After reading a variety of articles with sources from inside the Romney campaign team, I am considering revising my whole way of looking at this election. I knew, because I witnessed it first hand, that Romney had a terrible ground game that basically threw money at problems rather than organizing in any rational way. But I still can’t believe that they just wasted 30,000 volunteers on election day by asking them to sit inside precincts and strike voters off the list as they voted using a web application that didn’t work. Failure on that level is reminiscent of the post-invasion plan for Iraq. It’s not a matter of the Obama campaign staff being better. The Romney campaign sabotaged their most passionate warriors and rendered them useless.
Another thing I didn’t think possible is that when Romney took no chances in the last debate it was because he thought he was ahead. And when he campaigned in Pennsylvania it wasn’t a Hail Mary pass but an attempt to run up the score. I am having trouble believing that no one in Romney’s inside circle thought they were going to lose. I want to argue that they are just saying that because that is what they told all their billionaire supporters and they can’t admit to them that they were getting bullshitted.
I can kind of understand where the Republicans were coming from when they assumed that black turnout would not be as high the second time around and that Obama could never match his 2008 turnout because he couldn’t deliver on all his promises. Intuitively, both of those assumptions made perfect sense. But pollsters are paid to test those kind of assumptions, not to incorporate them into their models. Why did Romney’s pollsters assume a 78% white electorate when all the reputable pollsters were assuming a significantly lower percentage? Wasn’t it just bullshit to sell to the big donors? Wasn’t that what the Rasmussen and Gallup models were doing, too? I mean, I was certain that Team Romney was in on the joke. Are we supposed to believe that they drank their own Kool-Aid?
Why do people on Romney’s team want us to know that the candidate was “shellshocked” when the turnout numbers matched the consensus of polls? Are we supposed to feel sorry for him because he was crestfallen or because he is stupid? How does that help his legacy? I don’t think it does. I think it protects him from the anger and backlash of his billionaire donors.
But this is always the thing with Republicans. Are they stupid or evil? The answer always comes back: both.
Just finished reading that post at Ace of Spades after seeing a David Corn tweet about it. Then I come over here and see you posting about it. That is the funniest thing I have read in a while. I have to give the guy credit for hanging on as long as he could.
Things like this continue to amaze me. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that a party which doesn’t believe in science and thinks intelligent and educated people are snobs continues, year in and year out, to look like the Keystone Cops.
As long as they continue to run their campaigns and elections based mostly on “faith”, we can take heart that Democrats will be able to take advantage of their ignorance and stubbornness in holding on to their flawed methods.
But if they ever get their shit together, and with all the cash that will be at their disposal for the foreseeable future, it could get worrisome. We can’t get too smug about their current incompetence.
As long as they continue to run their campaigns and elections based mostly on “faith”, we can take heart that Democrats will be able to take advantage of their ignorance and stubbornness in holding on to their flawed methods.
And if Democrats ever threw a bankster or two in jail, the GOP would really have no hope of ruling any place besides the South for the next 20 years.
Not even the South. If they locked up the banksters and deal with private debt. (Cutting maximum credit card interest rates and increasing the minimum wage would be a start.)
But if they ever get their shit together, and with all the cash that will be at their disposal for the foreseeable future, it could get worrisome. We can’t get too smug about their current incompetence.
You’re right, but there’s the whole “if my aunt had balls” argument: if Conservatives catch a clue, they become liberals.
Well, when you employ the assclown who runs Public Opinion Strategies (with the appropriate acronym POS), what do you expect?
If they really thought they were going to PA to run up the score, that’s really fucking pathetic. And if they honest-to-god thought they were up at any point in this campaign, they’re even stupider than I thought.
The wonderful thing for all of us, even the Teabaggers, is that Mitt Romney will be gone from the national stage soon enough. I hope Obama said he’ll reach out to Romney because of unfailing politeness, not because he was telling the truth.
Well, it explains the plans for the fireworks over Boston Harbor (wonder if there was an “If We Lose” cancellation clause) and the lack of a ride home to Belmont when the Secret Service ended its protection at the Boston Convention Center. At least Tagg didn’t strap him to the roof.
Wow — missed this one: Mitt Romney planned Boston Harbor fireworks show that was scotched by election loss
Echoes of GWB’s “Mission Accomplished” faux-victory prance.
2 mints in one. Or something.
Meh, I’m with David Atkins:
Sure, Romney was an idiot for allowing those people to sit there idle, but would they have really made that much of a difference? The churches are the Republicans’ groundgame, and they always vote.
Rove believes the churches can deliver tens of millions more to the GOP. At least that’s one of his pitches to his marks. If there was ever election in which he could deliver those voters, this was it — how could such imagined voters not show up to vote against the black, Muslim, fascist, Kenyan socialist.
Precisely. It’s because they did show up. I’m with nalbar; Obama’s model has changed the landscape. Demographic inevitability aside, we’ve had the RV advantage for a while.
Rove was right about churches being able to deliver, but that was soooo 8 years ago when he could make them whip up anti-gay hysteria. That doesn’t work as well now.
Of course he can still use the abortion angle. But when the goopers started going after contraception it was a bridge too far.
Plus, we have our own churches that can deliver đŸ™‚
Traditionally, GOTV efforts are focused on people they know are sympathetic but who have spotty voting records. Just saying “older conservatives vote” or “the churches will take care of it” doesn’t cover those folks. An improved Republican GOTV program would, in fact, make a difference. They’re not trying to turn out random people; they’re trying to turn out their people. First, the folks they know are sympathetic; then, the precincts and demographics (and psychographics) where the odds are the person is supportive. It’s not just a random universe of the entire American population, as the blockquote seems to suggest.
I’ve been both annoyed and amused the past three or so weeks; we probably got about 15 robocalls in that time from the RNC. They were personalized for name and location. Unfortunately, Heather in Nevada isn’t at our phone number. I usually let the message play all the way through, on the theory that that was one line that couldn’t be used to call somebody else while I tied up the line. Heck, there was even the risk that it delayed them from calling somebody who was actually atthe number they had…
That’s because the elites are both stupid and evil. (Read Chris Hayes, The Twilight of the Elites for the details.)
American institutions have adjusted over the past three decades to select their leaders for stupidity and evil. We are very lucky when there are some that don’t fit the mold.
I can kind of understand where the Republicans were coming from when they assumed that black turnout would not be as high the second time around and that Obama could never match his 2008 turnout because he couldn’t deliver on all his promises. Intuitively, both of those assumptions made perfect sense. But pollsters are paid to test those kind of assumptions, not to incorporate them into their models.
Maybe it springs from the same impulse that drives a President to fire the General in charge of invading a foreign country for having the audacity to suggest more troops will be needed for the occupation than the administration is willing to admit.
Otoh, the Bush team knew how to run a campaign. Which is why I wonder what on earth Karl Rove was doing will all his time. He understands a ground game, or at least that’s what it used to look like. He had plenty of money to work with–did he just funnel it off to cronies in ad consultations, or what?
The danger here is that if Team Romney was unbelievably stupid and incompetent, then that leaves a lot of room for gains when the next team takes over. But Seabe has a good point too in that GOP voters don’t really need help getting themselves to the polls. Who knows where it balances out.
I wonder what on earth Karl Rove was doing will all his time. He understands a ground game, or at least that’s what it used to look like. He had plenty of money to work with–did he just funnel it off to cronies in ad consultations, or what?
More or less, yes. IIRC he couldn’t do anything with ground game, because he was working for SuperPACs and not the actual campaign. While Citizens United loosened the election laws up way too much, there are still some left, but I don’t know exactly what Rove was and wasn’t able to do.
Plus, as others have said above, the wedge issues that Rove used so successfully for GOTV aren’t as potent this time around.
OT: Maps and Cartograms of the election results:
Cartogram Map of the 2012 Presidential Election Results
Look at the county-level map. Now can we stop writing off the South as bad for Democrats.
Also, I took a look at some of the third-party results. Looking at Massachusetts, it looks like Massachusetts Greens just phoned it in for Jill Stein–19,000 votes–ouch, some favorite daughter.
So on point.
This is awesome. Thanks for the link.
Our experience organizing campuses was much the same. The energy was phenomenal. Youth vote was up this year from 2008, which none of the analysts saw coming. But we did.
That writeup captures some of the central aspects of the Obama campaign better than anything I’ve written.
As the page has turned into his second term, I have also been thinking about what Obama has given the Demcratic Party and America. The intangibles are huge. The word “empathy” came into force. There is a different current and vibe about why and how we do things. I’ve also been thinking a lot about if or how well Dems will be able to employ the Obama campaign tools in the future. After seeing his moving speech to HQ in Chicago and after reading this article, I have no doubts that there is a critical mass of trained organizers that will be ready to go at it again:
I am seriously beginning to think that that whole “white hourse” prophecy was something that Romney musta really believed in.
Also, he got duped by Fox News and RWNJ radio idiots bubble which says that the majority of the country is center-right or even more conservative and older and whiter than it is. The electorate is younger, multicultural and socially progressive.
Believe. It’s the magic word. Republicans use it all the time…way too much, actually.
I’d rather ‘know’ than ‘believe’, any day. And I’d rather pay for knowledge than for someone to scaffold already-held beliefs.
That’s the difference between us and them.
Have you listened to Democratic politicians lately? Haven’t done an “I believe” comparison count between Democrats and Republicans but it’s a bi-partisan failing.
Yes and no. Saying “I believe” and acting “I believe” is two different things.
If you recall, Democrats spent most of the summer in Chicken Little mode. Booman, Smartypants, PM Carpenter, AHNC and a few others kept their panties on straight and pointed to the $$$ coming from individuals, stories of enthusiasm from youngsters and polls.
The Republicans spent the summer telling each other that 2012 democratic voters weren’t enthusiastic and no way would show up in the numbers of 2008. And believed every damn word of it. see: unskewed.com for verification of this.
Republicans believe and act on that belief in defiance of evidence. Democrats believe and modify actions to fit those beliefs to the available evidence.
Weren’t the Democratic “chicken littles” operating from a place as non-fact based as the Republicans last summer? The polls combined with the advantage of incumbency always favored Obama. The enthusiasm for him wasn’t what it had been in 2008, but Romney excited nobody except Republican Mormons and it was an uphill climb for him to retain the McCain 2008 voters. BushI (in 1988) and Gore were the only two recent POTUS candidates that came from behind to win and in Gore’s case, he was behind until the last two months.
I read this just before I came to visit you, This is a memo on the GOP blog on Nov. 5. It’s hilarious and well worth a read. This is the first time I visited the site. It’s not a spoof is it? Says:
Paid for by the Republican National Committee. Not Authorized By Any Candidate Or Candidate’s Committee. http://www.gop.com
For Democrats, It’s (Ground) Game Over
http://www.gop.com/news/gop-blog/for-democrats-its-ground-game-over/
Lucy…you’ve got some splainin’ to do!!!
Imagine what they could do if they weren’t screw ups. Well, I guess that’s impossible for republicans.
I’m sure people have seen this already, but this is a lovely video of President Obama visiting his Chicago HQ and talking to the staff and volunteers. He actually got tearful when he was saying “I’m Realy Proud of All of You”
Lovely video:
http://youtu.be/pBK2rfZt32g
Thank you for posting that. I had not seen it.
This, for me, confirms what I’ve felt since 2008. It confirms what I’ve long felt and known in my being — that Obama is a great man who will be remembered as a truly great president. I’ve long felt that I’d be happy to be half the man he is. Great leaders do not lead by ego. Great leaders are inspired by those they lead.
Well … Obama actually won several battlegrounds (e.g. IA, NV, NH, WI) by better margins than he won PA, and several others by almost the same as PA) so if they thought they were going to win, by ANY combination, it follows that PA was well in reach.
I mean, PA is less elastic and all that, but … I don’t know … I agree that it’s very hard to believe that Romney didn’t know he was done for. In retrospect, McCain certainly knew well in advance.
Steve Schmidt said on Election night Tuesday that they knew at least the weekend before the election in ’08 that they were losing. They still went to PA as a head fake, but they knew they were losing.
The GOP hasn’t won PA in a Presidential election since Poppy Bush in 1988. Yet PA is still somehow considered a swing state. Go figure!!
Philly crushed the Republicans and their voter suppression efforts. Crushed them.
Have you read the TIME article that had access to the GOTV team on the condition that they don’t publish what they learned until after the election. My god, the GOP should shudder in their drawers if they don’t catch up somehow!
http://swampland.time.com/2012/11/07/inside-the-secret-world-of-quants-and-data-crunchers-who-helped
-obama-win/?iid=sl-main-belt
Stupid AND evil works for me.
I posted yesterday on Project Orca and what I witnessed with the GOP poll watcher at my polling site. This confirms and adds some details to what I saw.
Here’s the thing: I’m seeing this kind of leadership behavior increasingly more often in business the last few years. Leaders who roll out stuff without checking with the users first … leaders who ignore concerns or complaints, and when they think no one is listening are actively disparaging of those who voice such concerns … leaders who are still blaming others as they are finally pushed out the door with a complete disaster in their wake.
I wonder if it is related to the Reagan/Murdochization of the English-speaking world. Empathy is less valued in leaders – what we want are people who exude confidence even if they clearly don’t know shit about the topic at hand. People who earn crazy amounts of money are convinced that they are worth it and that those low wage earners who they are supposed to be leading are too stupid to listen to. And once you are in the high earner class you can never fail … even if you are kicked out for major screw-ups your severance is at least 20x what the average person earns in a year.
In any event, this appears to be the GOP’s inherent fatal flaw. Even if they did luck out and get someone competent enough to do a great job the party culture would cause that person to be shunted aside before he/she finished the job.
It reminds me of what Marty Schottenheimer used to say to his players at KC before they went up against the Raiders … just keep the game close, the Raiders will find a way to screw it up at the end.
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Wow, fascinating. Named for the creature which is the only known predator of the Narwhal, which is the name of the Obama campaign’s turnout system. So juvenile. Reminds me of how the Romney campaign was, for a while, sending people out to disrupt Obama events.
She claims Orca will surpass Obama’s vaunted turnout operation. I don’t think she was deliberately lying. These people drank their own koolaid. The only accurate thing she said was, “It will be interesting to see how it goes.” That it was.
And as I said in reply to this video –
Booman Tribune ~ Comments ~ Romney’s Delay Due to Failure ORCA Exit Poll Analysis
BooMan,
they were just cashing the checks.
I don’t think they were stupid – they were as arrogant as their candidate.
they had steamrolled over the amateurs and grifters of the GOP primary field, and they never accepted the brilliance that is Team Obama.
after all, they just ‘ knew’ that their money would do the trick.
You know, you’re right. They always had this conception of Obama as something like Stepin Fetchit — “empty suit” — “can’t talk without a teleprompter” — and it wasn’t just spin, it was obviously vital to them to believe it. (There’s that word again — “believe”.) But to anybody not drinking the Koolaid, it was quite obviously so far from the truth. I mean, I had never even heard of the guy, and within a few months, the way he rolled right past the most powerful machine in the Democratic Party, the Clintons, to win the nomination! How could anybody do that unless they had something formidable?
As for rank and file Democrats — well, they couldn’t possibly be REAL Murkins. And now a lot of these “real Murkins” literally believe the defeat of their presidential candidate means the end of America.
T
hey committed the two most basic mistakes of any contestant, underestimating your opponent and overestimating yourself.
Goes to show, despite the insidious “conventional wisdom” propaganda, it pays to go with the academics and the empiricists over the corporate types every time.
That Ace of Spades link (which otherwise appears to be a crazy-ass right-wing site) is the funniest damn thing I’ve read in a long time.
We seriously only won 51-48?
We seriously only won 51-48?
The margin may go up a point when the final 5 million votes are counted – about half in California.
i know I’m counting on the 4.7% Colorado margin (and to think you non-Coloradoans were worried!) will be over 5% when all our provisional ballots are counted in 2 weeks. At my polling place approximately 20% of the total votes on election day were provisionals … and although the precinct is 20% Latino or black, and the in-person vote that day about 30% Latino or black, about 50% of the provisionals were Latino or black. That means the provisionals will go strongly Obama. In Colorado Latinos went Obama by an even higher ratio than nationally – over 90% by one estimate.
Unfortunately the provisional ballots are inherently going to be filled out disproportionally by the working class. People who move more frequently, as renters and those who have to move for temporary work do, will be more likely to need to file provisionals due to failure to update their voter registrations with their newest addresses.
Anybody who read my posts the last week before the election had to see how worried I was. But the funny thing is, I never was worried about Colorado. I read your posts, Green. I believed you. I simply did not believe Colorado, after taking him over the top 4 years ago, would go the other way. Because you said not to worry about Colorado.
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Yeah, we can all laugh this up, but I’ve been on the losing side, too, and we’ve had our own share of clusterfucks.
Take for example, working for MoveOn for Kerry in 2004. Massive clusterfuck.
In 2008, I did the same job for Obama that the Orca monitors tried to do for Romney. That election day system crashed, too, early in the day and was wortless as far as working as designed. When you’re on the winning side, tho, no articles are published about what went wrong.
I’m not buying any of this bullshit that Romney’s team didn’t know they were losing. That’s horseshit. What they were doing was lying to the press and the public so that their supporters didn’t lose heart and stay at home, which was the calamity that lead to the Obama and congresional landslides in 2008 when it became obvious McCain was gonna get smoked 30 days before the election.
And the bullshit worked, as far as saving a lot of seats. But them expecting right up until election night they were gonna win? That’s a bald faced lie.
I’m not buying any of this bullshit that Romney’s team didn’t know they were losing.
A few years ago I would have agreed with this. But I’ve just seen too many reich wing rich dudes up front in recent years, and frankly, they are so self-confident, so not used to having anyone question them, let alone point out that they are wrong, that this kind of group mass delusion is not only plausible, it’s the only possible outcome.
Consider that the reich wingers actually paid to rent freaking mile high stadium to celebrate their inevitable victory over the kenyanmuslimmarxistatheistnigger:
http://www.denverpost.com/politics/ci_21953064/colorado-republicans-examine-what-went-wrong-what-nee
ds
Or that while Romney is so fucking cheap that he didn’t pay for his staff’s taxi rides home after the loss:
http://www.inquisitr.com/392404/romney-cuts-credit-cards-of-staffers-before-the-cab-ride-home-report
/
… he nevertheless paid in advance for a fireworks display over Boston Harbor:
http://www.boston.com/politicalintelligence/2012/11/08/mitt-romney-planned-boston-harbor-fireworks-s
how-that-was-scotched-election-loss/qmgtVKPq4zNnDyb9FbLWeJ/story.html
What is the definition of “stupid”? Hard to say, really. But while I’m an atheist I have to say that the parts of the gospels where Jesus allegedly rants against the evils of being too rich really strike home to me. In my, alas, extensive experience in business assisting the ultra rich “business leaders” I’ve seen way too often how excessive money thoroughly destroys the decision making ability of otherwise intelligent people … that is, makes smart people stupid.
Honestly, I think the 91% top marginal tax rate was a REALLY good idea. A maximum wage is a good thing. After people are given too much money they turn both stupid AND evil.
” … so self-confident, so not used to having anyone question them, let alone point out that they are wrong …”
That describes Romney to a “T”, doesn’t it?
Were you in Missouri in 2008? I saw the same thing: An automated telephone-based system had been established to gather poll-watcher data, but it failed on election day. I’ve never read anything about this and had always assumed that the failure was local to the state. Was it nationwide?
You know, this whole Romney-campaign-thought-they-had-it-won thing is just the logical outgrowth of the Republican War on Science.
I need to work up a diary on this point.
Evil.
I don’t care if they were stupid or evil; I’m just glad they lost. And even though they did, Cantor and Ryan and Boehner are still behaving as if they have the power to call the shots. “No tax cuts!” blah, blah. There’s McConnell talking as if Obama needs to come to him with a deal he can accept–the whole lot of them are arrogant fools. THEY LOST.
I realize deals have to be made to get things done, but by God, I hope our team plays hardball this time. Since when do the LOSERS and the minority get to say what the bottom line for them is? They did that last time. They keep right on acting as if they are deciding how to govern when they lost to Obama again and spectacularly: 323 EVs is a commanding win.
What’s their plan now? Do nothing to deny Obama a third term? YOu can bet that if they had won, it would be mandate, mandate, mandate, and elections have consequences. Let the consequence be that this time they don’t get to bog everything down until they get their way.
So…what’s the recipe for a really good fix? The best that money can buy?
Simple. Make sure that the designated loser and (almost) his entire team actually believe that they can win, even though the real candidate choosing operation is controlled by a media that is largely in on the fix. Eliminate anyone who presents the slightest chance of screwing the fix up (Ron Paul in this instance), and then let the rival tomato cans roll around in the dumb until one of them wins. That done, throw lots of money and media attention their way…including money from other businessman-type tomato cans like the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson…and watch the losers pump themselves up.
Then puncture their bubble late in the last round, squeezing every last dollar out of the narrative.
That way they losers don’t have to “act.” They really believe they’re going to win. When they lose? That’s news too. Sell some more airtime with postmortems.
I sporadically watched the mainstream network coverages of the election returns, from the time the first ones came in until it was clear that Romney was going to be the loser. The one thing that was perfectly obvious was that almost all of the so-called “neutral” network people were either consciously or not so consciously rooting for Obama. Even when the very early…and totally inconclusive…returns favored Romney the commentators could not hide their distress, and as the numbers piled up they just got happier and happier. There is a little viral meme zipping around the web about how Diane Sawyer must’ve been drunk or something. She was positively giddy at times, and as far as I am concerned it was because she wanted Obama to win in the worst way.
Stock the newsrooms with partisans and the fix is halfway in already.
And if the designated winner and his team are kept in at least some sort of doubt? All the better. Then they don’t have to act either. (I refuse to believe that Obama and his people are so stupid that they don’t have at least an inkling of what’s really up, but the old doublecross is always a danger when dealing with world-class con men.)
The result?
And the money comes pouring in.
After the fix is over?
Same old same old. Divided legislature, suspect Supreme Court, a cabinet of hustlers and the headlines that follow.
And so on.
Yawn.
Time to hibernate.
Maybe this will all go away if I take some time off.
But I doubt it.
Sleep tight and don’t let the fixbugs bite.
Later…
AG
There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Mr. Gilroy. Reality is so much more interesting.
And…there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your reality as well.
So it goes.
“Reality” on, baby.
I’ll take mine, you take your’n. We’ll see who gets to Scotland first.
Later…
AG
The reason reality is more interesting is that there’s a lot about it we don’t know. The thing about your philosophy is that you know it backwards and forwards, and it always comes out the same way. See ya in Scotland.
That was the big unknown: would people wait in line for hours to vote this time, after Obama seemed a much, more prosaic candidate. The Repubs were banking that people would not want to deal with hassle. That was what their models reflected. The polls did not reflect this, because pollsters do not ask if you want to vote so badly that you will stand in line for hours. So this is not part of their turnout calculations. As it happens, people saw the suppression for what it was, and it pissed them off. So they waited and dealt with the BS. That was what the Repubs were not counting on. All this “they were too trapped in their own bubble to read polls” talk is silly. They are professionals and highly capable. But we have not seen this kind of systemic suppression since Jim Crow, and it worked a lot better then, because there was also an implicit threat of violence, and no one expected it to come to that this time.
Stupid and evil. Yes. And I’d add nasty to that, hateful. Just the fact that repugnant women didn’t come out in droves to protest the filthy, nonchalant chatter about rape seals the case against them.
Why is the democratic party different? From “day one” my email has been filling up with letters of thanks from candidates, along with joyful celebration – no triumphal chants of USA! USA!
There really is a difference between the parties, and now the choice has narrowed to one between peace, love and service or war, hate and greed.
It’s no surprise which one truly wins votes.
I so don’t miss our troll.
Romney landslide! George Allen will win VA! What a loon.
Ahhhh yes. Memories of the troll.
The Repukes are into the Denial stage of the 5 stages. They are also into the “double-down on rape, misogyny, racism, and cluelessness” stage.
Denial stage? I thought they only did rage.
Wake me if they ever make it to bargaining.
I think they grossly underestimated their ability to be their own worst enemy and best witness for their own prosecution, which is why I’ve argued since BHO was elected the first time, barring some moderation on their part or a major scandal over BHO, his reelection was insured – by them.
The fear of rightwingnuttery they generated from econ to social policy, and on the FP front as well, not to mention their voter suppression efforts, etc, only served to heighten that fear, which was overcome in the vast majority of those BHO supporters who had plenty of disappointments in and complaints about him.
And of course, as I’ve long seen and argued it, their awareness and fear of the looming brown demographic wave that bit them in the ass a bit this time around, explains in no small part their foray into both the extremism on issues unrelated to race like the aforementioned, as well as their use of it in the campaign to tweak the brain stems of and energize their base base. Are there any doubts that in their minds that “the off-whites” equals “socialist hordes” that pose an existential threat to their political existence and the status of the term “socialist” as well? Well, I’m sure as I’ve argued in conjunction with that, that they HAVE also known that all the problems plaguing us, like job creation, the debt/deficits, healthcare, and the biggest of them all, global warming, are all gonna require some “socialism” in whole or in significant part.
While this election doesn’t imo represent the Kochsuckers last stand, it certainly was at least a “D-Day” in our war against their stupid evil.
I think his lack of knowledge of the Latino vote and his Mormon Religion helped him lose. I travel in some pretty conservative areas and I listen to Christian Radio every once and awhile. And never new the Hard Right take on Mormonism, not being a religion, until listening to some Rural Christian Radio.
Kris Kobach hurt his chances with the Latino community, no one likes him.
Someday in the future this post election period will be remember as the great Point and Laugh party of 2012.
Shorter entire Romney campaign: “We believed we were emotionally entitled to victory”.
You forgot to add totally incompetent at managing/governing – the Iraq reconstruction process/Hurricane Katrina debacle illustrated that in spades. Young Republicans can’t organize their way out of a paper bag, and this election showed it. I’m not sure if it’s just their conceit, cluelessness about other cultures/ethnic groups, or what, but it has been on display now for 20 years. They also spend money like water. Now if only the Dems can hold the Teabaggers feet to the fire over the deficit thingy, we might have a chance at pushback before 2014 is upon us.
Like I said.