2012 election – RichWatch!

How The Republican Party (and its supporters), Not Mitt Romney, Lost The Otherwise Winnable 2012 Election

2012 should have been a Republican victory election year.

The Democratic incumbent, while personally popular, supported a list of widely unpopular positions including his signature name-bearing achievement that passed through bipartisan opposition with 1 deciding senatorial vote and was noted to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court but ruled as constitutional under the grounds that the Administration was lying about it the whole time (the Supreme Court ruled that the cornerstone rule in “Obamacare” that forced citizens to buy a product from a corporation was clearly illegal, but that calling the mandate’s punishment for disobeying it a “tax” was clearly within allowable bounds. Thus, the Obama administration, who had argued that the mandate is not a tax, won the case under the ruling that they were lying and it in fact is a tax).

Twas Systemic Idiocy that Lost the Race

Individual Republicans are just as astute and capable as anyone else, but the Republican party and conservative base as a collective is a band of absolute clueless self destructive idiots.

In no better way has this been on display more radically than the primary for both the 2008 and 2012 elections in where the party did everything possible to bludgeon themselves into a position of weakness and frailty before facing a far more prepared and expert opponent.

This is because Republicans generally are arrogant and clueless to social realities outside their analytical bubbles.

When facing an opponent with the power, organization, media attention, name recognition, financing, bully pulpit, and experience of having already won a presidential campaign – there ain’t no time for dickin around. In an election with no incumbent President or Vice President, such as 2008, the primary to choose a nominee for president can afford a more diverse group of contenders that include longshot candidates, since both political parties are going through the process. However, in an election to unseat an incumbent president or sitting vice president of the opposing party, there is no room for error, time wasting or to indulge longshot candidates or abstract party platforms.

Because of its sheer arrogance and stupidity, an active minority within the Republican party did all of the above and more and lost the election for themselves like the bag of tools they are.

Here are 5 reasons how this group of powerful morons worked hard to accomplish this feat of foolishness and snatch failure from the jaws of victory…

SQUANDERING PRECIOUS PRIMARY TIME ON CANDIDATES WITH NO CHANCE OF WINNING

The rules of history, present electoral climate, and logical analysis reveal that the most likely path to the presidency is from a Governor and secondly, a popular Senator. The path to the presidency from the House of Representatives or from the Private Sector with no political experience is at such longshot odds to make it virtually non-existent.

Thus, logic dictates that the only candidates with a serious chance to win in 2012 and thus the only candidates worthy of serious consideration from voters were:

-Jon Huntsman (former Utah Governor & Obama’s Ambassador to China)
-Mitt Romney (former Massachusetts Governor)
-Tim Pawlenty (former Minnesota Governor)
-Rick Perry (sitting Texas Governor)

The entire primary should have been between these 4 men, alone.

Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson and former Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer would have been welcomed as well until their inevitable exit to seek the nomination of other loser parties after failing to gain any traction. Johnson went on to gain a typical less-than-1% of the vote as the Losertarian Party nominee and Roemer was the nominee of the Reform Party, which got something like 2 dozen votes or so.

Yet the news articles, media interview clips and headlines and most importantly – the debate stages – were also polluted with the likes of the following no-chancers:

-Ron Paul (U.S. Representative from Texas who never won a single primary state in any of his 3 presidential runs)
-Michelle Bachmann (U.S. Representative, Minnesota)
-Newt Gingrich (former polarizing U.S. House Speaker who hadn’t held political office since resigning from the House amidst controversy in the 1990s)
-Rick Santorum (former Pennsylvania Senator who lost his 2006 reelection by 18 points and had remained out of political office since)
-Herman Cain (Businessman founder of a regional pizza chain with no political experience)

These 5 candidates should not have run for president in that cycle as they were all vanity candidacies with little shot at the nomination and sure-fire losers in the general election. Although it is the right of any naturally born American citizen over the age of 30 to run for the office of President, it is the collective duty of the citizens that make up the grassroots activists, party leadership and voters themselves to not reward vanity candidacies and instead limit their support to the candidates whom most articulate their beliefs from within the realm of possibility to win, especially in an election against a powerful incumbent.

Instead, for an entire year, these individuals ate up the headlines with reality show style snipes at each other and mostly toward their eventual nominee they would all switch to tacitly supporting.

An entire. friggin. year…

A STUPIDLY LONG PRIMARY WITH AN ABSURD AMOUNT OF USELESS DEBATES

The time for a long primary season to give lesser funded candidates a chance to be heard and considered was 2008 while the Democrats did the same. The 2012 election however, was against a sitting president, which means every single day that the Republicans spent arguing amongst themselves was another day the Democrat had to argue to the American people, for himself and his brand, and against the Republican party. So that means there was a competition to be held in where a lead-up to that competition had one unified force attacking the other side and that other side attacking itself for that same period.

In order to win the 2012 election, the mathematically most-electable candidates needed to have been isolated early in the primary, condensed to a micro period of campaigning to make their case to the public and then boiled down to the one amongst them with the most amount of financing, support, organization, and adherence to party principals in where he should have been fast-tracked to the nomination with a maximum of 7 debates within a maximum period of 9 months (the length of time to gestate a baby should not be exceeded by the length of time to choose a politician you like best from a group of other politicians).

Instead, idiots that they are, the republican party and conservative base sought to achieve the exact opposite: to prevent a “coronation” of their inevitable nominee.

Thanks to RNC Chairman Michael Steele, the Republican primary lasted a grueling year of wasteful and expensive destructive in-fighting with a total of 20 divisive, destructive and ultimately Republican brand-damaging debates.

The first Republican primary debate occurred in May 2011 and the last didn’t happen until February 2012. The nominee wasn’t chosen until another 3 months afterward when on May 29th 2012, Mitt Romney finally crossed the threshold of 1,144 delegates – the number needed to win the GOP nomination. That means that the Republican party had no nominee to face Barack Obama until 5 months and 6 days before election day. But what is worse is that Romney’s campaigning to the public was constricted beyond even that minuscule amount of time because the official nomination for a presidential nominee (freeing up funds that nominee is allowed to spend on their campaign) doesn’t happen until the parties convention and that didn’t happen until August 28, 2012.

That means that Republicans spent 1 entire year wasting time and millions of dollars and resources attacking their own nominee for president, while that nominee had only 2 months and 6 days to spend their resources and targeted messaging attacking the incumbent Democratic president.

The usage of this time is clear: Republicans irresponsibly and stupidly misused the year+ of time in choosing their nominee while that nominee, Mitt Romney, used his 2 months and 6 days spectacularly well. Finally allowed to speak directly to the American people and his opponent, he unequivocally destroyed President Obama in the first debate to epic degrees. He performed similarly on-point in the second debate which was derailed not by Romney’s misstep but by the unprecedented overstep of the debate moderator Candy Crowley’s fraudulent bail-out of Obama amidst Romney calling him out on a major point of dishonesty. He continued strong on the campaign trail and in interviews, remaining cool and in command through and beyond the 3rd and final Presidential debate – which was considered a draw only because most of the points Romney was so presciently correct on didn’t reveal themselves until months later when it was too late.

The Republicans were already facing an uphill battle to unseat Barack Obama and giving Mitt Romney 2 months in which to do it was hard enough, but they needed to send him into that battle strengthened and with power behind him and instead pushed him out there politically broken and bruised to where the mostly uninterested voting majority defaulted to the popular meme about the media on this candidate peddled by the Democrats, their supportive media surrogates, and the Republican primary contestants for the previous year whom had all said Romney was an uncaring out of touch plutocrat who doesn’t care about the poor. Thus, by the time Hurricane Sandy and Hurricane Candy hit, the anchor tied around the GOP nominee by his own party was barely too much to overcome.

But why?… Why would Republicans be so irresponsibly stupid as to try so hard to destroy their leading standard bearer?

The following reason is why…

OBSESSIVE “NOT CONSERVATIVE ENOUGH” WITCH HUNTING

Instead of following the William F Buckley rule of choosing “the most conservative candidate who can win”, idiot Republicans sought to choose “the most conservative candidate”, arrogantly expecting the whole winning thing to just fall into place somehow afterward. This is mathematically stupid because the majority of voters do not identify as “conservatives” they identify as “moderates”.

But what is worse is that Romney not only was the most electable candidate in 2012, but he was also the most conservative option.

In 2008 Romney was the “conservative alternative” to the establishment choice of the more moderate John McCain. McCain’s team smeared Romney as a “flip-flopper” and that was the big charge against him (because he dared to join conservatives on the issue of abortion, going from supporting abortion rights in the 90s to becoming pro-life as Massachusetts Governor) but his social, foreign, or economic conservatism was not in question in 2008. National Review lauded him as such, Laura Ingraham introduced him as “the conservatives conservative”, conservative businessman Herman Cain endorsed him, Rick Santorum introduced him at a rally as the only choice for a conservative candidate and Romneys conservative approach to Governing the 2nd most liberal state in the union (after Vermont) was praised as an example of how he was able to change minds and bring people towards the right.

Yet in 2012, these same sources dubiously decided that Romney was not conservative enough despite none of his positions from 2008 having changed at all. Suddenly Romney was being mocked instead of lauded for saying his tax cutting, government shrinking stewardship of Massachusetts was “severely conservative”, conservative magazines and talk radio were skeptical of him, and people like Herman Cain, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich who all endorsed “Romney the conservative” in 2008 were impossibly running against him because he wasn’t a real conservative.

The smears stuck with the ignorant Republican base who bought the smears, seemingly coming from a consensus in Right-wing media, dragging out the primary a half year longer than it needed to be. The self destructive part of this insanity was that the Republican “conservative alternatives” to Romney were anything but. In the 2012 election, the candidates deemed more conservative than Mitt Romney were:

-Newt Gingrich: A twice divorced liberal Republican.

-Rick Perry: A career politician governing the countries 2nd most Conservative state (after Oklahoma) with tax hikes, and a liberal record on illegal immigration.

-Rick Santorum: A former pro-abortion rights politician turned pro-life Statist who consistently supported and voted for big government and the welfare state in the senate including debt ceiling increases, Medicare Part D, No Child Left Behind, long lists of wasteful spending including funding the infamous “bridge to no where”, and supporting Arlen Spector (who later became a Democrat and became the deciding vote for Obamacare) over Pat Toomey (the conservative PA Senator who now resides in Arlen Spectors former seat after running again and winning the election after Santorum’s loss).

These 3 choices were what was falsely portrayed to the conservative base as being more solidly right-wing than one Mitt Romney: A Washington outsider family man without a shred of impropriety in his entire personal and public life who was a successful businessman that ran the nations 2nd most Leftist state conservatively, never supporting a tax increase, and is largely responsible for getting Scott Brown elected as Republican Massachusetts senator nearly exclusively so he could be the deciding vote against Obamacare.

And for all the conservative misinformation about Romney, it amounted to nothing but damage among moderates – not conservatives, thus losing the election. Romney was able to show conservatives he was and would be one of them, but the negative attacks against him proved to be too much for him to overcome among moderates – a destruction achieved with the help of his own party.

Despite a myth being propagated the day after election day (before total counts were tallied) claiming that 3 million conservatives stayed home – Romney won those votes in historic proportions.

In fact, Mitt Romney won more Conservative votes than Conservative demigod Ronald Reagan.

Reagan won a landslide in 1980 with an electorate that, according to exit polls, was 28% conservative.
Romney lost in 2012 with an electorate that was 35% conservative.
Reagan won 78% of conservatives.
Romney won 80% of conservatives.

Yet Reagan landslided to victory and Romney lost decisively. The difference between them is that Reagan won moderates.
Romney lost moderates by 16 points.

The reason Romney lost moderates? Because his brand was damaged by his own party.

Romney lost moderates and the election because of the conservative in-fighting by desperate less-conservative challengers that included liberal smears against him that his Republican opponents tarnished him with for a full year before the Democrats did…

ATTACKING THEIR EVENTUAL NOMINEE… FROM THE LEFT

When a candidate in a primary is on track to win and you don’t want them to, it is natural to pull out all the stops in order to defeat them; however, when squabbling within one political party, it is an insane and deranged tactic to confirm all the talking points of the opposing political party during your in-fighting.

The attacks against Mitt Romney by his fellow Republicans were straight out of the Democrats playbook…

Governor Tim Pawlenty led the way in using the Left’s talking point on the Massachusetts healthcare plan Romney presided over being identical to Obamacare, making the term “Obamneycare” go viral before gutlessly backing off that accusation and then joining the Romney campaign without ever explaining any evolution in thinking on the charge.

Governor Rick Perry used the Lefts talking points on Immigration to smear his own party with exactly the emotional appeal fallacies the left leverages on the issue. Championing push for in-state tuition for illegals in Texas, Perry said “If you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than they’ve been brought there by no fault of their own, I don’t think you have a heart.” To which Romney shut down by noting “I think if you’re opposed to illegal immigration, it doesn’t mean that you don’t have a heart. It means that you have a heart and a brain.” A perfect shut down of this Leftist talking point – yet Conservative media analyzers lauded Perry from the Left over Romneys retort from the right.

Former Senator Rick Santorum attacked Romney from the Left on his wealth which Santorum claimed put him out of touch with blue collar families. Santorum attacked Romney for his financial success and his history in the business world, claiming that “America doesn’t need a CEO” (despite conservatives thinking that is exactly what the country needed). Santorum, who is nationally unpopular and has been out of elected office since losing his last election by 18 points, also brazenly attacked Romney as “unelectable” in debates, on Twitter, and through tv commercials attacking the Governor for being awesome in the private sector.

Once again, Romney had the perfect logical and conservative response, noting “If we become one of those societies that attacks success, one outcome is certain – there will be a lot less success.” But instead of lauding this advocacy of the foundation of their economic ideology, right-wing media praised the Leftist attack and buried or criticized Romney’s on-point rebuttal.

Newt Gingrich, the most liberal candidate in the primary, combined Perry and Santorums approaches and attacked Romney from the Left on both economics and immigration. Gingrich smeared Romney from the Left on his work as a businessman and specifically his time at Bain Capital, endorsing a Pro-Gingrich PAC produced documentary titled King of Bain which is a Michael Moore style production filled with emotional appeal fallacies and half truths. Gingrich claimed that Romney “looted” companies while at Bain, with no real deconstruction or argument whatsoever of the practices Bain Capital used while restructuring and turning profits from failing businesses.

Further attacking Romney for saying that he would not go rounding up families to deport them but would rather support legal policies that would cause some illegals to “self deport, Gingrich jumped on the Left-wing smear that this made Romney “anti-immigration”.

Yet again, Romney shut down his leftist attackers with conservative logic and accuracy in one of my favorite debate smackdowns in history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdFSf0H1gEE

It was obvious to any objective observer that Mitt Romney would and should be the 2012 nominee shortly after the primary season began. Not everyone had to like that, but the destructive tactics used against him weren’t necessary either ended up being total failures by failing in every area possible: They did not stop Romney from being the nominee, but did stop him from winning the election.

Way to go, idiots. It worked like a charm.

In other words: Mitt Romney won on the issues. The reason he lost the election were because Republicans Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum smeared him with Democratic talking points that stuck.

One shouldn’t expect this angle from their own side, but at least these attacks came from competitors of Romney’s for the nomination and thus conservative and center-right media figures could referee and point out their desperate and counterproductive tactics. Except, as alluded to earlier and covered in the next section: they emphatically didn’t.

A STUPIDLY DIVISIVE CONSERVATIVE MEDIA

Regardless of political persuasion, you can’t expect the average citizen to be doing independent research on political matters completely on their own. They turn to their like minded commentators for guidance and in the 2012 election primary, they were wildly misguided.

The top culprits smearing Romney in the 3 major markets of radio, print, and blogging were:

Mark Levin: talk radio show host who smeared Romney on the radio to his grassroots listeners.
Phillip Klein: columnist at the Washington Examiner who used foolish and cliche talking points in repeated attacks on Romney.
Erik Erikson: founder of RedState.com who perpetuated Romney smears online.

But really, no one else in conservative media helped all that much outside of the astute broadcasters on Salem Radio Network including Dennis Prager (who was fair, despite not initially supporting Romney), Michael Medved (who endorsed Romney early in the primary season) and Hugh Hewitt (a long time Romney supporter who none-the-less was fair to the entire field and refrained from smears and talking points).

With Republicans like these, who needs Democrats?

Conclusion…

Mitt Romney was the best candidate Republicans had in decades and the party did everything possible to prevent him from winning the election. These conservative grass rooters succeeding in failing.

The Republican base lost the 2012 election. Not Mitt Romney.

How The Republican Party, Not Mitt Romney, Lost The Winnable 2012 Election

Individual Republicans are just as astute and capable as anyone else, but the Republican party and conservative base as a collective is a band of absolute clueless self destructive idiots.

This is because Republicans generally are arrogant and clueless to social realities outside their analytical bubbles.

In an election with no incumbent President or Vice President, such as 2008, the primary to choose a nominee for president can afford a more diverse group of contenders that include longshot candidates, since both political parties are going through the process. However, in an election to unseat an incumbent president or sitting vice president of the opposing party, there is no room for error, time wasting or to indulge longshot candidates or abstract party platforms. Because of its sheer arrogance and stupidity, an active minority within the Republican party did all of the above and more and lost the election for themselves like the bag of tools they are.

Here are 5 reasons how they worked hard to accomplish this feat of foolishness…

SQUANDERING PRECIOUS TIME ON CANDIDATES WITH NO CHANCE OF WINNING
The rules of history, present electoral climate, and logical analysis reveal that the most likely path to the presidency is from a Governor and secondly, a popular Senator. The path to the presidency from the House of Representatives or from the Private Sector with no political experience is at such longshot odds to make it virtually non-existent.

Thus, logic dictates that the only candidates with a serious chance to win in 2012 and thus the only candidates worthy of serious consideration from voters were:

-Jon Huntsman (former Utah Governor & Obama’s Ambassador to China)
-Mitt Romney (former Massachusetts Governor)
-Tim Pawlenty (former Minnesota Governor)
-Rick Perry (sitting Texas Governor)

The entire primary should have been between these 4 men, alone. Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson and former Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer would have been welcomed as well until their inevitable exit to seek the nomination of other loser parties after failing to gain any traction (Johnson went on to gain a typical less-than-1% of the vote as the Losertarian Party nominee and Roemer was the nominee of the Reform Party, which got something like 2 dozen votes or so).

Yet the news articles, media interview clips and headlines and most importantly – the debate stages – were also polluted with the likes of the following no-chancers:

-Ron Paul (U.S. Representative from Texas who never won a single primary state in any of his 3 presidential runs)
-Michelle Bachmann (U.S. Representative, Minnesota)
-Newt Gingrich (former polarizing U.S. House Speaker who hadn’t held political office since resigning from the House amidst controversy in the 1990s)
-Rick Santorum (former Pennsylvania Senator who lost his 2006 reelection by 18 points and had remained out of politics since)
-Herman Cain (founder of a pizza chain with no political experience)

A STUPIDLY LONG PRIMARY WITH AN ABSURD AMOUNT OF DEBATES
The time for a long primary season to give lesser funded candidates a chance to be heard and considered was 2008 while the Democrats did the same. The 2012 election however, was against a sitting president, which means every single day that the Republicans spent arguing amongst themselves was another day the Democrat had to argue to the American people, for himself and his brand, and against the Republican party.

Instead, idiots that they are, the republican party and conservative base sought to achieve the exact opposite: to prevent a “coronation” of their inevitable nominee.

But why?… Why would Republicans be so irresponsibly stupid as to try so hard to destroy their leading standard bearer? The following reason is why…

OBSESSIVE “NOT CONSERVATIVE ENOUGH” WITCH HUNTING
Instead of following the William F Buckley rule of choosing “the most conservative candidate who can win”, idiot Republicans sought to choose “the most conservative candidate”, arrogantly expecting the whole winning thing to just fall into place somehow afterward. This is mathematically stupid because the majority of voters do not identify as “conservatives” they identify as “moderates”.

But what is worse is that Romney not only was the most electable candidate in 2012, but he was also the most conservative option.

In 2008 Romney was the “conservative alternative” to the establishment choice of the more moderate John McCain. McCain’s team smeared Romney as a “flip-flopper” and that was the big charge against him (because he dared to join conservatives on the issue of abortion, going from supporting abortion rights in the 90s to becoming pro-life as Massachusetts Governor) but his social, foreign, or economic conservatism was not in question in 2008. National Review lauded him as such, Laura Ingraham introduced him as “the conservatives conservative”, businessman Herman Cain endorsed him, Rick Santorum introduced him at a rally as the only choice for a conservative candidate and Romneys conservative approach to Governing the 2nd most liberal state in the union (after Vermont) was praised as an example of how he was able to change minds and bring people towards the right.

Yet in 2012, these same sources magically decided that Romney was not conservative enough despite none of his positions from 2008 having changed at all. Suddenly Romney was being mocked instead of lauded for saying his tax cutting, government shrinking stewardship of Massachusetts was “severely conservative”, conservative magazines and talk radio were skeptical of him, and people like Herman Cain, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich who all endorsed “Romney the conservative” in 2008 were impossibly running against him because he wasn’t a real conservative.

-Newt Gingrich: A twice divorced liberal Republican.
-Rick Perry: A career politician governing the countries 2nd most Conservative state (after Oklahoma) with tax hikes, and a liberal record on illegal immigration.
-Rick Santorum: A former pro-abortion rights politician turned pro-life statist who consistently supported and voted for big government and the welfare state in the senate including debt ceiling increases, Medicare Part D, No Child Left Behind, funding the “bridge to no where”, and supporting Arlen Spector (who later became a Democrat and became the deciding vote for Obamacare) over Pat Toomey (the conservative PA senator who now resides in Arlen Spectors former seat).

Despite a myth being propagated the day after election day (before total counts were tallied) claiming that 3 million conservatives stayed home – Romney won those votes in historic proportions.

Romney won more conservatives than Conservative demigod Ronald Reagan.

Reagan won a landslide in 1980 with an electorate that was 28% conservative.
Romney lost in 2012 with an electorate that was 35% conservative.
Reagan won 78% of conservatives.
Romney won 80% of conservatives.

The difference is that Reagan won moderates.
Romney lost moderates by 16 points.

The reason Romney lost moderates? Because his brand was damaged by his own party. Romney lost moderates and the election because of the conservative in-fighting by desperate less-conservative challengers that included liberal smears against him that his Republican opponents tarnished him with for a full year before the Democrats did…

ATTACKING THEIR EVENTUAL NOMINEE…FROM THE LEFT
When a candidate in a primary is on track to win and you don’t want them to, it is natural to pull out all the stops in order to defeat them; however, when squabbling within one political party, it is an insane and deranged tactic to confirm all the talking points of the opposing political party during your in-fighting.

The attacks against Mitt Romney by his fellow Republicans were straight out of the Democrats playbook…

Governor Tim Pawlenty led the way in using the Left’s talking point on the Massachusetts healthcare plan Romney presided over being identical to Obamacare.

Newt Gingrich, the most liberal candidate in the primary, combined Perry and Santorums approaches and attacked Romney from the Left on both economics and immigration. Gingrich smeared Romney from the Left on his work as a businessman and specifically his time at Bain Capital, endorsing a Pro-Gingrich PAC produced documentary titled King of Bain which is a Michael Moore style production filled with emotional appeal fallacies and half truths. Attacking Romney for saying that he would not go rounding up families to deport them but would rather support legal policies that would cause some illegals to “self deport, Gingrich jumped on the Left-wing smear that this made Romney “anti-immigration”. Yet again, Romney shut down his leftist attackers with conservative logic and accuracy in one of my favorite debate smackdowns in history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdFSf0H1gEE

A STUPIDLY DIVISIVE CONSERVATIVE MEDIA
Regardless of political persuasion, you can’t expect the average citizen to be doing independent research on political matters completely on their own. They turn to their like minded commentators for guidance and they were wildly misguided.

The top culprits smearing Romney in the 3 major markets of radio, print, and blogging were:

With Republicans like these, who needs Democrats?

Mitt Romney was the best candidate Republicans had in decades and the party did everything possible to prevent him from winning the election. These conservative grass rooters succeeding in failing.

The base lost the 2012 election. Not Mitt Romney.

Poll Dancing: with 6 months to go, Romney leads Obama but there’s a “But…”

The latest Gallup Tracking Poll looks like my ex-girlfriends legs after one fourth of one beer:

Obama Romney; Romney Lead
15-Apr 45 47 2
16-Apr 43 48 5

Pew polls also confirm that as of now at least, it’s down to the wire.

As the general election campaign gets underway, Obama’s slim 49% to 45% edge over Mitt Romney is based on his continued support among women, college graduates, blacks, Latinos and lower-income voters. Obama leads Romney by 13 points among women, which is identical to his victory margin over McCain among women four years ago, according to National Election Pool exit polls. Men, who split their vote between Obama (49%) and McCain (48%), are leaning slightly toward Romney today, by a 50% to 44% margin…

Obama has lost support among several groups: Obama carried the independent vote by a margin of 52% to 44% in 2008. Today, 42% of independents favor him, while 48% back Romney. Obama also is faring worse among lower-income voters and those with less education than he did in 2008.

The problem here that it seems no one but me is either aware of or willing to talk about is the racial minority vote and the emotional appeals the Obama campaign uses to drive that voter turnout. Sorry, but a majority of Barack Obama’s appeal as a politician is race-based and that shiz translates to votes. Romney can counter if, and only if he puts the brakes on that appeal by choosing a non-white-male running mate. My pick is son-of-Cuban immigrants, Florida Senator Marco Rubio but there are plenty of acceptable options. This is an issue of marketing and optics. The point is not that the Repbulicans should play the same bogus identity-politics game that the Democrats are but rather merely to slow the dishonest attacks on their own brand. In other words: the strategy in my plan is not to try and get Republican votes by making people say of someone on the voting ticket “they are just like me regarding ethnic or racial makeup and I would like to have what I ignorantly feel is ‘one of my own’ in positions of power” in the way that skyrocketed black votes for Obama in 2008 to 96% which became 13% of the voting electorate (and my pick of Rubio should be evidence of that, since Cuban Americans are already solid Republican voting blocks and have little to no ethnic identity crossover appeal to Blacks or other Latino segments) – but rather its merely to debunk that very notion. Obama is going to try to win not by ideas and arguments and honest appraisals of Republican policies and how they may or may not benefit society – he’s going to try to win with smearing his opponents as elitists that don’t understand or care about the struggle of the underclass, which is to many minority voters, a dog whistle for “the other side is racist and you can’t trust them”. Romney can’t merely rely on his life history of helping those in need to end the effectiveness of those attacks. He needs a running mate that can show the key demographic of voters (of all races and ethnicities) that don’t follow the specifics of politics and aren’t terribly informed on policy, that he and his party are not the stuffy white-guys coming in to take down the first half-black President of the nation and, unfortunately, the only way to earn the listenership of that demographic is to match the optics of the opponent in some way and then make the argument from there. The argument will be made regardless, obviously, but if that argument comes from 2 white guys against a half-black guy and old white guy, the team with the half-black guy will get enough votes from non-politic followers across the board and especially in racial minority demographics and it will be enough to tip the election.

Romney is halfway there…

Obama trails Romney by a wide margin among white voters (54% Romney, 39% Obama), though that is little changed from 2008. But Obama has lost ground among certain groups of white voters. In 2008, whites with household incomes under $50,000 favored McCain over Obama by a slim 51% to 47% margin. Today, lower-income whites favor Romney over Obama by a 16-point margin (54% to 38%).

To sow up a victory in November, it all hinges on this decision.

The Dark Knight Rises as an allegory for the 2012 Election

All this talk of Mitt Romney (whose primary win in New Hampshire tomorrow and then in South Carolina and then in Florida will secure his nomination for president) and his previous work at the investment firm Bain Capital has made me think of a metaphor…

Mitt Romney = Bane.
The toughest match the Dark Knight has ever had to face.

Barack Obama = the Dark Knight
Once thought of as a hero, now thought to be a monster, he must return to fight for his ideals.

Commissioner Gordon = The Tea Party
Traditionalist called by a sense of duty to engage in a battle to preserve what is radically decaying before his eyes.

Catwoman = Occupy Wall Street
An otherwise uninvolved player, motivated by and attracted to chaos whose sense of entitlement brings her/them to class warfare and a life of law breaking they feel is morally justified cuz rich people have stuff and they don’t. She’s angry because she’s ignorant – mainly in her misunderstanding of economics, thinking of it as a pie with a finite amount of slices.

How does it all end?…

Take it either way:

Romney/Bane succeeds in doing what other more experienced contenders previously failed at and breaks the people’s hero?

Obama/Batman gets broken by a strong challenger but ultimately wins in the end?

We’ll find out in about 10 months…

Rice for Vice?

I thought Condoleezza Rice would have and should have been the VP nominee last election when I thought the two tickets were going to be Clinton/Obama vs Romney/Rice. This column says she should be the GOP nominee’s (Romney, this time. unless Republicans are stupid enough to fuck it up a 2nd time) VP pick but chooses to pun-up the article to crazy degrees. First of all, the title is One president, please, with a side of Rice. Ug… but tolerable. But then read this introduction:

Republican diners haven’t yet picked their entree, but they’ve narrowed it down to the steak or the fish. Still, just as interesting as their main course will be their side selection: Will they go for a drab salad, or something more exciting? Maybe a spicy Rice dish?

Yes, that Rice: Condi. She’s rested and ready – and buff.

……

The rest of the article argues it’s case fine and all, its just… how do you take it seriously after that groan-worthy opening paragraph? oy…

America’s first black female secretary of state is quietly positioning herself to be the top choice of the eventual Republican presidential nominee, ready to deliver bona fide foreign-policy credentials lacking among the candidates. The 56-year-old has recently raised her profile, releasing her memoir in November and embarking on a monthlong book tour.

After 2 1/2 years as a professor at Stanford, Miss Rice is reportedly getting “antsy” to get back into the political game. “She’s ready to go,” said one top source.

Republicans must choose a hispanic for Vice President

In 2007 I thought Romney/Rice was going to be the ticket that faced off against Clinton/Obama and I was thrilled and excited to see it play out. The first female president and first black vice president vs the first Mormon president and the first female AND black vice president. Woulda been awesome. didn’t happen.

This year, when Republicans finally get their shit together and realize that they have no hope with Governor Perry or former Speaker Gingrich and correct their mistake they made in 07 and nominating Romney to the position he deserves this time – their only choice is for a hispanic VP.

You’ve got to have SOMEthing to counter the history of the first black president (yes, I know he’s only half black so he’s just as white as he is black but he’s the first with dark skin so dont send me dumb messages or comments on that) and “first Mormon” isn’t a landmark. no one outside of the LDS faith cares if we have a Mormon president or not and no one should. who cares?

To counter the affirmative action that took place in skyrocketing a state senator to the Washington Senate for only 2 years of accomplishing nothing but making good speeches and being charismatic and putting him in the Presidency – the Republicans need to counter with a minority pick that ISN’T an affirmative action choice.

That rules out Herman Cain, who has never been elected to any public office, and it’s not good for the parties optics to choose a black VP this cycle anyway. Answering the first black president with the first black Vice President is a lame move, won’t gain votes and should be avoided unless the possible candidates for VP who happen to be black are just so good that it can’t be avoided and that doesn’t apply this year, as congressmen Allen West (FL) and Tim Scott (SC) were only just elected in 2010.

So where to next? Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana just won reelection in November by a landslide and remains super popular. He does well in interviews that could excuse his terrible performance in the Republican response to Obama’s state of the union speech a few years ago but it’s still a stretch. The dude may be president some day but he’s super young (just turned 40 a few months ago) and has time. He’s not THAT good of a speaker to completely erase the poor teleprompter read delivery of that infamous GOP response.

That leaves Republicans with asians in the sense of what people think of when they hear asian and hispanics. Republicans have no prominent asian elected officials from which to choose so that leaves the latter and there are excellent people to choose from. Here are the top 5 with their pros and cons, ranked in order of their net-gains in my estimation from least to most:

Jaime Herrera Beutler: Congresswoman from Washington’s 3rd District.
PRO: Womanandhispanic. ha cha chaaa.
CON: House members are usually not tapped for the VP slot and she’s too unknown/unremarkable for this to not be seen as a ploy. That could be overcome but with the “unknown” part of the equation, we just don’t know if the dame is up for it. too risky with not enough reward.
…
Brian Sandoval: Governor of Nevada.
PRO: Nevada went for Bush 2004 but Obama in 2008. A Sandoval nomination could secure the state back into the Republican column and help out in neighboring New Mexico and Colorado which also changed their 04 Republican votes to 08 Democrat ones.
CON: Short term as Governor. Endorsed Rick Perry. Is pro-choice, which won’t sit well with Republican base. in fact, it won’t be possible with Romney as the nominee because of all the smears against his abortion postion which evolved over the years from “I’m against it but it should be legal” to “I’m against it and it shouldn’t be”. Romney won’t need Sandoval on the ticket to win Nevada, either. So Sandoval’s out.
…
Susana Martinez: Governor of New Mexico.
PRO: Border state that voted for Obama in 08? Useful. Her last name? REALLY useful. A Romney/Martinez ticket, sharing the values of hard work capitalism and socially conservative values hispanics are polled to favor by a majority would switch over vast numbers of mexican-americans who had only been voting Democrat because they’ve been told that Republicans hate them and want them to fail. Argument becomes invalid when a Mexican-American is on the ballot for Vice President of the freakin country.
CON: Palin problem: she is being attacked in her home state and struggling to deal with the onslaught + personal life stuff will be dredged up with no guarantee that she will be able to handle the press and constant accusations of being stupid (the “go to” attack line against Republican candidates) which are key to being an effective candidate.
…
Marco Rubio: Senator from Florida.
PRO: An excellent speaker. A picture perfect family. Does well in interviews and speeches. Articulates American ideals exquisitely.
CON: Aside from him constantly saying he does not want the job and would rather get work done in the Senate to which he was only recently elected to in 2012: He’s Cuban and Cubans are already Republicans because their country was freakin destroyed by Communism and constantly has people attempting to escape it for that reason. The GOP’s problem is with Mexican hispanics, so Rubio’s hispanicanism isn’t a guaranteed help there. Plus, the last name Rubio is not immediately identifiable as hispanic like the other contenders’ names are and Rubio is very fair skinned so his Cubanism may be more of a sidenote fun-fact than the major selling point the GOP needs. Might be better to keep him in the senate where he wants to be until he runs for President in the future.
…
Luis Fortuño: Governor of Puerto Rico.
PRO: Unless he killed a hooker and paid off someone who saw it go down? Everything. From the accent mark over the “N” in his name to his record as Governor – dudes a winner. He does well in interviews and like Rubio, articulates small-government, pro-freedom ideals articulately and effectively.
CON: Although also not a Central or South American hispanic, he has the last name, skin tone and Spanish speaking cred that makes for such great optics and Rubio lacks, which could make up for it.

UPDATE: Fortuño has endorsed Romney for president. As you can imagine, I received the news while in an office that was lit only by the light shining through descended but angled Venetian Blinds to which I responded by tenting my fingers and saying “excellent…” in a soft but sinister tone.

UPDATE: Romney wins the Puerto Rico primary by a whopping 75%

UPDATE: Okay.. brief flirtation with confidence that Fortuno would be a top tier pick is dwindling… going back to being confident that it will be Rubio…

Thanksgiving Table Family Chat Thing

There was some faith and family forum thing going on yesterday and I watch-listened to it – meaning, i had the stream playing on the computer while I did other things. I was mostly bored with it. One super weird thing was the consistently terrible camera work of the streaming video. The wide shots were okay, but every single closeup of a speaking candidate was way off center. I took a bunch of screenshots to illustrate:

Former Senator Rick Santorum said “Gay marriage is wrong” and went on a soapbox speech I didnt at all care fore and furthered my distaste for his awful campaign. I always honor truth regardless of whether I disagree with a person and Santorum has had a lot of smearing go his way so for awhile, when he was still a senator, I thought he was kindov okay. Since he lost his re-election bid in 2006, he hasn’t done anything I’ve seen for me to give him much respect. His performance in the GOP debates has solidified that and this dinner table discussion-whatever-thing was no diff. There was one moment that started out strong when he was talking about his youngest daughter who, according to my calculations of how gustation timing works, was conceived as pity-sex at the time of his re-election loss. She has something similar, but more life threatening than Downs Syndrome and wasnt expected to live this long. The story started out solid about a families determination to overcome a hardship and – BAM – happy ending, motherfkkers, cuz she’s still alive and bringing joy to the world – but he went on too long and it got kindov rambly towards the part where he was talking about how he lied to his wife (his words) that he was dealing with the medical problems in cold and steadfast manner because he needed to be the rock of the family when in reality he was purposefully treating his daughter less-than-human so when he lost her, he wouldn’t be as emotionally effected. The point wasn’t terrible – he was revealing this because he was saying how he fought against partial-birth-abortion (a practice where a baby is pretty much delivered and then – surprise! – guillotined, French Revolution style) in the senate, yet found himself guilty of the same dehumanizing sin with his own daughter – but it just wasn’t delivered as crisply as it should have.

A successfully touching moment was delivered by Herman Cain when he talked about battling and winning the fight against cancer recalling, fighting back tears in his eyes, how he reassured his wife “I can do this” to which his wife replied “WE…can do this”.

Rick Perry went on a “when I gave my life to Jesus Christ” speech (ug) and Michelle Bachmann did a similar “what Jesus wants from us” blah blah thing that pushed me further away from both of them than I already was. Not that you can’t be totally horny for Jesus or whatever and still be a valid candidate – it’s just the pandering. so icky. I’d be just as uncomfortable if they talked about their love of ice cream or golf or any other, admittedly less, but still important passion in their life. Talk about the economy, dammit. Or if you insist on this family, Jesus, children, love and sparkles stuff – at least make this worth my time and say what you plan to do about it in the job you’re trying for.

The only 2 candidates that perk my personal interest in this primary weren’t present here: The two millionaire Mormons, Jon Huntsman and Mitt Romney. They made the right choice in skipping this – though I’m told that Huntsman wasn’t even invited. Mitt spent his time doing something that actually mattered instead – doing a Townhall meeting in New Hampshire. Good for him. Answering questions from voters in a key primary state is a thousand times more important than sitting at a table in a church talking about how important God is to you while you run for a secular government job.

Summary: Cain and Gingrich were the stars and would make an awesome, interesting and respectable ticket if this were 1996.

Newts real line of the evening was when he told the Occupy Wallstreeters to get a job right after taking a bath:

Liveblogging the CNN Republican Primary Debate

Each new line is a new thought… Play the drinking game if you’re watching live too.

this tweet is obviously a joke, but it makes great sense. Government jobs should be like jury duty: everyone contributes but no one should want to. I like the thought of candidates saying “elect me and I will give myself less power than the current guy is giving himself”.

Bachman looks great (she doesn’t always). Gingrich looks creepy (he does always).

Bachmann answered a question about how she would repeal Obamacare with a 1 minute response saying Obamacare is bad. Romney is answering the question by answering the question (he will repeal Obamacare and replace it with a better program in addition to issuing a waver to all 50 states

Pawlenty is asked about a criticism he made of Romney just yesterday. Doesn’t answer.

Romney’s gotta lose the smirk. I remember it from 2008. When an opponent is making a scurrilous attack, dont smile at it unless it’s funny.

Santorum gets a bad rap, mostly cuz of the “he hatez teh gahys” smear, so I wanna defend him. but… c’mon dude. why are you up there? Couldn’t be president if he was still a senator. REALLY can’t be president when he lost his last re-election for senate by 18 points (in 06).

I’ve said it before but i’ll say it again: why wasn’t it McCain/Bachmann in 08? She’s answering mostly in soundbytes and is weak on substance so far but still comes off a lot better than Palin. I think it’s more than just the [lack of] accent.

Lol. Hermain Cain. You go, brother. oh, shit. that’s racist. cuz he’s black. I can’t explain why calling a black guy “brother” is racist, but I think the rule is “anything you say in regards to a person of color is or can be racist”. Oh well. I like hearing him add his spice into this. He has no chance of winning.

I got super bored with this and Facebooked for awhile. Pawlenty is talking now. Just said his family listens to Rush Limbaugh, which I think was an intentional name drop so Rush would play the clip on his radio show tomorrow. Smart move from a candidate who needs the publicity.

[COMMERCIAL BREAK]

Lol. Hermain Cain. He says “I studied” as “Ah Studded”.

Enouughhhhh with the “ah..al..alr…alri…alrigh…alright…” interruptions by John King 5 seconds into every single answer. Jesus. I get that there are time limits, even though there shouldn’t be. Lincoln and whoevertheotherguywas famously debated for hours and there was only 2 of them. I get that cable news isn’t about news so much as it’s a profitcenter for advertising dollars paying for news based entertainment, but come ON… give everyone an extra minute to give their shitty blowhard answers.

“Mr Speaker: Dancing with the Stars? or American Idol?”. Wtf CNN? this is pathetic. The last question before the break was to Santorum, asking “Conan or Leno”. He said “Probably Leno” but then botched the answer by throwing both under the bus saying that he doesn’t watch either. This is all a gimmick over what a news headline it was when Bill Clinton was asked at an MTV sponsored debate in the 90s “Boxers or Briefs?”. We get it. silly question to a person of power. teehee. 20 years later? These are stupid. CNN: the MTV of cable news except not as popular.

[COMMERCIAL BREAK]

Lots of boring stuff. I took a break again until — HAHA, oh wow. Ron Paul just said the First Amendment is the right for anyone to practice their “Christian” faith. oh geez…

This before-break “this or that” question is to Mr Cain: Deep Dish or Thin Crust? oh giggle giggle snicker teehee. Cain said in a deep authoritative voice “Deep. Dish”. eha..ehaaa……

[COMMERCIAL BREAK]

Romney says spicy wings are better than mild. This is a real question and answer in a real presidential debate…

Is Bachmann still in this debate?

Oh, next question to Bach. about New Hampshires same sex marriage law. she says it’s not the Presidents role to mess with state laws like that. right answer. good for her.

“Are you a George Bush republican, meaning a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and woman or a Dick Cheney republican, meaning leave it to the states” – um…George Bush never instituted a constitutional amendment to define marriage. He mildly supported a theoretical amendment, what? once? in response to a question about it? ~~lame~~ misleading question.

Ron Paul touts the old “get the government out of marriage” line. dislike. government is in maraige for the kids.

Moderator from the audience asks Santorum if Romney is a big fake phony over switching from being Pro-choice to Pro-life 6 years ago. Romney fixes the smirk issue and has appropriate body posture. Santorum answers the question with class, talking about his own opinion on life instead of attacking Mitt.

Mitt says he’s firmly pro-life and will appoint Justices that will follow the constitution.

Bachmann: “I am 100% pro-life, I’ve given birth to 5 babies…” lol.

Romney says troops need to come back from Afghanistan ASAP and hand leadership over to “the Taliban military” as CNN cuts to a General in the audience giving the same “da Fukkk?” response everyone who heard it at home did until Romney quickly corrected, saying “excuse me – the Afghan government, to DEFEND from the Taliban”.

Ron Paul says he wouldn’t listen to the Generals on the ground in Afghanistan if he was president and would pull out no matter what.

-DEBATE ENDS-

An Obama supporter analyst after the debate keeps saying that Tim Pawlenty needed to “cut” him and “make him bleed”. “You need to cut them and make them bleed”. said it 3 times. geez. The dude is black. I wonder if a white guy who said that about Obama would be called racist…. hmmm

UPDATE: Conan recaps:

My 2012 Presidential Ticket Advice

The 2012 presidential election is starting early as the Republicans choose who they want to be their nominee to run against Obama a year and 7 months from now. Here’s my analysis on how each party can win and not suck immediately after their winning:

DEMOCRATS:

Barack Obama is the sitting President and thus will be his parties nominee. but what can he do to ensure his re-election?

There has been a lot of talk about him swapping out Vice President Joe Biden with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. During the 08 election, this was considered and Jill Biden, Joe’s wife, let it slip on Oprah that Obama straight up offered Biden either job for him to choose. Pundits have said this will never happen and the Whitehouse says it will not happen and it won’t. But it should. It would be a breath of newness, add excitement and make the 2012 election another history-maker with the first elected female Vice President.

He also needs to shore up his cratering support with white voters by energizing Latinos with something big before the election. I would also like to see him actually do something to help the black community and the shithole urban areas they mostly reside in and/or generally do something other than just being president and forever being the “see? you CAN do it, so quit whining about the man holding you down” example, but that appears unlikely as he hasn’t done anything yet and his approval among black voters remains around the 94% of the vote he got from them in 08 (but that’s not racist because…idk why). Sadly, this probably won’t happen, because like black voters, Democrats know they have hispanic voters in the bag and don’t need to offer anything positive as long as they offer enough negativity in convincing people that Republicans are anti-hispanic.

Cabinet appointments that should be made and changed: #1 priority should be to get in a capable and effective White House Press secretary. The Obama Administrations first Press Sec, Robert Gibbs was a disaster. I have no idea how he kept that job so long. The guy who replaced him I guess is doing okay since I haven’t been seeing him in the news like I did Gibbs with his gaffe-o-minute record, but having a guy do just an adequate job seems super lame considering Obamas effectiveness as a communicator. He should have someone in the job doing somewhere around at least half as good a job as he does himself.

REPUBLICANS:

It’s between the two Mormons, Jon Huntsman and Mitt Romney to get the nomination, and if they eff it up, then the party will be stuck with the snoozefest that is former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, who will then go on to lose to Obama, in part because America is not ready to elect Harland Williams clone president of the country (remember Rocketman? lol).

Romney is smart and capable but so not people-savvy that it borders on being a social disorder and his failed bid at the 2008 nomination beat up his reputation badly. A lot of the attacks against him are wildly unfair and some are just plain silly (like that he’s not pro-lifey enough. oh please, evangelicals, give it a rest already). His campaign logo also looks ridiculously like a swath of Aquafresh toothpaste, so I’m going to give the odds to Huntsman at this point.

Jon Huntsman is basically Mitt Romney without the baggage and a few more plusses in his column. While Romney has his health care reform to deal with that, like Obama’s health care reform, required citizens to purchase health insurance (something conservatives believe is unconstitutional, claiming it is every persons right to engage or abstain from commerce without the Government forcing ones hand either way), Huntsman also reformed health care but in the opposite (ie: conservative) way:

As governor, Huntsman listed economic development, health-care reform, education, and energy security as his top priorities. He oversaw large tax cuts and advocated reorganizing the way that services were distributed so that the government would not become overwhelmed by the state’s fast growing population. He also proposed a plan to reform health-care, mainly through the private sector, by using tax breaks and negotiation to keep prices down.

He’s also a former successful business man, former 2 term Governor of Utah (Romney only served 1 term as Gov in Massachusetts) during a time when the states economy boomed while the rest of the countries crumbled, and he has the same “problems” as Romney with Social Conservatives in that he favors civil unions for homosexuals – which is the same position George W Bush and Barack Obama have on the issue, btw – although it’s extra interesting that the 2 Mormons in the race are the candidates with the most pro-gay policy history. Interesting because Mormons have been relentlessly attacked for being the reason Prop 8 (resolution to define marriage as between one man and one woman) passed in California in 2008.

A Huntsman/Romney ticket would be great in that you would get all of Romney’s positives and none of his negatives if he were on the bottom of the ticket, however that would spell death for the party as an all-Mormon ticket, though a perfect pairing would do more than piss off Huckabee supporting Evangelicals, – it would lose votes and get distractingly bad press.

If Huntsmans the nominee, I think he needs to choose between Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, Florida Senator Marco Rubio and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie as his veep.

If Romney is the top half, I think his choices are the same, but swap Christie for 3rd term Governor of Texas, Rick Perry (or someone else with Social-con and Tea Party cred).

Either one of them should appoint former NY Mayor Rudy Giuliani as Attorney General and Herman Cain to…something. and pull someone from talk radio like Salem Radio Host, Hugh Hewitt (a big time Romney supporter) to be press secretary. Tony Snow was amazing – truly the best at that gig. It might be a tasteless phrase to use since he’s since passed away, but he really did kill it, every day. Would like to see someone that capable again.

Predictions:

-Donald Trump, Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin will choose to keep their jobs as media commentators instead of running for the nomination that they will not get.

-Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann runs, and Jon Huntsman I think (obviously) will run even though he’s not declared an exploratory committee or anything yet.

-Newt Gingrich will run but drop out early (UPDATE: exactly as last nights Saturday Night Live sketch depicted him doing. lol!).