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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A lot of those same takers voted in 2010, back when the country had had a change of heart and everything was going to change then and…then the GOP won on the strength of the TP and spent the next 2 years capitulating while b1tching and moaning non-stop about how that damn TP lost seats ikn Delware and Nevada. Remember?
ddrintn on November 8, 2012 at 9:52 AM
* lost seats in Delaware and Nevada
ddrintn on November 8, 2012 at 9:53 AM
So the only thing a candidate should ever need to do in a campaign is perform well in Debate #1? And if that isn’t enough to put the candidate over the finish line, it’s the voters’ fault, not the candidate’s?
Aitch748 on November 8, 2012 at 9:54 AM
I think Ann is a northeastern Rockefeller Republican. She gushes over northeast Republicans like Mitt, Chris Christie, and Scott Brown and she only spews venom at the man who defined conservatism Barry Goldwater. I don’t think she has ever written a positive word about AuH2O but she has called liberal Republican Scott Brown a “miracle Republican.”
antifederalist on November 8, 2012 at 9:55 AM
Go bother to read and you’ll see my case rests on more than one debate.
Go cry in your room and blame Romney for everything.
blatantblue on November 8, 2012 at 9:56 AM
True. And if there had been just that one debate — or if that had been the last debate — perhaps things would have turned out differently.
Unfortunately, Romney refused to finish Obama. He had him dead to rights during the third debate on foreign policy, and he refused to pull the trigger. People, especially people who are only marginally-interested in politics, gravitate toward a winner. And a winner doesn’t let his opponent up off the mat when he has him beat — he grinds him into dust until the match is called in his favor.
Mitt kept his mouth shut and chose not to force Obama to defend all of his abominable foreign policy decisions. Instead, Mitt politely agree with the President on most things, trying to look presidential for the moderates and only succeeding in looking weak compared to Obama’s strenth.
On a visceral level, that is what matters to people, not matters of truth and lies that require investigation and one to sort through the media’s disinformation.
Harpazo on November 8, 2012 at 9:58 AM
This is an example of the case you’re no making.
People should evaluate the options, not surface looks or perceptions.
Fault goes to dumb and intellectual laziness.
Mimzey on November 8, 2012 at 9:58 AM
You are clearly forgetting the pivotal moment in the debate where Romney went after Obama’s apology tour, his failure to support Israel, and his promising to Putin that he would be more flexible after the election.
blatantblue on November 8, 2012 at 10:00 AM
So easy to blame the candidate, so hard to find the real cause. Obama good candidate ? hell no! Somebody made him look that to the right demographics. We need to do the same. Here is an example, 44% latinos voted for Bush. 27% for Romney.
runner on November 8, 2012 at 10:01 AM
I guess so, if the excuse is now that the American people are fundamentally broken, and that even the “perfect” candidate can’t win an election until the people are fixed.
Aitch748 on November 8, 2012 at 10:01 AM
LOL, only he whooped Obama in the debates, killed him in crowds at rallies, had a nimble ad campaign that responded to the left swiftly, and had the best ground game we have seen for the GOP in quite some time.
Enough with this BS. Everyone was all into his campaign for the last month and a half. Now, because they lost, like petulant kids, they turn around and blame everything on Romney.
blatantblue on November 8, 2012 at 9:52 AM
Exactly. Plus he was untouchable in his personal life — Obama couldn’t release his messy divorce records to make him withdraw from the race THIS time.
Chris Matthews is a jackass for being “so glad” (not just glad, mind you) that Sandy hit when it did, because it did indeed contribute at least a little to slow down the momentum that Mitt was building up.
But the bottom line is that Mitt made his case VERY WELL to the American people, and 1) the media did their utmost to block it, though weren’t able to do so well at that in the three debates, and 2) about half the electorate didn’t want what Mitt was selling.
Heck he even said it himself earlier in the campaign: “If you want free stuff, vote for the other guy.” And millions upon millinos of people did.
inviolet on November 8, 2012 at 10:01 AM
No, the fault goes to the GOP and it’s little corps of lackeys in the general population who don’t have the stones to provide any real alternative. Instead they cravenly head for that mushy middle.
ddrintn on November 8, 2012 at 10:02 AM
* its
ddrintn on November 8, 2012 at 10:02 AM
Exactly. Plus he was untouchable in his personal life — Obama couldn’t release his messy divorce records to make him withdraw from the race THIS time.
Chris Matthews is a jackass for being “so glad” (not just glad, mind you) that Sandy hit when it did, because it did indeed contribute at least a little to slow down the momentum that Mitt was building up.
But the bottom line is that Mitt made his case VERY WELL to the American people, and 1) the media did their utmost to block it, though weren’t able to do so well at that in the three debates, and 2) about half the electorate didn’t want what Mitt was selling.
Heck he even said it himself earlier in the campaign: “If you’re looking for free stuff that you don’t have to pay for, vote for the other guy.” And millions upon millinos of people did.
inviolet on November 8, 2012 at 10:04 AM
I don’t blame Romney. I blame all of us.
Obama will be blameless for what takes place in the next four years. We can’t say we weren’t warned and now we will suffer our own idiocy. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
Red Cloud on November 8, 2012 at 10:05 AM
The case was being made by a guy who 10 years before had proclaimed himself a progressive, who had shied away from conservatism and even the GOP itself, and who had signed into law the blueprint for ObamaCare. No one really trusted him or perceived any sort of ideological integrity there. Even most of his adoring followers here were animated more by hatred of Obama than by anything Mitt was “selling”. Mitt’s a buyer, not a salesman, and that was the problem.
ddrintn on November 8, 2012 at 10:06 AM
I disagree with that…but if you’re going to be consistent in your criticism, then you should be able to see how you’re exhibiting the exact same pattern in blaming Romney.
Mimzey on November 8, 2012 at 10:07 AM
Then blame the campaign!!!
That the Republicans could not get the vote out is beyond the absurd!
What were they thinking?
And instead of attacking and going negative on Obama in the swing states, Romney fell into the gentlemanly, country club (ala McCain), “take the higher road” ad campaign.
You don’t take a pom-pom to a knife fight.
Obama used advertising early and negatively….Romney late and “optimistic”.
Blargg!
Attack! Attack! Attack!
How many things to Romney decided not to attack Obama on? F&F, Benghazi, on and on and on.
Total failure.
albill on November 8, 2012 at 10:10 AM
No, it’s exactly what happened. The media went all-out in tarring the TP as some wacked-out bunch of violent racists, the craven GOP for the most part distanced itself from it, and thought that only nominating some mushy political non-entity like Mitt would make this ONLY a referendum on Obama and sweep boring competence to victory. You were dead wrong.
ddrintn on November 8, 2012 at 10:10 AM
It’s also pretty funny that Romney is being talked up as the “perfect” candidate not only after he lost, but also after the rest of us Republican-leaning voters were being lectured about how the fact that Romney wasn’t named Barack Obama should be the only reason we should have to march to the polls and pull the lever for him. We were told that, even if Romney is barely better than Obama, that bare improvement should be enough to make us crawl over broken glass to vote for Romney. But now that the election is over, Romney’s supporters are claiming that Romney was the ideal candidate and that the fact that he lost means that the American people are hopeless.
Aitch748 on November 8, 2012 at 10:13 AM
But if Romney can’t get the voters out to vote for him, all is wasted.
Millions of fewer voters than McCain got in 2008. And Obama had about 10 million votes than 2008 and Romney could not even take advantage of that.
John Kerry got more votes in 2004 than Romney in 2012.
How embarrassing.
albill on November 8, 2012 at 10:14 AM
The perfect candidate wins.
Romney was probably the perfect candidate for the 1970s-80s, but America has changed.
Will the Republican party change?
albill on November 8, 2012 at 10:16 AM
Of course it’s not Romney’s fault, and of course we can sit here and critique his advisers and their strategy after the fact. He was an excellent candidate who had a team that surely used their best judgement on how to win. When you lose it’s always coulda, shoulda, woulda. I have every confidence they gave it there all… and that’s all that can be asked.
lynncgb on November 8, 2012 at 10:18 AM
Honesty and clarity imo.+
Mimzey on November 8, 2012 at 10:19 AM
Exactly.
ddrintn on November 8, 2012 at 10:22 AM
Which is exactly what a lot of GOP voters were saying after having yet another unelectable squish shoved down their throats.
ddrintn on November 8, 2012 at 10:23 AM
Exqueeze-me?
Wasn’t it Romney-cheerleader Ann Coulter who pissed off voters nationally in the final week with her ill-timed “Retard” slur?
yeh. it was.
Terp Mole on November 8, 2012 at 10:32 AM
Remember when Ann’s abuse-excuse on CNN last week;
Charming… and well-timed.
Any wonder we consistently lose the women vote?
Terp Mole on November 8, 2012 at 10:36 AM
Ann’s crush, Chris Christie, was likely bought off by the Obama machine in order to secure the emergency assistance NJ did (and does) desperately need to recover from Sandy.
I’ll always believe the Obama henchmen made Christie a deal he couldn’t refuse (“praise me to the skies, do the photo op with me, or else your state can literally twist in the wind”), and I am in the camp that believes the “optics” of the helpful hurricane bipartisanship swung enough of the nitwit fence-sitter voters to turn what sure was looking like a Romney victory back to the dark side.
Right Mover on November 8, 2012 at 10:47 AM
Non-fact based group-think is one culprit. Go to any Starbucks in the morning, and stand near a klatsch of all females talking politics. What some of them base their decisions on is startling.
Difficultas_Est_Imperium on November 8, 2012 at 10:48 AM
He was in the context that he got in at all.
Sadly, the MA I thought he’d tapped into doesn’t exist.
Until further notice we remain moonbat ground zero.
roy_batty on November 8, 2012 at 11:02 AM
I live in MA, this is a fair assessment for some of the Boston suburbs. It takes something massive like 9/11 to get their attention.
roy_batty on November 8, 2012 at 11:08 AM
yup … the looter class now outnumbers the productive members ….
conservative tarheel on November 8, 2012 at 11:10 AM
+ 1000
conservative tarheel on November 8, 2012 at 11:12 AM
Hey Ann … what dotcha go spend some more time with the walrus
in NJ …. and stay there and leave us alone ….
conservative tarheel on November 8, 2012 at 11:13 AM
Slight correction.
She pizzed off a certain group of voters. The same group that hated her anyway. She just gave them the opportunity to play the PC, victim, everything is symbolic, card.
Mimzey on November 8, 2012 at 11:14 AM
And if this doesn’t spur the underground economy even further by the makers, I don’t know what will.
roy_batty on November 8, 2012 at 11:20 AM
Ann [please take your head out of your as@ Of course Mitt is to blame for the loss. It was his election to lose and lose it he did. But I also blame you ANN and people like you who attacked the TEa party since 2010. Who attacked the leaders of that Tea party relentlessly from Nov 5th 2010 onward for the sake of getting your man Mitt nominated. You did sorch earth battle within the GOp party to get a man who very few people of the party’s base liked. You surpressed voter turnout in the primaries. And after winning the primaries you weren’t satifised the fear of the “conservative” made you and Mitt back the total take over of the convention even changing the rules of the party to ensure conservatives couldn’t “take over your party” like they did in Nov of 2010. Thus many millions of voters didn’t show up on Tues all because you would rather have a moderate boring guy with a terrible record as the nominee then any type of conservative. You want t your free stuff just like the dems but you want it from a GOPe instead of the dems. You ANN and people like you are the biggest reason we lost this week. Go away ANN.
unseen on November 8, 2012 at 11:22 AM
This doesn’t really make that much sense.
It seems to imply that the majority of voters are political junkies who know all the positions and circumstances and reasons for those positions, and were just so very offended that they sat out the vote in an attempt to spank the gop.
Or.. the voters were uninformed and easily swayed by a propaganda machine, lies, misrepresentations of facts, and the entire media polishing the turd that is Barri O.
Occams razor suggests the latter.
Mimzey on November 8, 2012 at 11:24 AM
I don’t blame Romney, I blame the likes of Ann Coulter for pushing him on us despite knowing he was a guaranteed loser. (Coulter went on the record declaring that we’d lose if we nominated Romney, about a year before going on the record and declaring that we’d lose if we didn’t.)
joe_doufu on November 8, 2012 at 11:28 AM
yeap. These people in the northeast gop are delusional they need to leave the party. Mitt lost which says he wasn’t an ideal candidate failure to understand this simple fact will doom the party for alltime. The voters not only rejected Mitt they rejected his record and liberalism. The fact Obama got 9 million fewer votes also says the people were ready to have Obama go. The fact Mitt got 2.3 million less votes than McCain says the people didn’t think Mitt was the person to replace him Obama’s agenda. this race was easily won. It was a base election Mitt the perfect candidate pissed off the base at every oppurtunity seeking that great moderate vote in the sky. Obama got his base to the polls Mitt pissed off his base. The dems won. Simple
unseen on November 8, 2012 at 11:30 AM
Oh neat idea. Eating our own seems like a winning strategy since, you know, looking at the actual, logical reasons why we lost is just too much work.
I’m absolutely sickened by what I’ve seen here. As if the left didn’t already attempt to paint him as what’s absolutely wrong with America, now the right continues to call him the problem? Nice to know we’re continuing Obama’s vicious campaign for him.
Romney ran an excellent campaign. Could he have changed a few things? Hit harder on a few things? Sure. But so could any pol and hindsight is 20/20.
You know, I wasn’t a Romney fan originally. But, over time he won me over and I truly believe he was the best man for the job, an. Our country lost a great president, imo, and that’s my only regret.
Bee on November 8, 2012 at 11:31 AM
Remind folks again: Why was the designated RINO who couldn’t beat McCain in 2008 supposed to do better in 2012?
Terp Mole on November 8, 2012 at 11:33 AM
elections are won by turnout. Get more of your people to the polls than the other guy you win. Mitt tried to form a new base the moderate vote at the expense of the conservative vote. It was a failed experiment. just like it was early on in the McCain campaign at least McCain was smart enough to understand it wasn’t working and went with a conservative pick for VP to try to turn the ship around but the damage was already done. Lesson to the gop nominee next time try to start out without your base hating you.
unseen on November 8, 2012 at 11:34 AM
Almost exactly how I feel, except it’s far from my only regret. We have an America-hating sociopath in the White House whose goal of tearing down this country and remaking it as weaker, less prosperous and unexceptional will now be unencumbered and completely unharnessed.
Where we might be four years from now scares the living he!! out of me.
Right Mover on November 8, 2012 at 11:36 AM
What do you feel has changed.
Is the change for the better or worse for society and social order and prosperity?
Just curious.
Mimzey on November 8, 2012 at 11:37 AM
For the record I don’t blame Romney. I blame the choice of Romney. The tragedy of this election was that we never got to vote on one vision or the other of America. Two pro-abortion, pro-Obamacare, pro-sodomy, non-Christian, narcissistic self-promoters were the only two choices on the ballot.
It would have been a different thing if it had been Obama vs Palin (or even Santorum): at least that way, we’d have a historical record of America choosing to vote itself out of existence. We’d know for a fact that the American people choose evil and death over good and life. As it is, the election results tell us very little, and there will never be a chance for a do-over.
joe_doufu on November 8, 2012 at 11:39 AM
Complete nonsense. If anything he swung right, carried the full evangelical vote (typically socon). If you wanted more “base” perhaps he should have moderated some positions, hm?
Also consider Bush’s Hispanic contingent. We lost that in both recent elections. Changing demographics, my friend.
Bee on November 8, 2012 at 11:40 AM
The damage is most likely set in stone.
Because of the apathy of the lazy and the pomposity of the purists, we will now have a SCOTUS packed by a radical ideologue. A single man will appoint 4-5 life long judges. That was always the true danger of a second term for O.
Thanks a lot, lazy sheep and purists. When your children are struggling be sure to tell them your part in the situation.
Mimzey on November 8, 2012 at 11:42 AM
Coulter is toxic and lives in a bubble. First she claimed only Christie could win and Mitt couldn’t. When Christie didn’t run suddenly only Mitt could beat Obama. This was from polling data a year out from the election when she was distorting the data about other potential candidates and their negatives.
Form your own opinions. Her behavior over Christie is just plain irrational and embarrassing.
SparkPlug on November 8, 2012 at 11:42 AM
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