Mimzey on November 8, 2012 at 3:07 PM

Republican does not equal conservative.
Romney was not conservative. His win would not be considered a won battle for conservatives.
It would have been a Pyrrhic victory. Yeah we won, look at the cost. Too many more victories like this and the war is lost.
Every battle you partake in has costs associated with it. If there is not a commensurate benefit for winning the battle then you are hurting yourself.
It was Romney’s and the republican party’s job to show the people what the voter gets for being involved and eventually voting. They failed to do so. I think he had a chance, a better one than I gave him credit for at the end of the primary, after the first debate to get those voters involved.
After the first debate though, Romney began to sell himself to the moderate independents. He gave conservatives an entire 90 minutes of attention, and once that was done it was back to the idea that they would eat the shit sammich and be f&cking happy about it.
He was wrong. He should have sold himself to the people who were wary of him, the conservatives. The moderates already were likely to accept him, his past proved to them that he was progressive.

If we do not stick together we will fall one by one.

APACHEWHOKNOWS on November 8, 2012 at 1:51 PM

Exactly.
This is the difference between the left “purists” and the right “purists”.

The real purists on the left may want to see someone who would just take property and assets from people and “spread it around”, but if a candidate with a more moderate version of their ideology is on the docket, that’s who they vote for. I believe the idea behind it is to, at the bare minimum, hold the ground.

To many on the right don’t get the concept of sticking together and choose to hand the enemy a victory and then go admire themselves for the strength of their “principles”.

How’s this for a principle? Win the battle.
But nooooo…that would be weak or something.

This+ stuff about “the electorate is stupid” is just clueless and out-of-touch. This is the same BS we heard from the Democrats in 2004 when Kerry lost.

Doomberg on November 8, 2012 at 1:40 PM

Thats just stupid.
Anyone who did not recognize the threat to the nation after 4 years of crapping on the constitution and realizing that 4 more years and 2-3 more SCOTUS appointment might be something to pay attention to, and chose to sit on their crapper, is stupid.

We have a radical who is poised to appoint 4 or 5 SCOTUS judges, each with it being a lifetime position.
1 man placing the majority number of judges in the final decision making position when it comes to deciding constitutionality.
1 man.
A left wig radical.
And people sat on their crappers?? You know what that is??…it’s stupid.

(1) Obama’s negative attacks on Romney turned the less politically inclined off to him.

(2) There’s a lot of people unemployed and on welfare. The majority don’t want to be there and want to get a job, but at the same time they’re afraid. They certainly can’t vote for Obama, but at the same time they worry about losing their government checks. So instead of voting…they just stayed home.

(3) Romney was perceived by many conservatives as neither a true fiscal conservative nor a true social conservative. The hardcore in each group could not force themselves to vote for him.

(4) To some, Mormonism was a big deal and I’m sure it kept some from voting, but I doubt it was the deciding factor.

One thing that struck me in NC was several anecdotal encounters I had. I know several libs that voted for Obama that were really upset with him and would not vote for him again. However, all said that Romney was pure evil and voted for Johnson instead even though they admitted that it was throwing their vote away. I also overhead a conversation between 2 conservatives at the gym. Both were anxious to get rid of Obama, but they just hated Romney. One guy said he wasn’t going to vote and the other wrote in his own name and said he wished McCain was running again. My eyes just about rolled out of my head with that one. My conclusion is that Obama did a great job at vilifying Romney.

Mike Pence, Bobby Jindal, and Mitch Daniels were being suggested as possible candidates.

Doomberg on November 8, 2012 at 2:02 PM

Thanks for another serious list of names.

Mike Pence. It is very hard to make the jump from the House straight to the Presidency. Candidates tend to need a term as a governor or Senator first. The same applies to Paul Ryan. Didn’t work out well for Michelle Bachmann, who tried.

Bobby Jindal concluded, I think correctly, that he needed more time in office before running for the Presidency.

Mitch Daniels was dealt with both in your comments and my comments above. Those skeleton don’t tend to get better with age, so I would guess he is out of the picture permanently.

My sense is these voters were unhappy with Obama.

They couldn’t have been that unhappy about him if they didn’t care enough to show up at the polls to help get rid of him. They didn’t care if he got another term…that says enough.

There needed to be a more aggressive response to that earlier in the campaign – but they didn’t do it.

TarheelBen on November 8, 2012 at 1:46 PM

I had been screaming all summer that you can’t let such personal attacks go unanswered, and it looks like it did in fact have the desired effect should these numbers be believed.

Daemonocracy on November 8, 2012 at 2:00 PM

According to the WSJ, one problem Romney had from the time he was presumptive nominee to the time he was nominated at the convention was that he was largely out of money from his primary campaign and couldn’t get access to his general election fund. SuperPACs apparently spent plenty to make up for it, but their messages largely criticized Obama rather than building up Romney.

Also, Romney also quietly spent a lot of time traveling to fundraisers that were in non-battleground areas–with one exception being the FL stop at which some employee filmed him making the 47% crack.

Just repeating what I read today.

Paul Ryan, Mitch Daniels, Haley Barbour, Sarah Palin, and I’m sure there were others whose names never made it to the papers.

alwaysfiredup on November 8, 2012 at 1:58 PM

Paul Ryan was on the ticket and it didn’t seem to matter.

Mitch Daniels has skeletons in his closet (his wife) that he didn’t want exposed. Got to figure he knows better than us.

Haley Barbour, no idea. Was he ever serious? Is he now that Romney is out of the picture?

Sarah Palin, oh spare me. Sky high negatives, plus Sarah needs to learn that you need to run in order to win, and if you win, you need to serve your term, not quit wailing “too hard!”

But thanks for a serious list of names in any case.

kim roy on November 8, 2012 at 1:52 PM

I went against my moral compass and voted for Romney. I stayed in the process, as you can recall from the hated primary result to the election and today.

What happened was that those voters the retards in the new media screwed by destroying every candidate that stood against Mr. Electable got out of the process.

I am not saying you are happy about it. But blaming the voter for the candidates failure is not going to get these people back into the process. They will just stay out. They are conservative, they will make do with what they are handed and move on. I do not need no freaking government, and the government getting in my way will not stop me in the end either.

They are probably the same. They voted into power Reagan, and got a descent return on investment. Voted into power Bush Sr and got screwed. Clinton gave them a better deal than dole would have with Newt as the force behind him getting it. They took a chance on Bush Jr, and got back stabbed repeatedly! McCain effectively if not deliberately threw the 2008 election and it is was not like they liked him. 2010 came along and they took back the house, to no effect other than we now face the fiscal cliff the House voted for. Then to have Romney foisted upon them. They had no dog in the race, so they stayed home.

Time to give the conservatives a dog in the race, or you can kiss 2014 and 2016 goodbye as well.

As for the F&CK YOU CONSERVATIVES YOU WILL SWALLOW ROMNEY WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT people, well, we conservatives, the real ones that live the life of conservancy will do just fine. My daughter will be home schooled. I will work hard. I will avoid every tax dollar I can legally get away with. I will have a stockpile of needed items stored and ready for use, rotated as needed. I will help my family and close friends as needed and donate to a church and other charities as needed.

For those of you who are “conservative” in talk only. May God make the burden of your lives bearable.