Top Ten Reasons Romney Lost

On November 6th Barack Obama defeated Mitt Romney with 50.3 percent of the popular vote and a surprising 303 electoral votes. Here are the top ten reasons Romney tanked.

10. He didn't have Bill Clinton. Other than his running mate, Congressman Paul Ryan, Romney didn't have an effective surrogate. Obama had Joe Biden, Michelle Obama and Bill Clinton who commanded big crowds wherever he spoke. Romney didn't use George W. Bush, who retreated to the Cayman Islands.

9. Mitt was wildly unpopular in Massachusetts, his home state. Obama carried Massachusetts by 23 percentage points. Romney claimed to have been an effective Governor who practiced bipartisanship, but the word got around that he had been an arrogant, dogmatic prick.

8. Romney blew his chance to score points on Benghazi. Republicans thought the attack on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya, would give Romney an opportunity to paint the President as weak on national security. But Romney flubbed his chance in the second debate. Obama recalled, "The day after the attack... I stood in the Rose Garden and I told the American people... that this was an act of terror." Romney pounced, claiming the President had not called it "an act of terror." But the debate moderator, CNN's Candy Crowley agreed with the president's recollection.

7. He was branded as elite and out-of-touch. Before the Republican convention, Obama ran ads labeling Romney as a "vulture capitalist," "part of the problem, not the solution." Then a tape was uncovered where Romney told donors, "47 percent of the people... who are victims... my job is not to worry about those people." This strengthened core support for Obama. Exit polls indicated that on the attribute, "a candidate who cares about people like me," Obama overwhelmed Romney.

6. Women got wise to him. While the economy mattered to white female voters, it improved enough that they turned their attention to social issues: reproductive care, education and healthcare, in general. They trusted Obama on these issues and came to believe he was the candidate who would do the most for the middle class. Women favored Obama by 55 percent and unmarried women preferred him by 68 percent.

5. He didn't understand Hispanics. Romney's strategy was predicated on massively carrying the white vote and he did secure 58 percent. But in certain areas of the country, particularly Florida, the Republican needed the votes of Hispanics and he didn't get them because he was against the DREAM act and unwisely suggest "self-deportation" for undocumented immigrants. 70 percent of Hispanics voted for Obama.

4. The Economy recovered enough. After May, when Mitt Romney won enough delegates to secure the Republican nomination, he attacked the president for the state of the economy, "Obama isn't working." But the economy got better; thousands of new jobs were added and the unemployment rate declined from 8.5 percent to 7.9 percent. Romney's campaign slogan shifted to, "Believe in America." He said he had a "five point plan," to create jobs but Obama countered, "Romney has a one-point plan; make sure the folks at the top play by a different set of rules." Towards the end of the campaign Romney quit talking about the economy.

3. Romney told one too many lies. After securing the Republican nomination for president, Romney waged an exceedingly dishonest campaign. An independent fact-checker, Politifact, reported two-thirds of Romney's statements ranged from "half-true" to blatant lies. The media didn't report all of these falsehoods but a week before the election Mitt was caught running an extremely deceptive auto bailout ad that torpedoed his chances in Ohio.

2. God intervened. Romney's campaign for president was bracketed by hurricanes. First, Isaac threatened the Republican convention and lowered the ratings, and then Sandy disrupted the campaign and gave Obama an opportunity to display his competency as commander-in-chief. As the result of Sandy, Obama got kudos from Republican Governor Chris Christie and an endorsement from Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Obama had already gained momentum, after a disastrous first debate, and his response to Sandy pushed him ahead in most polls.

1. No Republican can win at the national level. A year ago, when the slate of Republican presidential candidates formed, it was Mitt Romney versus the "seven dwarfs:" Bachmann, Cain, Gingrich, Paul, Pawlenty, Perry and Santorum. Romney struggled in the first primaries and had to turn on his money machine to defeat the others in the conclusive primaries. It was an indication that Romney was the best of a weak field and that Republicans were lukewarm about him.

Romney had to tack to the right to secure his base and this turned off self-defined centrist voters. Obama overwhelmingly carried both liberal and centrist voters. The electorate has gotten wise to the Republican Party; they understand that they are radical conservatives -- out-of-touch with the middle class. Ultimately, that's why Romney lost. It indicates that no Republican presidential candidate would have been electable.

 

Comments

[playsindirt]

09:17 PM on 11/19/2012

Romney is also a lousy businessman. When you manufacture a product and spend a lot of money marketing it, if that product doesn't sell it's either a lousy product, your marketing sucked, or both. It's NEVER the consumers fault. Business 101.

[one1byke]

01:45 PM on 11/19/2012

The People Ones:

A. He was branded as elite and out-of-touch.
2. Women got wise to him.
D. He didn't understand Hispanics, and

3. Romney told one too many lies.

[PrincetonKonah]

07:47 PM on 11/18/2012

Romney did not tell the American people why he should be their leader. He felt that he was doing the American people a favor by wanting to be their president.

[Xitor]

08:00 PM on 11/12/2012

They GOP rely on a us vs them strategy where as they are the victims who are trying to preserve freedom from those dangerous minorities, liberals and socialists.They consider themselves as the only true Americans and look upon non Anglo Saxons with suspicion and a threat to themselves. That is why Hispanics, Asians, and African Americans are so turned off with the GOP. The problem for them is new dominant media is no longer TV and Talk Radio but is the internet, hence Rush Limbaugh and Fox news has little influence with the young generation. Just calling someone a communist will no longer work with this generation because this generation grew up when most communist nations switched to capitalism. The new bogeyman is the terrorist Muslim, but Islam is religion not an economic philosophy. Now the GOP is faced with an expanding structural disadvantage which they are now trying to counter with an outreach to Hispanics. Without Hispanics they will have great difficulty winning national elections. If the GOP continue to lose nation elections eventually the Supreme Court will tilt to a more Liberal and Progressive Court. With a more progressive Supreme Court the natural advantage they have in getting elected to the House of Representatives would be jeopardized. The reason being a more liberal and progressive Supreme Court will most likely rule against the use of gerrymandering political districts for the purpose of diluting the Democrats political power.

[Xitor]

07:14 PM on 11/12/2012

Republicans failed to realize TV and radio is no longer the dominant media and information source. New young voters form their world view off of information off the internet. Information is harder to control and package. Lies and propaganda are easily exposed on the internet. Rush Limbaugh and Fox news has little influence over the younger generation. The only vote they can reasonably rely on is the older rural white male voter who were brainwashed from the older media sources to vote against their economic interests. As time moves on the older white male voters which is their core base will die off and the newer generation will be overwhelmingly more liberal and progressive and more ethnically diverse. The GOP stacked all their eggs in one basket and it does not seem to be a winning combination in national elections in time to come.

[FilmNoirFan]

10:41 PM on 11/11/2012

As mentioned on another article, the Republicans were after the Latino vote but ignored the other minorities, not that it would have mattered. I did see a clip of Romney pandering (no surprise) to blacks by saying "bling" and "who let the dogs out?" Who let the dogs out? Really Mitt? Take us back to last century why don't ya or would you prefer pre-1865?

[LCDTV]

02:46 PM on 11/11/2012

and another reason: Mitt is not a christian.

[Michael Downing]

02:35 PM on 11/09/2012

"No Republican can win at the national level" will remain true as long as no rational Republican can win the primary. I was torn between cheering and booing Huntsman. If he had gotten the nomination, a Democratic victory was less likely, but at least the country would have had a rational leader, no matter who won. Rational does not mean progressive though and many if not most of the changes needed for social justice would not have happened under Huntsman as President, Make no mistake, he is not a liberal or even a moderate.

[Joseph LeCompte]

06:27 AM on 11/09/2012

The GOP platform doomed him. He couldn't lie out of it. The GOP knew it had a poor chance at winning and started the purity purges. Mourdock and Adkin were speaking the real platform. And America knew it. The actions at the state level proved the GOP agenda was about their religion.

[catalyst1219]

07:30 PM on 11/08/2012

I thought he lost because he was a garbage candidate whose party's entire ideology is from the stone age.

[theoneA7]

12:12 PM on 11/08/2012

I am reminded of what Alfred said to Bruce in the Dark Knight, about how the mob were so desperate to get rid of Batman that they "turned to a man that they did not fully understand". In the primaries, almost everyone was polling better than Romney, but in the end, Romney was the only one left.

[FeistyCanuck]

11:10 AM on 11/08/2012

T-Paw was the only republican candidate who might have had centrist appeal. This lost him the primary though.

[Evilbeard]

11:56 AM on 11/08/2012

I think you mean Huntsman.

[FeistyCanuck]

01:50 PM on 11/08/2012

WHOOPS! Right you are, Huntsman is what I meant. The former ambassador to China who pretty much disqualified himself by demonstrating an IQ over 80.

So many dwarves...

[GEOHIST33]

11:09 AM on 11/08/2012

My own view on why Romney lost can be found in the Amazon Kindle eBook "Self-Inflicted: The Republican Loss of 2012." Free for Amazon Prime members.

[Tigerama]

08:59 AM on 11/11/2012

Thank god. I've been waiting for dozens of moments now.

[Lani Young]

10:40 AM on 11/08/2012

All the money in this world couldn't have saved Romney. God did intervene a week before the election and worked through the true winner "OBAMA" Just like how God chose David to be the king, because people always look on the outside but GOD always look on the inside of a man. Please, stop all this hate and pray that God will use Obama who is just a man, to bring America together and work as one nation under God. America needs God, not a party or a person...Let's pray for God's Will to be done in our country so we can be a blessing to the rest of the world...
GOD BLESS AMERICA! AND GOD BLESS PRESIDENT OBAMA!!

[mpfaff]

02:30 PM on 11/08/2012

There is no god.

[Tigerama]

08:59 AM on 11/11/2012

You don't know if there is or is not.

[Liberal Momma]

10:13 AM on 11/08/2012

I am a still more than a little miffed at Barbara Walter's chatter election night on ABC about Mitt Romney's "political career" being over. What is the "political career" of which she speaks? He was elected to one, four year term as governor in MA, and upon completion of his third year in office he told the Commonwealth that he had accomplished all he had set out to do and prettty much spent his last year attending orchestrated photo ops. As a business person and HR professional, I can assure you that had he been employed at any other company, his job performance would have been under scrutiny and I would have either recommended a PIP (performance improvement program) or firing him outright for deserting his job. Hmm...maybe being governor wasn't a "real" job? And if that's the case, then I guess he's never had any sort of political career, either. Perhaps then, we have an 11th reason for Mitt Romney losing the election - no real experience!

[gts31bumbee]

03:09 PM on 11/19/2012

AS we use to say in the early 50's, Romney was a "shine". An egocentric peacock !

[Liberal Momma]

03:22 PM on 11/19/2012

My dad, who is in his 80s and can certainly speak rather convincingly about George Romney - particularly his tenure at American Motors and certainly as a politician - continues to describe the Mittster this way - "snake oil salesman."