Misreading Election 2012
A week after President Obama won re-election, two themes are dominant. First, that Mr. Obama kept his job because key elements of his base—notably young people, African-Americans, Latinos and Asian-Americans—turned out for him. Second, that the growing size of these voting blocs represents a decisive challenge for the Republican Party.
Both points are true, but most observers are overstating the gravity of the GOP’s problem. In particular, they are paying too little attention to how weak a candidate Mitt Romney was, and how much that hurt Republican prospects. …
Surprisingly, Mr. Romney proved unable to exploit Mr. Obama’s biggest weakness: the economy. Seventy-six percent of exit-poll respondents rated the national economy “poor” or only “fair,” and just 25% said their finances were better off than they were four years ago. …
Despite their weak candidate, Republicans increased their share of the presidential vote among many major demographic groups. Compared with 2008, they made significant gains among men (four percentage points), whites (four points), younger voters (six points), white Catholics (seven points) and Jews (nine points). Mr. Romney also carried the independent vote 50% to 45%. Four years ago, independents voted for Mr. Obama 52% to 44%.
Blowback
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Yeah, so is every single person in the world going to write an obituary/autopsy report for this election?
DeathtotheSwiss on November 14, 2012 at 8:52 AM
Here is your obit for the country. Oh, and it was not Romney’s faultthat he lost – you can blame it on -
51% of Americans wonder if they can get some free sh!t from the ________, if so , they want to vote for the _________.
VegasRick on November 14, 2012 at 8:55 AM
http://www.wnd.com/2012/11/heres-how-touchscreens-killed-romney-votes/
JA on November 14, 2012 at 8:57 AM
Yep.
There have been surprisingly few write ups on “vote harvesting.”
A lot of things went wrong.
dogsoldier on November 14, 2012 at 8:57 AM
My Romney Sticker will stay on my car forever. It will remind every motorist that voted for Obama that its not my fault they were too stupid to turn this country around in 2012. Everyone knows Obamacare is the anchor tied to the anchor of 2008.
Bensonofben on November 14, 2012 at 8:59 AM
breaking
petraeus to testify
blatantblue on November 14, 2012 at 9:03 AM
I have a sister who ran her credit cards to all of their maximums over a three year period. In essence it enabled her to live for three years at double her annual income. Nice clothes- premium sports car- Then she filed for bankrupt.
Ten years later she is still having problem’s living at her new standard of living (no credit so 100% of her life is now check to check). 3 years of joy living on credit lead to a life of financial misery.
America is coming to the end of our credit card limit. Gonna be a long hard recovery unless we end the deficit spending. Won’t happen. She never learned her lesson and voted for Obama.
Bensonofben on November 14, 2012 at 9:05 AM
I’m so sick of these “what we did wrong and wow, we mis-read the election” stories. Can we move on?
djl130 on November 14, 2012 at 9:10 AM
Yes. And so far, I know of only two (relatively unknown) columnists who rightly attribute it to cheating. The rest seem to think that a 150% turnout means Romney doesn’t appeal to some demographic.
The Rogue Tomato on November 14, 2012 at 9:13 AM
Absolutely, but that reality is the one that the “the electorate is a bunch of stupid socialists” excuse is designed to avoid.
ddrintn on November 14, 2012 at 9:14 AM
Oh yeah, and the “we was robbed!!!!!” excuse. Anything to avoid the unpleasant reality.
ddrintn on November 14, 2012 at 9:22 AM
Calling Lee Atwater?
Seth Halpern on November 14, 2012 at 9:29 AM
I think both can be true.
Kataklysmic on November 14, 2012 at 9:33 AM
It certainly wasn’t because Romney wasn’t cool enough. The millions of working and middle class whites who apparently sat on their hands did not think the earnest, well-heeled turnaround artist was too square.
Maybe Republicans need a new Lee Awater – the stone cold RNC director who jammed with B.B.King when he wasn’t using every means necessary, fair or foul, to shaft Democrats. Or not. With Atwater in his corner even Bush-41 overwhelmed Dukakis; without Atwater, the GOP waffled while Perot carried off the vital center four years later.
My mental jury’s still out on that one.
Seth Halpern on November 14, 2012 at 9:46 AM
You assume all 51% voted for that.
A bit bitter?
Yes, it was Romney fault. Romney did not do what was needed to first inspire, and second get out the vote. That was his job. He volunteered for it. He took the responsibility to get it done. Every election we have the same things to do. Rally the base, convince the people in the middle our path is better for them, get those not fully engaged engaged, using those people, you get out the vote of those who are not going to make it to the polls on their own volition.
This is not a new concept. It has been going on for over 200 years. Somehow, Romney missed a few points in there.
He decided to piss on the base instead of rallying it. I have not looked at any numbers, but my guess is that McCain and Bush both got far more people to donate to themselves than Romney got. He probably relied on big donations.
He went for the middle by offering them a lighter version of what Obama was selling. It seemed to have worked to get the independent vote.
He did not get those that were not already engaged, engaged. He did not offer something compelling to them.
Since he did not get anyone super excited, he did not have the volunteer ground game he was going to need to get those people to the polls that he needed to be pushed, pulled and dragged there. His great new toy ORCA failed to deliver.
Romney failed this nation. He was not up against some new metric here. It is the same metric that is always out there.
astonerii on November 14, 2012 at 9:48 AM
We lost simply because the country has gone socialist. There are too many moochers in society, wanting free stuff. It’s not rocket science. And we Republicans need to accept that.
We’ve got two choices:
We either move to the left, become “socialist lite” as the Tories do in the UK, or we separate ourselves from the socialists in society, we shame them, and castigate, and fight them at every turn.
Di-vorce, De-friend and De-employ all the Democrats in your life. Start today!
ericdondero on November 14, 2012 at 9:51 AM
Maybe, but given the weak-ass nature of Romney from the outset I don’t know how people could get up on the ash heap and bewail the stupid, communistic electorate — which just two years ago had the people here marching around the room wearing the lampshade and singing “Happy Days Are Here Again”. Give the people a choice next time.
ddrintn on November 14, 2012 at 9:58 AM
This is why we need a TRUE Conservative – and not a RINO – to lead the party.
PALIN 2016
ChuckTX on November 14, 2012 at 10:03 AM
@ericdondero: You can call practically anyone who benefits from practically any government program a “moocher,” and it will doubtless give you moral satisfaction, but it won’t avert a train wreck. I guess you’re content to gleefully rubberneck.
I agree that Tocqueville would be hard pressed to recognize this country, but I still think elections are winnable by sane candidates. Half the eligibles didn’t vote at all, and I doubt it reflected overall contentment.
Seth Halpern on November 14, 2012 at 10:04 AM
Romney was a weak candidate but to many conservatives (myself included) the alternative was unthinkable. There’s no denying he lacked charisma but based on what I have seen from the GOP in the past week by the time 2016 rolls around we may look back longingly at how conservative Romney’s platform was in comparison.
As far as the electorate being stupid socialits, I don’t think many would be making that argument had the case against Romney been based on his record in MA or critique of his tax proposal. But it was contraception, Big Bird, and binders.
At any rate, I hope the American Thinker piece you have linked many times about how 2012 would turn out and what would happen in the aftermath now comes to pass.
Kataklysmic on November 14, 2012 at 10:11 AM
Not really, because depending on who wins the argument, that will shape Republican strategy for the next decade. Currently the leadership’s strategy is to jettison all fiscal, constitution, and social conservatism, grant amnesty to Hispanics, and worry about a new party platform later (if at all). The election results are being used as the excuse to do this.
Doomberg on November 14, 2012 at 10:23 AM
I firmly believe that a lot of the Obama votes were cult like votes. He won’t be on the ballot in 2016, and I don’t seen anyone on their bench that is going to inspire this zombie loyalty that Obama managed to capture. That entire 4 year re-election effort will not be in place for their future candidate. What they had is not replicable, not really.
However, we have to survive these next 4 years to get to the 2016 election season.
karenhasfreedom on November 14, 2012 at 10:37 AM
Me too, I am tired of these blame republicans articles parroting the MSM critiques of republicans. Mitt Romney was a good candidate, some things do go wrong with campaigns, if you knew what they were ahead of time you could fix them/or not.
They want you to forget about the pro American campaign he ran and go sour, they want you to forget you met people like yourself at Red Rock Colorado, (CO was in the Obama column so those people were not really there,) and elsewhere, like in NH and VA and FL where happy hopefilled Americans got together.
So much spin.
If these articles don’t start with “What I could have done better, I can’t read any more of them.”
If you did not personally give your all, if your tea party sat and looked at each other and didn’t help out because of…some perceived insult? ( I think the tea party was there) then ask yourself, what could YOU do better next time, and what are you going to do now.
I am tired of people trying to make conclusions for me to sway me for next time.
Romney won in Missouri and Indiana…Akin and Mourdock didn’t. Without any spin, can you say why that happened? I thought the tea party was in charge? But they quibble so much amongst themselves in places they can’t even agree on a candidate, or keep them under control. Romney won there, someone else let us down.
Fleuries on November 14, 2012 at 11:09 AM