_________________
~*Roanna

http://twitter.com/raspberrygirl12
http://roannaj.blogspot.com/

Ya just gotta love this guy.

And on a related note of the "I told you so vein," we are hearing lots of why the loss came due to a lack of moderation and too much social issue baggage.

Let’ see…we tried a 72 year old Security Republican distrusted by Social Conservatives from the West with a fit 44 year old libertarian leaning reformer from a state bordering Canada who was thought to placate the social conservative wing. They lost.

Then we tried a 65 year old Establishment Republican from the North East who was distrusted by both Social and Fiscal Conservatives (and the crossovers especially). We coupled the nominee with a fit 42 year old libertarian leaning reformer from a state bordering Canada who was thought to placate the social and fiscal conservative wings. They lost (with fewer votes than the first pairing).

And the lesson?

The party is too tied to Southern evangelical social conservativism. As John Cleese would say in the Cheese shop sketch, “explain the logic underlying that conclusion!”

Obama won by playing to the strength of his party and selling himself to those outside. We need candidates who FIRST and FOREMOST play to the strength of the party, then have enough charisma to sell themselves to those outside. We don’t need Huckabee per say (his moment may have passed). But we do need his skill set and appeal.

_________________
"As for us, our days of combat are over. Our swords are rust. Our guns will thunder no more. The vultures that once wheeled over our heads must be buried with their prey. Whatever of glory must be won in the council or the closet, never again in the field. I do not repine. We have shared the incommunicable experience of war; we have felt, we still feel, the passion of life to its top."

Oliver Wendell Holmes

I am already sick of all the arm-chair quarterbacking myself, but there is one very simple aspect in all the analysis that is not being addressed & I believe it is the most obvious: Romney was just not appealing to anyone except business-people. This is the American Idol Age and charisma matters. Romney was as inspiring as cod liver oil - no matter how much people tell you it's going to be good for you, you know odds are really good that you're not going to enjoy it.

well...he did win the votes of half of America, so give credit where it's due. He just didn't have that extra little bit to put him over the top. Nevertheless, Romney was a better candidate than John McCain. Not that I would have chosen him or thought him worthy of my vote unless everyone else was knocked out, but he did lose 49% to 51% instead of 47% to 53%.

_________________
I share Huck's birthday...I was a few years too late though

Yes, but let's be honest, how many of those votes were anti-Obama votes as opposed to pro-Romney votes?

Go figure. A New England moderate, with a robotic demeanor, an elitist background, who grew his inherited advantages into a great fortune inside the the black box of obscure financial transactions, holding to a faith tradition outside the mainstream which only recognized "blacks" as fully members in 1978, failed to connect. Who could have seen it coming?

Mitt Romney time and time again has underperformed his advantages.

His "success" in 2008 was completely the product of wealth, connections, and favorable treatment by the MSCM (Mainstream Conservative Media - my new term for FOX-Ingram-Hannity-et al). He still got clocked by an old man whose campaign crashed and burned but still was able to get back up and an unknown with no money and a bunch of homeschoolers and web-bloggers as his campaign team.

That should have been the first clue.

Then we saw a series of very weak candidates rise and fall as the party searched in vain for anyone but Mitt. Each time he was blessed with extraordinary advantages of weath, favorable MSCM treatment, establsihment backing, and flawed opponents. Still he NEVER over perfromed his advantages and had to will by attrition.

Those were the second through seventh clues.

Then he had to face an opponent that could match his advantages of money, connections, and favorable MSM support. But the opponent was terribly encumbered by a stagnant economy and unpopular policies.
Mitt underperformed yet again. Well...get a clue.

The worse part is that it is highly doubtful that those who foisted Mitt on us will ever really understand what happened. They were stunned on election night by the results. They REALLY thought they had it (and had actually caused many sound minds like Barone and Barnes into suspending disbelief and agreeing - even, it seems, some of the Obama folks thought the Wallstreet wizards might know something they didn't and began to fret).

When the returns came it the Romney team was thunderstruck.

They never had a clue.

_________________
"As for us, our days of combat are over. Our swords are rust. Our guns will thunder no more. The vultures that once wheeled over our heads must be buried with their prey. Whatever of glory must be won in the council or the closet, never again in the field. I do not repine. We have shared the incommunicable experience of war; we have felt, we still feel, the passion of life to its top."

Oliver Wendell Holmes

The gamble was that the anti-Obama sentiment was stronger than all the other issues that Romney had to overcome -- & they were wrong.
(Frankly, even I am shocked by that)

But I do believe that at the end of the day, that is the narrative that most fully explains Romney's loss. The establishment won't get it because they are convinced that money & demographics, etc, hold the magic key to having a winning candidate - and I am NOT claiming they don't matter; we know they do - but the most significant factor IMO is that Romney was an unappealing, uninspiring & non-charismatic candidate even to most of his supporters in the general.

That's not his fault really (outside of the crap he pulled during the primary process & the people he seriously alienated there), & I do believe he 'left it all on the battlefield' - it's not my intention to knock him here as his political ambitions are now very painfully over - but it's silly to suggest that this loss was not about him either & unwise to ignore the reality that you can have a candidate who is good-looking, has money, and says all the right things but if they do not appeal to the average American, they will lose. I don't think Abraham Lincoln could get elected in our superficial age.

And if we compromise on immigration - Republicans won't get credit for it anyway. They'll lose a substantial chunk of support from the base and hispanics will just credit the Dems for it. Same with all the other major issues.

That said, I do believe they need to reach out & make an effort, BUT I'm afraid the idiots at the top believe that means more Democrat-lite politics & are going to damage the Party's unity even more.

We really need a better way to control the message & steer the conversation, but how does one neutralize, or at least get one's message out on more equal footing with, the mainstream media?

You are right that they are blaming everything but the obvious (from SoCons to GOTV failure to Demographics to even systematic electronic vote manipulation)

They are looking for answers as to how, what they knew was a superior candidate, lost. I think the GOTV fail (which if you haven't heard was epic) did make it harder for him to win. But blaming the GOTV for the loss is like blaming Robert E. Lee’s artillery commander for the failure to win Gettysburg. Ultimately, it was his command that failed. Lee failed. Winning election campaigns do not prove you can govern well, as Obama has shown, but losing campaigns argues strongly against future success.

Furthermore, Romney’s loss was not unprecedented. It only comes as a “surprise” to those who have forgotten, or dismissed as irrelevant, prior signs of weakness. Repeatedly, Romney and his team have been “stunned” on election night - from Huckabee, to McCain, to Gingrich, to Santorum.

And now Obama.

None of them were suppose to be able to beat the “better candidate” who had more money, connections, and “better organization.” But they did, and often with little money and almost no “professional team.” What they did have were supporters who were inspired to work and organize for them, and a large natural party constituency of voters who trusted them implicitly and who thought enough of them for them to turn out to the polls without being coaxed.

Passion beats organization.

In the absence of real passion for either candidate, identity politics will almost certainly prevail unless your GOTV is clearly superior. The Dems have a better GOTV and a huge advantage of playing identity politics without being called out on it. When the GOP tries they are quickly (and actually correctly) pummeled for trying to use a "Southern Strategy" or "dog whistles" on race or religion.

In 2008 Obama’s election day GOTV actually failed while McCain's functioned and it didn’t matter at all. An effective candidate who inspired passion rode favorable external events to a wave election.

Four years later Romney could not beat a far weaker Obama in an election with lower turnout. He just never “connected” in a way that inspired except briefly at the first debate. He then reverted to meme in the second and third debates and that was it.

Twenty years ago in Grad School my major professor in Civil War history responded to a student question he clearly was tired of answering concerning “who had the better generals?” Though it was obvious the student wanted a discourse on the greatness of Lee and Jackson, the Civil War scholar replied simply, “well…who wins is a pretty good indicator.”

_________________
"As for us, our days of combat are over. Our swords are rust. Our guns will thunder no more. The vultures that once wheeled over our heads must be buried with their prey. Whatever of glory must be won in the council or the closet, never again in the field. I do not repine. We have shared the incommunicable experience of war; we have felt, we still feel, the passion of life to its top."

Oliver Wendell Holmes

I wonder if all those Romney lovers will stop blaming Huckabee for the nomination of McCain in 2008? See, your guy was a loser too!

Now that we know the outcome, I want to force them to look back and face the truth of who would've been the best candidate.

You know what? Eric Ericsson is coming around. He said the other night that Huckabee probably could've won.

Excellent point! Romney actually had MORE favorable conditions this time around than last & came out doing more poorly than McCain - but will they see this? Probably not.