Isn't it too late to say that Mitt got it wrong? should have posted this article 2 months ago. 
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.
The bullying from the extreme left on Facebook prevented rational discourse. And then the actual censoring of rational comments didn’t help either.
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We ran two (2) rich white men
(Ryan inherited a good bit)
Axelrod ran against rich white men
What states would Rubio have helped in with :
Hispanics across the board
Catholic (Hispanics)
More young voters (Hispanics)
Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Wisconsin (Ryan*s state), SW states, etc
Ryan lectures on economy and loses listeners
Rubio starts off ahead with Hispanics
Ryan is smart - but there are loads of smart people out there that don*t radiate warmth
Romney stated down by some percentage that would never vote for a Mormon
They he picked his 6th son to be his VP - how balanced in a diverse political fight
.
No, the Tea Party was “cowed down” by Romney. He wanted no part of the Tea Party or Palin. The GOPe doesn't want the Tea Party, either. The GOPe cannot control the Tea Party, so they want them shut down.
A few of the Tea Party top members got on the Romney ship and they have drowned along with him.
Ok Republican leadership (you know who you are) you tried the RINO route 6 times now, Bush I, Dole, Bush II, McCain, Romney. You are 2 for 6 with this strategy with a squeaker in 2000 that you almost lost. In 2004 it comes down to Ohio another very close contest. Not a very impressive record if you ask me. What happended in 1994 and 2010 mid term elections. Why for the life of me you cannot capture what it was that made those work and translate that into a presidential year contest I cannot figure out. What’s the lesson here? You cannot be nice in politics, nice guys finish last..take it anyway you want. Politics is a dirty nasty business and the only way you get to implement your agenda is to win...there are no consolaiton prizes for the loser. The other side is practicing a scortched earth strategy on you and you act like you are going to some country club function that you can be gentlemenly like something out of a Victorian Novel. You keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect the same results. What did Einstein say about insanity?
So either you play the game to win and prepare yourself for a no holds barred bare knuckle brawl or forget it and fold up the tent and go home. Politics used to be played that way... As Sean Connery’s character Malone says to Elliott Ness in one of my favorite movies the Untouchables... “You wanna know how to get Capone? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. *That’s* the *Chicago* way! And that’s how you get Capone. Now do you want to do that? Are you ready to do that? I’m offering you a deal. Do you want this deal?”
Exactamundo!
“I say we sign up for the same freebies - en masse - and collapse the system. obama won’t know what to do, and neither will any of the liberals. If we’ve got to live on nothing, then I say let’s make it FAIR and EVEN, because if the government goes bust, EVERYONE will be out in the cold.”
Now that’s clever. Proves conservatives can use “Cloward-Pliven” against the very same people who advocate it!
Isn't it too late to say that Mitt got it wrong? should have posted this article 2 months ago.
Add Bush 41 to that list of limp wrists——he couldn’t keep his word either.
The 47% plus the 3% of rich guilty libs. We’re doomed.
You're absolutely right too. In today's political and social economic climate, Reagan couldn't have won either. The voting demographics have changed so much since Reagan that in order for a Republican to win again, he is going to have to embrace much of the leftist philosophies that we vehemently oppose.
That's just the way it is.......
Was Allen West one of your "inoffensive loser"s? Or just a loser?
Your last four posts are rather.. trollish in nature.
need to field candidates that ‘look like America’, e.g. black,
asian, latino.
and forget about the social conservative agenda which won’t fly nationally. if gay marriage and legal pot won’t get the the conservatives out to vote, then there must not be enough
social conservatives out there to matter.
Or they will have to try to make their difference outside of the political arena.
The Tea Party continues to support awful candidates like Mourdock. Yeah, you can get a candidate who will tell conservatives anything they want to hear, but then stinks as a candidate.
I agree. They had a choice between two big government liberals, and chose the devil they knew.
And the article is good.
Is it any wonder that the 2012 election played out the way it did?
How can you argue with that? One election was dominated by the GOP rank and file, while the other was dominated by GOP royalty.
Time to start that third party. I know, I know...but, the GOP elists guarantee defeat. Change has to start sometime. Why not now?
The Tea Party movement failed. It failed to produce winning senate candidates in 2010 and again in 2012 costing the GOP a Senate majority.
Now, not only is there no congressional majority to repeal ObamaCare, Obama is still president and 'Tea Party' "heroes" like Allen West have been fired after just a single term.
You can't blame the GOP when "Tea Party" candidates failed in states won by the party presidential nominee.
I am disappointed Romney won't be POTUS and we must suffer four more years of division, lecturing and lies along with persistent economic torture err experimentation.
I'm disgusted not only by voters but by the reaction of some among here so insistent on repeating the mistakes of the CAGOP from the 1990s which destroyed the party and have made CA a permanently one party Democratic state.
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