
“holy grail” amnesty, that Hispanics have been demanding,
it will be a big mistake.
Hispanics will smile sweetly, say “Gracia’s”, and then go
vote 71%, in 2016, for another Democrat president.
And Rubio won’t fix that.
“Hispanics will smile sweetly, say “Gracia’s”, and then go
vote 71%, in 2016, for another Democrat president.”
What did George Dubya’s “outreach” to Hispanics (whatever that means) profit him at the ballot boxes?
Zilch!
And just what is an Hispanic? Is it any person having a surname of supposedly Spanish origin/derivation? Such people have cultural/ancestral roots in any one or more of a dozen of more countries? Do they somehow, miraculously, all share similar political philosophies and passions?
Or are Republicans to focus on mollifying the “unrestricted flow of invaders across our southern border” crowd? Cannot compete with the Dems on that point.
“Hispanics will smile sweetly, say “Gracia’s”, and then go
vote 71%, in 2016, for another Democrat president.”
What did George Dubya’s “outreach” to Hispanics (whatever that means) profit him at the ballot boxes?
Zilch!
And what is an Hispanic? Is it any person having a surname of Spanish origin/derivation? Such people have cultural/ancestral roots in any one or more of a dozen of more countries? Do they somehow, miraculously, all share similar political philosophies and passions?
Or are Republicans to focus on mollifying the “unrestricted flow of invaders across our southern border” crowd? Cannot compete with the Dems on that point.
I still say that Romney lost when crowley backed up obamas lie about benghazi in the 2nd debate. Had she not, Romney would have won that debate just like the 1st one, and his momentum would have been unstoppable.
I believe that was planned, how else did obama know that crowley would have the transcript that obama asked for?
You totally lost me. Could you restate that?
Who are the missing Republican voters? Evangelicals gave record support to Romney, so it had to be some other group that sat it out.
They’ll get there soon enough. Maybe even Oregon.
Republican strength was hardly off 5%, or even 1% ~ and as others pointed out here in some places it was up from 2008.
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