Why Romney lost, millionth version (the patrician vs. the common man)
A lot of bloggers have recommended reading this Boston Globe piece on why Romney lost. It’s probably good, with a lot of inside info, but I could only get through about a third of it because (a) the topic has been beaten into the ground already; and (b) almost any answer/explanation will do and it may not really matter anyway because in 2016 the situation will be different (and my guess is that the Republican generals will be fighting the last war rather than adjusting to those changed circumstances).
But now that I’ve said all that, I can’t resist piling on. Just a little bit.
I am fairly certain I know why Romney lost. In talking to a number of non-blog-reading conservative friends of mine (I do have a few such friends, you know), I’ve come to my own conclusion about it, and it’s a rather simple conclusion. These people don’t know each other, and yet each told me almost exactly the same thing, in almost exactly the same words: “Romney doesn’t understand.” “Romney doesn’t care.” “Romney doesn’t understand what it’s like for regular people.”
Now, if those people (none of whom had any intention of voting for Obama in the first place) felt this and were deeply affected by it, you can bet it was a very widespread and troubling perception. You can say that particular perception became widespread because (as the Globe article suggests) the Obama campaign was successful in painting Romney this way, and that Romney never answered the charge effectively. But you know what I think, in retrospect? There was no way for him to answer it effectively. He could have saturated the airwaves with stories of what a caring guy he is. He could have filled the media with tales of how he struggled and ate macaroni and cheese when he and Ann were starting out. But it wouldn’t have made a dent in this perception.
Romney has a naturally patrician and removed air that feeds into that impression. Voters like me couldn’t care less; I don’t need someone who’s walked in my moccasins, I just want someone smart and capable, with qualities of leadership, conservative principles, and America’s interests at heart. But many people do care about it, deeply.
And it’s not about Romney’s being rich, either. FDR and JFK were rich men born to rich families, but they were able to convey to the general public that despite that background they understood and cared, whatever that meant at the time. Democrats have a natural advantage in this, because the Democratic Party bills itself as—and is widely perceived as—the party that cares. Never mind if Democrats can’t actually fix things and make them better, or even sometimes make them worse—they’ve got the right rhetoric, they’ve got the temporary bandaids, and they hold your hand. And all those things are sometimes what people want, and think they need, when they’re hurting.
Republicans have a different message, a tough-love message. And to effectively deliver that message in a way that doesn’t come across as unsympathetic and/or harsh and/or elitist they probably need a very different sort of person than Romney (or than anyone who entered the fray this year).
My perception of who that person might be was the reason I had secretly hoped that Chris Christie might enter the race in 2012, and was disappointed in the field that did enter instead. Christie is from the general region of the country I’m from, so maybe I’m drawn to him because of the familiar cadences of home that I hear in his voice, an accent I’ve eradicated from my own speech. But I think, whatever the accent, Republicans need to find leaders who can speak directly and sincerely to people and reach them on a caring level. Good man though he is, Romney didn’t have that ability, and his “47%” remark most assuredly didn’t help and may even have been fatal to his chances.
Personality styles like this can’t be faked, either, and it’s not about ads or spin or lack thereof. You may object to Christie because you think he’s a RINO, or because he sucked up to Obama after the Sandy floods, or because he’s fat, or for whatever reason you want. You may say the country’s in such bad shape and you’re so angry at the Republican Party that you don’t care anymore: a plague on both their houses, and on the House too.
But if either RINOs or conservatives or libertarians or some combination of the three that now goes by the name of the Republican Party is going to try to take back the country from runaway liberalism in 2016, the personality characteristics of the nominee are going to matter. Don’t you think that people thought that Reagan cared about them and understood them? And don’t you think that was at least partly responsible for his success at the polls?
I’ll stop now. And perhaps this is the last post that will be filed under the heading “Election 2012.” But I’m making no promises.
Gotta admit, in 2008, that’s 200^8^, my take on Romney was, he’s not the guy I eat lunch with in the cafeteria, he’s the guy who serves me my pink slip and is otherwise very cordial, even friendly in a corporate sort of way, but he’s not the guy with whom I regularly or even irregularly converse.
This is in spite of the fact that I’m -1- white collar, -2- non-smoker (of anything) like Romney, -3- non-drinker like Romney, pretty much in the same cultural camp as Romney (but I’m not a Mormon). Oh yeah, I’m white, too.
He just wasn’t my kinda guy. In 2012, it didn’t matter; maybe I’d grown up, I don’t know. In 2012, I wanted someone who (here come the numbers again) -1- knew what the h#ll he was doing, especially economics-wise and business-wise, and -2- would stand a chance of stemming the socialist/pee-cee tide. Romney fit that bill at least as well as anyone running in 2012 ^or^ 2008.
In direct reply to your piece, it wasn’t just this or just that, it was a lethal combination of many factors, that combined to reelect an incumbent with a dismal record but a cult following.
Lousy result. Our last, best chance is gone, but we as individuals can still be at peace and content with our loved ones and friends. Most of the latter, anyway [smile].
At this point. On this day. At this time.
I
could
not
care
less.
The party now needs to die.
Drive it fast to its tomb.
Please, Neo. Any notion that the Left won fair and square, as opposed to the truth of having their candidate lifted–and his four years of scandalously faulty policies ignored–by their media propaganda arm is naive, to say the least.
A Reagan couldn’t have won. Romney’s absolute tally was higher than Reagan’s in 1980. But this absolute number was relatively the minority in this year 2012. Media malfeasance, Marxist race-hustling and the lure of free gifts did away with Romney’s absolute advantage. It’s not about the candidates, it’s about the electorate. Marxists are nation-wreckers and they’ve done serious damage to the nation itself over the decades, in America just as in Europe.
ziontruth: but the people I talked to and quoted are not Obama supporters and did not vote for him—they just were having trouble voting for Romney, and in some cases did not do so, although they didn’t vote for Obama. They are very skeptical of the media. They were basing their position on their personal gut reaction to Romney, at least that was my strong impression from talking to them. And this was quite a few people, enough to constitute IMHO a trend. It was far more dramatic than I would have thought.
So if I get this right, Neo: What you had here is a critical mass of people like the ones who had praised Sarah Palin for her conservative credentials both social and fiscal, yet at the end of the day decided they couldn’t vote for her because “she talks like a hick”? People basing their vote on superficial judgment?
Either way, it goes back to the electorate. The enamel layer of the tooth is no longer where the trouble is; it’s deep down in the root canal.
I think you’ve got it. And… as you know… Obama ran an aggressive, ugly campaign, and he had the media on his side. The media is a huge element, from Candy Crowley helping out Obama on Benghazi, to all the rest of them being generally unsympathetic to Republican ideas and our candidate, we were cooked. Romney is a good man, but he was unable to communicate that goodness to a country beaten down by a lingering slow recovery. I do believe you have it right on this, and it was not his fault.
That, and social issues… Obama and the media ran with the social issues and horrifying gaffes of Akin. They really had women thinking, apparently, that we had a “war on them” and that their birth control would evaporate altogether. It is hard to believe people are that stupid, but the true Obama people also WANT to believe this, and — for those on the fence, it was too easy to believe.
I agree that Christy can communicate conservative values to the electorate in a way that will ring true and less patrician and elitist. Romney could not scuttle that image, and again, he was so much better than that, but he could not get it across. Also, the fat factor may weigh in Christy’s favor since so many Americans are packing at least a few extra pounds. He is a man of the people! 🙂 But really!
It’s strange. My reaction to Bush as a candidate in 2000 was that he and I would not be close friends. That he and I had little in common other than the fact we’d both been military pilots. I didn’t think he understood me. Had a golden spoon in his mouth. Was too much of a RINO. I didn’t like Gore. He meant more of Bill Clinton. Did not want to see him elected. I had made the mistake of voting for Perot in 1992 and saw what a mistake it was to either vote for a third party or withhold my vote if I didn’t care for the Republican nominee. So I held my nose and voted for W. After 9/11, I was so glad he had won and that I voted, however unenthusiastically, for him.
Knowing what we know about the democrats today (their drive for marxist values at all levels of society), it is inconceivable to me that anyone would withhold their vote or vote third party. The Republicans are a mixture of RINOs, conservative and libertarians. We need to accept that and recognize that the democrats (also a polyglot mixture) are all pulling in one direction………and winning. They’ll keep winning if we don’t come together and quit squabbling over purity.
My answer to what kind of candidate I would vote for in opposition to Obama was that, if the Republicans ran a ham sandwich, the ham sandwich had my vote. My motto was Anybody But Obama – ABO! For those who stayed home, for those who withheld their vote because they couldn’t relate to Mitt Romney, all I can say is, “SHAME ON YOU!” We’re trying to keep the United States of America from turning into a European Socialist country, and you throw the game because of gut feelings or you thought Romney didn’t understand you. How much do you think Obama understands about you? How can you not see that a moderate RINO is light years better than the leftist ideologue that got re-elected?
Romney lost for three reasons. In order of importance:
1. The GOP did not get out the vote. The democrats got it out and then some. (They even resurrected dead people to vote.)
2. A lot of conservatives and libertarians did not vote for him. (Gary Johnson got over a million votes – a record for a Libertarian.)
3. Romney did not have an effective media reaction team. Had he had a Breitbart to run his media reaction team, it might have made a big difference.
We need to keep opposing the deconstructing of America. We need to keep opposing Obama and the democrats wherever we can. All of those who aren’t supporters of the progressives must begin to stand together and save our petty differences for a time when they matter. Right now the country is failing, both economically and politically. To stop the descent and turn the tide will take teamwork and realizing that a ham sandwich is superior to any candidate the progressives field.
A majority of the electorate is
-Low information (about candidates) voters
– Utterly ignorant of the macro forces that shape their lives
-Stuck on ‘fairness’
-Overwhelmed by the Regulatory State, thus afraid to raise their heads and draw its attention
-Contented in their ignorance
-And inclined to favor princelings
Seems to me the problem doesn’t even qualify as a political one. It’s a moral problem now embedded in the culture thanks to a corrupt media not subject to elections.
Is it right for someone to vote their way to be paid off the sweat of another’s brow? The majority answer in November was yes.
I think there is an unwritten rule that dems can pick someone from a wealthy background. They are seen to be the party of the poor. Republicans should pick someone from a modest background. They are seen to be the party of the rich.
There’s a story out now that quotes Romney’s son, Tagg, saying that Mitt really didn’t want the presidency. Tagg’s exact words were, “He wanted to be president less than anyone I’ve met in my life. He had no desire… to run”
If any of this story is true, then Romney has done, not only the Republican Party, but the whole country a grave disservice. The President of the United States is not an office that you take because you feel that you “have” to, you damn well better want the job and want it badly. Whether or not Romney intended it, the effect of his presidential bid was to clear the Republican field of any other viable candidates and allow Obama’s reelection. Could someone like Bachman, Perry or any of the other candidates have had a chance at beating Obama? I don’t know and it doesn’t look like we’ll ever know. Likewise, were there other people who would have been viable presidential candidates who didn’t throw their hat(s) in the ring because Romney was already the presumptive candidate? Again, I don’t know and don’t think we’ll ever know.
Here’s something else to think about, again assuming this is true. Imagine all of the volunteers that invested time, money and emotion into getting Romney nominated and elected to the Presidency only to find that they cared more about this than the candidate himself. Also, think about those of us who held our noses and voted for Romney because he was better than Obama. That is looking like two large groups of suckers.
Chris Christie earned a lot of respect in my book because he refused to run for President, even when people were pressuring him, telling him it was his duty to the country to run.
Now, if this was just Tagg Romney’s attempt to help his father then somebody needs to get ahold of that boy and tell him to shut the hell up. He is not doing his father any favors, by the reasons I just mentioned.
KRB
Either way, it goes back to the electorate.
Of course. But Romney was a lousy politician, he always was. Part of that business is being able to connect, he couldn’t. He couldn’t convince folks that he would do good things, whatever those things were. I could never figure out what really mattered to him apart from his family and church, and a politician needs to care about more than that. Socially, he couldn’t even connect to the grass roots members of his own party. Where were the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, Perry, and the rest of that crowd? Did he reach out to them? Who did he hope to represent and lead anyway?
Romney was a very good candidate for President who struck me as his own man, thoughtful, decent and smart, and not a Frankenstein creation of his partisan affiliation unlike Obama.
While I voted for Romney, I was tepid about him only because I don’t believe he would have shifted from Obama’s foreign policy one iota.
In terms of domestic and economic issues, though, Romney was the right man for the job at the right time. It’s a credit to the Republicans he was nominated. Romney should have won and I blame his party for his defeat more than I blame him.
The Republicans need to re-examine how and where they’ve lost touch with the popular base and how to reconnect with the people – on their terms, of course, not as a faint imitation of the Democrats.
A good and fertile place to start is Asian American voters. Several pundits, including this blog, have observed that Asian American values and issues should mean they trend Republican, yet a majority voted for Obama. Moreover, I’ve read that as recently as 20 years ago, a solid majority of Asian Americans voted Republican, ie, Bush over Clinton, but since then, the numbers have flipped the other way.
My suggestion is to reach out and re-connect with Asian Americans, which should be low hanging fruit, and establish that as the beach-head. Get the formula down and go from there. The Republicans can’t wait for campaign season, though. They need to begin their popular outreach to the nation’s should-be Republicans now.
The comments from those who say, basically, that Mitt “wasn’t my kind of guy” rub me the wrong way. Choosing a Prez is not whether or not to be comfortable having a beer with him, or whether one can “relate” to him or not (what the heck has ‘relating’ to do with it ?) The question is not what to choose from an infinite menu, but only fish or chicken.
I put no stock in Tagg’s remark, none whatsoever. The man has several other sons. And one of Reagan’s has a screw loose, has sold his father down the river, so I should take his word as truth?
Romney tried hard, for a long time. His biggest mistake was in overestimating the quality of the electorate; he thought he had a chance. Which is why I say, again, that we have passed the tipping point. Face it, conservatives have been successfully demonized. Despite that, the demonization will not ever cease. Not ever. That is the point of the Permanent Campaign. Hunker down, y’all.
The problem is that none of the allegations are really true. Romney proved that he did care. He did it countless times in countless ways. If your conservative friends did not know this by election day, the problem was theirs. If they did not vote, they did a huge disservice to the country.
Romney did not appear to be terribly comfortable in front of a camera. He was no Bill Clinton. Thank God for that. Neither is B. H. Obama without his support system.
Maybe my take is different. I do not require a politician who is “just folks”; especially not in a President. In my Navy years, I experienced many styles of leadership. I do not recall any leader that I really respected being a glad hand with the troops. They cared; sure. Their actions demonstrated that. They were easy to talk to on appropriate subjects, and accorded respect that was earned and for ideas with merit. But, they were clearly a bit removed, and just a bit austere. They operated on a different level, and thought in different terms. That is why they were leaders.
Steve:
“I think there is an unwritten rule that dems can pick someone from a wealthy background. They are seen to be the party of the poor. Republicans should pick someone from a modest background. They are seen to be the party of the rich.”
From FDR through Reagan, the major parties picked almost exactly *opposite* to type. All the Dem presidents were born to wealth except Truman; FDR and and JFK of course came from extraordinarily wealthy families. The Republicans by contrast had more ordinary middle class origins and the poorest of them all, Reagan, was the most conservative. Since then of course it has been the opposite with the Republican Bushes being men of wealth while Clinton came from a lower middle class background. Obama (as usual) is difficult to pin down; it seems like his family was not really rich yet there was privilege in his youth, e. g. the fancy private school he attended in Hawaii.
The above “analysis” (I’m not sure it really means anything) applies only to those elected POTUS. The losing candidates from both parties don’t fit the patterns as well.
“I put no stock in Tagg’s remark, none whatsoever.”
Forget about Tagg – consider the journalistic “source” of the story. Should those of us on the right be taking our cues from the leftist press who we *know* is trying to spin things any way they can to make Republicans and conservatives look bad, foolish, incompetent etc.? The fact it came from the Boston Globe puts its credibility beneath that of the National Enquirer for me.
The takeaway is that the Left never stops building and reinforcing its narrative in a myriad of ways large and small, inside and outside of campaign season. That never-ending commitment pays off when it counts. If anything, the Left’s campaign season is never-ending.
I can appreciate how they think because I’ve been an activist who didn’t see immediate returns on my effort. But I planned with both the near and far view, and it worked out. While in the near term, the status quo prevailed over my upstart campaign, my successors – several iterations later – were able to achieve breakthrough success with what I started and others added on. My name isn’t connected to the ultimate victory and my contributions seem attenuated, yet behind the scenes and the under hood, the building blocks and lineage are apparent.
The Right can’t afford to withdraw into their shell, seek out like-minded company, and then try to start over in the next election cycle. In order to compete, the Right needs to throw themselves full commitment today – really, yesterday – into the never-ending campaign, just like the Left has been doing successfully. In order to bear fruit later, the seeds must be planted now and diligently cultivated non-stop.
Patrician air? George Plimpton, he ain’t. He kind of reminded me of my high school football coach (which may be a kind of electoral explanation as we had a perfect losing record). The night of the election I saw a stat which pretty much overpowered everything else: 52% of white women went for The One. There’s your culprit; Latins, gays, Pacific Islanders are just there for the ink- and spittle-slingers and the EOC lawyers.
Happy Christmas, Chanukah, et al…
P.S. and don’t take any wooden nickels.
This election was stolen.
We most likely will not have an honest election in our lifetimes now as rigged elections have now been institutionalized at the governmental level. We have government officials involved in vote fraud.
Thus it has always been with Communists.
They will steal the next congressional election and then they will finish destroying what is left of the Republic. You can bet that the GOP will not hold the house and this has nothing to do with “electoral politics”.
There is really not much one can do about it.
Almost all of the Western world, including Latin America has gone down this path. We have managed to avoid it longer than the others but our time has run out.
The Nation as we have known it is really finished. All you have to do is look at New York State or California to see what is coming. The Democrat political machine is becoming nationalized, and at every level. Even if we could manage to throw the collectivists out the damage to our institutions is so severe that it would take generations of strident commitment to turn things around.
It is a sad truth: A majority of Americas evidently really do not see to care what is being taken from them–it seems that they do not even understand what is going on.
The Left holds the media, the schools an most of the courts (and just wait until Obama packs the SCOTUS).
History will consider us such fools.
And why is it that women and young people go for the personality thing?
When 2016 arrives, the candidates of all parties will be applied the same test before I choose for whom to cast my vote.
If in office as an executive, how many government bureaucracies did the candidate abolish? How many laws against the 1st and 2nd amendments did the candidate abolish?
Etc. No sense repeating the questions again.
Romney lost because the American people have changed. They don’t want to be free; they wants things to be free. Whoever promises the most free stuff wins.
We’re trying to keep the United States of America from turning into a European Socialist country, and you throw the game because of gut feelings or you thought Romney didn’t understand you.
Gales of riotous laughter. Romney had to run on his record: show me his long record of opposition to the EUSSA.
“The Simpsons” joke about Homer voting for the inventor of Obamacare was dead on.
Why did Romney lose?
Blatant, large-scale fraud by the Obama campaign. Blatant, large-scale lies and deception by the sycophantic media.
Romney lost because America is no longer a democracy, and the criminals in power won’t relinquish their control. Ever.
I think it’s more basic than that. There was a post on it on Instapundit, but I can’t find it at the moment. Basically, the whole thing is a popularity contest now and has been for some time. Who is cooler? Who would you rather have dinner with? Understanding the common man is just a part of it, or at least it sounds like a better reason to put forward than, “He’s just not appealing” which in our time is boiled down to “coolness.” Reagan was cooler than McGovern. Clinton was cooler than Bush Sr. Bush Jr was cooler than Gore and Kerry.
Rubio is cooler than Hillary, Jindal is not. Ryan is tough to figure, but I’m not sure if he’s cooler than Rubio. That’s basically the analysis people need to undertake. The only time it wouldn’t matter is if we hit some sort of crisis and people wake up, but by then it’s actually too late. So, coolness will rule the day in our stupid and superficial culture. Sorry, but true.
Oldflyer said, “In my Navy years, I experienced many styles of leadership. I do not recall any leader that I really respected being a glad hand with the troops.”
Yep, because they’re not elected. To fraternize with your subordinates is to lose the ability to give orders even-handedly. To be looked on as cool by those who work for you, will only help during the easy going. When the chips are down, coollness doesn’t really matter. As we have seen over and over with Obama.
There are so many low/no information voters out there that have no idea the fabric of our nation is being unraveled. To them the world is all about who is on American Idol, The Voice, or the latest movie/TV celebrity’s high jinks. I am almost hoping we go over the fiscal cliff. That might act as a wake up call for millions when they suddenly see their FICA and withholding go up and massive job losses dominate the news. I really don’t want to see it, but maybe it’s the slap in the face this country needs.
At the risk of being boring, I remind you the Fiscal Cliff was legislated by both houses of the Congress and signed into law by Hussein. They are having problems wriggling off the hook on which they impaled themselves (and us, their wretched constituents).
So let’s go over the cliff, say I, if that is the only way to reduce our wasteful and promiscuous gummint, and reduce involuntary redistribution.
Conservatives said that? Wow.
Maybe reading here caused it but I had it backwards. Seemed like a good guy but maybe not conservative enough. Still voted for him since I know O hates me.
Romney lost because he was a poor candidate. He was unable to articulate conservative positions on issues beyond a few boilerplate slogans, which he repeated like a mantra. I suspect this is because he doesn’t really understand conservative positions, but whatever. Many voters, including me, saw that, were Romney elected, the post-election Romney would be almost indistinguishable from Obama. I think many saw Romney as being in this election in order to augment his own “personal glory” and not because he cares (at all) about this country. As a candidate, he was a disaster. The first in a long string of disasters unless some serious house cleaning is done in the GOP.
Perhaps voting for the candidate who seems to care most is done by those who feel insecure and vulnerable.
Thus, the more of them, the better for the candidate of the caring party.
Clearly results–see Detroit–are irrelevant.
A fine guy, but he didn’t play to win.
Eris Guy said, “Gales of riotous laughter. Romney had to run on his record: show me his long record of opposition to the EUSSA.”
I looked at Obama’s record. I looked at Romney’s record. It was no contest. Romney knows more about how businesses operate and how to remove the government hurdles placed in their way. Obama knows nothing about business and has done nothing to create a better climate for business – just the opposite. Romney would have approved the Keystone XL, restrained the EPA, and would not have constantly demonized business and wealth creation. In addition, Romney would have at least listened to conservative ideas. Obama has proven he is all out for redistribution. He doesn’t listen to anything from our side – just the opposite. His offer to solve the fiscal cliff is laughable. The worst Republican candidate you can imagine (and I can imagine a lot worse than Romney) would be light years better than Obama.
There is no Republican candidate out there who can meet the purity tests of libertarians or conservatives at the same time. Thus, we have to support anyone who can be influenced by those of us who want less spending, smaller government, and a stronger economy. We have no possibility of influencing Obama. None! Not voting for Romney was a vote for Obama.
If Romney lost because of “image”, that’s a highly negative commentary on the press, who is in charge of images, and the populace, who votes on image rather than substance. Romney’s share of the fault is miniscule.
By now, its all yada, yada, yada. Romney lost because 50.01 % failed to accept or realize that continuing on the BHO-progressive course is the road ro ruin. A plague of locust upon those who knew BHO was a villian and failed to vote against his nihilistic agenda. A plague of locusts and the immediate sacrifice of your first born child on all who voted for BHO despite the plainnfully obvious fascist agenda of BHO. Reap what you sow.
How many times do we, right or left, have to hear this message?
http://tinyurl.com/bnvjvyf
“You’re messing around with my life so I bought my lead. You even mess with my children
and you’re screamin’ at my wife, baby get off my back, if you wanna get outta here alive.”
My only wish is that I could be in my 30s or 40s and not my 60s when it all comes down to dust; which appears to be the road down which the can is kicked. 20 or 30 years ago I would have been far more effective than today. Still, we do what we can do despite all odds.