Posted on 11/08/2012 7:35:11 AM PST by LdSentinal
One of the more intriguing narratives for election 2012 was proposed by political scientist Brendan Nyhan fairly early on: that it was "Bizarro 2004." The parallels to that year certainly were eerie: An incumbent adored by his base but with middling approval ratings nationally faces off against an uncharismatic, wishy-washy official from Massachusetts. The race is tight during the summer until the president breaks open a significant lead after his convention. Then, after a tepid first debate for the incumbent, the contest tightens, bringing the opposition tantalizingly close to a win, but not quite close enough.
The Election Day returns actually continued the similarities. George W. Bush won by 2.4 percent of the popular vote, which is probably about what Obama’s victory margin will be once all the ballots are counted. Republicans in 2004 won some surprising Senate seats, and picked up a handful of House seats as well. The GOP was cheered, claiming a broad mandate as a result of voters’ decision to ratify clear, unified Republican control of Congress and the presidency for the first time since 1928. As Bush famously put it, “I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it.”
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
“Thanks for helping Obama win!”
And once the visitors from south of the border are made citizens, we will never win another national election. We lost this one because of the usual people that vote democrat and it will be a push over for the dems when they add 15 million more to their rolls.( Which will happen in the next 4 years.)
South Carolina saw less than .1% voter dropoff comparing 2012 to 2008.
2008 total votes: 1,897,345
2010 total votes 1,895,263
Romney percent of vote 55.4%
McCain percent of vote 53.9%
No descernable purist or religous backlash seen from these numbers in South Carolina. However, there is no evidence of a massive wave turnout for the GOP either. Maybe someone can do similar stats for Ohio and Virginia, but my thought is that Team Obama simply did a surperior job of identifying their voters and getting them to actually vote in the swing states.
Doh!, 2010 should read 2012.
Condemnation from others about someones vote is un-American. Freedom of thought is an American value. Dumping on conservatives who didn't vote for Romney, calling them horrific names, is a despicable thing to do.
When a conservative is the Republican candidate, the base of the party will come back. However, I don't think the GOPe will ever get behind a conservative to make sure he is the candidate (as they did Romney). I don't think the GOPe will ever let a conservative be the candidate.
Remember, the mantra of the GOPe was, “Romney is electable.” Don't vote for the others in the primary, because “Romney is electable.” I heard that over and over and knew it wasn't true - and it wasn't.
As for me, I don't vote for liberals, period.
You didn't. Nor did I.
But, undeniably, some did. Some Evangelicals could not bring themselves to vote for a Morman.
But the interesting thing about this phenomenon is this. In June, 2012, Gallup ran a survey concerning this issue: All other things being equal, would you vote for a Morman?
The following percentages of the electorate voted "No":
Republicans, 10% said "No".
Independents, 18% said "No".
Democrats, a whopping 24% said "No".
Read the link, but it’s all opinion no facts.
Interesting. I’m sure numbers from the various states will start coming out. And there’s no doubt that turnout on our side was down. That’s very unexpected and disappointing after 2010.
No more begging for votes? What exactly is it that you think political parties do?
If you don’t want people to vote Republican, well, there are plenty of Americans more than happy to comply with that request, so I’m sure you will be satisfied.
Seven million voters stayed home, according to this story. If you accept that as true, your responses is flawed.
If an Evangelical or conservative didn’t want to vote for Romney, they could vote for Virgil Goode, or Gary Johnson.
In most states, one or the other were available. There were also senate races, and other contests in other states, that they should have been showing up to vote for.
Or they could have written in Jesus, like some were said to be doing.
Staying home isn’t principled. I won’t fault someone for refusing to vote for Romney. I will fault them for sitting in their comfy chair at home and pretending they are doing the principled thing. And if they showed up, they wouldn’t be “missing”.
“Condemnation from others about someones vote is un-American. Freedom of thought is an American value. Dumping on conservatives who didn’t vote for Romney, calling them horrific names, is a despicable thing to do.”
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Folks around here are getting as bad as the blacks who call each other “Uncle Tom” if they dare choose to vote differently than the majority. It’s their vote, and they can do whatever the hell they want with it, no party is entitled to it. If we want their vote, WE need to convince them to give it to us, and if we can’t do that, it’s OUR failure, not theirs.
I really got sick of “Obama thanks you for your vote.” and “If you don't vote for Romney, that's a vote for Obama.”
Romney is a liberal and I don't vote for liberals. When Jim said he was voting for Romney, all hell broke loose on us who weren't going to vote for Romney. For the record, I didn’t vote for McCain, either.
Romney and the GOPe thought they had the conservative base trapped - they would have to vote for Romney. Those liberal people don't get it. Some of us aren't buying their liberal crap.
When I watched Romney's strong arm Sununu and Romney's lawyer and the national chairman pass that rule that would cut out any delegate Romney didn't want and replace those delegates with his choices, the next time, I knew I was seeing the real Romney - cut throat I don't care what you want, you will do it my way because I now own you. Well, he doesn't own jack now. He is the reason he wasn't elected and a pox on the national chairman for giving Romney anything he wanted, even the whole party while cutting out conservatives/tea party/Palin. Let Romney soak in his own failure and don't blame it on anyone but him.
“Romney and the GOPe thought they had the conservative base trapped - [we] would have to vote for Romney. Those liberal people don’t get it. Some of us aren’t buying their liberal crap.”
Hear, hear.
Perhaps now the GOPe will realize that “vote for us because the Democrats are so bad” no longer works.
The neighbor needs to be reported. That was elder abuse and a violation of election law.
Boy you sure showed us.
Obamacare being fully implemented -> Its on you and those like you.
Loss of the supreme court and all that follows from that-> On You
No chance to reign in EPA, DOJ, TSA, -> On you
It would be poetic justice if the coming death panel stamps DECLINED on your file.
But when you are wallowing in misery you can at least smile to yourself knowing that you taught us all a lesson.
Far too many people on our side cant see forest for the trees. The lesser of evils is still less evil. Those that didn’t vote for Romney have no reason to complain about what’s coming our way because through inaction this is what they chose.
There is a reason they are known as libtards and Paultards.
“Its on you and those like you.”
It’s on liberal Romney - he lost his election - his fault.
Where things drop off are in the rural portions of Ohio, especially in the southeast. These represent areas still hard-hit by the recession. Unemployment is high there, and the area has seen almost no growth in recent years.
My sense is these voters were unhappy with Obama. But his negative ad campaign relentlessly emphasizing Romney’s wealth and tenure at Bain Capital may have turned them off to the Republican nominee as well. The Romney campaign exacerbated this through the challenger’s failure to articulate a clear, positive agenda to address these voters’ fears, and self-inflicted wounds like the “47 percent” gaffe. Given a choice between two unpalatable options, these voters simply stayed home.
I'm in total agreement with this article. This is an astute analysis. The numbers add up and it makes perfect sense with reality. The article shows that in at least Ohio, the lower turnout came from white, blue-collar areas. The Bain ads worked, just as they did in Romney's 1994 Senate race and in the South Carolina primary when Newt Gingrich released the "King of Bain" video.
The primary voters were warned by Newt's campaign that Romney was unelectable, but the Republican establishment continued insisting he was the most electable candidate. The GOP elite is so out-of-touch with working class people that they could not understand how unappealing and unlikable those ads made Romney look. Either that or they didn't care.
If you remember, Newt was savaged by the elites for daring to criticize Romney's business career. I think he backed off after that or just ran out of money in Florida.
The elites and the voters alike failed to accept the fact that these were exactly the kind of ads the Democrats would run and that if they hurt Romney in a Republican primary, they sure would in a general election.
This election was lost in the primary because the voters nominated an unelectable candidate. He was unelectable not because of ideology, but because of unique vulnerabilities to him based on his private business dealings. The conservative base probably did turn out just to vote Obama out. But the swing voters we needed were poisoned by the Bain ads.
If we had nominated Newt, he would be president-elect right now. He had even floated Hispanic governor Susana Martinez as a potential V.P. pick for him. Because of Newt's political astuteness, he would probably have selected either Rubio or Martinez as his V.P., giving him another boost in the final vote.
We didn't have the final totals for 2008 until after Thanksgiving Day. There are literally millions of votes out there that will be posted, which will give us a better picture of what happened. Having been involved in the VA effort,including ORCA, we did a great job in getting out our voters.
In 2008 Obama won VA with 1,959,532 to McCain's 1,725,005. In 2012, so far with 97% of the vote counted, Obama has 1,885,952 to Romney's 1,773,982. Romney already has 50,000 more votes than McCain had total.
Kaine running for the senate has 30,000 more votes than Obama has and Allen has 36,000 less than Romney.
We will see how the final vote comes out, but I cannot fault Romney in VA for getting out the vote. Here in Fairfax County we reduced Obama's margin of victory from 110,000 to 90,000. Obama got 50,000 less than last time and we had 27,000 less for the GOP.
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