30 thoughts on “Ten Reasons Romney Lost”

  1. “Especially number 8.”

    Yup, just had a long conversation about this nonsense this morning. I have no idea what they’re thinking, but I’m glad they lost. I think Government should have as little to do with people’s bodies as possible, and that was pretty much the opposite.

    They’re so damn worried about what would be a personal issue for someone and not the things Government is actually tasked with doing.

    1. So Romney Ryan “should” have lost based on a issue that they weren’t campaigning upon at all, but rather that Obama pinned on them.

      And this made sense?

      1. Ryan was very closely tied to Todd Akin and this issue through legislation they sponsored, & he has expressed personal views similar to Mourdock’s. It wasn’t difficult at all to present him as the cheesehead Santorum. As reason #11 or maybe #254, the choice of Ryan was only helpful for those already planning to vote to Romney, I doubt he attracted a single vote.

  2. Again, I call bullshit; here’s Murdock’s actual words:

    “I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God. And, I think, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen,”

    Nowhere is he saying being raped is God’s will; when “Ace” says that “we’ve got Senate candidates saying that God planned for women to get raped?” he’s lying through his teeth. And you’ll forgive me if I suspect agendas other than the pragmatic winning of elections when commentators lie like this.

    You think you can forge a successful conservative coalition (Republican or not) without social conservatives? Be my guest, see how far that goes. Didn’t work for McCain (who was absolutely vicious towards them after losing the 2000 primary). Unless I was really distracted, it didn’t work for Romney, although there’s a lot more involved. I gather that it did work for G. W. Bush, despite his other major deficiencies. Hmmmm.

    Skimming the rest, I note that Romney never called Obama a liberal. Game over, I’d say.

    1. “You think you can forge a successful conservative coalition (Republican or not) without social conservatives?

      The quick answer is yes.

      There is, broadly speaking, economic conservatism and social conservatism. I want to advance economic conservatism. I do not want to advance social conservatism. I see no reason why I should want to advance what I don’t support, and take part in any coalition that does.

      Actually it was a social conservative who I heard say something very wise, more than twenty years ago: “A coalition should be like a bus, that passengers can get on and off of whenever they want.” Among the reason I remember that is, when the I saw that the social conservatives on that bus were not really interested in going anywhere that I wanted to — but wanted me to chip in for gas money — I climbed off.

      1. As Ace says, there’s got to be a distinction between what people believe and practice in their personal lives, and what they try to make into laws that apply to 300+ million people. It’s not about excluding social conservatives, it’s about convincing them to focus on what is truly important for the federal government to be concerning itself with. Cognitive dissonance about rape being not God’s will but rape pregnancies being God’s will is one thing as a private philosophy, quite another as public policy.

        1. Yeah, and I realize the guy likely misspoke, but like you said they really shouldn’t even be having this conversation in the first place. Nothing productive will come of it.

        2. Most social conservatives would be quite happy to leave the federal government out of all of these matters — if the federal government would do so. But they won’t.

      2. Wait a minute. You need to understand recent history. The social conservatives and evangelicals were Democrats all the way through the 1976 elections. They put Jimmy Carter in the White House. But then Carter’s IRS proposed eliminating tax deductions for religious school tuition, and all hell broke loose in the evangelical community. Upper middle class Republicans were never anti-abortion. They still are not. The evangelicals abandoned the Democrats over the tax issue in the late 1970’s and never went back, but that hardly means that Republicans need them to win elections.

  3. I think that a good case can be made on both sides of the abortion issue: one side about keeping the government out of your business, and the other about protecting the rights of an unborn life. The problem is that the Republicans have injected their religious beliefs into the debate, and the American people do not want to be preached to.

    I think that the abortion issue, like many other issues (gay rights/marriage and legalization of drugs come to mind)is best left to each individual state to decide.

  4. “I think that the abortion issue, like many other issues (gay rights/marriage and legalization of drugs come to mind)is best left to each individual state to decide.”

    Was/is that also true for matters of civil rights? Why or why not?

    Not to get ahead of the debate, but, where do we draw the line as to what individual rights are worthy of defense by the federal government (in consideration of the 14th Amendment) and what rights may be left to the discretion of state governments? Why do we place so much stock in federal court decisions regarding the RKBA (e.g., Heller and McDonald yet are willing to leave other matters to the states?

    1. Because the 14th Amendment was specifically adopted to prevent abridgement of various civil rights by the states. Try really hard to find anyone arguing in 1868 that abortion was a civil right. This is called originalism. Once you abandon it, the Supreme Court simply becomes a bunch of unelected, unremovable superlegislators.

    2. Mostly because the 2A says “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infinged,” which was incorporated via the 14th, while there is no enumerated power granting the federal government the power to regulate marriage.

      1. Using the 14th Amendment to impose gay marriage on states requires complete abandonment of any notion of original intent. In 1868, homosexual sex was a felony in 32 of 37 states — and had you seriously proposed same-sex marriage, it would at least have led to an arrest for public indecency, if not hospitalization.

        1. I agree. I feel that marriage is an issue best left to each state, and that includes bigamy, same sex, interracial, and age of consent. However, the Federal Government has seen fit to eliminate bigamy since the Utah War in 1858.

          1. Here’s an idea: Instead of The State(s), leave marriage up to individuals. Write contracts between individuals (or buy one from a stationers, print one from online, or get one from your church’s gift shop) then let the courts decide any civil disputes regarding violations of those contracts. Sort of like what we do when we buy a house or hire a landscaper. Get your favorite clergyman to endorse it, if you like.

            1. Ideally that’s what I’d like, I don’t think government should be involved in marriage at all, federal or otherwise. I realize however that it’s entangled in taxes and such, so it’s not an easy fix at the moment.

              1. The very first Congress, elected after the Constitution was ratified, was made up of many of the members of the Constitutional Convention that had just written the thing. Yet, even in the Congress, the members of Congress debated at great length about what the Constitution’s words actually meant. So, even the people who wrote the thing did not agree on what it meant, but you think that today we can look back and know exactly what those words mean and how they apply in all cases to every issue in the modern world? How can that possibly be if the very people who wrote the constitution could not agree, once they got to the first Congress, about what the words meant???

                Those who refuse to learn more about American history than the few pages in your 8th grade history textbook are darned fools. You need to know the details of our early history before you run around insisting that the Supreme Court must follow the Constitution’s original intent down to the last word.

                1. I didn’t insist anything, and I’m aware the founders debated at length over such things. I’m simply suggesting that in my opinion I don’t think that marriage should be something that the government has to approve of and issue a license for.

  5. No, Ace is really wrong on number 8 and his own discussion reveals it. Romney’s error with respect to abortion was to allow Obama to define Romney’s position on it and do so so falsely. It wasn’t a campaign theme for Romney / Ryan at all and Obama succeeded with the media’s help in using it to distract from the economic issues that Obama had failed utterly upon.

    It probably made a difference in why Romney received fewer votes than McCain. And peeling off a few million votes was what save Obama from the fact that he lost about 10 million votes from ’08.

    1. Maybe. But how do you think the election would have gone if Romney had answered questions about Akin and Mourdock this way: “Agree with them? Hell no. I think they’re a couple of complete loons who are both unfit for public office.” How about if Romney had answered any question with that much passion or decisiveness?

      1. Romney would then have lost by a bit larger margin as more GOP voters failed to show up.

        Romney lost because this election was a base turn out election, and Romney wasn’t able to turn out all of his base and Obama was able to turn out barely enough to win.

      2. Do you honestly believe that such a position would be allowed on national television, repeated in mainstream media, or be taken seriously by anyone but far conservatives? Short of challenging Akin and/or Mourdock to duels — which, admittedly, might have been a reasonable solution, given those two’s propensity toward blowing their own feet off — there’s really too much of a political belief that conservatives are going to want women barefoot and pregnant and somehow have the power to do that.

        It’s not even about these particularly idiotic money quotes. I don’t doubt that Akin gave a sizable GOTV effort for the President Obama campaign, true. But I’ve actually talked with progressives and liberals since the primaries started, and they’ve been worried the GOP candidates would be going around impregnating folk with a turkey baster even before they knew who the GOP candidate would be. Simply having an -R after the name and showing up on the same stage as Sanatorum makes a lotta these folks fearful in completely unreasonable ways.

        I don’t know how we can work around that.

        1. I think they can start by not giving the media ammo by making stupid comments. Even when they don’t necessarily mean anything bad, it frequently comes out wrong and they never hear the end of it then.

  6. Romney won the states the Mourdock and Akins lost.

    Romney lost for one reason, and one reason only.

    Millions of Republicans decided that the chance of Obama being re-elected was less dangerous than “sending a message” to the GOP. They knew the stakes in this election. Voters are adults. Eventually THEY need to be held responsible for the outcome of elections. They decided not to vote for their candidate for whatever reason and this was the result. I hope they are happy.

    If you know of a Republican that sat this out…congratulate them. Their candidate won.

  7. For the Political Wonks out there, here’s a Fact that might interest you. In Ohio (according to the State), there are 7,985,428 Registered Voters. 5,364,324 Voted on Tuesday, but 2,621,104 did not. That’s almost 1/3rd.

    Now, granted, some of them may have been in Graveyards, Jail, Mental Wards, Comas, etc. But I think the answer to “Why Romney lost the Election” lies in the Stay-at-Homes. Trust me, the Democrats in Ohio really work hard at getting out their Base, so I’m thinking that those who stayed home were mostly Republicans.

    I think they looked at the Choice offered them, they didn’t want to Vote FOR Romney (for whatever reason), but that meant Voting FOR Obama, so they said “Screw It.”

    Expand that Voter Turnout to rest of the States, and I think the Republican Leadership will be really scared. They better start thinking that the American People didn’t Vote FOR Obama, they Voted AGAINST most of the Republican Candidates by Staying Home.

    And if you can’t be appealing to 1/3rd of the Electorate, when another 3rd is already on the other side, you better stop taking them for Granted.

    Unless you want to join the Whigs as piece of History.

    1. Exactly. Obama lost 10 million of his voters from ’08 but Romney lost about 3 millions of McCain’s voters. If Romney had gotten all of McCain’s, Romney would be President. GOP failed in GOTV.

  8. I keep hearing that the GOP failed in getting out the vote.

    NO.

    The VOTERS decided to keep Obama. The REPUBLICAN voters decided that having Obama was better than helping Romney.

    We should not have to drag adults to the polls. They knew the stakes. And they decided not to participate. Effectively, they were soldiers in a battle that deserted.

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