Still Denying the Reality...

by: Les Carpenter
Rational Nation USA
Liberty
-vs- Tyranny


Will this guy ever get it?

The GOP is undergoing the type of re-examination that occurs whenever a party loses. That useful exercise should be guided by facts. Here is some of what we know.

The media's postelection narrative is that Democrats won because of a demographic shift. There is some truth to that, but a more accurate description is that Democrats won in a smaller turnout by getting out more of their vote.

Turnout dropped by 7.9 million voters, falling to 123.6 million this year from 131.5 million in 2008. This is the first decline in a presidential election in 16 years. Only 51.3% of the voting-age population went to the polls.

While the Democratic "ground game" was effective, President Barack Obama received 90.1% of his 2008 total while Gov. Mitt Romney received 98.6% of Sen. John McCain's vote. Neither party generated a higher turnout nationally.

Tactically, Republicans must rigorously re-examine their "72-hour" ground game and reverse-engineer the Democratic get-out-the-vote effort in order to copy what works. For example, a postelection survey shows that the Democratic campaign ground game was more effective in communicating negative information. It would be good to know why—and how to counter such tactics in the future.

Republicans should also emulate the Democratic "50-state" strategy by strengthening the ground game everywhere, not just in swing states.

It will be important for the GOP to erase the data advantage Democrats may have in their targeting of potential supporters for their candidates. And local GOP organizations must persistently focus on adding to the voter rolls the millions of people likely to vote Republicans if they were registered. \

Strategically, Republicans will need to frame economic issues to better resonate with middle-class families. Mr. Romney had solid views on jobs, spending, deficits, health care and energy. But even among the 59% of voters for whom the economy was their top concern, he prevailed by only four points (51% to 47%).

One reason the GOP didn't do better with its pro-growth agenda was that Mr. Romney's character and record were undermined by early, relentless personal attacks that went largely unanswered. In a world of Twitter, YouTube and cable TV, the cliché that "if you're responding, you're losing" is dead. Republican campaigns need to get better at responding, setting the record straight, and bending the argument back toward their narrative. {More}

It's about vision, principles, consistency, and confidence. Mitten's was lacking in all four. It's hard to sell the product if you're not even sure if you believe in it yourself. I guess the Human Flipper found that ought.

Via: Memeorandum

Comments

  1. Pretty common sense stuff. I'm wondering how long it will take the dems to overplay their hand.

    ReplyDelete
  2. A good example why voters ignore Republican negativity about Obama:

    The administration gave a 2 hour meeting on what happened in Benghazi (Wed.) for Congressional leaders. McCain did not attend. McCain was at a press conference condemning Obama for not giving more information on what happened in Benghazi.

    Seems McCain was more concerned about attacking Obama, not concerned about what happened in Benghazi, or at least not interested in what the administration had to say about Benghazi, which is what McCain was asking the administration to do at his press conference.

    Is it a surprise people don't listen to "Chicken Little?"

    ReplyDelete
  3. First of all, there are stills millions of votes being counted, so that number is going down every day.

    Just the same, there were two states where turn-out was down, pretty significantly, where it could have made quite a difference, and those were Ohio and PA. But still, when you look at the battleground states, net turn-out was down only half-a-mil, and that's what counts. Turn-out was doubtfully the cause of the GOP loss. Turn-out was up in all swing-states but OH and PA. The down turn-out in the solid Red States is irrelevant, as Romney won them handily anyway, and that's where most of the low turn-out occurred.

    You could make the argument that conservative voters, dissatisfied with the GOP nom, stayed home - but in OH and PA???

    Not buying it.

    As Haley Barbour said, the GOP needs to take a good look at itself, starting with a "proctology exam."

    JMJ

    ReplyDelete
  4. Over one hundred million voters is a damn good turnout. Only the last election exceeded it. Obama won by three percent. That's quite a few Americans. Three and one-half million to be approximate.

    Rove personally engineered the cheating of 2000 and 2004. He is a criminal. Duh. He tried it again this time. What a humiliating meltdown. Megyn, once again, plays the voice of reason on your sorry-ass, un-American propaganda network.

    The trick facing republicans is to convince the middle class to vote for the uber-wealthy.

    That's a losing strategy. It's not attracting a helluva lot of new talent.

    The Illuminati Theory would postulate that a whacked-out, self-worshipper like Romney could only have won the republican nod by default. They intentionally floated idiots like Perry, Bachmann, Thompson, McCain, et al to intentionally throw the election in an attitude of contrition. God bless them for that. It's not like the party leadership could have actually got away with not running anybody at all, as would have been morally acceptable as an apology for the Bush presidency. Republicans knew that a heart candidate like Paul was a non-starter so they let him run. Other than Palin herself, he was the only candidate who could have mounted a credible campaign against Obama.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Rove personally engineered the cheating of 2000 and 2004."

      Did that include trying to get military absentee ballots thrown out? Oops, that was the Democrats...

      Delete
  5. I don't put as much blame on Mitt Romney as I do on the Newspeak media and on the we-must-have-free-stuff folks, these folks all along the age spectrum.

    In my view, Reagan was elected only because Jimmy Peanut screwed up so badly AND the media back then couldn't shill as well for Carter as the media (in several manifestations) are doing for Obama. In addition, the school system has been pushing hard for "community thinking" the past several decades; don't underestimate the lack of education because brainwashing wins if true education isn't happening.

    Furthermore, it seems to me that we are living in the Age of Cult Personality. Obama has such a cult of personality; a lot of conservatives do not. Clearly, Romney, not a conservative in many respects, also doesn't have that kind of charisma. Charisma isn't all bad, but so often charisma substitutes for a good mind and results in people voting according to the way they FEEL.

    I have to wonder how many Americans actually analyze any political candidate's platform. Even more worrying to me: CAN most Americans apply the necessary analytical skills to assess a political platform?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Why should we listen to anything the "architect" of party before principle has to say? The fact that this guy still has a bullhorn and is taken seriously shows what a joke the Republican party is.

    ReplyDelete
  7. The Republicans got their butt kicked because the GOP doesn't stand for anything except more war and bigger government. I stopped holding my nose and voting R in 2006. I now vote Libertarian.

    ReplyDelete

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