Chris Byrne takes a look at the numbers. I’m seeing similar conclusions from other election analysts as well. In the end, Romney didn’t seem to motivate people to get out for him. I actually think Romney ran a decent campaign, and did a lot better than I would have given him credit for before things got started. Certainly it was an improvement over McCain’s 2008 fiasco. But at the end of the day, I don’t think Romney was that strong of a candidate, though he was probably the strongest of the choices we had in front of us. Obama has a phenomenal GOTV machine. The big question is can he pass that along to other candidates.
20 thoughts on “Turnout Analysis”
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It’s easy to get people motivated when you promise to reward them for sloth.
Ron Paul favored well against Obama. But he’s “crazy”!
What evidence do you have that Paul would have done better, besides a handful of polls? If he were such a great candidate, why didn’t he get through the primaries?
As much as I prefer Libertarian candidates, I wish there was a better standard bearer than Paul. Maybe his son will prove to be one…
Here’s a compilation of opinions from experts, including my wife:
1. The MSM invented and exaggerated MR’s gaffes, and ignored BO’s mistakes.
2. The MSM buried Bengazi and CBS in particular covered BO’s blantant lie until a couple of days before the election.
3. The Republican party is missing a certain part of the anatomy that would give them the sense and courage to hammer the birth-hidden-records scandal, BO’s lies, Valerie Jarrett’s influence, BO’s Chicago history. Had they done what they should have, the Republicans could have derailed BO in 2008.
4. Mr. Ryan wore ill-fitting shirts and suits.
5. The Dems know how to run campaigns–both clean and dirty. The Republicans just don’t get it. They have about one year to learn. Unfortunately, a new Conservative Party will split the civilized vote.
Just had a Strange Thought: What if the ones who stayed home have already thrown in the Political Towel and are just waiting for the SHTF?
Hope it’s not the reason, but I know a lot of us are supporting the Smith/Wesson Ticket, “just in case”. Just look at the Gun Sales over the last year, and you know that the Gun Shows over the next few months will have lines longer than a Philly Polling Location!
Romney got 3M fewer votes than McCain thereby setting a new record for campaign futility. But then this is what happens when you let the opposition (in this case the media)select your nominee for you. It also highlights the foolishness of trying to game “electability” rather than running on some coherent set of principles. And why did the Romney campaign go out of their way to dis Ron Paul and Sarah Palin? How many votes did that cost?
Exactly. I mean, I crow about Ron Paul and I do believe he would’ve fared well against Obama, but the GOP went the total opposite direction. It was all about electability, instead of principles. They didn’t have to go Full Ron, but maybe somebody some sort of coherent thoughts?
I tend to think elections are always about electability. It’s kind of pointless otherwise.
agreed, if elections were about policies, obama would still be in the illinois senate…
Elections are about electability, but no one seems to want to face that what the Republicans did was choose the most electable candidate from a field that were all unelectable.
It happens. Acknowledging that could be the key to figuring out why.
I know it’s not strictly applicable, but I’m thinking of that (alleged) old Chinese proverb, that “When there is no tiger on the mountain, the monkey reigns as king.”
No, they’re not.
The fact is, it’s hard to predict how ‘electable’ a candidate is – nominating the candidate you think is most electable simply means nominating a mushy moderate. Which is what happened – and where is your electability now?
If elections aren’t about policy, why does anyone care?
My point about electability is that if you put someone up that’s not electable, the policy component doesn’t matter much because the candidate can’t win. Here in Pennsylvania, a lot of people loved Sam Rohrer. He kind of became the Ron Paul of Pennsylvania. But the guy was completely unelectable because he couldn’t raise money in a statewide race to save his life.
And if you put up someone who you don’t agree with, electability doesn’t matter much. And anyway my point was about trying to “game” electability to the point there is no content left. That was the whole point of my note that Romney got 3M less than McCain. How electable did that make Romney? And if you are a serial trimmer on matters of principle, why should I believe anything, even if I agree.
Did anyone besides me notice that Obama ran a Rovian campaign? The bad news is that it doesn’t feel good to have it done to you. The good news is that it strips your victory of any content.
I don’t know about everyone else (and since we’re talking about electibility, it’s obviously a factor in some people’s minds) but I opposed Paul on principle: there were a couple of serious issues concerning him that made me uncomfortable with having him President.
Of course’ that was true with *all* of the candidates; we’ll never find someone we’re 100% in agreement with…
Another caveate: My voice in the primaries was useless. Romney was selected long before my primaries. There’s often talk to abolish the Electoral College, but a major issue that ought to be addressed is our funny primary system.
Come to thimk of it, though, every candidate knows what system we have, before going in; every candidate ought to be able to figure out how to “game” it. Changing the rules will merely change thge strategies for gaming the system.
Overall, though, do you know what we need? Republican candidates that don’t suck! Can’t we have a good, principled with the right principles guy, who has fire in the belly, and is willing to go for the juggular in a gentlemanly sort of way?
Actually, I opposed Paul on some issues as well. But it was mega-stupid for Romney to dis him after the nomination was locked up. It looked like an attempt to purge the party of libertarians. And the dissing of Sarah Palin looked like an attempt to run the Tea Party out.
I think you all are missing the big elephant in the room. Cowardly white Republicans.
I believe we’re looking at a sort of inverted Bradley Effect. I believe many people who despised Obama decided not to vote because of the fear of race riots.
What needs to happen is that the GOP needs to tell its members to grow a pair, and to start carrying. It’s bad enough being in a party of losers. I really do not like being in a party of cowards. Let Operation Grow a Pair begin today.
Please allow me to put on my tin foil hat and go all conspiracy nut.
Am I crazy or was there supposed to be record turn out during this year’s election. Weren’t there super long lines and people waiting for hours and hours to vote? Well, I’m not that crazy because I looked it up and story after story tells of record turnout. Simply Google “2012 record turnout”.
So, here’s the crazy part. Obama received 10 million less votes than he did in 2008 and won the election. Romney received less votes than McCain. So if we had “record turnouts”, how did both parties receive less votes. Where did the rest of the votes go? Math doesn’t allow for that.
And no, only about 1% went third party.
That’s bothered me too. I’ve wpndered about fraud, but if it were’ we’d be talking about the disappearance of millions of votes, which doesn’t seem likely’ either.
This has been a very weird election cycle, in many ways!
We need to figure out what happened–and we need to be cautious, because it’s easy to draw wrong conclusions from weird examples.