The fact is that Romney raised a lot of money – approx. $955 million – more than any GOP candidate / nominee in history. A lot of people were invested, but certainly not as excited as was needed.

Pork-Chop on November 29, 2012 at 5:14 PM

Primarily from large donors. But the voters, they did not find him to be such a good candidate they were willing to put money on the line. Of course, if you have a donations numbers list for the presidential candidates from 2000 through 2012 that shows Romney got more donors than other people, you can prove me wrong.

we need to stop trying to legislate morality.

hawksruleva on November 29, 2012 at 5:01 PM

Every law is morality. So no laws?

I’m not discussing the merits of the policy. I just think that pro-life advocates should think strategically. If you ultimately want to ban morning after pills, start with the lower hanging fruit. Don’t go around calling women who made a mistake and had to take a morning after pill or two in their lives murderers. If we get to a point in our society where abortion is illegal, the overton window have moved and people will be more receptive to the idea. No sense on focusing on banning the morning after pill now, when half the society is OK with terminating developed fetuses.

Fezzik on November 29, 2012 at 4:52 PM

I’m not either. These are the words you use to convey to the people the right message.
No need for god. We as a people respect the right to life. All innocent life has value. Life is not something that we as a people should be willing to destroy for nothing more than the comfort of some woman.
No abortion shall be legal with the exception of abortions to save the life of the mother. The mother’s life must be in material jeopardy. The life of the child must be certain to not survive emergency delivery. In essence, unless both lives are at risk, then no abortion.

Democrats In All But Label Only.

Or DIABLOs for short.

Oh, and trade in the Elephant for a new animal totem.
I suggest they adopt this:

strange logic…

That would be a much better message. And if I thought the GOP could talk about issues in that manner, I’d be fine with it. But experience says we’re awful in explaining our positions, even the simple onees.

Couldn’t a PAC run that message, and leave the candidate talking about shrinking the government? Democrats don’t go ’round talking about growing the size of unions. But unions know that Democrats support them. Why do we force our candidates to voice positions that could hurt their chances of passing the laws we want?

hawksruleva on November 29, 2012 at 5:52 PM

I think the candidate himself needs to be making the case as well. That’s what inspires your base and turns out your voters — because not only is there an ad about it, but you know that in his heart he agrees with you.

I absolutely agree with you that we seem to get people who speak incompetently. But I don’t think we do ourselves much good on the shrinking the size of government rhetoric. It’s too abstract and doesn’t make an immediate case as to how someone’s life improves. When the left goes around saying that we take a sensible position and they then start calling it crazy, our candidate needs to be confrontational and say, “Of course I believe that! Don’t you? It seems like the obvious thing given reasons A, B, and C!” We need to start treating the Democrats like they’re nuts, rather than just people we respectfully disagree with.

That’s why when we advertise we’re pro-life, I’d stress that we want to protect the life of the unborn child. I’d show images of children in-utero in campaign commercials to highlight that fact. Everything should be messaged from that standpoint, rather than a standpoint of choice.

Stoic Patriot on November 29, 2012 at 5:47 PM

That would be a much better message. And if I thought the GOP could talk about issues in that manner, I’d be fine with it. But experience says we’re awful in explaining our positions, even the simple onees.

Couldn’t a PAC run that message, and leave the candidate talking about shrinking the government? Democrats don’t go ’round talking about growing the size of unions. But unions know that Democrats support them. Why do we force our candidates to voice positions that could hurt their chances of passing the laws we want?

Other than abortions – no. You’ve bought into the statist strawmen. Too bad we didn’t have a candidate who was willing to put a torch to them.

besser tot als rot on November 29, 2012 at 5:37 PM

I haven’t bought into those positions – but women and homosexuals, by and large, have. Just like blacks believe we’re somehow out to “put them back in chains”, even though we’re the party of Lincoln, and Democrats are the party of Bull Connor. Right now, Democrats and the media do an excellent job of portraying us in a negative light. We know they’re going to do that. So what can we do to avoid that?

Maybe Stoic has a point – if candidates pushed a conservative message, they wouldn’t end up getting caught unprepared to answer a date-rape question. But honestly, the media will twist whatever answer we give on socon questions. Rubio’s answer on “the age of the earth” essentially matched Obama’s, but it’s already being used to paint him as some religious kook. That’s why I think we should stick to small government, freedom and liberty.

The government isn’t really good at administering justice. It’s not even good at protecting people. Government is only good at punishment and destruction.

Churches and other private groups should definitely push their positions. And the GOP should fight to allow any group to voice their position. But we need to avoid being painted as wanting to take away rights from huge blocks of voters. Again, maybe that could be solved with a change in messaging.

hawksruleva on November 29, 2012 at 5:41 PM

I’d disagree about the government’s skill at administering justice. I was hearing just yesterday that crime rates are starting to approach 1950-level lows as a result of the broken-window policies that the GOP pushed in the 80s and have now had time to be fully implemented. I’d also disagree about being able to protect people given the number of terror attacks that it has foiled (see for both a listing of dumb luck and good work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_foiled_Islamic_terrorist_plots_in_the_post-9/11_United_States). I would also say that the criminal justice system revolves around punishment.

As for being painted to want to take away rights, I agree with you there. That’s why when we advertise we’re pro-life, I’d stress that we want to protect the life of the unborn child. I’d show images of children in-utero in campaign commercials to highlight that fact. Everything should be messaged from that standpoint, rather than a standpoint of choice.