Don’t blame Romney
Every election predictor was wrong, except one: Incumbents usually win. …
The Democrats ran up against the incumbency problem in 2004. The landslide election for Democrats in 2006 suggests that Americans were not thrilled with Republicans around the middle of the last decade. And yet in 2004, President George W. Bush beat John Kerry more handily than Obama edged past Romney this week.
Democratic candidate John Kerry won 8 million more votes than Al Gore did in 2000, and he still couldn’t win. All the Democrats’ money, media, Bush Derangement Syndrome and even a demoralized conservative base couldn’t trump the power of incumbency in 2004. …
Romney was the perfect candidate, and he was the president this country needed right now. It’s less disheartening that a president who wrecked American health care, quadrupled gas prices, added $6 trillion to the national debt and gave us an 8 percent unemployment rate can squeak out re-election than that America will never have Romney as our president.
Indeed, Romney is one of the best presidential candidates the Republicans have ever fielded. Blaming the candidate may be fun, but it’s delusional and won’t help us avoid making the same mistakes in the future.
Blowback
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Given that you apparently (a) don’t care about any principle other than winning and (b) choose your candidates entirely based on electability, isn’t it incumbent upon you to (c) take into account the fact that some other people are lazy and some other people actually care about principles (d) not foist on us the one candidate who couldn’t possibly have won, ever?
joe_doufu on November 8, 2012 at 11:45 AM
Yes that did happen. I didn’t see your post before submitting mine. I won’t say he was a guaranteed loser just that Ann made no sense in declaring Romney a loser originally and then reversing so suddenly.
She seems to think she has divine powers of reasoning and implores us to take her cherished advice.
SparkPlug on November 8, 2012 at 11:50 AM
What does that have to do with Romney.
It’s a given that the media was going to slander anyone who was the nominee. Thats why Romney was the perfect candidate. They couldn’t dig up anything on him, and his values and love of country have been consistent. The same with Ryan.
The next election will be a cakewalk for the left as far as demonization goes.
But I’m curious…what are you basing the slander of claiming Romney as a “mushy”…”non-entity” and “boring”?
He seemed the most honest and trustworthy politician on the docket for as long as I can remember.
When did honesty, trustworthiness, and values become “mushy” and “boring’?
Mimzey on November 8, 2012 at 11:56 AM
Mitt Romney wasn’t my first choice… nor my second… nor my third… I criticized him in the 2008 cycle and did so in this cycle, as well. While I have problems with some of his managerial experience and past activities as Governor, I didn’t doubt that he was a good man, a decent man. I was more than willing to vote for him because of that even when I knew it would be a hard time to convince GOP establishment backers that some of his priorities were wrong or misguided.
With that said, he did offer a new venue on going after Iran and other rogue Nations that adhered to the law, and yet offered ways to start pulling down the support structure of them. For that, and for pulling that totally unexpected rabbit out of the hat and surprising me, I will admire him and thank him: the piracy laws are one of the most important venues to de-fanging the ‘endless wars’ meme and if he could have elaborated more on his policy views there, we just might have been looking at an entirely different way of viewing how to stop terrorists and terror backing regimes. I am rarely, if ever, surprised by politicians of any stripe in this venue. For that I thank him, heartily.
That he lost is a reflection of our lack of civic virtue and for decades of not upholding the franchise right as an honored and sacred right to be preserved next to speech, religion, the press, and firearms. We shall pay for that. Dearly.
ajacksonian on November 8, 2012 at 11:57 AM
SparkPlug on November 8, 2012 at 11:59 AM
People should, but they don’t. Gnashing one’s teeth over the fact that charisma and personality are a factor for voters won’t change anything. Where has standing on principle gotten us in this respect? 8 years of Bronco Bama. Thanks but no thanks. That’s not a hill I want to die on ever again.
NoLeftTurn on November 8, 2012 at 12:05 PM
More salt in Ann’s RINO wounds…
In 2004 Bush had 62 million votes and John F. Kerry had 59 million votes.
Even John Kerry had more votes in 2004 than Mitt Romney. (57.4 million).
that’s. just. sad.
Terp Mole on November 8, 2012 at 12:06 PM
Here’s what she said at CPAC on 2/12/2011:
Now she says “Romney was the perfect candidate”.
He was not the perfect candidate. He lied about his reasons for exiting the race in 2008. He was the grandfather of Obamacare. He allowed Obama to perpetuate the false claim that Obama inherited a mess that was the fault of “Republican failed policies”.
What Obama and the other Democrats (Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senators Obama, Biden, Clinton, Reid, and others) inherited when the balance of power shifted on January 3, 2007 was better than what the incoming Congressional Republican majority inherited from Democrats when the balance of power shifted on January 3, 1995. The Republican majorities of January 3, 1995 – January 3, 2007 inherited higher unemployment and a bigger deficit from Democrats in January 1995 than the unemployment and deficit the Republicans handed off to Democrats in January 2007.
Romney and Ryan had a platform to deliver that message: that it was not Bush and Republicans who drove the economy into the ditch, but rather it was PELOSI, REID, OBAMA, BIDEN, CLINTON, etc. who drove the economy into the ditch.
The last budget produced by a Republican House, Republican Senate, and Republican President was passed in 2006 for FY 2007 and produced a deficit under $161 Billion … smaller than EITHER of the two budget deficits produced by Bill Clinton with a Democrat House and Senate.
To win, Conservatives MUST communicate that message!
Obama was able to run with the lie that Republicans “had their turn and got us into this mess”. Paul Ryan, in his VP debate, accepted the premise that Obama had inerited a bad situation.
Obama didn’t arrive in Washington, D.C. for the first time on January 20, 2009. That’s not the economy he “inherited”. The economy he “inherited” is the one the Republican majority turned over to him and the rest of the Democratic majority on January 3, 2007. Obama was an active part of the Congressional Democrats who drove the economy into the ditch.
And Romney and Ryan allowed Obama to blame that on Bush.
In several areas of the country Republican candidates lost on “lady parts” social issues, and didn’t even fight on fiscally conservative issues.
ITguy on November 8, 2012 at 12:06 PM
You’re just making that up to fit your own standards. You know nothing about me.
The problem is people..apparently like you( based on your response)..that are easily manipulated by personality types rather than issues.
The issue in this election was, in fact, winning.
Not halo surrounded purity.
If you look at your itemized reasons, a..b..c..d. They are all the same point. You could have simplified it by just saying. “Not pure enough…NEXT”.
Mimzey on November 8, 2012 at 12:07 PM
And who’s responsible for the dumbing down of the information systems that people use to base their decisions on?
Mitt Romney?
Who’s fault is it that such a high number of people stayed home on election day? Mitt Romney?
Mimzey on November 8, 2012 at 12:13 PM
No he is far from it, Ann. He and the ballless RINO GOP leadership need to go. We now know the base will not vote for a liberal and we cannot force them to do so. Please pull your head out.
Twice the GOP fielded RINO losers and twice they lost. I will never again support another failed experiment.
dogsoldier on November 8, 2012 at 12:20 PM
Well, yes. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect a candidate to do all he can to show people that he’d be worth voting for and to show how he’d be doing a better job as President than the guy in the Oval Office now.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say “You blew it, Mitt. You didn’t convince people to vote for you.”
Aitch748 on November 8, 2012 at 12:33 PM
He did imo.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect the people to do all they can do to not be uninformed dolts, easily swayed by rhetoricians, or willfully trusting blindness in the face of what is and has been in front of them for four years. Watching their country and its founding principles flushed permanently down the drain.
I guess that too much to ask.
Mimzey on November 8, 2012 at 12:43 PM
The only one that really mattered was this last one.
The failed experiment was being blinded by purity. I’m glad to hear you will no longer support that.
Too bad it’s too late.
Mimzey on November 8, 2012 at 12:58 PM
I voted for Romney. I won’t support another liberal.
dogsoldier on November 8, 2012 at 1:57 PM
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