Breaking news from the Washington Post : A Romney advisor thinks Mitt Romney did, like, so awesome in this election, and we should all feel really good about the future of the Republican Party.
Quit thinking Republicans suck, we only lost the biggest election in the country, says Stuart Stevens, chief Romney strategist (and occasional employee of child-soldier commanders ):
On Nov. 6, Mitt Romney carried the majority of every economic group except those with less than $50,000 a year in household income. That means he carried the majority of middle-class voters.
Yes, yes: Romney did so well! He got a majority among people who have a bunch of money, which was his only market, so good for him. We still do not have to pay attention to those pesky lower-middle-class households; they're unreachable. Ditto 96 percent of blacks.
Let us peruse the rest of the column for a straight, unbiased analysis of the Romney strategy, from the Romney strategist.Let's just start at the top:
Over the years, one of the more troubling characteristics of the Democratic Party and the left in general has been a shortage of loyalty and an abundance of self-loathing. It would be a shame if we Republicans took a narrow presidential loss as a signal that those are traits we should emulate.
Is anyone else already confused? "The Democrats are awful and stupid. Just because they won doesn't mean we should become awful and stupid too." Thanks for the... strategy?
I appreciate that Mitt Romney was never a favorite of D.C.’s Green Room crowd or, frankly, of many politicians. That’s why, a year ago, so few of those people thought he would win the nomination... Nobody liked Romney except voters.
Ah, yes. The voters loved Romney, so long as you only count the ones with appropriately sized 401(k)s.
He bested the competition in debates, and though he was behind almost every candidate in the primary at one time or the other, he won the nomination and came very close to winning the presidency.
Have we so quickly forgotten primary season? Romney won because he was less stupid than Perry and Bachmann and more superstitious than Huntsman. Romney became the nominee the same way Ramen noodles become dinner: There's nothing else around, and you have to pick something. And the Hot Pockets believe in evolution.
[H]e trounced Barack Obama in debate. He defended the free-enterprise system and, more than any figure in recent history, drew attention to the moral case for free enterprise and conservative economics.
FINALLY somebody reminds us of Romney's pristine "moral case." You know, that deep morality that says to poor folks "Oh, you're sick? Go to the emergency room ." The moral case that says the 47 percent of the country receiving government benefits are only doing it because they won't take responsibility for themselves and just get rich already. The moral case that says yeah, of course those rich people should have lower tax rates, that's the fair thing, they'll spend it better .
That Romney, he's so full of moral cases! Why couldn't the stupid poors love them more?
Losing is just losing. It’s not a mandate to throw out every idea that the candidate championed, and I would hope it’s not seen as an excuse to show disrespect for a good man who fought hard for values we admire.
We shouldn't throw out every idea Romney championed? Romney threw out every idea Romney championed. He went from banning assault weapons to saying he would veto all gun control legislation ever . He went from wanting gays to be able to serve openly in the military to being all like, "We are warring, gays are gross." He went from resolutely pro-choice to wanting to burn Roe v. Wade at the stake and hang Harry Blackmun in effigy. Do we have to keep going? The only thing Romney championed was Romney.
He handled the unequaled pressures of a campaign with a natural grace and good humor...
GOOD HUMOR. From the "The trees are the right height" guy. Remember when hedrank that lemonade ? And that thing about "cheesey grits"? Anyway, the "good humor" thing you can make fun of in your own special way at home. No room for it here; we'd need a whole new server.
There was a time not so long ago when the problems of the Democratic Party revolved around being too liberal and too dependent on minorities. Obama turned those problems into advantages and rode that strategy to victory.
What a cheater ! Obama's dirty strategy was "appeal to minorities." Next thing you know he'll be saying everyone should be EQUAL.
he was a charismatic African American president with a billion dollars, no primary and a media that often felt morally conflicted about being critical. How easy is that to replicate?
This should be higher up. Nobody has ever suggested before, ever, that maybe Obama was actually HORRIBLE, but nobody wanted to say anything, because of blackness. This is also why Romney lost. Blast!
At the end of the day, Mr. Stevens just wants people to continue hiring him, pretty please. If they don't he will have to go into writing obituaries, which he is awful at, because he can look at a corpse and insist it's not even that sick. [ WaPo ]
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<i>&quot;Nobody liked Romney except voters.&quot;</i>
The period should be moved back two words there. That was the whole business with the parade of clown leaders in the GOP primaries: even in the GOP, <i>nobody liked Romney</i>. They only rallied around him because they thought he could beat the Muslin.
Honestly, I&#039;m not even sure everybody in his family likes him. Certainly Seamus didn&#039;t.
<i>he was a charismatic African American president with a billion dollars, no primary and a media that often felt morally conflicted about being critical. How easy is that to replicate?</i>
Poor Romney, if only the Dems had run a white man in his sixties with no moral center, no program, no policy positions, and a tendency to say vile things about the unwashed electorate, then we&#039;d have seen a <i>fair</i> election. Even playing field, people!!
Also, that $1 billion? Came from hundreds of thousands of small donors, a.k.a. voters; unlike the $1 billion Romney had, which came from Sheldon Adelson, Foster Friess, and about 3 other people. Interestingly, Romney himself seems not to have put any of his own $250 million on the line. So much for having &quot;skin in the game.&quot;