Pretty much spot on. I’ve heard this called a “base election”, which Barack won by NOT reaching out, but by throwing his base red meat by the cattle carload.

Well, if that’s the case, then the GOP will never win one, because the GOP HATES its’ base. And that’s why we’re likely to see Hubbard’s option 1.

Did you even read the article, Blake? This isn’t about ideology. It’s not about conservatives vs. centrists. I’m as pro-life as Todd Akin and as pro-freedom as Ron Paul. But failure is failure, and trying to evade responsibility for failure by scapegoating Romney — to claim that there are no problems with the Republican Party in general, and that everything that went wrong in 2012 could be explained by Romney’s campaign — is not going to fix what’s wrong. Excuses are not solutions.

Blake, it’s the fault of the conservative (or any other description) non voter.

Robert, you know history better than most journalists.

Take a long hard look at this last election. It looked different than McCain’s election (I did not recognize it either) but, in the end, the same structural problems existed.

Romney did a couple of things to stick his thumb in the eye of the base (remember the rule change fiasco at the convention?) and it angered the base.

Romney and the GOP ran to get the “mushy middle” before making sure they had the base wrapped up.

Spot on, thank you.

Scapegoat Romney? Why does the GOP hump the personal responsibility message unless it applies to them? It was Mitt Romney’s campaign, he lost of course it had to do with him and the way his campaign was run. He alienated a lot of the base.

They took one of the favorite charismatic popular talents of the party and marginalized her “Sarah Palin”. Who was out stumping for republicans in 2010, and helped get a record number of republicans elected to office?

Romney didn’t avail himself of many media outlets to saturate the media with his message. Did you see him go on the Factor? Imus was constantly inviting him to appear on his program to humanize him in the eyes of the American electorate. Remember Imus, who had Governor Chris Christie on, and was credited with dragging his fat butt over the finish line in New Jersey?

Yeah there were all kinds of problems with the way Mitt Romney was advised to run his campaign.

Well, Blake, you taught us all a valuable lesson. And as Barack Obama continues to champion your rock solid conservative values, know you have our thanks.

You had a reason to vote and its name was Barack Hussein Obama. I have precisely zero sympathy for anything that happens to nonvoters in the next four years, except insofar as it happens to me as well. And nothing but contempt for people who refuse to act at all and then criticize the people who did show up.

Again, right on time, someone presumes to know who I voted for and whether or not my vote would have made a difference. You must have mental telepathy or something, because I sure did not mention who I voted for.

Here’s a hint: I live in a deep blue State and whether or not I voted for Romney would not have made a difference.

Jackass.

There’s no sense in scapegoating Romney, and even less sense in scapegoating Akin. Let’s get to the big picture. What is it that determines presidential elections in the USA? After many years of observation–since 1948, in fact–I say it is mainly this:
Who appears to be the stronger leader, and what is the general narrative of the campaign?
This will be the shorter version, so I won’t go into numerous examples.

First, we need to recognize that the typical voter engages only superficially with policies and platforms, and that he (and especially she) votes according to emotional more often than practical reasons. Also, the typical voter’s memory is short, and his knowledge of history is slight and often distorted.

1. In this election the main narrative was that Dubya destroyed the economy so thoroughly that not even four years of intense striving by Obama could wholly correct the problem.
2. Although Romney went far in the debates toward giving an impression of himself as the stronger leader, the difference between public perceptions of himself and Obama wasn’t sufficient to overcome the all-important economic narrative.

With benefit of hindsight, the one sure thing that Republicans could have done to reverse the result was to have aggressively defended Dubya from the charge of economy-wrecker, preferably starting in ’08. Instead Republicans, conservatives, and especially libertarians joined in the condemnation of him.

(Ditto, by the way, with the friendly fire directed at Akin. Regardless of whether Akin was right or wrong. his candidacy was destroyed by Republicans joining with Dems in their attacks)

The next best thing Republicans could have done was to pick a stronger-appearing candidate. In the end only Santorum fitted that role, and we can’t be sure he could have accomplished the job. He would have done well with men, but women evaluate “strength” in a candidate with the role of protector, and the ideal protector in the eyes of most of them is a man who is sensitive to their concerns. It’s possible that Santorum would have come across as too harsh to gain sufficient of the women’s vote. Note that even his wife wanted him to present a kinder, gentler Rick to the world, mistaken though this attempt proved to be.

So we ought not to look for scapegoats, but prepare to control the narrative this time around. Let’s be sure to aggressively counter-attack the dishonest exaggerations and interpretations of the left, and never agree with them simply for purposes of going along to get along.

Especially when it means that evil clown is still running the Senate.

I do not blame the base, I blame weak Senate candidates who do not know how to run for election. Mourdock and Akin in particular, but Thompson and Allen also.

And by the way, Susannah Fleetwood’s “analysis” is nothing by mindless scapegoating–a superficial look at minor issues. Her claim that the actions of Romney’s primary opponents led to Republican defeats is beneath serious consideration. To the extent that Romney was successful it is in large part due to the coming-together of Republican opposition to his candidacy, especially by conservatives.

I have relatively little familiarity with most of the Senate campaigns, but I wasn’t impressed by Scott Walker, who ran more as a challenger than an incumbent. In Ohio the previously-celebrated Josh Mandel put up a simply pathetic effort, signs of which showed up even in the primary.

On the other hand, a young female relative of mine–just getting started in Republican activities, highly-intelligent and moderately sophisticated about politics–favored Akin whole-heartedly, even though she leans a bit toward pro-choice.

Put that up against the libertarian opinion.

We do not have politicians in Washington representing us. The Republicans and the Dems are the same. Further, when we get someone like Allen West, a breath of fresh air, he’s not supported by the Establishment and even thwarted by redistricting. Boehner is pathetic. All he seems to do is tell everyone that they have to fall in line, which means just do what the Dems tell us to do. I don’t blame the states that are petioning to secede. Our goose is almost cooked and they know it.

Sorry, Stacy, but I could not disagree more with your analysis.

Democrats should be soul searching too…

For all the “intelligent” commentary by Susannah justifying this column and all the hand wringing about the Republican Party, there is not one word about the fact that 37,000 swing State Republican
volunteers sat on their butts on election day when they were supposed to be using the fantastic get out the vote system “ORCA”. This was the get out the vote system the entire Republican Party was depending on and it
CRASHED and there was not back up.
This is MORE IMPORTANT than all the bull crap and soul searching going on because we now know that only 300,000 to 400,000 votes over a number of states… i.e.
only 90,000 in Florida and 110,000 in Ohio…. would have won those States and the Presidency for Romney.

So, stop the bull crap… it was a screw up in the basic get out the vote system run by the so-called geniuses in the Republican Party and Romney’s campaign that lost the election for President…. nothing else.

If you’ve been around here any length of time, you know I support pulling down the RNC. I also know which enemy to punch first.

If you haven’t been around long enough to know that, well, that’s just one more thing you’ve been sitting out, isn’t it?

This was a base turnout election. I said it back during the primaries, and repeated it often, right up until the convention. Yes I still bitched about Romney’s limitation, the long game never goes away. If there ever was a chance of him winning he needed to be on notice that he wasn’t there to be a Taxachussets technocratic statist.

Still I dutifully trudged out and voted for the loser, knowing full well he was a loser, and being in TN that my vote was symbolic at best. Had I wanted to ‘make a statement’ I could have easily voted Libertarian Party or Constitution Party. But I did not.

Election night was depressing, but not the least bit surprising. Romney spent the better part of the entire campaign running away from conservative principles. He’s more like Akin than you are willing to admit.

Akin lacked the courage of his convictions and wasn’t willing to defend his ‘principles’ and state the obvious. Had he stated something like ‘believing life begins at conception I cannot sanction the killing of an innocent baby for being guilty of having the wrong father’ and left it at that he might have lost some supporters but the media would have shied away from spending to much time on a debate that can only be evaluated once one commits to the exact moment when life begins. Don ‘t want to remind them Catholic types where they’re supposed to stand on the unborn. That they avoid like the plague – but talking about rape? Boy, they’re all over that angle.

So rather than laying it on the line instead he tried to hide behind some silly pseudo medical mumbo jumbo about ‘real rape.’ It was an absurd elision – one everyone recognized as the chicken shit dodge that it was – he showed himself as a coward. That lack of backbone, and the follow on display of self entitlement cost him, and rather than costing him ‘swing’ voters that he probably NEVER had to begin with, it cost him in his base. The very people he could not afford to lose.

Willard T. Etch-a-Sketch had much the same flaws, he could never make an argument that displayed any conservative conviction because he doesn’t have any,/i> and so the base gave him much the same treatment, with equivalent results.

Romney is an example of something endemic with the upper echelons of the party – they are not fighters, nor leaders, because they lack any real conviction.

Not about ideology qua ideology, but about willingness, or lack thereof, to promote your ideology.

Reagan had that willingness.

He was also actually good at it.

Romney was not even willing, so we cannot begin to evaluate whether he was at all able.

I said it the day after the election, maybe we need to re-examine allowing the media so much control over our primary process? Control that allows them to actively turn people against our principles and ideology.

And maybe then we can change that process into one that finds the person best able to actually sell the people on our principles and ideology.

Well said!

You support pulling down the RNC yet get the vapors because a lot of conservatives sat out this election? At what point do you get tired of “business as usual?” The last election? This election? Or is it always the next election?

FAIL again.

Go away, you’re too easy. Sheesh.