Posted on 11/07/2012 5:32:07 AM PST by SJackson
In this election the Republican Party ran two wholly inoffensive blue state Republicans on a platform of jobs at a time when the economy was everyone’s chief concern and the incumbent had absolutely failed to fix the economy. And they lost.
The Monday — or Wednesday — morning quarterbacks will have a fine time debating what Mitt Romney should have done differently. The red Republicans will say that he should have been more aggressive and should have hit Obama on Benghazi. The blue Republicans will blame a lack of outreach to Latinos. Some will blame Sandy, others will blame Christie and many will point to voter fraud. And they will all have a point, but the makings of this defeat did not happen in the last two weeks; they happened in the last two years.
Mitt Romney won the primaries because he was electable. But, as it turned out, he really wasn’t electable after all. Not when the chief criteria of electability is having no opinion, no point of view and no reason to run for office except to win. Not when the chief criteria of being a Republican presidential nominee is being able to convince people that you’re hardly a Republican at all.
Romney was a star political athlete who had an excellent training regimen and coaching staff. But to win elections, you have to change people’s minds. It’s not enough to try hard or to fight hard; you have to fight for something besides the chance to round the bases. You have to wake people up to a cause.
The Republican comeback did not begin with innocuous candidates; it began with angry protesters in costumes and Gadsden flags marching outside ObamaCare town halls. The 2010 midterm election triumphs were not the work of a timorous establishment, but of a vigorous grassroots opposition. And once the Tea Party movement started the fire, the Republican establishment acted like the Tea Party had sabotaged their comeback and cut the ties with their own grassroots movement. Separated, the Republican grassroots and the Republican Party both withered on the vine.
The stunning 2010 midterm election victories happened because a conservative opposition loudly and vociferously convinced a majority of Americans that ObamaCare would be harmful to them. And then that fantastic engine of change was packed away and replaced with political consultants who were all focused on seizing the center and offending as few people as possible. But you don’t win political battles by being inoffensive. And you don’t win elections by avoiding conflict.
Is it any wonder that the 2012 election played out the way it did?
The Democrats in the Bush years were about as unlikable a party as could ever be conceived of. They were hostile, hateful and obstructionist. They spewed conspiracy theories at the drop of a hat and behaved in a way that would have convinced any reasonable person not to entrust them with a lawnmower, let alone political power. And not only were they rewarded for that by winning Congress, but they also went on to win the White House.
Why? Because dissatisfied people gravitate to an opposition. They don’t gravitate to a loyal opposition. They aren’t inspired by mild-mannered rhetoric, but by those who appear to channel their anger.
When the Republican Party sold out the Tea Party, it sold out its soul, and the only driving energy that it had. And there was nothing to replace it with. The Republican Party stopped being the opposition and became a position that it was willing to reposition to get closer to the center. Mitt Romney embodied that willingness to say anything to win and it is exactly that willingness to say anything to win that the public distrusts.
The elevation of Mitt Romney was the triumph of inoffensiveness. Romney ran an aggressive campaign, but it was a mechanical exercise, a smooth assault by trained professionals paid to spin talking points in dangerous directions. But, what if the voters really wanted a certain amount of offensiveness?
What if they wanted someone who mirrored their anger at being out of work, at having to look at stacks of unpaid bills and at not knowing where their next paycheck was coming from? What if they wanted someone whose anger and distrust of the government echoed their own?
Romney very successfully made the case that he would be a more credible steward of the economy. It was enough to turn out a sizable portion of the electorate, but not enough of it. He tried to be Reagan confronting Carter, but what was remarkable about Reagan, is that he had moments of anger and passion; electric flashes of feeling that stirred his audience and made them believe that he understood their frustrations. That was the source of Reagan’s moral authority and it was entirely lacking in Romney. And without that anger, there is no compelling reason to vote for an opposition party.
The establishment had its chance with Mitt Romney. The former Massachusetts governor was everything that they could possibly want. Moderate, bipartisan and fairly liberal. With his business background, he could make a perfect case for being able to turn the economy around. They had their perfect candidate and their perfect storm and they blew it.
The Republican Party is not going to win elections by being inoffensive. It is not going to win elections by going so far to the center that it no longer stands for anything. It is not going to win elections by throwing away all the reasons that people might have to vote for it. It is not going to win elections by constantly trying to accommodate what it thinks independent voters want, instead of cultivating and growing its base, and using them as the nucleus for an opposition that will change the minds of those independent voters.
The Republican Party has tried playing Mr. Nice Guy. It may be time to get back to being an opposition movement. And the way to do that is by relearning the lessons of the Tea Party movement. The Democratic Party began winning when it embraced the left, instead of running away from it. If the Republican Party wants to win, then it has to embrace the right and learn to get angry again.
Yes, Gingrich could HAVE pounded obama night and day on Benghazi, but with the liberal controlled media nobody would have known about it.
I think PBS last night pointed out that when you break down the “gender gap” by other factors we see married white women voted for Romney by 55% or more.
The gender gap was caused by a large number of black women who voted in the upper 90th percentile for Obama and single women, especially younger ones such as college-aged.
So you are exactly right.
There really was no gender gap. The Democrats are a coalition party, so they want to break everything down into categories like this even when it is meaningless.
Since then, the Tea Party brand has been poisonous, and the Republican Establishment did the correct thing in running away from it. Look at the Tea Party losses last night! Americans are no longer socially conservative. Americans are walking away from organized religion. Americans like liberty in the abstract, but not when it gets in the way of free stuff. Liberty is too risky for a people who have accepted the role of government taking care of them -- and the yoke that comes with it!
Brutal fact: The moochers and looters now outnumber the producers, and they have the numbers to vote themselves what they perceive as being their fair share of other people's wealth. The moral and ethical basis of America is gone and has been replaced with something foreign.
To get people to accept radical change, they have to believe that their backs are against the wall. Reagan did that in 1980 when we were besieged at home by stagflation and abroad by the Soviets and Iranians. Giuliani did it in New York in 1993, but New York had to reach rock bottom, crash through that bottom, and find a whole new bottom before New Yorkers were willing to give up a century of liberalism. Thanks to government lies (economic statistics), backed with the Mainstream Media promulgating those lies, people didn't believe that radical change of that kind was necessary, especially when the current government promised more and more free stuff.
Only when the current corrupt system collapses, when the dollar is no longer accepted in international trade, when our military is sent packing from its hundreds of outposts in the world, when the nation no longer possesses the wealth from which to distribute free stuff, only then will events reach the point where people will look at radical change and be ready to accept it.
Tea Party candidates ran against Romney somewhere?
Which states and candidates do you refer to?
I had a female liberal acquaintance—in her mid-20s, constantly complaining about being broke, rooming with a friend, both of them barely scraping by on crap jobs—tell me on Twitter last night that it was more important that she have “reproductive rights” than a job. Seriously.
Romney lost the 18-29 vote by FIVE POINT ONE MILLION. The younger generation, most of it anyway, completely bought into the lies of Romney, the most liberal Republican nominee in decades, being a super-evil right-wing Mormon fanatic fascist that wanted to keep women barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, wanted to ban contraception, wanted to legalize rape (!), wanted to keep the poor and women and “brown people” from getting ANY health care, wanted to kill homosexuals. THEY BELIEVE THIS STUFF.
It was a very depressing experience last night for me to realize that these people barely a generation behind me aren’t even the same species. It’s like they live in a different dimension. They’re the kind of people that, as the Obama Americorps firing squad had them lined up against the wall to shoot, would be blaming Bush for making it possible by repealing the assault weapons ban.
}:-)4
And people hated the MSM’s definition of Palin. Again, you are correct. This election has nothing to do with your “”like””. It's all about how credibly you can position your offer.
Hispanics - Amnesty!
Blacks - Blacks and free stuff!
Women - Abortion!
...
Besides black, Palin is the only one who can break the main base of Obama, especially if she was allowed to be given a high profile against Obama.
Let Obama hammered a Palin. All conservative women including the conservative democrats of PA will rally behind a battered woman!
As for other free stuff? Have you heard about Palin’s strategy of using the Government share from Oil finds in AK as the direct voucher to the AK people in accordance with their state laws, instead of using the same as funds to other inutil programs of the State?
As for Uterus Palin who didn't abort her son? THIS IS THE BIGGEST FAILURE OF ROMNEY AND THE GANG. Many of your approach here on GOPE’s primary-favorite Akin and Mourdoch’s gaffes are wrong.
Almost all of you, the so-called Pro-life Conservatives, don't even know how to defend your stance. Romney, Ryan and the 2 clowns senator wannabes also failed to explain their Pro-life positions. But the worst is the R&R ticket. Their strategy was to condemn GOPE’s own clowns instead of supporting them. The Dems already have the 40-45% of the women. But you still need to get the votes of the next 20% women not really voting Republicans because of their vajayjay. By not defending Akin and Murdouch, Romney accepted the fate of his team. But what did Romney lose? The socially-conservative democrats of PA and many parts of the swing states. Why? Because Romney just followed the MSM meme about Akin and Mourdouch without fighting back. Pro-lifers are still part of his base, which is the point of the above article. He must have a moral ascendancy of defending most loyal constituents. But to GOP/E wisemen, the strategy is to lie to the people instead of helping the expansion/promotion of the base. What did Romney do? He categorically promised that he would not sign any Anti-Abortion Law? Lame! Who would want that kind of law anyway? But wait! How do you get some votes from the seemingly solid women for Obama. Re-frame Rachel Maddow's attack by making the following points as viral as possible! (and there are many more examples!)
a) UNFPA Funds of Obama Administration funding the 9-month old babies being burned to death in China.
b) Women must have rights to sue abortionists for physical, mental, and psychological harm done to them.
If you can't defend the moral side of pro-abortion for risk of being labelled as Christian loon, at least defend the health aspects of the abortion and rape. In pro-life stance, you don't have to preach. You must show true mercy and care. Even women who went 100 times for abortion would have reconsider the above ideas. Instead of turning the tide in his favor, Romney and the GOP/E followed the MSM narratives on abortion. And how you treated your base? You maligned Palin, a representation of many ordinary conservative republicans, your base. THUS, YOU SEVERELY LOST THE WOMENS VOTE.
In addition, one (1) senate seat could have been saved by GOP/E. Replace Akin by runner-up, a woman candidate. But since Steelman was a Palin pick, that was ruled out.
We won 2010 by not sitting but by fighting. Gosh! You all forgot the passion of winning without fighting with your the easily electable candidate called flip-flopping Romney. Wow! By seeing how good-looking and methodological Romney was, you all forgot your winning lesson in 2010 Election. FIGHTING LIBERALISM IS THE ONLY WAY TO WIN. NOT PANDERING TO THEM AND HAVING A NICEY CHATS WITH THE MSM! GOP even won Wisconsin governorshi in 2010 and Walker even survived recall but funny, VP Ryan was so insignificant in WI. Of course, many of you and all the pundits have discredited Palin for Walker's win in 2010. You've all become revisionists of history, just like the liberals.
Ironically, Palin has an arsenal to become appealing to people if they only knew the truth about Palin.
Free Stuff you say? Let's admit it. Some of us need them too. We have become bought the Rich Republican meme of Bushites. Some of us could be really deserving of some assistance from the Government. But we need money right. SO USE YOUR IMAGINATION WHERE TO GET THE MONEY BESIDES INCOME TAX. Well SARAH PALIN has some controversial ideas that GOP/E especially the AK crony GOP disliked so much: Generate government share in oil and gas exploration and use the same to the people. Hey, guys. Socialism? NOPE. The money is yours. Not from the rich. From the share of the state. And it works well for the actual and original definition of the Republicanism, i.e., Government works for the people not the other way around.
Related to the above, saying that developing oil and gas resources inside America will yield job is not politically savvy anymore. Think something new. Fire old-time strategists of DC and make a concrete dialogue to the people on how to solve economic and social issues. And don't start with your convention platform document whatsoever.
Hispanics you say? We have so many Hispanic women leaders because of TP/Grizzly Mamas/Palin collaboration in 2010. The ones you are worshipping now are fruits of Palin’s labor. She paid that in the last couple of year when some of GOPE remained silent while MSM was accusing Palin as a murderer!
Hispanics are social conservatives. Hardworking Palin, with sufficient machinery to re-introduce herself to Hispanics would win even NM.
What about Obama’s immigration amnesty? You have to make tradeoffs and decide. But definitely, the usual anti-populist NO-TO-AMNESTY/PROTECT-THE-BOARDER as the non-alternative to Obamás offer will yield the same results as Romney's SILENCE TO THE ISSUE! There is the reason for your loss.
GOP ACTUALLY NEEDS A POPULIST CONSERVATIVE ... NOT A LIBERTARIAN CONSERVATIVE (admit it, the libertarians are locked up to their small party!)
Stop the unhealthy discrimination during the convention. That's not the essence of convening.
“things wouldn’t really change at all over the next four years. And they won’t.”...Wrong grasshoppa! You forget a little thing called Supreme Court appointments.
We need to stop trying to get along. WE need to get in THEIR faces.
And we need to attack with the full arsenal of conservative principles.
That includes SOCIAL ISSUES.
The left has been welding the social/cultural issues to political and economic issues since the 1960s, through regulation, legislation, and funding.
If we give up the social issues or try to appeal to the left on the social/cultural issues, we unwittingly give up the entire argument.'
======================================================
YES!!!!!
Full blown beast mode unapologetic fighting pit bull scorched earth conservatism!
And also Hispanic are more likely to vote for a black candidate. The democrats for now on will be putting a minority on the presidential ticket. They know now that it works.
We ave to in some form or fashion organize so we can demonize the msm.
How we can accomplish that, I have no idea.
This is twice that the GOP leadership made wrong decisions and went nowhere. It’s time for the Rove-Bush-McClean clique to get kicked out of the GOP.
Even though I respect religious beliefs, based on the blogs I’ve seen and the grass root liberal postings on the internet, I see a few things that turned me off, and more than likely turned off enough others to change the election results:
1. Too much emphasis on religious beliefs - from the right
2. Too much focus on overturning Roe v Wade
3. No real counter-attack for the war on women. They fear that some of their feminine rights would be taken away, and there were no effective counter-arguments
4. Lilly-Ledbetter - no active counter-argument to the negative lies
5. So many lies about so many issues were propogated by the left, and were left unresponded.
6. Bain Capital. All we heard about were the people who got fired and that jobs were shipped overseas. There were never any contradictory arguments to these statements.
I’ve voted in every presidential election since 1968, and I learned this time, that although the internet is a good communication medium, it was also a terrible communication medium for this election. Facebook, Twitter... so many of the ads put out by the Republicans were never read by the opposition. There were not enough numbers presented in chart format.
If the Republicans are to have any chance of not fading into the dustbin of history, due to demographics and also the Democratic co-opting them as the party of big-business (Obama care is, at it's core, CORPORATE socialism, a huge power grab for the huge insurance and bio-pharm companies), they are going to have to attack the bankster’s death grip on the American system.
It is NOT conservative to allow a build-up of the prison-industrial complex, it is NOT conservative to allow the wholeale destruction of constitutional civil rights via such horrid laws as the NDAA and the Patriot Act. It is NOT conservative to buy into the boom-bust economic cycle, it is NOT conservative to allow the Federal Reserve to dictate fiscal policy and dollar destruction.
It is NOT conservative to think that house prices are only headed in the right direction if they are increasing at double-digit annual rates. When this occurs, the average person CANNOT ever hope to own property, as they will have to become life-long debt slaves simply to pay off the mortgage, something that people as recently as the 1970’s and before would have NEVER done.
It is NOT conservative to spend at least $1.2 trillion per year on the military industrial complex, the vast majority which is used to fight empiric wars of force projection that benefit only the huge banks and multi-nationals.
Finally, it is not conservative to simply attack the huge percentage of people of people who are simply the product of almost 5 decades of corporate/public alliances (championed, at the end of the day by BOTH parties through false paradigmical dialectics) that have degraded the critical infrastructures such as education, health care, transportation, communications, etc.
Simpling funneling up a greater and great percentage of wealth to a smaller and smaller group of people, whilst erecting a police/surveillance state (based on false paradigms of fear) to guarantee that the looters’ agenda is maintained is NOT conservative.
Attack the systemic controlling banks, decentralize corporate power, tear down the for-profit apparatus of the bio-pharma/health care complex (allowing the US government to negotiate volume-based discounts with big-pharma is a huge start and is also FREE MARKET, something that I assume conservatives still should believe in) The US health care system is in shambles after decades of corporate, for profit control. It is, for the average american, not even remotely close to adequate. The top 20 systems in the entire world are all single-payer, and all spend a fraction of what the US does on a per person basis. France (number one in the world) spends HALF per capita the US does. Japan number 3) spends ONE THIRD. To maintain the current oligarchic, public/private, (the worst of BOTH sides dominates now) corporate-run system is NOT fiscally conservative, it is madness. In short, conservatives need to start acting like the champions of small business, stop participating in the sham that is the fear-and-loathing complex that is bankrupting the nation through the false paradigms of empiric force projection couple with the security/surveillance state (an alliance that breeds DEPENDANCE on the government at a base, primal psychological level for coddling, smothering protection, thus guaranteeing dependence on an ever larger state as well). And, most importantly take back the power of the pourse from the privately-controlled Federal Reserve by nationalizing it. The Fed is the bi-partisan supported banskter boot-heel on the throats of 99% of the populace. They have, since 1913, devalued the US dollar by over 98%, in terms of contant purchasing power. You will never instill conservative values of individual reponsibilty and increased self-reliance in anyone who is a debt peonage slave.
I'm not sure what's going to be left of this Republic after four more years of Barry Barsinister, but if there's anything worth salvaging, we're going to need people of passion and conviction to come to its defense and rescue. Milquetoasts and moderates need not apply.
"chance" had nothing to do with it. A mildly aggressive ham sandwich had an excellent opportunity against Obamugabe and this economy.
My religious beliefs lead the way for me from McCain on, meaning I did not vote for Romney. Who are you going to nominate that is less religiously offensive, more supporting of abortion, less offensive to feminists etc etc than Romney?
I think we have achieved political escape velocity. You and I will probably never ever vote for the same guy in the future.
I am tired of hearing even from those within the GOP... “we have to move to the center, we can't be so radical in our positions on gay marriage, abortion and other equality issues... “... I don't mean that we can't have honest discussion... I understand the gay marriage issue (yeah, I know, not popular here) but I do support the notion of civil union, but marriage is something between a man and woman. Why does the right have to move more to the center? When the left is asked, they cry racism, misogynist, homophobic... etc. Its sickening.
To see nearly an entire black community vote for Obama, I can only believe that many of those votes were completely based upon skin color and NOT the competency of the man, but that racism is OK for this country. I firmly believe that Mitt lost many votes because of his faith... but no one will talk about that discrimination....ITs sickening.
Sadly, 12 million less voters in this election... is anyone asking why? I will not accept that WE ran a bad campaign... we ran a good campaign... we appealed to 57 million... but the far left had their willing conspirator in the media, and hollyweird working overtime, lying, manipulating, and doing it towards a group of people that are easily fooled, tricked and lead.
How far away is this nation from a civil war and or other radical violence. I am afraid for this country, and its future. We, for the first time in our 236 year history are handing over this country to my kids generation (20 year olds) and to my grand children, a nation that is in far worse shape then when it was handed to us.
I am confident though that this nation will return to the faith-filled, conservative values that it once had... but sadly, there is much pain to endure until that happens and a greater fall from God's grace.
Please.. Voter fraud got 0bama elected. Romney ran a brilliant campaign in the context of today’s demographics but when votes for Romney are either discarded or not counted, how can you win? 55% of females voting for their sexual fantasy with Barack didn’t help either. America is lost. Does ANYONE think this country will be recognizable in four years? It’s BARELY recognizable from four years ago!!
He can have degrees up the butt, the man is dumb as sh*t and has psychological problems. Nothing that obamacare won't cure./s Anyone who thought a commie is better for America than a known conservative Patriot deserves what he is in store for. He was thinking about himself, not AMERICA! Seems a lot are now going to reap what they sowed. He's just someone who is in 'learn the hard way column' with the rest of the aholes.
"One thing that seems quite evident that not many if any are considering; the right maintained control of the House of Representatives where every seat was up for the consideration of voters.
IF like the electoral college applies to the States it as well applied to Congressional districts (as it does in Nebraska for example) THEN Obama would have lost. Unlike Senators & The President, Representatives are not elected based upon a statewide popular vote.
In summary, the collective regionally concentrated mobs elected Obama. It was the mob in key areas in key states that was mobilized.
The Right focused upon message which was often filtered by the leftist media.
The Left focused upon the logistics of getting voters to the polls in key areas."
The Tea Party could have gotten it right and could have made a huge impact if they had stuck to the NO BAILOUTS and fiscal conservative message ... and that’s it.
They could have been a contender. Maybe they still can if they get their heads out.
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