Obama ran a better campaign. He played better offense. He played better defense. His pollsters were focused on the math. Romney's pollsters flunked math. Nobody likes a sore loser. Romney is really getting pathetic. Now he is blaming the 47% for his loss. Ryan is blaming "urban" voters. No code to crack there! They both lost their home towns, home states and adopted states. When will the self-reflection begin with these people?
It wasn't a storm named Sandy. It wasn't a governor named Christie. It wasn't bad GOP candidates. It wasn't abortion. It wasn't Carl Rove. It wasn't Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, Hannity, Trump or Sununu. It wasn't George Bush. It wasn't a shifting demographic. It was simply an old-fashioned ass-kicking by a smart man and his campaign team living in the real world.
Romney and everyone on the GOP side under-estimated Obama...again. And they over-estimated Romney. It wasn't a fair fight. It was never ever neck in neck. When all of the smoke settled, Obama simply beat Romney.
While all of the pundits on both sides ginned up pre-election narrative after narrative, Obama and his campaign was focused on identifying voters, registering them and getting them to vote. The Romney team lived in a bubble and never thought it was possible for them to lose until they lost. Hubris magnified.
It's not a surprise that our nation's demographics shifted...The shift began in the late 80s with projections of larger populations of Latinos, Hispanics and Cuban-Americans. Astute business people know this. As a businessman, Romney failed at business 101: know the market. It's not enough to trash the other product. New Coke won the taste against Pepsi. We know how they worked out.
Obama knew the market. He made no assumptions about who would or wouldn't turn out. He went after every possible voter. Romney relied on one segment of the population and insulted everyone else. Obama used data and leveraged his grassroots operation to turn out the vote while Romney's people dismissed data to stay in never never land.
Romney didn't prepare to win. He prepared to lose but just didn't know it. He thought all he had to do was show up, play by his own rules, put his name on the ballot, wink at voter ID laws, and he would win the White House.
I'm tired of all of the listings of reasons why Romney lost. It's insulting to Obama. There was only one reason Romney lost: Obama beat him...on the ground, in the air, at the convention, debates (what first debate?), appeal, positive job growth against massive republican opposition, reasonableness on immigration, a dead bin laden, a revived auto industry. Stability. Consistency. A campaign of smart people.
I can only imagine how Romney felt as the secret service detail shut down after the election was called. At that point, Romney only had one person to blame for his loss: Barack Obama.
Thu Nov 15, 2012 at 4:51 AM PT: It wasn't the 47%. If it were, then logic follows that he would have won with the remaining 53%.
