Why Did Mitt Romney Lose The 2012 Presidential Election?

[JohnR! 5,495]

Amidst claims of external influences, divine intervention, voo-doo practices and other excuses, it seems there is a rational and acceptable explanation to the results of the 2012 Presidential elections in the USA.

source: http://www.forbes.co...ntial-election/

Why Did Mitt Romney Lose The 2012 Presidential Election?

America is not especially far right of center, is getting less white, and is slowly, but surely, digging out of the worst recession since the Great Depression. The public, most specifically in the "battleground states," but most probably overall (by a slightly smaller margin than the re-election of George W. Bush), decided to stick with the president for another term.

Whites were 76.3% of the voters in 2008; early exit polls have it falling to 72% in 2012. Among them, 61% of men and 55% of women voted for Mitt Romney. President Obama won Latinos, African-Americans, and "all others" by larger margins than Romney won among even white men. (The lowest was Latino men, who chose the president 63-35.)

I allude to this trend in my current Forbes post (Congrats On Your Vote, Too Bad It Probably Didn't Count – Forbes (onforb.es)), but this is "demographic determinism." The Republican Party is about tight borders, "self-deportation" of illegal aliens, restrictions on voting rights, and a number of other things that are killing it among minority voters. Romney did nothing to help in this matter. He's rich. He's "very white," having come from Utah, being Mormon, being a country-club businessman, etc. Let me be clear, I believe he's a good man and has achieved many great things, but I am describing how this race was run — and lost.

Before the first debate in Denver, candidate Romney had shifted right to win the Republican primaries. He was a "severe conservative," moving his positions on abortion, immigration, climate change, etc. to suit the more conservative primary electorate. When the Denver debate started, Romney came out with a defense of regulation — after the GOP spent four years blaming Obama for wrecking the economy with too many of those.

And the candidate whose advisers said could take an Etch-a-Sketch after the primaries did just that. Suddenly, "Moderate Mitt" re-emerged. Not quite the man who governed Massachusetts, but someone much closer than we'd seen. Someone who — I believe — might have lost the primaries to Rick Santorum (the last conservative standing), but had he been able to campaign that way for a year, might have won the election.

Instead, we got another Massachusetts candidate who could rightly be called a "flip flopper" (and one arguably far more flippy than the last guy). "Romnesia" as a meme didn't decide this election, but the concept stuck, in part due to its legitimacy.

And finally, while it wasn't just Gov. Romney with the affliction of forgetting, the Republicans tried to convince America to forget how we got in this economic mess in the first place. The voters by a reasonable majority blamed President Bush's policies and administration. They looked past a top-line 7.9% unemployment rate and saw the 5+ million jobs created since the bottom of the trough as evidence of an improving economy.

Economic growth is real, even if too slow for anyone's satisfaction. And while Romney promised to create "12 million new jobs," a supposedly unsophisticated electorate somehow intuited that was basically what's expected without much good happening. (Source: Fact Check: Romney's '12 million jobs' promise (washingtonpost.com)). Read this over at Slate if you have a moment: Whoever Wins the Election Will Get To Preside Over a Growing Economy and Look Like a Genius (slate.com). Excerpt here:

Consider that over the course of George W. Bush's eight years in office, net employment

increased by about a million jobs while we've added a bit more than half a million (washingtonpost.com)

in Obama's first term. By historical standards, that's abysmal. More than 11 million jobs were added in

each

of

Bill Clinton

's two terms in office….

There's no reason to think 2013-2016 will see the kind of super-fast growth we saw in the late-1930s or mid-1980s, but it's overwhelmingly likely that the next four or five years

will

look a lot better than the past four or five. That means whoever wins the election is likely to get a similar halo,

The American people trust Obama to more or less stay the course and didn't believe Romney was going to do much better. Again, this is nothing to crow about, unless, of course, you want to compare us to the UK. Our financial crisis on balance was much worse, yet our recovery has been much less horrendous. Compare us to the Brits for example:

Note that these curves are both below a "normal recovery," which is consistent with much research that shows unwinding from a financial crisis/de-leveraging recession is harder than average. In the U.S., the slope of the curve is very nearly "normal." In the UK, the slope of the curve is disastrous. Generally, I love the English, but thank goodness we did it differently from them.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

No conspiracy? No media blame? Well, what does one expect from the commies over at Forbes?

[SMOKE 1,426]

Why Did Mitt Romney Lose The 2012 Presidential Election?

the obama campaign ran a better campaign. they hit their target voters districts cleaner & harder.

[^_^ 5,021]

the obama campaign ran a better campaign. they hit their target voters districts cleaner & harder.

and acorn and sharia law.

[SMOKE 1,426]

[quote name=' timestamp='1352315939' post='5807931]

and acorn and sharia law.

them too.

[Penny Lane 8,159]

The Republican party really needs to take a look at itself if it plans on winning a national election anytime soon. They are a hard party to get behind, whether people like it or not. They are, fairly or unfairly, seen as too extreme for a lot of people to grasp onto. There is a reason the younger generation is flocking to the Democrats - and the majority of that reason is social issues. When you have a party that can't keep its members from coming out and saying offensive things about homosexuals, women, rape, abortion, etc ... who wants to follow them?

Even Newt Gingrich said the nation showed that his party was completely off base and needed to be really looked at from within. Romney was a poor candidate to begin with, but I'm not sure any Republican candidate would have won. Not with the way the GOP presents itself.

Their country is changing, but they refuse to.

Edited November 7, 2012 by Evylin

[^_^ 5,021]

them too.

check out the wsj tool i just posted. one thing is very clear, the romney campaign did a great job of winning the vote in areas where there just weren't a lot of people.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

the obama campaign ran a better campaign. they hit their target voters districts cleaner & harder.

That would seem to be the answer. I thought it was interesting that the Obama campaign was actively around in my neighborhood knocking on doors and talking to folks multiple times over the last few weeks here while I have not once seen anyone from Mitt's crew - if he had one. All I saw from Mittens and his supporting groups were mailers and more mailers. Those don't translate into votes the same way personal contact from neighbor to neighbor does. A superior ground game made the difference.

[^_^ 5,021]

http://gawker.com/5958538/?utm_campaign=socialflow_gawker_facebook&utm_source=gawker_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

[dalegg 143]

The Republican party really needs to take a look at itself if it plans on winning a national election anytime soon. They are a hard party to get behind, whether people like it or not. They are, fairly or unfairly, seen as too extreme for a lot of people to grasp onto. There is a reason the younger generation is flocking to the Democrats - and the majority of that reason is social issues. When you have a party that can't keep its members from coming out and saying offensive things about homosexuals, women, rape, abortion, etc ... who wants to follow them?

Even Newt Gingrich said the nation showed that his party was completely off base and needed to be really looked at from within. Romney was a poor candidate to begin with, but I'm not sure any Republican candidate would have won. Not with the way the GOP presents itself.

Their country is changing, but they refuse to.

I think with what the OP posted, it is going to take something extremely traumatic in order for a Republican to become president anytime soon. Really, if you couldn't win this time, when can you win? Republicans don't do that great with Hispanics- and that percentage is only growing.

The mood of the country is clearly changing-- two states voted to legalize pot, and for the first time a state actually voted for Same sex marriage. Every time a Republican mentions the word "abortion" it hurts him. I'm only curious as to what my replace it at this point.

Probably no R could have one. Sure as hell not Santorum. It is a wild fantasy for anyone to think someone like that will ever win. If Gingrich didn't have personal problems, he might have been able to do it, but the existing party didn't seem willing to accept him

[^_^ 5,021]

I think with what the OP posted, it is going to take something extremely traumatic in order for a Republican to become president anytime soon. Really, if you couldn't win this time, when can you win? Republicans don't do that great with Hispanics- and that percentage is only growing.

The mood of the country is clearly changing-- two states voted to legalize pot, and for the first time a state actually voted for Same sex marriage. Every time a Republican mentions the word "abortion" it hurts him. I'm only curious as to what my replace it at this point.

Probably no R could have one. Sure as hell not Santorum. It is a wild fantasy for anyone to think someone like that will ever win. If Gingrich didn't have personal problems, he might have been able to do it, but the existing party didn't seem willing to accept him

You guys should have nominated Huntsman.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

[quote name=' timestamp='1352317437' post='5807988]

You guys should have nominated Huntsman.

The right needs to stop taking advice from the commies.

[Obama 2012 1,714]

The Republican party really needs to take a look at itself if it plans on winning a national election anytime soon. They are a hard party to get behind, whether people like it or not. They are, fairly or unfairly, seen as too extreme for a lot of people to grasp onto. There is a reason the younger generation is flocking to the Democrats - and the majority of that reason is social issues. When you have a party that can't keep its members from coming out and saying offensive things about homosexuals, women, rape, abortion, etc ... who wants to follow them?

Even Newt Gingrich said the nation showed that his party was completely off base and needed to be really looked at from within. Romney was a poor candidate to begin with, but I'm not sure any Republican candidate would have won. Not with the way the GOP presents itself.

Their country is changing, but they refuse to.

Sad part is that social issues don't matter without a great economy to bring them into.

The other part of that is that 'homosexuals' shouldn't even be being talked about in government as I've said time and time again. Eliminate marriage from government, allow people to form their own contracts, and you solve this problem entirely.

Women's issues in 2012 are a joke. Perhaps it's an issue in blue states, but hardly an issue down here. I know plenty of women that get paid more than their male counter-parts and they do less work even! There again, I know women who run cirlces around the men they work with too. It's a faux issue except in certain parts of the country, and in very rare circumstances. Hell, the 'Lilly Ledbetter Act' that Obama signed was a joke in itself because Lilly Ledbetter was a liar and couldn't keep her own story straight. So the spokesperson for equal pay is a liar? Interesting how that works. I'm all for everyone being paid what they are worth (not equal pay for the same job mind you, still need to 'work' as hard as the next person) but to say it's a huge issue in 2012 is disingenuous.

Abortion - this one is never going to go away. Members of both parties will continue to flip-flap-flop on this one for a long time to come.

[^_^ 5,021]

The right needs to stop taking advice from the commies.

You don't win elections by putting up higher walls. Win friends, make allies.. that's how it's done.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

[quote name=' timestamp='1352317661' post='5808002]

You don't win elections by putting up higher walls. Win friends, make allies.. that's how it's done.

It worked for Obama. His whole campaign was, "I am not as bad as those guys."