Politics What did Romney and the GOP do wrong?

While ~50% of the nation voted for each candidate, Romney failed to get the 270 electoral votes. It could have been a very different campaign season, and while I am happy that Obama won, my vote was anti-neocon, not anti-Romney. And I do support many of Obama's policies, but he should have done more in 2008 to blend some ideas from both parties to get things done in the first two years. Especially on non-controversial issues

1. Romney needed a real plan and a plan that would have included independents and liberals, even some minor points that would have made a few of the GOP base upset.
2. The GOP needed to not be pure obstructionists. There was a jobs bill for allowing veterans returning to use their military training in private sector jobs requirements that was filibustered for no reason. It is fine to take principled stands on big issues, but people have to want to vote for you.
3. They need to work on why the minorities are voting for the Democrats.
4. Ryan and the right-wing media needed to explain the future path that he wants for the budget a lot better. And while it might hurt, it should hurt everyone.
5. There were way too many lies and non-facts in a bunch of his statements.
6. He would have had a better chance in 2016, not against Obama.
7. He took too many sides on different issues. Plus, you didn't know how he would have handled the big issues on the national stage with the House and media pushing him.
8. Rape and other issues need to be addressed in the GOP platform. Even a bunch of other issues need to either come up with new plans or new ideas.
9. Both sides were using way too much negativity and fear based attacks.
10. They need to figure out what the country they would create in 4-20 years would look like and explain it in a positive way.
11. If Romney would have picked a different VP, it could have been very different. (Condi Rice, Susana Martinez,...)
12. Money isn't everything.

What do you think I got wrong? What do you agree with? What would you add?

 

The GOP needs to lose it's "fuck-Obama-at-all-costs" attitude. The birthers, the tea-party swing to the right, the intransigence of congress in the face of presidential veto, the absolute brinkmanship of the party... all make the party look small-minded without a vision beyond getting their man in the office. I still have trouble with the concept that Republicans see themselves as financially responsible when historically their presidents are responsible for over 90% of the accumulated debt of the federal government. Not that Obama is better; while the Republicans WON'T control the deficit, he simply CAN'T.

Basically, I think the Republicans failed to show well enough how they would correct Obama's failures. As an outsider, they never came across as having a real vision beyond "he sucked". They tried to beat him down rather than build themselves up.

 

"I Want To Congratulate The President,' Romney Says In 240,000th And Final Lie Of Campaign"


Got to love "The Onion."

 

i think the republicans will have to reconsider how they've been doing things.

romney tried to move across the right spectrum, ultra-right in the primaries, moderate in the debates. the orwellian group hate of obama held the far right in place. the channeling of anger about the economic situation into anger against obama was strange given that it was the republican congress that assured little could be done to help out regular people in a difficult time, but it seems to have almost worked.

the nitwits on cnn became experts on demography and claimed that the loss was a simple matter of numbers---the far right does not play well in places where people are, the far right is too wedded to a sense of resentment that follows on the ethnic recomposition of the united states. but i think this loss may well spell the decline of rove and a rethink of orientation toward the far right given that this election loss *may* give them the distance from the bush period necessary for them to stop running away from their own record by shifting into the hard right. this would mean a power shift within the party as well, a loss of influence for rove et al. for whom this election was a gambit aimed at increasing their power within the republican system as over against the party structure. so i am hoping to see rove in flames and everything he stands for burning with him.

but i think the bottom line is: at the grassroots level, the democrats have a better machine. this surprised me a bit.

also, it seems to me (impressionistic) that one result of citizens united and the fact that the press tried to counter its consequences by making far more public the deep-pockets neo-fascists who pour vast dough into the super-pacs...and the noxious carpetbombing strategies adopted by the super-pacs on the right, mobilized many people against romney.

and then there was romney's fact-free approach to politics.

that said, i wonder if obama's centrism--the same thing that kept him from undertaking any investigation at all of the iraq war for example----will also prevent him from maybe doing a couple little things that would alter the political landscape considerably---like reimpose the fairness doctrine, which would have the effect of scattering the conservative media apparatus. but that's not really on the agenda, so is maybe musing on my part.

what'll be interesting is to see what happens in the legislative overturning of citizens united etc. i have read a few things about the extent to which incumbents have some to see in this ruling and its effects a mortal danger to being-an-incumbent. it'd be interesting to see if there is a response...it'd be good for democracy in america, such as it is, to overturn that and erase the super-pac as a political player entirely. public funding of elections would be nice, too. so would a monatorium on political advertising for a few days before people vote.

and does anyone find it strange that cnn determines the outcome of american presidential elections and not the actual vote?
i find that strange.

 

I have a few thoughts on this but I'm going to try to keep it short since I'm sure most of us were up wayyyy too long last night watching the pure and utter annihilation by the Dems.

First, this election was decided in the Republican Primary. As soon as Romney took a moderate approach on a few things but swung so deeply right on immigration, it was over. The failure is certainly on both sides being that Romney was a flake and his party has an identity crisis, but they simply cannot continue to ignore the broad scope of the American population. Trying to hold on to something like Bush 41 and thinking you can win with just a dominant white demographic is fools play in the new makeup of the country. I read a few interesting points and while we can certainly makes cases for voter suppression, the idiocy of the super-pac money, the Christie saga etc. etc. - If Romney had garnered the same amount of Latino vote that McCain did, he would be President Elect. Think about that, he only needed what McCain/Palin who lost in a landslide to overtake Obama. That fact alone should hit the GOP over the head like a ton of bricks.

Second, they really need to do a better job of doing what the Dems did with the ushering in of Clinton. The Dems had to go through a massive restructuring after Reagan and Bush 41. They simply cannot continue to hold onto this idea that they can play to the 20% or so of the idiots from the teabagger realm and be so far right that they look like the very thing they so vehemently decry. It simply won't work. They have got to shed the Donald Trumps, the Limbaughs, the Akins (thankfully already happened), the Roves, the Becks et. al.
The Dems have done a great job of realigning themselves to be a more moderate just left of center party and if the GOP doesn't come to a point where they are just right of center, they'll be doomed from here on out.

So the morons on Faux News can sit around and blame Christie, blame Romney, blame Sandy (tacky!), blame some conspiracy on Benghazi, claim that it's not their fault and that the POTUS is the one who needs to change and not them, the fact remains that they were blown out in electoral, in popular and shockingly in the Senate. Sure, we know it's going to be a tough loss and it's something that will take time, but unless people like Boehner and McConnell actually stand up and say "enough of this bullshit, we need to do our duty", they're doomed from here on out.

I'm stoked for Elizabeth Warren, for Tammy Baldwin and for others (I love women senators) and I think Warren in particular is going to be phenomenal in Washington. She has a grass roots feel with a no nonsense attitude.

Gay marriage in Maine and Maryland awesome sauce

Plus, POT

This election was something that shows we're still deeply, deeply divided, but it also showed that women and minority voters mean a great deal and the GOP has failed to realize this fact for far too long. Social structure matters in this country, it was proven in '08 and again last night.

Lastly, OMFG to Obama's ground game. I knew going into last night that their ground game was second to none, but jesus fucking christ the display they put on last night made it look like they were in the 21st Century and Romney was back in roaring 20's. The margins that Obama won by in some places were simply staggering and the volunteers and strategists for that campaign should be applauded because they just straight up beat the fuck out of anything the GOP could have every hoped to do.


Ok, lastly and really lastly - I love watching Rove and his ilk eat crow. The stunned and shocked faces on some of the teabagger sites, the Faux News channel etc, were just oh.so.wonderful.
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Merge

roachboy I fully agree with you on Citizens United. Secret money and super-pacs are not in the best interest of this process.

 

The Republicans are just unwilling or unable to recognize that the country is centrist on economic policy (particularly tax policy and overwhelming support for higher taxes on the wealthy as part of balanced solution, along with spending cuts, to debt reduction) and left on social policy.

The Tea Party is a killer for the Republicans on the first and the evangelical right is a killer on the second.

And they certainly need to look at demographics. You cant win if your only demographic is middle age and old white men.

 

the teabaggers are already claiming they lost because they weren't conservative enough.

and yet, they call the rest of the country moronic.

 

I am not a follower of politics in general, so my opinion probably isn't as sound as those who are better educated in these things. Anyhow, to me it seems like the GOP spent a good deal of time pissing off large swaths of voters: women with the rape and birth control issues, poor and lower middle class with the 47% brouhaha, and the ever growing Latino population with the self-deportation and such. Again, I'm not terribly nuanced in this stuff, but that just doesn't seem like sound strategy to me.

 

Cheers to both Tammys - Baldwin, the first openly gay Senator in history, and Duckworth, the double amputee Iraq war vet who took down that Tea Party ignoramus Joe Walsh in IL. And to another Tea Party ignoramus Alan West in FL - dont slam the door on your way out.

Sheldon Adelson's $35-40 million in support of Romney and five Senate/House candidates -- 0 for 5.

 

Grasshopper Green don't worry, you don't need to be "versed" in politics because you just pointed out everything an entire party of so-called GOP experts failed to see.

redux - Yes! My wife is a bit more centrist than I am and she laughed as I loudly cheered as each of those candidates won but she was smiling as well because of the female factor and the rapedummies losing. She hates that I still follow Fl. so closely because Fl. is always just a complete fuckup in every sort of election but I agree, good riddance Alan West. The very redistribution of districts was your downfall. Now, can we just get rid of that motherfucking Rick Scott?

It's not just Sheldon Adelson's money loss that makes me smile, Rove (Raving?) losing all that shit he dumped into Super-Pac is just an over-the-top bonus for me.

 

romney was just a weak candidate period. the only reason it was even close is because obama has done such a terrible job, and romney's first debate actually gave people a tiny bit of hope.

 

" It's the economy, stupid"

Romney was a weak candidate; but even he could have won if he had focused on jobs and the economy. Every time he or a surrogate wallowed into social issues, they stuck their foot in their mouth.

I'm thrilled to see Elizabeth Warren win and both of the "rape" candidates lose. Too bad "pray the gay away" Bachman didn't lose, as well.

 

The whole blame bush bit should be taken with a grain of salt. While I certainly think he caused a myriad of problems that are still nowhere near solved today, congress had an opportunity to really put us on a better path, but no, we got stuck with asshats like Boehner. So we'll kind of put that at a draw because if Obama had gone aggressively after those things instead of healthcare first, we maybe would have seen better performance. I do agree that we've now built sustainable progress which is certainly better than fast-track progress.

Once again, my home state proves to be the complete fuckery of the Presidential election but looking at the numbers, it's going to wind up in Obama's count. When/if it does, one can hardly claim this election was "close" especially considering the obstacles that Obama had in gaining reelection and he shouldn't have won popular by more than .8%. He's already up 2%. His election numbers are eerily similar to FDR if that tells you anything.

Romney/Ryan if anything aren't to blame for the failure to win the bid for the WH. Their party is to blame. They forced him to take stances he wouldn't have come close to in '03 and he suffered because of it. It's not about Christie who did the right thing for NJ. It's not about some Benghazi bullshit, it's not about negative ads - it's about the GOP's failure to realize the country has changed in regards to social issues and overall ethnic demographics. If Bill O'Reilly notices it, then c'mon, the rest of them should be able to see it too instead of flouting every possible conspiracy and blaming the math and/or the candidate they chose.

Look, Romney did surprisingly well in places. He narrowly won NC, which I fully expected to retain for Obama due to high early-voting numbers. He outperformed McCain as far as GOP turnout, but once again, it was the women and the minority vote that destroyed them and the ground game of the Obama campaign knew where to hang their hat and the GOP didn't. People can sit here and whine and throw their toys out of the pram over blacks vote for blacks and latinos vote for dems, but if you fail to have a message that appeals to those groups it is your own fault.

Now as we wait for the rest of the congressional shit to get sorted, we have a chance to see if the Senate races will force Boehner et. al. to move away from teabaggers. If they don't, they may as well dust off the golf clubs because they'll be looking at getting booted handily.

On a further note, anyone who claims that Romney was just a weak candidate can't seriously give me one person from the GOP side that would have won the election. Rick Santorum? Puhlease. Ron Paul? Would have lost more than Bob Dole did. So who exactly is a "strong" GOP Presidential candidate? That's right, fucking crickets.

 

what astonishes me is the extent to which the republican infotainment strategy nearly worked.
they had to run away from the bush administration and its record. the tea party was basic to this, the illusion of revitalization or change which, in the end, simply jerked the party into neo-fascist territory.

that enabled them to work out the "blame bush" meme that allowed those who attend the right's short attention span theater to imagine that the problem facing the obama administration was some imaginary fixation on the bush period and not systematic republican obstruction in congress.

then the move was to pin the results of the combination of bush-period fiasco and two years of systematic republican obstruction in congress of the obama administration...banalities about "leadership" and other such horseshit were key to this. obama's mistake, of course, was to actually try to be bi-partisan in a context that didn't allow for it.

another problem for the right seems to me to be indicated by all this: their infotainment sphere is exclusionary. this follows from the emphasis on conservative identity politics---identity frames you in or out of that infotainment space. if you are framed out, there's no reason to take it seriously.

personally, i think it's about time the far right began to recognize this infotainment system as a Problem. but given that, from what i've seen, it's busily deflecting such ideas away from itself and onto bogeymen elsewhere, i doubt it'll happen directly. one can hope.

 

Unfucking believable but honestly not shocking. You have people in this party who don't believe in science saying stuff like "well if it's a legitimate rape a woman's body has a way of shutting that down" and "the jury is still out on climate change." These folks aren't making the rape comment because they're miss speaking they're saying it because they believe it. If this were the 16th century they be with the earth is flat crowd and if it was 1960 they'd be with the 'well the jury is still out on whether smoking is bad for your health."
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Romeny's wasn't just a bad candidate he was an awful candidate. He had no connection with working class families and couldn't understand their basic problems they face day to day. He had several "let them eat cake" moments. One being his "if you don't have a job start a business. If you don't have the money borrow it from your parents." Millions of folks across the nation thought "Gee, Duh... why didn't I think of that?"

And Romney's first debate performance was mainly great because in he he disavowed a ton of stuff that was, at the time, still on his web site and had been what he'd been saying for 18 months or so. As I watched the debate and listen to him say "I don't have a plan to cut medicare or social security benefits." I checked his web site and found where he was clearly saying "people under 55 will see reductions or will have to work longer before they're eligible..." Same thing with tax cuts. "I don't have a 5 trillion dollar tax cut plan." His web site basically said he in fact did. In short he lied. Hell CEO's of major auto makers released statements saying "Romney is not being honest in his ads." Did he pull the ads? No, he bought more.

Which is basically what he did for the final days of the election- lie then when called on it double down on the lie. I think his camps internal polling saw the writing on the wall and knew it was kitchen sink time. Hell even Ryan's staff were releasing what he 'might" do after they "might" lose press releases a week out. When the VP in an election starts doing that you know it's not good.

 

They really need to figure out how to reach the inner city, big city, urban voter. Democrats need to figure out how to reach the rural country older voter. The media isn't helping things.

 

Romney did wrong the same thing that Kerry did wrong in 2004 -- he let the other side define him first, before he could define himself. No one wants to elect as president the guy who comes to repo your car.