My take? It mostly had to do with the onslaught of obama’s abortion/contraception commercials. Yes, obama ran some anti-capitalist anti-wallstreet themed commercials against romney, but it was the abortion theme that KILLED HIM. I spoke to 10/10 women who were scared to death that romney was going to take their abortions away. I think 50%-90% of the women vote that obama got were women voting PURELY on the abortion issue. Which is said because Romney never would have touched it. They voted on a non-issue that obama made an issue.
as EJMR board people would say: USA is officially a beta country
Mitt Romney was just a really weak and insipid candidate within his own party with no natural base of support.
Abortion hurt him, but what really got him IMO was Obama’s focus on him as being a candidate of the wealthy. If you’re in a recession and expect higher taxes down the line, and the 1% are paying less in tax rates than you, it’s hard sell for Romney. I just don’t see how he could win a swing state like that.
Add to that the fact that Romney has zero charisma, struggles with the youth vote, and it’s not surprising he got his ass handed to him.
Moral of the story is - candidates and ideas win not because they are right, but because they are attractive. Nothing about Romney is “attractive”.
Romney alienated a large part of the country. You can’t go around saying that 47% of Americans are a drag on society and expect to get very far, especially if you also manage to repeatedly alienate women.
That was definitely one factor in the outcome. Women preferred Obama over Romney by 60/40 or so, and a lot of this was due to Romney’s position on abortion.
Of course, other things also happened - unemployment went below 8% two months before the election, Ohio supported Obama after the auto bailouts, Black and Latino voter turnout was high, and Romney kept saying stupid things that perpetuated his Mr. Burns image. Even the hurricane probably helped Obama, as it gave him an opportunity to appear concerned about normal people - this might even have tipped the vote by that 1% margin in Florida, a state which is relatively prone to floods and storms.
If you ask me, the Republicans fucked up. They could have won this year, but their infighting during the GOP primary hurt the image of all their candidates.
Purely in terms of numbers,Romney, and to a much more important extent the Republican party lost because it could not capture the minds of certain strands of the US population.
Other similar tables show a big disconnect between the republicans and hispanics, something on the order of 70 vs 30 percent?
Also, we should give some credit to Obama’s campaign. They managed to maintain voter participation among young people and minorities, and they took advantage of Romney’s missteps. Obama himself is more charismatic than Romney, and is very good at rallying crowds of supporters.
This chart basically shows that Christian people support Romney and non-Christian people don’t. This is probably attributed to abortion and gay marriage. Romney could have avoided taking a position on both of these issues if the right wingers in the GOP didn’t force him to say something.
There are some issues that politicians just don’t touch: gun control, defense spending, medicare, Social Security. Abortion and gay marriage are also on this list, but are slowly becoming more mainstream. Clearly, politicians should have a position on these issues, but they would alienate a large portion of the electorate. So usually, the best strategy is to say nothing.
You guys are right; there were many factors. I was just overwhelmed by the percentage of people I spoke to about the election, maybe 10-15 serious conversations, that completely revolved around abortion-- both men and women. Which, yes, abortion is an issue, but for them to think it’s going to be touched on, and to vote almost purely on that subject, is ridiculous. I mean the majority of the people I spoke too said,
they didn’t like how Romney looked
he was going to take away abortions and contraception
The sample was equally distributed among college educated and lesser education, man and woman.
I tried to explain that they were voting for a president and not who’d they’d rather have sex with. I also tried to explain that he can’t outlaw abortion, only try to get supreme court justices to… which he wouldnt.
anyway… A would assume a large portion of the country voted because of birth control and abortion issues— that were non-issues… nobody cared that joe biden calls capital gains and dividends taxes “loop holes”…
anybody notice how Europe’s been around for months, the dow drops the day after the election by about the same percentage that capital gains and dividends will rise, and half of investment pundits try and say it’s europe’s woes being priced in?
Most headlines reported that stocks fell on November 7 due to “fiscal cliff concerns”. Um… no. It’s because Obama won… But I can see how newspapers wouldn’t want to say “Stocks erase billions of dollars in value due to Obama”.
Romney lost for the same reason the GOP candidate will lose in 2016 if socially moderate republicans like myself don’t retake the primary process. When someone like Jon Huntsman can’t survive two primary debates and feels he needs to leave the party, but Michelle Bachman remains a “party leader”, there is something wrong.
Who was left 4 years ago? You had McCain and Obama, hardly two power houses. This year you had a bunch of nobodies from the GOP. In another 4 years some random people will come out of the woodwork.
Anyway, I think 2016 GOP will be more moderate. The Tea Party is a protest party against the incumbent administration. They represents the extreme portion of people who are frustrated with the economy, government intervention, and Obama’s policies in general (real and made up). Assuming the country has fewer problems in 2016 than in 2012, anger will be a weaker motivation, and the Tea Party’s influence will wane. If the economy is good, it’s harder to argue that the country is going in the “wrong direction”.
If that doesn’t happen, the GOP primary basically needs to become what the national US Presidential election has become. In the national election, instead of two parties moving to the median voter, they have adopted polarizing messages to galvanize their core supporters. The GOP needs to split between the moderates and the right wing. If the moderate GOP wins the primary, they have a good chance of winning the Presidential election.
If Joe Biden were elected in 2016, he would be 74 when he is sworn in. I don’t think the electorate is looking for a first-term president in his 70’s anymore. McCain would have been 72 if he had won in 2008 and a lot of people considered him too old. Hillary wil be 69, but has aged at least 8 years in the last 4.
I would put Ryan and Rubio as the realistic favorites to win the nomination. Christie will get a lot of attention, deservedly so in my opinion, but in the end his style and appearance will doom him. If the GOP actually wants to win, they’ll nominate Rubio but I think Ryan is more likely. I say “they” because I will likely leave the party if we throw a bunch of tea party candidates at the House elections in 2 years.
Unfortunately, I don’t think the Republican party will be ready for a Hispanic President in 2016. They keep nominating some kind of old money white guy. Someone like Rubio stands a chance as a VP candidate though. The reality is that GOP needs to tap the growing Hispanic vote. The most obvious way to do this without really changing policies is to put a Hispanic guy on the ticket.
I don’t think Ryan is the right guy. He is too right wing… more so than Romney. He might get support from the party, but someone more moderate is needed for the national election. Christie is not the one either. I like him, but he is too blunt. He will likely offend some key demographic and lose as a result - I think he knows this too, and that’s why he will not run seriously if at all.
Most likely, it will be some guy we haven’t heard of. Who heard of Obama in 2004?
This time, the premium Republican candidates stayed out of the race as they knew that it would be difficult to win against an incumbent. As a result, the sideshows took center stage - Bachmann, Gingrich, Trump, until a reasonable candidate in Romney won out.
I was really disappointed in Paul Ryan. I was expecting someone badass, instead we got this dorky, folksy, annoying guy, sort of like a white Bobby Jindal.
As higgmond noted, I think moderate Republicans like Christie and Huntsman could be prospects, although Huntsman is a low-charisma offbeat candidate. I would add Jeb Bush and John Thune to that category.
