Analysis of Romney's defeat

[hobbsyoyo]

DT!

Yeah I couldn't resist after a while too.

 

[illram]

THIS. Remember how we all made fun of people like Politico and horserace journalists blowing Nate Silver and his number people? State GOP parties have done that too with field data, which is why OFA is the most sophisticated turnout machine in decades...WAY above most Republican operations.

Republicans will need to build better databases, spend their ad money better, and actually spent some money on field offices and field organizers. If Mittens got McCain's turnout in Ohio, he wins the state.

Anecdotal, but I witnessed first hand some of the differences between the Obama campaign machine and the Romney campaign as a volunteer this election in NV. (I was doing poll monitoring/voter protection in Las Vegas for Obama.)

Our voter protection team had a field office filled with attorneys, they had recruited out of state lawyers like me and my friend to stock each polling place with at least two volunteer lawyers out in the field, they had an automated online system to field problems and report issues, they had an automated text messaging system to report problems/report things... they had trainings, good educational material for out of staters like me to quickly understand NV election law and polling procedures, and we just generally felt like we were part of a well oiled machine. At one point we called in a police officer who was stationed outside the polling place and 5 minutes later after our field office made some calls he was gone. And that was just voter protection; the GOTV team was driving voters all over the state, setting up busses, fielding calls from voters asking questions. I could get more accurate information quicker about a voter's registration than the poll workers in some cases.

I met three GOP observers at my location (all were very nice and we had a very cordial, boring day together) and they were actually pretty impressed with how we had everything organized. Paraphrasing but I heard a lot of "wow you guys really have this stuff down." Their "big thing" was simply toting around a list of voter rolls and comparing it to the polling location and they were clearly not trained, in fact they basically just copied what we were doing all day. E.g. at the end of the day we counted the machine tallies and compared it to the number of signatures, and the GOP observer said "well I guess I should do whatever you're doing..." and was clearly not provided any sort of plan or training beyond whatever voter fraud prevention thing he was trying to do.

 

[Chiteng]

Why do you hate democracy?

I dont. My agenda is not Obama's. He does NOT respect mine. I certainly dont respect his.

That is what causes polarity. All we can do now is try very hard to stop him.

If he wants compromise, then HE can compromise. Telling me that he can ignore laws he doesnt like and dictate from the desk...... No I wont agree with that.

So we wait.

And Iran is the big winner. They WILL obtain a nuke, because of this man.
They should make a statue of him.

 

[Nares]

In my view, there are three principle ways of looking at things:
1) They did everything right, and it was only a combination of bad luck and coincidence that favored Obama in the end, like the Sandy relief and so on.

I don't go so far as to blame Sandy or Chris Christie, but the first part of this statement, "they did everything right," I can agree with.

It's near impossible or impossible to get out from under the caricature created by the left-wing media.

As much as Romney's 47% line was inaccurate (and probably did more harm than Christie), he's right in that there's definitely a percentage (my guess is 39%) of the populace that will firmly vote Democrat just to keep their benefit checks coming.

What does that mean? Who knows; we'll see how long we can prop up that kind of cultural rot, no doubt, but eventually it's bound to overwhelm our society once the checks just can't come for lack of money (or worse, money is worthless for lack of monetary restraint). I'm well convinced that American austerity riots would put Greek and other European austerity riots to shame.

And Iran is the big winner. They WILL obtain a nuke, because of this man.
They should make a statue of him.

They will (get the bomb), and probably already have started on the statue.

If you do not want a king or dictator, then start teaching the kids in school today what you want them to vote for in 20 years. The reason that we have Obama, is simply that is what the people have been taught to expect in the last 30 years.

Well this is sadly true.

Right-wing teachers are generally run out of town in my district if they open their mouths too loudly; left-wing teachers are practically given raises for openly hating on Republicans.

Never mind that thirty years of this have also coincided with ever poorer performing schools, as so-called educators spend far too much time brainwashing America's youth into relinquishing their freedoms.

Reading through this thread, my initial response is obviously vindicated; a Republican candidate would need to be more pure than Jesus and smarter than Stephen Hawking. A Democrat just needs the 'D' next to his name, never mind how unqualified he is for the position.

Can't leave out the demographics. Romney received about the same percentage of the white vote as previous Republicans in recent elections. But the white vote is a declining share of the whole vote. And minorities are increasingly alienated from the Republicans. This is the Republicans own strategy to drive the minorities away.

No it's not; Republicans espouse a view of society which emphasis personal accomplishment (actually well reflected in the Latino community). Democrats just trot out the old cliche that Republicans must be racist if they don't want to spend more money we don't have targeting yet another special interest group.

Amnesty for all illegal immigrants is no better a solution than actually upholding our current immigration law; just look at the thread about Republicans moving to Australia, and the reference to not being able to pass their various immigration requirements. The rest of the world doesn't abide by large scale illegal immigration into their country, but we only do because it can be used to label Republicans as racists.

 

[Mr. Dictator]

I dont. My agenda is not Obama's. He does NOT respect mine. I certainly dont respect his.

That is what causes polarity. All we can do now is try very hard to stop him.

If he wants compromise, then HE can compromise. Telling me that he can ignore laws he doesnt like and dictate from the desk...... No I wont agree with that.

So we wait.

And Iran is the big winner. They WILL obtain a nuke, because of this man.
They should make a statue of him.

You don't say...

I hope you stay. Your rage gives me strength.

 

[Zelig]

Yes, in retrospect, this was a significant tactical error. For a guy whose major argument was how good he was with money, the Romney campaign did not manage their resources well. They waited until the last moment to buy TV ads, locking them into higher rates, and didn't present a compelling counter-narrative to the one Obama build for him in the summer. Part of that has to do with the kind of candidate Romney is, and part of that was just not spending money on the right things at the right time.

"Good with money" isn't even relevant, "good with numbers" is, and Obama's analytics team crushed TV ad spending, like they did nearly everything else.

 

[Harv]

Here is my 2

I think the final ballot was cast by Sandy. Alps, was your Avatar right before the election a picture of President Obama and Governor Christie shaking hands?

If my numbers are correct, we have 32% who will vote Republican no matter what, 38% who will vote Democrat no matter what, and 30% who can be persuaded. Among those, a lot say they made their decision at the last minute and that Hurricane Sandy was important.

I am thinking that many of these people are tired of continual partisan bickering and want to see them "get along." The last picture these people got to see was that picture of President Obama and Chris Christie shaking hands. For a moment the partisan bickering was set aside, just in time for the election.

A lot of key states were decided on just a couple percent margins.

 

[Supr49er]

I dont. My agenda is not Obama's. He does NOT respect mine. I certainly dont respect his.

That is what causes polarity. All we can do now is try very hard to stop him.

If he wants compromise, then HE can compromise. Telling me that he can ignore laws he doesnt like and dictate from the desk...... No I wont agree with that.

So we wait.

And Iran is the big winner. They WILL obtain a nuke, because of this man.
They should make a statue of him.

You don't say...

I hope you stay. Your rage gives me strength.

Not to mention entertainment.

 

[dutchfire]

1) Beating an incumbent who has not totally cocked up is hard. Now, while some people would like to think that Obama has done this, the median voter probably doesn't think so. Especially important is the last year before the election, and this had been decent. So I think Obama vs. the generic Republican was already in Obama's favour.

2) The way history/the campaign unfolded was not in Romney's favour. Where he would have been able to be proud of his record as a health care reformer in MA in 2000 or 2004, referencing it now was painful, alienating "the base". The state rights cop-out doesn't really work that well on a swing voter. His record as a successful businessman was also unfortunate, since successful businessmen like Romney are accused of having driven the country to misery. Having to run a rather bitter primary against some very fringe right-wingers made it more difficult. Had the primary been between Huntsman and Romney, with Romney winning the right flank of the GOP and the battle being about the GOPers between Huntsman and Romney, he would have been better positioned to shift only slightly to the middle in the real election. Now, he had to run to the right in the primary, then sprint back to the middle afterwards.

3) The GOP isn't going to win the black vote in the next decade, especially with Obama running. But massively losing the Hispanic and Asian vote is unaffordable. Hispanics are pretty religious, and I suppose that Asians (e.g. Chinese) would like fiscal conservatism since they're well of financially. These are demographics the Republicans could actually be winning, instead of going down 25-75.

4) The candidate choices in the down tickets probably didn't help either. Winning an election is for quite a part about making sure the media cycles are about favourable topics for you. Every time Akin sticks his head around the corner and makes the news go about how backwards some Republicans are, is a missed opportunity. And that is just the effect on the presidential ticket. They could have won the senate, if they had just picked better candidates.

It seems the GOP primary vote is increasingly representing a pretty sizeable minority (40%) of the American electorate that is drifting away from the other 60%.

 

[downtown]

Among those, a lot say they made their decision at the last minute and that Hurricane Sandy was important.
.

Eh, not really. CBS said that less than 8% of voters made up their mind in the last week and there isn't much evidence that Sandy actually swayed a lot of votes. Remember, most swing states had early voting that was going on for nearly a month ahead of time...Obama already had a ton of votes in the bank.

What Sandy *did* do was suck up a lot of media coverage, hurting Mitt's ability to make his case in the headlines. The whole Christie flap is a much bigger deal inside the Beltway, or to NJ voters (who overwhelmingly backed Obama, even more than in 2008), than to anybody else.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Wasn't Obama up in the polls before Sandy?

Or are we still disbelieving those pesky things when they don't show what we want them too?

 

[timtofly]

Here is my 2

I think the final ballot was cast by Sandy. Alps, was your Avatar right before the election a picture of President Obama and Governor Christie shaking hands?

If my numbers are correct, we have 32% who will vote Republican no matter what, 38% who will vote Democrat no matter what, and 30% who can be persuaded. Among those, a lot say they made their decision at the last minute and that Hurricane Sandy was important.

I am thinking that many of these people are tired of continual partisan bickering and want to see them "get along." The last picture these people got to see was that picture of President Obama and Chris Christie shaking hands. For a moment the partisan bickering was set aside, just in time for the election.

A lot of key states were decided on just a couple percent margins.

Not sure if these numbers are correct, but I told a libertarian that we should have seen a 40/40/20 vote. If libertarians are really serious, they should have just voted the way they believed instead of trying to stop another party.

To me one should not vote to stop someone from winning, but they should just vote what they believe. That is the only way the two party system will be broken.

 

[Chiteng]

We shall soon see. Dec. 31st is coming quickly.

Obama doesnt need to do a damn thing to get rid of the 'Bush tax cuts' (which I loathed)

However, sequestration will hurt so-called progressive issues equally.

I doubt Obama can bribe the entire house.

We shall see

 

[Mr. Dictator]

To me one should not vote to stop someone from winning, but they should just vote what they believe. That is the only way the two party system will be broken.

Or just end first past the post.

 

[Leoreth]

This is really off topic, but the only way to break the two party system is to change the first past the post principle. Otherwise the best hope is for one third party to replace one of the large ones, and that's already virtually impossible.

 

[timtofly]

Or just end first past the post.

I thought voting was voicing your opinion. It has nothing to do with who "runs the fastest".

I am pretty sure though that at least the economic investment from such running may have helped the local economies as opposed to foreign interest.

I guess this nation is in deep trouble when the leader is the result of a popularity contest instead of what people actually believe in.

 

[say1988]

The question is, is the anti-Latino rhetoric pure rhetoric or genuine conviction? And if it's the former, would it be worth it to drop the rhetoric and lose the voters to whom it appeals?

Almost certainly. Here are three reasons.

1) Based on a quick calculation, Romney would have had a slight edge in the popular vote if he had maintained the same proportion of Hispanic voters as Bush in 2004 (though a far closer loss is also possible because there wide range in the breakdown of the hispanic vote). I never saw any state by state data to try and look at the EC, but Hispanics were key to Obama's wins in at least Colorado, Nevada, and Florida.
2) Hispanics are going to be the biggest shift in the electoral demographics in the coming years. If they stay this havily in support of teh democrats, Florida will be solid blue and Arizona and Texas will come into play.over the next 12 years.
3) Racist scumbags are worth less than Hispanics. The votes lost would be concentrated in deep red states so they won't make a difference. Their losses would be to third parties or not voting as they certainly won't vote Democrat, which also means many will begrudgingly vote for anyone the Republicans put up. However for every Hispanic voter they take from the Democrats they can affor to lose two racist votes without changing the balance.

Remember there are a lot of socially conservative blacks and Hispanics who agree with the GOP on a lot of positions.

 

[Arakhor]

If he wants compromise, then HE can compromise.

You clearly don't know the meaning of the word.

And Iran is the big winner. They WILL obtain a nuke, because of this man.
They should make a statue of him.

Right, because Iran's nuclear programme has anything to do with the mainly Republican effort to derail government and destroy the US economy.

Reading through this thread, my initial response is obviously vindicated; a Republican candidate would need to be more pure than Jesus and smarter than Stephen Hawking. A Democrat just needs the 'D' next to his name, never mind how unqualified he is for the position.

You remember we talked about conspiracy theories?

 

[downtown]

Not sure if these numbers are correct, but I told a libertarian that we should have seen a 40/40/20 vote.

No we wouldn't...not even close.

This is really off topic, but the only way to break the two party system is to change the first past the post principle. Otherwise the best hope is for one third party to replace one of the large ones, and that's already virtually impossible.

No it isn't on both counts. We've had 3rd parties win electoral votes multiple times in the US, and another one could be created if they actually focused on races they could win.

 

[WindFish]

Btw, I'm glad I'm sustained by the tears of sad conservatives because there has been alot of it on t'internet.