A disappointed right-winger writes:
"The Right can’t field a better candidate. We put up an impressive, mainstream guy with super credentials, who made few gaffes, did well in the debates, and was amply funded. The result? A repeat of 2008, basically. If I’d known it would turn out like this, I would have backed a Gingrich-Palin ticket. More fun, less expensive — same result."
via Brad DeLong
“Super Credentials”? “a few gaffes”? That’s the problem right there: the right is still trying to convince itself that Romney was a real candidate, rather than an empty suit who could be re-formulated as necessary in order to win the election.
I think all of the hand-wringing analysis which includes things like “Romney needs to reach out to Latino voters,” or “appeal more to women,” etc. is just a distraction.
Romney lost by a crucial 402,000 (approx.) votes in four swing states: FL, VA, OH, CO. These missing votes were largely, if not entirely, missing McCain votes. In other words, if those who had voted for McCain in these states in 2008 had voted Romney in 2012, Obama quite possibly would have lost. And I’m not talking about voters who might have switched sides, I’m talking Republican voters who didn’t bother to vote. This election was largely lost by the Republicans on their own, not won by the Dems.
It was not a matter of appealing to swing voters, it was a matter of appealing to his base. Media spin aside. The real question is why Romney didn’t appeal more to his OWN party?
But Frankly, I have exactly ZERO faith in elections being entirely honest these days anyway. They have become too contentious (for a variety of reasons) and the process is too easy to rig or bias slightly enough to swing. This is aided and abetted by politicians who refuse to take basic steps to ensure something we should all agree upon:
1). Anyone who WANTS to vote, and is legally qualified to do so, should be able to.
2). All votes should be counted.
3). All voters should be personally identified at their polling place with an appropriate ID to ensure they are the person they claim to be.
4). It should not be possible for an individual voter to vote more than once.
5). A national effort should be made to come up with a uniform and proper technology for voting that cannot be so easily rigged by ANYONE at the local level, or is so susceptible to error. (Does anyone really believe this isn’t possible?)
Voting for someone else is an act of fraud which is utterly simple without ID requirements – made even simpler by the fact that the Parties have the data necessary to make it even simpler and more efficient right at hand. We KNOW fraud happens, aided by the campaigns themselves, yet we do nothing, or even stand in the way of reform, citing the Shibboleth of voter suppression and some mythic mass of legal and good participating citizens who somehow manage to have no bank accounts, no cars, no homes, no insurance, no business, no legal job, no participation in local or Federal assistance programs, don’t ever fly or enter secure areas, and do none of the myriad of other basic things which also require ID.
I understand why politicians don’t like 3, 4 and 5, I just don’t get why citizens don’t. And it is not that I think this election was stolen or any guff like that. I just honestly don’t know. When 59 precincts in Philadelphia show 0 votes for Romney, and an African-American turnout at the polls of 99+%, COMMON SENSE makes you wonder if that’s really what happened. I think you really have to have your head in the sand to think that the results of any close election is absolutely representative of the poll of the legitimate voters.
I just don’t understand why we have close election after close election with NO popular or political will to stop the fraud that permeates them.
(And to be 100% clear: I’m not saying the election was stolen, or saying that Obama didn’t or couldn’t win. I’m simply saying that common sense tells us that we have problems that we are ignoring that are HIGHLIGHTED by every election from 2000 on.)