Here’s a very provocative analysis drawn off a RICOCHET thread:
The debates became the Republican’s Achilles heel this cycle. We let them consume us during the primaries and we let them dupe us in the general. Obama gave Romney a freebie in the first debate, and suddenly everyone on our side calling out Romney’s losing campaign suddenly started declaring a landslide victory. Yet, the same losing strategy continued apace, leading to Romney’s loss. The signs were all there, but we refused to acknowledge them.
It goes without saying this is a dramatic overstatement. But that last sentence is surely true (I’m not trying to be mean, only truthful) of most RICOCHET writers and readers.
November 7th, 2012 | 12:13 pm
Oh Good Grief, still imputing some fantastic supernatural qualities to Obama?
There’s nothing complicated about this-Obama represents a coalition that sees the public treasury as source of private benefit, people that voted for him because of his father’s race, moral revisionists (gay marriage advocates).
There’s nothing supernatural about this guy. He’s a run of the mill demogogue and in spite of our mystical beliefs about democracy, when some people pay for the cost of government and others receive from it, and your intellectual predecessors have been growing the recipient base for decades.
November 7th, 2012 | 1:01 pm
Yeah, I don’t think this was a “rope-a-dope” on Obama’s part
November 7th, 2012 | 1:20 pm
I agree with Adam Baum’s comment above, but it is also true that American Republicans and conservatives have a weird need to tell themselves good news and to underestimate the strength of their domestic opponents, and a tendency toward complacency and optimism about their political prospects. It’s not so far fetched to suggest that the Democrats have noticed this and have found a way to use it to their advantage. Which, if true, is something for which we conservatives have only ourselves to blame.
November 7th, 2012 | 3:30 pm
my point was djf’s.
November 7th, 2012 | 4:39 pm
“suddenly everyone on our side calling out Romney’s losing campaign suddenly started declaring a landslide victory”
I’m starting to realize that the problem was on the Republican side, whether it was a false sense of security or something else. I’m linking a brief article by John Yoo which argues that Romney lost due to poor BASE turnout by the Republicans:
http://ricochet.com/main-feed/It-Wasn-t-Demographics
I originally saw this article posted by Ken Masugi on facebook, and as Ken said, this quote by Yoo is astounding:
“If Romney had simply replicated McCain’s turnout of 59 million, he may have won Ohio, Virginia, and Colorado, where he lost by about 100,000 votes.”
Why the heck were more Republicans motivated to get out and vote for McCain than Romney? That is THE question of this election
November 7th, 2012 | 7:20 pm
I don’t think anyone on the right, inside the Romney campaign or not, believed that it would be a D+8 (or whatever the exit polls say) electorate. Everyone thought Gallup & Rasmussen models were right. They weren’t.
The McCain vs. Romney turnout question is hugely important. No one would have predicted that on Monday, I don’t think. There might be some very dirty answers there, unfortunately.
November 7th, 2012 | 8:07 pm
CJ, I think there are multiple factors at work, but here are two:
1. Romney is going to end up with more votes than current tallies indicate and so is Obama. http://hotair.com/archives/2012/11/07/looking-at-the-national-exit-poll/
2. The silent artillery of time took out more McCain supporters than Obama supporters. http://www.theamericanconservative.com/how-to-explain-romneys-loss-to-shocked-conservatives/
November 7th, 2012 | 10:40 pm
Pete and CJ,
It has been suggested elsewhere (Chicagoboyz) that part of the explanation for Romney’s vote falling below McCain’s is the anti-Mormon factor among the evangelical/pro-life Catholic part of the base, which may have persisted at the grass roots level. Sounds plausible, although I have no idea if there’s any evidence for it. I imagine that a precinct by precinct analysis comparing the GOP vote this year with that of 2008 would be necessary to determine if there’s anything to this notion.
FWIW, I would also venture that part of the drop in the GOP vote this time might have been due to McCain supporters who found Romney insufficiently conservative on some particular issue, e.g., abortion or getting rid of Obamacare. (Obviously, from the point of view of those who visit sites like this, facilitating an Obama victory would be irrational on the part of someone with strong anti-abortion or anti-Obamacare views, but, as we all know, voters aren’t always rational.) Also, perhaps some anti-neocon but right-leaning militiary and former military voters, who gave McCain a pass on his democracy-spreading tendencies due to his military service, balked at voting for Romney, who never served but often talked like he intended to resume George W Bush’s foreign policy.
Finally, perhaps some conservative working class voters who found McCain acceptable could not abide Romney’s corporate background and “plastic” persona. Obama’s ads about outsourcing might well have been effective with such voters.
All of which is just speculation on my part, needless to say. But it would be interesting to see whether any of these hypotheses is borne out by the evidence.
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