Thanks, Mitt Romney, for campaigning on big ideas
Mitt Romney, by contrast, rolled out an original, thoughtful, politically plausible plan to get Medicare spending under control. Despite the fact that his plan borrowed from Democratic ideas on how to reform the program, the Obama campaign vowed to demagogue Romney’s proposal in retiree-rich states like Florida.
Then, Romney did something remarkable. Instead of retreating on Medicare reform, like so many Republican nominees had before him, he doubled down on his proposal by selecting Paul Ryan as his running mate. The morning that Romney announced his pick, I was on MSNBC’s “Up with Chris Hayes” alongside Rachel Maddow. Rachel was gleeful about the political opportunity that Romney had provided Democrats. “Find your nearest old person,” she said, “and ask them: ‘Do you like Medicare? Would you like Medicare to instead be replaced by a coupon and a prayer?”…
Many conservative activists disliked Mitt Romney, describing him as a “Massachusetts moderate” who wouldn’t stick up for their principles. As soon as the election was over, some of these conservatives were at the front of the line, attacking Romney for his supposed fecklessness.
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
He lost to an easy mark.
faraway on November 25, 2012 at 11:47 AM
faraway on November 25, 2012 at 11:47 AM
When you’re in on the con, you’re not the mark.
HerneTheHunter on November 25, 2012 at 11:52 AM
What big ideas?
Avik Roy is to Romney as Coultergeist is to Lard-RINO.
Not exactly an objective source.
Norwegian on November 25, 2012 at 11:54 AM
Which GOP moderate is scheduled to loss with honor on 2016? I want to be predissapointed and ready.
portlandon on November 25, 2012 at 11:54 AM
Romneycare was the worst GOP candidate the money hoars and establishment crud could put up. Romneycare alone should have disqualified him. After the 2010 midterms, where we won a landslide and the house running against obamacare, those freakin boobs in the beltway along with some romneycare buttsniffers at this site knew better. So they got romneycare with no grassroots support and his liberal record over his head. You could see what was happening.
They took certain win into a loss. The powers at the ivy tower gave me obama for another 4 years. The mullahs Su*k!!!
8% unemployment
16 trillion in debt
Bengazi
Food stamps increase
etc. etc.
and you give us Romneycare, idiots!!!
Danielvito on November 25, 2012 at 11:55 AM
Lose=lose.
portlandon on November 25, 2012 at 11:55 AM
You also neglected to mention that he created Romneycare, the model for Obamacare. If Forbes’ Avik Roy considers healthcare reform to be Romney’s “big idea,” then I dare say that it was a giant among midgets.
See ya Mitt, and don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.
Stoic Patriot on November 25, 2012 at 11:56 AM
Mitt is accustomed to addressing interested, rational parties in the real world. Here he was dealing with a lot of uninformed people who are disinterested in reality.
disa on November 25, 2012 at 12:01 PM
Romney should have stayed in the REAL WORLD if that is the case… Incompetence is thinking you can accomplish more than you can, then proceeding to pushing other people out of doing it, only to fail as was destined.
MOST COMPETENT PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE SINCE JEFFERSON!
astonerii on November 25, 2012 at 12:20 PM
You really are a “nutter”..Please keep posting to confirm it..
Dire Straits on November 25, 2012 at 12:24 PM
Considering the fact he knows from whence the failure came, he is less “nutter” than many others here who imagine it was because “free gifts” was the deciding factor in the election, that they imagined these “free gifts” were something you could not have expected to be part of the election. That there is “nutter” stuff.
Seriously, no one saw the free gifts aspect of an election against Democrats, considering it has been part and parcel to their election strategy for the last 77+ years.
astonerii on November 25, 2012 at 12:30 PM
Big ideas? In the final debate he practically agreed with every foreign policy disaster that Team Zero has foisted upon us.
UltimateBob on November 25, 2012 at 12:35 PM
I see it as a GOP message that is not getting to the urban communities and is bleeding minority votes very fast..So yes in a way “free stuff” is in play..
Dire Straits on November 25, 2012 at 12:41 PM
Thanks Mitt Romney, for being a lousy candidate, and running a disastrous campaign. Thanks for being a loser. And after losing, thanks for making stupid comments that would effect the rest of the GOP. Thats a losers whine. Oh yeah, thanks a lot. /s
tommy71 on November 25, 2012 at 12:44 PM
A set of skeletons and an empty skull should have beaten Obama, alas.
Schadenfreude on November 25, 2012 at 12:52 PM
But it has been part of an election since at least the 1930s. Thus blaming it for the loss is completely without merit. Any candidate who did not plan for it and have a way to negate it or overcome it had no business running to begin with.
astonerii on November 25, 2012 at 12:52 PM
Fruck Hume, all of Faux, Coulter, the RNC, the media, the entire establishment and a whole bunch of HA morons for bringing this travesty upon the land.
Suffer the same consequences as the leftists will. You deserve Obama in full glory. May he destruct beyond reason and imagination. He’s been given carte blanche. Full steam ahead, tureky. The little turkeys made you, from the left to the right. Have at it. Show them what a dummy dictator can do.
Schadenfreude on November 25, 2012 at 12:55 PM
I am not blaming “free stuff”..I’m blaming the “message”..The country has shifted and the GOP missed it..:(
PS..I admit..I missed it to..:)
Dire Straits on November 25, 2012 at 12:57 PM
Romney was the best of what was available. His team made some bad strategy moves though.
You can’t tell much to people that actually believe America would vote for Rick Sanatorum to be President. They’re gone, way gone.
Moesart on November 25, 2012 at 1:13 PM
Also, A lot of what Romney said will be proven true.
And, already is being proven true, as those that voted for more free stuff are already leaning on Obama.
Moesart on November 25, 2012 at 1:14 PM
Thanks
Schadenfreude on November 25, 2012 at 1:30 PM
I agree it has changed. It always changes. But certain aspects never change. They are like laws of nature that can only be worked against at great cost, but never broken.
What has changed is that the Republican party is no longer viewed as conservative and worthy of great effort to get into office. This is a well deserved loss of respect for the institution.
1988 Reagan turned over to the nation a revitalized conservative republican party and vision for the Future. Until that time, Republicans had not controlled the purse strings of the nation for generations and had another 6 years to go before it got its first chance to do so. In the mean time, George Herbert Walker Bush took the first steps in destroying this vision and the party. Reneging on his Read My Lips, No New Taxes pledge. During the time of Reagan and Bush and the first part of Clinton Newt Gingrich was working behind the scenes reviving and reinvigorating the conservative movement, culminating in the Contract with America. America itself is a contract between citizens and the government, so it fit perfectly and brought the Republican party back to its conservative roots and in so doing, back into the majority in American politics. But the old time Republicans resented Newt and his Contract, because it was about returning the power back to the citizens and out of the new majority’s hands. So, in 1999 they pushed Newt out of the Speaker of the House position and returned to their progressive past that failed for generations to bring them to power. From 1999 until their ignominious departure from majority in 2007 they acted as bad as any Democratic majority had in the past 18 years at the least. They spent the good will and more importantly, they destroyed the Conservative brand of the Republican party over 7 years of progressive policies. No new chance at success until the Tea Party convinced Americans that the Republican party was ready to be Conservative again. They gave them the chance in 2010, and they blew it by caving to every progressive want that came along. In 2012 the American people were looking for a renewal of the Conservative branding of the Republican party. Instead, they were presented with Romneycare whose views are progressive, who prides himself on accomplishing progressive policy at the behest of Democrats. For the life of me, I cannot figure out here what changed.
Reagan ran as an unmitigated Conservative, Presided as such, inspired as one. America voted overwhelmingly for conservatism then. America was revitalized by conservative policies. America came to love that and the Republican party benefited immensely from it. The only thing that has changed is that the New Republican party is the same thing as it was back in the 1960s and 1970s. It cast aside conservatism and chose progressive instead. That is the change, and until the Republican party decides it prefers the success of America and themselves over the hatred they have to for conservatism, they will become and remain a minority party.
Personally, I think the GOPe has been infiltrated by progressives, as all institutions seem to have happen to them, and they are just working to finish off America, and picking Romney was part of that plan.
astonerii on November 25, 2012 at 1:31 PM
And still the Romneybots are defending him. Lol. Get real. You don’t really know how any other pub candidate would have fared against O. Romney is a loser, accept it, and move on. And like other butthurt Romneybots at HA, don’t diss other conservatives.
tommy71 on November 25, 2012 at 1:32 PM
We all knew Romney was not electable in January and actually well before that. Yet you are arguing that you know better than those who knew well in advance Romney’s fate what fate other candidates would have been?
LOL
The stupid is strong in Moesart.
astonerii on November 25, 2012 at 1:34 PM
Romney won Independents. He lost because Democrats who vote outnumber Republicans who vote. The notion that Romney should have catered to conservatives or libertarians like Stoic Patriot, who didn’t even vote for him, is asinine. The things Romney’s critics wanted him to say to win their vote would have cost him more votes than it would have won him.
Basilsbest on November 25, 2012 at 1:40 PM
The same things that Reagan said and won him independents galore is what would have made independents not vote for him… Interesting. You are certainly part of the party of stupid.
astonerii on November 25, 2012 at 1:42 PM
Most of us chose him. He was easily a better candidate than Santorum or Gingrich. You certainly worked your heart out to ensure his defeat. You are an individualist playing a team game. You will never get what you want.
Basilsbest on November 25, 2012 at 1:46 PM
Nothing wrong with Santorum or Newt, considering how Romney did and what Romney did.
He pretty much played the exact roll we said he would play and that roll was a certain loser just the way we said. But your failed prognostication on Romney somehow gives you the ability to have good prognostications on the other potential candidates. You really better hope that Romney’s, almost certainly false, religion is real, or your afterlife is really going to suck.
astonerii on November 25, 2012 at 1:53 PM
You don’t get that the world has changed. If he were around today Reagan would be dismissed by the corrupt media as old and white – and it would stick. Cranks like you, stoic patriot and sharrukin would dismiss him because he was once both a Democrat and pro choice. And he ran huge deficits.
Basilsbest on November 25, 2012 at 1:54 PM
Same thing the Tea Party said and got them the greatest change over in federal elected office in over 80 years and the single greatest state by state elected office results in ever.
The world has not changed that much. Like the laws of nature, some things just are.
When we run Conservatives, we get great results. When we run “my views are progressive” we get nothing.
Too bad you head is so far up a certain failed presidential candidates back end that you are incapable of seeing anything beyond crap.
astonerii on November 25, 2012 at 1:58 PM
Laughable.
It’s role, you illiterate moron. I’m a Catholic, you bigot.
Basilsbest on November 25, 2012 at 2:00 PM
Romney won the primary (GOP)..He lost..But you are saying if we had only ran someone else..LOLz…Do you not see the problem with that theory??..
PS..Romney was not my first choice..
PSS..See Rush Limbaugh..
Dire Straits on November 25, 2012 at 2:02 PM
How did the Tea Party do this election? Romney ran ahead of his party in swing states.
Basilsbest on November 25, 2012 at 2:02 PM
Wow, the grammar police method of attacking my point. Way to go champ!
Catholic or not, you obviously WORSHIP Romney.
astonerii on November 25, 2012 at 2:02 PM
It was sidelined and pushed aside for Romney if I remember correctly. Anyone who did not agree with Romney was. They allowed petulant little fools like you your leeway to run the campaign you wanted to run in large part to allow Mr Electable his best chance at victory. I would guess they did so because the party of Lincoln turned into the party of Obama through Romney’s Obamafication of the republican party.
Like so many progressives, you are unable to face reality, and lay the blame for your failures on everyone else.
astonerii on November 25, 2012 at 2:07 PM
Get it through your heads, Romneybots, hes a LOSER. And you don’t know how the rest of the pub field would have won/lost against O. All you can do is denigrate them. Lol. The blind leading the blind. And whining bout how Romney was the best candidate. Yeah, the father of Obamacare was the best candidate. Delusional!
tommy71 on November 25, 2012 at 2:08 PM