Three issues as I saw it:
1.The low information voter: the ones who are normally smart but just don’t pay attention outside their own lives. Yeah, they should pay attention and be passionate but they are not...at least about politics anyway.
2. Conservative purists: argue as you will but Romney did not get as many votes as McCain. Had he done so he would have won because zero did not get as many as HE did the first time either. The wave of discontent fell short.
3. Romney tried to coast the last few weeks....his polls were wrong and he did not hit hard enough at critical issues. Ben Ghazi, the coming fiscal cliff, all manner of issues he could have but did not push hard enough.
Now we are stuck with this evil clown and his posse for at least 2 years[midterms to try and flip the senate...won’t happen in my estimation] and certainly 4 before we can be rid of him.
God help us all.
This is incorrect. From fec.gov - Romney received 60,932,152 votes in 2012; McCain gathered 59,948,323 votes in 2008.
When you nominate someone afraid and unwilling to use the only media outlet you control to get your message out, you have a recipe for disaster.
A few things:
1. The Obama campaign had much more $$ to spend and was much smarter about how they spent it than the Romney campaign. They had a far more comprehensive and sophisticated ground game than did Romney. For all his alleged business acumen, Romney did a crummy job of managing his campaign. He relied on an IT system to get out the vote that had not been tested. He, of all people, should have known better. Its almost as if the Romney campaign have $$ to people who told them what they wanted to hear.
2. The 2008-9 financial crisis was a game changer in this country. For the first time ever, we have a critical mass of people who just want their Government bennies and don’t want to work. Or people who are sympathetic to them. Romney was on target with his comment about the 47%—in fact he might have been low.
3. Many of the wealthy, for who the Republicans are supposedly fighting, have become hopelessly liberal.
4. Election fraud & unchecked immigration have helped turn the tide at the margins, especially in key purple states.
5. Obama’s bailout of GM resonated in places like OH and WI.
6. Yes, most people know about the Deficit, but it a rather abstract problem because it doesn’t directly effect them. If you hear about something enough and you don’t see (or understand) the consequences, you eventually tune it out. The other thing is that while Americans might not like the Deficit, they seem to dislike specific cuts to the budget even more.
7. Our decades long spree of abundance and prosperity, combined with technology, has robbed many people of common sense. They no longer see a correlation between actions and consequences.
All these things add up to really hard challenges for Conservatives. Just like the Financial crisis was a game changer for the Libs, there needs to be another game changer for conservatives. I hate to say it, but Republicans have too often helped to birth and nurture the trends (via compromise) that are now eating their lunch. I really don’t see anything turning it around short of the Entitlement system collapsing of its own weight. The Zero Interest Rate (ZIRP) policy we are seeing out of the Federal Reserve is an attempt to forstall that as long as possible.
The purists (well represented on FR) who didn't vote or voted third party will crow about their stance the entire time our country cirles the drain.....and will never see the truth in the mirror......