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Not to continue the threadjacking, but I have to say that while Reagan was a pretty bad President, I'm not sure he really had all that much on Hoover. The guy's attitude towards the massive, soul-crushing Great Depression was to let the free market handle it. That's pretty bad, and America was never as bad off under Ronnie as it was under Hoover. Also, Nixon and Reagan could have a battle royale over which one was worse; I'm not sure who'd win.
But to get back to the original intent of this thread, I think Romney lost because he completely and utterly abandoned his strengths when he entered this race. Partially, I think, this is because he doesn't have an honest bone in his body - as I've seen it put, he thought the easiest way to win was as a hardcore conservative; if he though the best way to win was as a pirate, he would have run as a pirate.
But Romney is a brilliant businessman and technical manager who should have run on fiscal responsibility and being the only adult in the room. Instead he tried to run as the Mormon Pat Robertson, which was silly on its face. I'm not saying there weren't other important factors at play - the other candidates truly hated him, there's significant anti-Mormon sentiment amongst the GOP primary voters, etc. - but I think he might have pulled it out running as a socially moderate money manager.
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