Some of the excuses being made for Mitt Romney's loss are pretty amusing. e.g. - I've seen "he couldn't separate himself from right wing extremists" cited.
Silly rabbit. That would be because Mitt attached himself to them. Nobody made him go hard core on immigration to counter Rick Perry. Romney’s choice.
Nobody made Mitt endorse Richard Murdouck both before AND AFTER his horrific rape commentary. That was Mitt's call. He chose to co-sign such extremism all on his own.
Did Romney distance himself at all from Donald Trump's ludicrous, baseless, racist bordering accusations? Nope. Not even by an inch or two.
Romney may not be as conservative as he pretended to be (will the real Mitt Romney please stand up, please stand up, please stand up), but he did earnestly pretend to be as conservative/extremist/right wing as they come. There are repercussions for such behavior regardless of whether it’s heartfelt or play acting.
Another reason I saw cited for Romney's loss was because ads by the Obama team managed to make Mitt seem unlikeable. Hah!
Let us be straight with one another here. What made Mitt Romney unlikeable was Mitt Romney. His actions spoke, opposition ads simply spotlighted them.
Unless Barack Obama is a master ventriloquist who somehow put that 47% quote in Mitt's mouth, Romney basically created attack ads on himself.
Obama didn't even need to tie Romney to Bush like he effectively did with McCain. In their last debate Obama basically said that Romney is another GW copycat, except that Bush’s policies were less mean spirited than Mitt’s.
McCain made major mistakes, biggest of all being the selection of Sarah Palin. But at least she got him Alaska's electoral votes so she wasn’t entirely useless.
Romney went & picked an Ayn Rand devotee who couldn't even secure his own state for the ticket.
Mitt beat his own damn self during tough economic times that should have spelled doomsday for the incumbent. The main reason Mitt beat himself is not anything stated above but the simple fact that he was an awful candidate who tried to buy his way into the White House. DENIED.
After lurking throughout the campaign I decided to engage a die hard Republican friend of mine who was griping about the end result on Facebook. Conversation went reasonably well because I respectfully disagreed but made undeniable point he did not really attempt to counter.
Point I made is that whatever party you happen to side with, the obligation of that party to is put forth serious candidates to promote the cause.
You can severely disagree with the Democrats’ principles but at least acknowledge that Obama, Kerry, Gore, Hillary Clinton were credible candidates with serious intentions.
On the other hand, the Republicans ran a serial flip flopper whose crowning achievement was the healthcare mandate he then had to run against. When you battle yourself, no matter who wins, you lose.
Keep in mind that this is after running Sarah Palin in the VP spot as a blatantly shallow attention grabber the last time out. And we must not forget that Donald Trump was once the Republican party’s frontrunner even though his brief flirtation with running was clearly a publicity stunt. Herman Cain was just a small step up from Trump, his presence a weak attempt to prove that the Republican platform is for black people too.
To a certain degree it doesn't matter whose argument is superior. Plenty of valid points are issued by both sides. A quality candidate from either of our two main political parties can go on to excel at the presidency. But if instead of well qualified applicants you run clowns, more often than not you’ll lose.
I suspect the lesson has finally been learned and the 2016 election will feature quality candidates on both sides of the political theory divide.
Then again, money talks and if the super conservative ridiculously right wing fringe is spending plenty of it, another lame GOP candidate may emerge. This would guarantee another victory for the Democrats.
It seems necessary from reading my Twitter stream after Obama’s victory to point out that a vote for Romney was not by definition a vote for racism. His supporters baffle me but they aren't ALL bigots.
Too many of them are though, as evidenced by: Anti-Obama Protest at Ole Miss Turns Unruly
If you're white, not a bigot, and a student at Old Miss, it's a lot harder to hold your head high while wearing your college sweatshirt today.
Behavior like that makes future would be Republican voters go "Nah, I don't want to be affiliated with that. I'll go Democrat or be Independent instead".
Stupid people don't realize that they hurt their causes and themselves with stupid behavior. That's because they're stupid people. It takes a long long time to weed out ignorance. There's always somebody passing stupidity down to their kids, keeping moronic hate alive.
But a work in progress is still undeniably PROGRESS.
We may not be post-racial but we are most definitely post slavery/Jim Crow/segregation. The GOP needs to distance themselves in a hurry from those who should really be members of the KKK for all their backwardness of beliefs.
It is never going to be 1950 again no matter how badly you want to turn the clock back. In the 21st century if you keep disenfranchising racial/ethnic/religious minorities, women, homosexuals - you'll lose.
You either change with the times or get run over by them. There really is no happy middle ground. Not if you require more votes than that obtained by a reasonable challenger to gain employment.
Once the GOP platform is not about exclusion, but rather, about core principles that they can run proudly on, they'll reclaim lost relevance.
It that doesn't happen they'll simply go the way of the dinosaur. Getting pounded in quest for Black/Latino/Gay/Immigrant/Women votes = extinction.
And for Pete's sake, let overturning Roe v Wade go. It's been decided. It's in the books. It makes sense. Move on. There are other causes.
With so many people PISSED about the state of the economy, all the Republican Party needed to do was put a credible candidate at the head of the ticket. They royally messed that up.
Final Electoral College tally: Obama 332, Romney 206.
