A point made here before is that we may not fully understand the reasons why Mitt Romney lost.
I’ve proffered a few gut feelings, but have cautioned against adopting Democratic talking points on immigration and other issues — in other words, becoming Democrat-lite — based on narratives which may be wrong and which are fed by self-serving liberal media.
Kimberley Strassel in The Wall Street Journal and Byron York in The Washington Examiner (h/t Power Line) point out that the popular conceptions may be wrong in important respects, and their conclusions contradict each other. I’m not sure we are at the point of understanding yet, or maybe the data can be sliced different ways.
Strassel argues that there was no general GOP turnout problem, now that the numbers are closer to final, but that there was a real demographic turnout problem:
The turnout myth comes from a statistic that has been endlessly repeated: Mitt Romney got fewer votes than John McCain in 2008. This isn’t quite true (Mr. Romney this week eked past the McCain totals), and in any event it is somewhat irrelevant. The Romney vote count reflects a nationwide voter turnout that was down nearly five percentage points from 2008. What matters is how the GOP did in the battleground states.
And there? Mr. Romney beat Mr. McCain’s numbers in every single battleground, save Ohio. In some cases, his improvement was significant…
Because what ought to scare the GOP is this: Even with higher GOP turnout in key states, even with Mr. Obama shedding voters, Democrats still won. Mr. Obama accomplished this by tapping new minority voters in numbers that beat even Mr. Romney’s better turnout.
In Florida, 238,000 more Hispanics voted than in 2008, and Mr. Obama got 60% of Hispanic voters. His total margin of victory in Florida was 78,000 votes, so that demographic alone won it for him. Or consider Ohio, where Mr. Romney won independents by 10 points. The lead mattered little, though, given that black turnout increased by 178,000 votes, and the president won 96% of the black vote. Mr. Obama’s margin of victory there was 103,000.
This is the demographic argument that is getting so much attention, and properly so. The Republican Party can hope that a future Democratic candidate won’t equal Mr. Obama’s magnetism for minority voters. But the GOP would do far better by fighting aggressively for a piece of the minority electorate.
And that, for the record, was the GOP’s real 2012 turnout disaster. Elections are about the candidate and the message, yes, but also about the ground game. Republicans right now are fretting about Mr. Romney’s failures and the party’s immigration platform—that’s fair enough. But equally important has been the party’s mind-boggling failure to institute a competitive Hispanic ground game. The GOP doesn’t campaign in those communities, doesn’t register voters there, doesn’t knock on doors. So while pre-election polling showed that Hispanics were worried about Obama policies, in the end the only campaign that these voters heard from—by email, at their door, on the phone—was the president’s.
Often missed in talk of the GOP’s “demographics problem” is that it would take relatively modest minority-voter shifts toward Republicans to return the party to a dominating force. The GOP might see that as the enormous opportunity it is, rather than a problem. The key to winning turnout is having more people to turn out in the first place.
York doesn’t see the data quite the same:
After moments of panic in the immediate aftermath of Mitt Romney’s defeat, some Republicans and conservatives are regaining their equilibrium on the issue of what the GOP should do about immigration and the Hispanic vote.
They’re looking at key questions from the campaign, like how much of Barack Obama’s victory was attributable to Hispanic support. They’re also looking at the Hispanic electorate itself to see how big a role immigration, versus a wide range of other issues, played in voting decisions. The goal, of course, is to win a larger portion of the Hispanic vote, but first to take a clear-eyed look at what actually happened on Nov. 6.
And the lesson for Republicans is: Take your time. Calmly reassess your positions. Don’t pander.
The first question is whether Hispanic voters gave Obama his margin of victory. In a recent analysis, the New York Times’ Allison Kopicki and Will Irving looked at vote totals in each state, plus the percentage of the vote cast by Hispanics, to see what the outcome would have been had Hispanics voted differently….
The bottom line is that even if Romney had made historic gains among Hispanic voters, he still would have lost the election. That means Romney underperformed among more than just Hispanic voters. And that means winning more Hispanic votes is far from the GOP’s only challenge.
Then there is the question of what motivates Hispanic voters…. The available data, Murray concluded, “paint a portrait that gives no reason to think that Republicans have an untapped pool of social conservatives to help them win elections.”
In addition, exit poll information suggests Hispanics voted on a number of issues beyond illegal immigration — and those issues favored Democrats. A majority of Hispanics who voted Nov. 6 favored keeping Obamacare. A majority favored higher taxes for higher earners. A majority — two-thirds, in fact — said abortion should be legal.
None of this is to say the GOP shouldn’t seek more Hispanic votes. There are opportunities; for example, Romney made significant inroads among Hispanic voters with college degrees. But the fact is, Republicans had a serious problem with lots of voters, as well as potential voters who didn’t go to the polls. The Hispanic vote was just part of it.
We’re barely two weeks out from the election.
While Strassel and York may not see the data exactly the same, they share my view — there is no reason to panic ourselves into pandering solutions which amount to surrender on policies based on faulty or unproven conclusions about why Mitt Romney lost.
Update: Common Cents blog has some good (close-to) final numbers and metrics:
- Some good news from the 2012 Election for Republicans
- Final? 2012 Presidential Election Statewide Results
- Hey State Controlled Media – The Country is actually trending Republican!
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Comments
The most glaring statistic was mentioned by Karl Rove in his post-mortem of the election. Per Rove, only 51% of voting age Americans bothered to vote at all. If the 49% who did not vote perceived major differences between the two parties, would they be as apathetic and disinterested in voting? The big picture is that Democrats have taken us leftward for nearly a century. When Republicans have power, they never — or rarely — take us rightward. They only temporarily stop the drag leftward.
The real opportunity for Republicans seems to be with those 49% who are not voters, regardless of race, gender, etc. Rather than try to out-play the Democrats in identity politics, we should be able to use technology and datamining to identity people in that 49% who are likely sympathetic to conservatives values. Then get them registered and excited to vote.
That is exactly how Axelrod and Messina won. They identified people who want government to take wealth away from the people who have earned it and give to them. Then they got them registered and to the polls. They had the far better game plan. Steal it. Use it against them.
As long as people continue to pay attention to Karl Rove the GOP will continue to lose. The NY Times, the Obama gang, and media elites love Rove. He destroyed the GOP in the Bush years, hogs the spotlight, won’t let good conservatives get recognition, and has been dedicated to destroying the Tea Party. Rove ended up being kicked out of the Bush White House in the 2nd term. His ‘genius’ lost the GOP the House in 2006, leading to further losses in 2008 and ObamaCare. I haven’t heard Rove apologize. You cite the obvious about the GOP’s need to differentiate itself from democrats and the country’s leftward tilt. It’s not clear if you’re attributing this advice to Rove but in any case from Rove’s bully pulpit on Fox he’ll remain the biggest obstacle to the GOP making such a distinction. He’s flanked on Fox News with like-minded Bush cronies. Rove pal Ed Rollins on Fox adamantly stated the Obama people were fine, that he’d continue saying so, and the GOP’s only difference was they wanted a little less regulation. As long as Karl Rove is in the public spotlight, the GOP will not be allowed to articulate strong ideas to distinguish itself from democrats.
It isn’t necessary to “adopt Democrat talking points” to change course. This is a full spectrum of choices on immigration and social issues. Some things we may just have to admit defeat on (not the same as promoting them), others we need to offer a more satisfactory solution than we have been doing.
On immigration, for example, moving off the “no amnesty ever” position to something else does not mean moving to “citizenship now” like the Democrats want. Many steps in between, and even some new directions we could take.
We could, for example, demand that Mexico allow Americans to own businesses and property and have full legal rights in Mexico as part of a deal to alter immigration rules for Mexicans.
Labeling changes as “caving to the Democrats” is not only wrong, but discouraging to all reform.
Realistically, there is a nuanced but significant difference. We should not take that difference for granted. Neither should we fail to explain it properly.
For example, illegal immigration is motivated when people live in a nation where they lack opportunity for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Illegal or unmeasured immigration displaces Americans at work, school, and throughout society. Immigration, whether legal or illegal, exceeding the rate of assimilation will serve to corrupt a society. We should not justify the societal problems in the nations of origin and we cannot accept the emergence of societal problems at the destination. Immigration, and especially illegal immigration, has a cause and effect.
Another example, contributory and non (or net negative)-contributory (i.e. welfare) entitlements. Medicare and Medicaid are not equivalent with respect to stakeholders and opportunity to control corruption. Social Security and welfare payments are not equivalent with respect to stakeholders and opportunity to control corruption.
The Democrats win on the grounds of establishing false equivalence and appeals to emotion. Their narrative is appealing to individuals who prefer or exist in a low energy state but desire the privileges afforded by a high energy state. They profit from treating symptoms while avoiding addressing causes.
um, *There* is a full…
If the Republicans do not respect individual dignity; if they do not recognize an intrinsic value of human life; if they intend to deceive their supporters with promises of a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow (or a beachfront property in Hawaii); then they do not represent an alternative, but a difference without significance in our political system.
If they join with the Democrats to denigrate individual dignity and devalue human life, then they only represent an alternative as a competing power bloc. They do not represent an alternative with respect to human and civil rights for all people.
If Americans fail to establish a homogenous (i.e. culture) society, then we will suffer a progressive and eventually a conclusive corruption.
The question is if people with diverse backgrounds and dreams desire to work, play, and live together. If they can refrain from involuntary and fraudulent exploitation of each other. If they share a common philosophy or perspective of life. If not, then the American experiment is a failure.
n.n. I agree completely. My youngest son married into a Hispanic family a number of years ago. They are largely Christians and mostly don’t vote. If our side thinks to win them over with insults and holding them at arms length that is insanitary. I don’t think it is about either immigration or benefits. It is more the GOP, fairly or not, represent the old white bigotry against Mexicans. I don’t necessarily think they buy the dem line, I think it is more they know we are uncomfortable wvith them. I know from my experience in trying to get our side to address this, they are right. We rationalize the situation in a number of different ways to avoid this truth.
Despite their record of human and civil rights progress, the Republicans have been successfully identified with human and civil rights violations. They have made mistakes, including their support for affirmative action and similar reactive policies; but, they have not been captured by its political benefits, unlike their major competitor.
As for Mexicans, and other Hispanics and Latinos generally, it has been a tragedy, for both America and their nations of origin, to defend illegal immigration, while not addressing its motivation. They did not come to America for its superior climate. There are problems caused by their governments, cartels, and displacement through “well-intentioned” policies, which needs to be addressed.
As for the “old white bigotry”, it is largely a myth of misconception and deception. Most Americans did not support slavery or discrimination, and a large minority actively opposed its progress, to the extent of not uniquely, but inclusively, waging war against their own countrymen. Followed by an active effort to break the will of individuals and cooperatives which resisted integration.
A lot of Hispanics vote Democrat, IMO, because they are accustomed to the socialist-Communist noises they hear. They come to America for a dream but believe that being here might be enough to realize it. So, when they hear the kind of political talk and corruption they have back home, this is what they’re familiar with. Plus, friends and family who have been here influence their choices. The Spanish language media is just like the LSM, and I don’t believe Fox runs in Spanish yet, or does it? People have a herd mentality, and it takes courage to be different. They come to America for what’s best for them, and don’t know or care about the Constitution and what,s best for America. So, if we want to win Hispanic votes, we cannot be Communist lite. We must teach them what it means to be American, and we cannot let the public schools do the teaching because the teachers teach anti-Americanism which the English-speaking kids then teach to their parents, who then vote Democrat. Worse, the Catholic Church is America bought into socialism and sold it to Cathlics, especially the Hispanics with their liberation theology. So when you have the four pillars of American society, the home, the school, the media, and the church espousing socialism, new Hispanic voters will logically vote Democrat.
That’s my hypothesis. My solution is to take over or rid us of the unionized public schools, start tutorial programs for for adults everywhere, take over the media incrementally–Fox and Rush are not enough, push the Church of Rome into full awareness and demand they reject socialism–money talks.
“In Florida, 238,000 more Hispanics voted than in 2008, and Mr. Obama got 60% of Hispanic voters. His total margin of victory in Florida was 78,000 votes, so that demographic alone won it for him”
Don’t try and do math in public. You forgot the 40%. A 60-40 split of 238k voters yields a differential of 47,600 votes, which is less than the margin of victory…
I have calculated it differently.
If x is the number of voters in 2008, then the differential is 0.2x+47600.
What do you think?
Many are saying Romney never connected to those voters who want a president who has empathy for their feelings…
But I am thinking adopting some pragmatic solutions that appeal to voters might help in this regard…
Say, I have a novel idea…how about a Conservative?
Maybe someone who respects the Tea Party too?
Nahhh, The Establishment won’t buy it, besides they have jeb bush in the line up of dole-maccain-romnry-bush!!!
Romney won in all states that have voter photo ID laws.
Regardless of what else went on demographically, this
election was stolen. Obama had a terrible record and many
were ABO voters. This was the year, regardless of the dem freebies to the 47% that a repub woud win. I am sorry; it doesn’t add up no matter how one looks at it. Joseph Stalin said something about “it doesn’t matter how many who vote, it matters who counts the votes”. There is a website that is tracking this – obamavoterfraudblogspot.com – check it out.
Until voters have secure elections, including both the process of voting and the counting of votes afterward,
the liberals will continue to win.
I agree. They won because they committed rampant voter fraud, period.
Out of 57 precincts in Chicago, not one had a single vote for Mits, but they had the NBP watching to ensure everything was right.
In Flordia with a register voter precinct of 128K they had 240K plus voters
1. The chief reason that the GOP lost is simple, many Republicans AND independents stayed home.
2. Those that did go out to vote chose instant gratification over substance.
3. Toss in some voter fraud and the drain off of votes for the libertarian candidate for good measure.
My conclusion is that we have drifted ever closer to the abyss and have a good chance of falling off what is left of our economic system. If that happens, look for very hard times ahead…
Overlooked in all of this is the problem of stupid candidates for other federal offices [Akin and Mourdock, are you listening?]. When they shoot their mouths off about issues of which they know absolutely nothing, the media turns it around and claims that Romney supports that position, if only because Romney tries to stay untied with these jerks. Romney’s position is not that of Akin or Mourdock, but he supports them because they are Republicans and taking back the Senate is a worthy goal.
We need to recruit responsible candidates who don’t spout off on these social issues. Stay focused on JOBS, TAX REFORM, DEBT and DEFICIT.
And don’t let Candy, in the generic sense, act as a debate “moderator”.
I hope you and Karl Rove enjoy your 20% party.
A few things that did not help our side….
1. Jamming down RNC rules 12 and 16 at the convention.
http://www.freedomworks.org/blog/dean-clancy/romneys-rnc-power-grab-what-happened
2. Telling Palin to get lost at the convention.
Mark Levin nailed Preibus on his show about this and the RNC President sounded like a squirming worm on his answer.
3. Treating the base like crap and taking them for granted.
At the RNC convention, I know of of several delegates who got up and left the convention in protest after the bogus “the ayes have it” comment on RNC rules 12 and 16. Not all of them were Ron Paul delegates (that was the cover story)…quite a few were Santorum, Gingrich and even Romney delegates. Some were young and new, many were long term delegates with 30+ years of service to the grass roots.
These are the folks who went home and told the their local groups what happened. You didn’t see them helping Romney. At best they stayed local and helped state candidates.
A lot of bridges got burnt after that convention.
One more thing, Pat Caddell gives a great dissertation on the media two months ago and about the RNC being the “stupid party”. His comments on Sarah Palin and the campaign handlers is a must hear (starts at 16:30 mark).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brDZJA8j-8c
Husker I watched that part too. From now on I’m against everything Boehner is for. BUT The Establishment not only reelected him but are working on jeb bush for ’16…that guarantees 5 years to make a 3rd party.
Continuing to do the same thing over & again is insanity
Obama got fewer votes than 2008, and many of his crossed back to vote for Romney. So in a year when even more was on the line, Romney couldn’t win even with many leaving Obama. I think his coordinated vicious assault on the tea party and conservatives, aided by Drudge, Coulter, others … left deep scars.
Inspiring the non-voter is probably a big deal. I still wonder why Romney went so soft after that first debate come back. I wonder if he felt he could hold those gains by going soft to hold on. But he actually displayed weakness, negating his gains, allowing Obama’s machine to control the message on many fronts. His campaign said it was Romney’s personal decision to go soft on Benghazi. A threat? A fear? Timidity? Religion?
And Sandy sold him out, as did Christie’s bromance. But mostly Romney went gently into that good night. Obama boldly lied about Benghazi, and when he challenged Romney in debate about it, Romney sat there meekly and listened to Obama’s lie “I would not use this for political gain”. Romney should have confronted .. “then you owe the American people a clear explanation”. He sat silent.
Romney is not a true conservative. His governorship was hard core liberal, promoting the most liberal social sexual agenda objectives, and was the model for Obama’s administration and Obamacare. Romney’s tactics in business were to loot/drain the company and leave the taxpayer holding the bill and in the primary, his political tactics were classic Alinsky (in 2008 . He used tax dollars to bail out the SLC Olympics too.
Before the election, I listed more than a dozen ways Obama planned to steal the election. Putin even gave him pointers.
This country is in deep doo doo. But we have laws that allow us to violate all of God’s commandments and some that force us to do so.
See Leviticus 26 – God has promised that a nation that does not keep faith with Him will have those who hate them to rule over them…will be taken captive.
55 million innocents slain by abortion. Innocent blood.
Fordham honored atheist Singer who supports infanticide. Notre Dame honored Obama who supports third trimester abortion and killing of abortion survivors.
Rebellion > rise of Assyria/Babylon > slavery/captivity, poverty, misery, death.
This is chaos. But chaos only comes from a vacuum of leadership.
The GOP ‘establishment’ has no leaders among it. The only ‘leaders’ to ever come out of the GOP successfully have been conservatives. No one works harder than the Grand Old Putzes to put a lid on conservative leadership. Thus, chaos will continue until it does.
$tarve them into submission. Then — and only then — may we can win our country back.
(Sorry – the above comment is a mess. Allow me re-state it, without the typos:)
This is chaos. But chaos only comes from a vacuum of leadership.
The GOP ‘establishment’ has no leaders among it. The only ‘leaders’ to ever come out of the GOP successfully have been conservatives. No one works harder than the Grand Old Putzes to put a lid on conservative leadership. Thus, chaos will continue until it does not.
$tarve them into submission. Then — and only then — may we begin to win our country back.
In 2004, Evan Thomas, than of Newsweek, wrote the media gave Kerry a 10 point advantage. This dynamic has not changed. The elephant in tne living room is the MSM, and how it skews national elections. Many think it pointless to whine about this. I’m not. It is true, however, running a race with a 10 pt handicap is a big deal. Unless and until this is handled, the R’s lose.
I’ve been trying to understand what happened in Las Vegas. Never have I seen such a republican effort as there was to elect Mitt Romney. It’s a union town. Culinary being the biggest, then Teamsters, SEIU, and various construction trades. Unions were totally devastated by the last 4 years. But the union based turned out and gave Obama a 50,000 vote lead in early voting.
I recently had lunch, with a bunch of people I didn’t know. There were culinary workers, teamsters, regular street smucks, and….some working people. They told stories about how someone would buy up a hotel and fire everyone. They talked about how they were worried if they would have a job in the future. The conversations weren’t political, but time and time again all the democrat talking points came out. Big business is evil….Business men are evil….Hostess, was evil owners stealing from the workers……they, in their hearts believe this. There would never be a republican candidate they would vote for. The occupy wall street….the racist evil republicans, the evil business man talking points are facts in their lives.
We can not have hope for a republican future if we are not in control of what is truthful and what is not. Somehow I think we need to sit in the trenches and listen to what people are saying and construct a message and a method to deliver it, or we are, …doomed to have more elections like this one
Atlas will shrug. Hostess is proof.
Just as a general comment on methodology: I would concentrate my attention on the writings of those who correctly predicted the outcome and basically ignore the rest.
It’s come to this: The poor outnumber the rich. By poor, I don’t mean in monetary value, I mean in mentality. They want their free stuff and they want it now. They don’t believe in the American dream, they believe in looting. Watch what happens to the death tax and other Roman mob rule taxes this term.
I’m really sad for my country right now, it’s like watching an all american quarterback wither away from a heroine addiction.
America is going into a new chapter- and it is a dangerous one. No country has gone into this territory and survived another 100 years.
I really don’t think it’s about free stuff. It’s about who they think will protect them from bad things happening. Republicans aren’t projecting that message….
Things are multicausated, and all the causes have contributed. But I have to cast my vote here regarding why we lost the election with those who are pointing to fraud.
One thing I tend to do by default is to disregard the advice of my enemies. They’re really not worried about your best interest.
Checking with the link Professor provides from Common Cents, I found that their numbers for at least one state, Texas are wrong. The chart gives each candidate, both Obama and Romney, 7,476 more votes than they actually received. It also states that Obama was down 2+% in votes in Texas from 2008. Actually, according to the Texas Secretary of State website, Obama was down 6.5% in votes from Texas over 2008. The reason for the discrepency was that the spread sheet had the total number of votes in Texas for 2008 wrong.
There have been a lot of the GOP establishment barking dogs, Bill Kristol, Lindsay Graham, John McCain, Fred Barnes types, that have been pounding the “It’s the demographics, stupid” meme, and they quickly throw out Florida for proof, as if Florida is the only state in which Hispanics reside. All of the above named RINOs were hell bound to give us amnesty during the Bush years, and now they want to use the Romney loss as proof that we must accept at least amnesty lite if we ever want to garner the Hispanic vote. WHAT BUNK.
Now, we know that California has a lot of Hispanics, and that they will continue to vote Democrat (as exhibited by the elections in California) but only because of California’s lax social welfare rules. Give people free stuff and they will vote for you, even if they are not legally qualified to vote in the U.S. But you should notice those barking dogs never use Texas, or Arizona, two states with high percentages of Hispanic voters, as an example. Why is that? Simple. Texas, and Arizona, are red states, and they are red states due to the votes Republicans garner from Hispanic voters in those states.
Example: in 2008, Obama took 28 counties in Texas, mostly border counties. He lost two of those counties in 2012. In major metropolitan counties, Bexar (San Antonio), Travis (Austin) and Harris (Houston) the margin of Obama’s win from 2008 was narrowed. In Harris County, Obama’s solid 2008 win was turned into an almost dead heat with Obama taking Harris County by 1/2 of 1%, for an 18,468 lead in 2008 to a weak 585 vote lead in 2012. Travis County (Austin) gave Obama a 2008 lead of 116,607 votes down to a lead of 92,037 on Nov. 6th.
In Texas we are leading the way in how to win elections for Republicans. Hispanic Republicans, like Ted Cruz, who is going to [hopefully] set the party on its ear, and the election of Bill Flores in 2010. Our own state legislature has a number of Hispanic Republicans and so it becomes obvious that Texas knows something the rest of the nation does not; how to appeal to those Hispanic voters that causes one of their ranks to run for public office on the Republican ticket.
Hispanics want the same thing we want, the ability to support their families and hopefully, start their own businesses. If the GOP want to appeal to that, the national GOP needs to stop the pandering and simply tell Hispanics “We don’t want to give you free stuff, including amnesty for the MS-13er that just hasn’t been arrested yet but causes so much trouble in your barrio, but we do want to get the government off your back so you can acheive the American dream of ownership of your own fate, and we believe you are smart enough to take care of the rest.” Hispanics don’t want to be treated special, they want to be treated just like everyone else, and pandering to them just doesn’t cut it.
“Common sense” is right.
We need to stick to our guns. Things could very well turn around, as the reality of Obama’s sheen is dulled by reality.
Our biggest two problems are (1)a back-stabbing GOP, and (2) a corrupt media. We have complete control of the former — and shame on us if we fail to exercise it — and we can work at countering the latter. (Word of mouth is more powerful than the press. Especially my mouth.)
None of these analyses are very interesting because it was a close election. Could it have been fraud? Maybe, because it was close. Could it have been Hispanics? Maybe, because the margin of victory was less than 1% of the total vote, concentrated in a few key states.
Focusing on this divide and conquer stuff to get 10000 more Hispanic votes in Ohio in 2016 isn’t what America is about. If that’s what we do, we’ll probably keep losing.
But none of this matters, because the country will probably experience a devastating economic collapse by about 2016, if not before. The guy that leads during that period of desperation will be the obvious choice for President. If he’s a Democrat, expect a civil war. If he’s a Republican, then he’ll be the guy who found a way to neutralize the mainstream press. If no one leads, expect the country to split up into 3 or more separate countries.
Cultural Popularity Matters. Politics Is Otherwise Boring.
In my view, many things contributed to the 2012 loss but the most glaring reason was the Democrat Led Media trashing opponents and promoting Obama as a cultural icon.
The last cultural icon we had was the actor Ronald Reagan.
Sarah Palin was/is a cultural icon who entered the stage in 2008.
She was/is the most feared of any national candidate Dems have faced since Reagan because she is a cultural icon.
Thus, the attack on Sarah was epic.
This year that tactic got Dems a re-elected president, keeping the majority in the Senate, and gained seats in the House.
The GOP Establishment and Fox News let Dems and their Media get away with it starting in 2008 and even joined in.
The GOP Establishment price for that came due in 2012. They had selfishly trashed the only cultural icon they had and tried the buttoned down collar spreadsheet facts and figures approach against a Democrat Rock Star.
I’ve stayed away from this topic. In my current view, it’s just pissing in the wind.
Until voting machine software is addressed, and corrupt–blatantly corrupt–election officials start going to jail, I have no confidence in the integrity of our elections.
However, I did read one little thing the day after the election that struck me:
“Romney kept telling everyone what they already knew-over, and over.”
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