The fundamental reform of taxation, entitlements, and the Federal Reserve that are truly required seem too radical for GOP candidates.

Romney promised tax reform and Medicare reform, to repeal ObamaCare, and not to reappoint Bernanke. The electorate wasn’t buying.

Don’t worry, next time you can just flood the net with RON PAUL!!!! posts, and all will be well.

what Adjoran said.

I don’t buy what will be the predictable talk-radio argument that Romney was a milquetoast moderate or the inevitable argument that the only reason the GOP lost was the culture war.

while i don’t wanna do the mirror image of the post-2004 Democratic “all our ideas are perfect, just our messaging is wrong” a large part of this election, i think, is a softer version of what this blog owner argued when McCain lost, this perception of Romney as a Mr. Burns figure.

Romney’s estimate of 47% takers was low. We are more like 52% with a permanent taker majority. Makers will continue to decline over the next four years. Welcome to Greece.

Grim night. No doubt about that. My takeaways:

1) Obama is the luckiest politician who’s ever lived. He’s going down by any statistical measure, until Sandy arrives. Then he swoops in, looks Presidential, sucks the air out of the rest of the race, and gets a RINO Gov to slobknob him so he can look ‘bipartisan.’ I’m not in the “The GOP lost b/c of Sandy camp.” But those images were hard to get away from, especially since they were so close to election day. If we might have had another week of “What the gov’t did wrong w/ Sandy” stories, they might have been countered. But there wasn’t another week.

2) Sorry to say I was right. But I’ll say it: Romney was a poor messenger. I said it in the Primaries. I’ll say it now. He actually ran, in many ways, a stronger campaign than I thought it would. But he was still flawed. It’s hard to keep Obamacare on the table when you’re the guy who made it possible. While he did well when jobs were at the fore, he needed to attack on more than one front. Choosing ‘not’ to engage on Libya in the final debate befuddled me then, and I’m not buying it helped now. There were ways to do it without going all-in on conspiracy theories. When you have an opponent down, finish him. Instead, Romney reverted to the nature of a cautious investor and played Four Corners offense, counting on stasis to carry him through. See point 1 for what blew away the stasis.

3) There IS a fundamental problem strategically with the GOP. I’m not into the whole ‘demographic shift’ nonsense. I think a freedom oriented message can win. If it’s tailored properly. But the “Red State” Karl Rove strategy isn’t going to cut it. The GOP cannot write off entire sections of the country. It can’t count on winning NOTHING in the NE, and NOTHING on the Pacific Coast, and winning an election, even w/ a solid South. Besides, IMHO, it’s just poor tactics to let an opponent have such an absolute base to start from.

4) The War On Women hurt because, quite frankly, several GOP nominees were idiots. A political campaign is NO place for a discussion on Calvinist Sovereignty of God. Yes, that means you Mourdock, and you too Akin. I’m not saying faith can’t be part of your message. But bring the POSITIVES of it to bear, please. This is something I do think Romney and Ryan, personally, did well. If you’re too stupid to realize that the Left is going to use the Problem of Evil to trip up Social Conservatives, you don’t belong in politics. The right answer is, “Two wrongs don’t make a right, and victimizing an innocent doesn’t solve the problem.”

Oh well. Like Bob Dylan sang: “It’s Not Dark Yet. But it’s Gettin’ There.”

Smitty, take a day or tow, then get back to blogging. We expect you to continue! Dammit, we expect it!

Your last sentence is one of the more idiotic things you’ve said this year. Your boy Mittens got 8 million fewer votes than McNasty did. As Smitty has pointed out, and I pointed out last winter, Mittens isn’t different enough from Obama to matter. He’s been too much of an unprincipled mush in the past, so why should anyone believe him when he says he’ll be differernt. Bush was a Liberal TX Governor, and that’s how he behaved. Why should anyone think Mittens will be any different than the Libtard MassGov he was?
Mitten’s loss can not be laid at the door of Paul. It is at the feet of you MittTards.

Besides: by his third or fourth term, President Obama will probably have a hang of this whole zany economics thing.

Yeah, that’s the scary part.

Fundamentally, I knew this election was lost the second Herman Cain ended his campaign.

Mitt Romney lost this campaign. Don’t buy into all the demographic talk and the stuff about how Republicans need to be moderate.

Mitt Romney is as liberal as Obama. The “Great RINO Hope” failed to win.

Scott Walker was able to win in Wisconsin because he articulated the problems and presented a solution to them.

If he can win, Conservatism can win across the map.

We just have to actually have Conservatives spreading the message of Conservatism rather than liberal political opportunist trying to even some of Daddy’s old scores (…i..e Mitt Romney).

Good luck with your attempt at withdrawal. But I have found that now that my eyes are open, it’s impossible to close them again. How is does that go, again? What has been seen cannot be unseen?

I challenge you to NOT see all the USDOT numbers on the sides of small, locally owned service trucks.

RAND Paul 2016 !!!

able…..but ale sounds like a good idea rigt now.

Smitty: Rest up. Take care of your family. Come back when you are ready. We need you. Thank you for all you do.

This clip sums up the day rather well…

Grim. Grim indeed. “Gloom, despair and agony on me.”

THIS.

WTF indeed.

Uh, try the polling places where obozo murals were proudly displayed; election workers wearing obozo hats…and the military votes THAT ARE NEVER COUNTED.
Can you despair now Mr Holier-than-thou?! Can you “see it” now?!?!?