1 Free Shit Army as D > Self-Reliant People as R

2 We didn't lose. America was murdered.

3 Let. It. Burn.

4 So Romney didn't win independents, then? And Republicans didn't stay home? I'm sooooo confused.

5 Swing voters are ridiculous people.  They're also ignorant because they don't know what they believe in.  It's a sad fact that these people have such sway over the future of this country.

6 Sorry; I'm still in the grieving stage. I'm not ready to move on and figure out how to make it better next time.

7 burn baby burn!!!

8 Sworn testimony by a computer programmer on electronic voting fraud: http://tinyurl.com/as4jl3o Incredible. Personally I don't buy his argument that exit polling disparity is a surefire indicator of a stolen election(no one trusts exit polling). But this is damning, and a bombshell. Efforts were being made as soon as 2000 to fraudulently affect the outcome of elections through electronic voting machines. Oh, and the congressman he mentioned is a Republican, unfortunately.

9 Actually, that 'he ate a dog' thing worked pretty well. I used it several times when arguing in meatspace and it made other people laugh and leftists furious.

10 Kinda hard to work the cultural angle when debate moderators like Stephanopolous are coordinating with the White house to ask questions about contraceptives to Republican nominees during the primaries a week before his HHS forces people to pay for them. Then they turn their entire campaign into that, which I'm sure was a total coincedence.

11 What category does " We Want Free Stuff " fall into ?

Everywhere there's lots of piggies , living piggy lives...
You can see them out there voting, with their piggy wives...

12

If there's one thing to take away from this loss it's that you can't force voters to pay attention to political issues.

__

Since swing voters are pretty much lazy when it comes to being informed, the MSM being a donk propaganda machine is their default position in getting news on what's relevant. They do pay attention to political issues, those that are presented on the alphabet networks.

13

I think as far as the culture argument goes, we lost in a cultural environment that wants free stuff from the government and doesn't care where it comes from.  And the bitter reality is that there's no conservative approach to ultimately winning that argument.  Sure, we can try to go all pop culture and such, but when you get right down to it we now have a majority of the electorate addicted to entitlements and there's nothing we can do about it until the whole thing comes crashing down.

 

Gabe, you mention swing voters (by which I presume you mean independents).  Romney won independents by a sizeable margin and Obama still won.  That tells me this wasn't an election largely based on cultural signifiers but about who is going to take care of voters in a depression.  And in that sense, the answer was pretty resounding.

14 I think you're exactly right, Gabe.  But still, fuck this America and I'm happy to watch it burn. 

These people made their beds - let them lie in them. 

15 I go along with part of that Gabe.  But the overwhelming fact is that the Republican turnout which we expected to be big was in fact shit.


Romney did not inspire the base.  I don't know with one of the others would have done any better, but they could not have done worse.


As I said earlier, we lost to the worst President in modern history with an economy in the depression levels.

16 The difference this time is that the other candidate was black. Even criticism on POLICY grounds was deemed racist...the very fact Romney ran against him was, too. I agree that we should've done more mocking of both Obama and Biden, but it would've been turned around into a racial thing. Remember when Romney made a crack about the birth certificate at a rally? RACIST!!

Obama's lack of experience and his past was ignored because of his race, and his first term was graded on a curve-or ignored completely-due to the same.

17 i stole this from redstate I'm starting to think we need a bigger boat or a full time year round GOTV machine: "Before getting into the history of how this happened, here’s a run down on what just a few of the larger unions did over these last few weeks: The SEIU put 100,000 “volunteers” on the ground in swing states. AFSCME put 65,000 members into action The National Education Association claimed to have 175,000 working the campaign “Ohio alone, which is increasingly likely to determine the outcome of the presidential race, has nearly 3,500 educator volunteers in 87 of the state’s 88 counties.” Teamster efforts included: 400 Teamsters participated in the program full time More than 500,000 worksite contacts 100,000 Teamster contacts through the national Teamsters phone bank 124 direct mail pieces developed and more than 3 million pieces of mail sent to Teamster members Hundreds of thousands of Teamsters contacted through additional phone programs including state specific teleforums with General President Hoffa and a national leadership call with Vice President Biden Social media outreach including text messaging notifications for volunteer opportunities, early vote programs and voting reminders The Laborers’ Union (LIUNA): “LIUNA mailed more than 700,000 pieces of mail, made more than 350,000 phone calls and dedicated more than 400 full-time staff to President Obama’s re-election. Twenty-five Local Union telephone town halls and three national telephone town halls were held, including one on Election Eve which drew more than 30,000 members, 3,000 of whom were in Ohio….On Election Day, an estimated 7,000 LIUNA members worked in precincts.” The Steelworkers: “…he USW amassed 4,100 trained volunteers, plus another 2,900 worksite union members to pass out 2.1 million candidate handbills. Election Day reports filed show 18,315 shifts of USW volunteers and retirees in the battleground states doing block walks and door knocking. During the past two weeks in those states, USW members knocked on 173,800 doors. Another 376,790 direct campaign mailers were sent to USW active and retired members who resided in the battleground states.” For months, the majority of unions’ efforts have concentrated on the swing states."

18

Get in THEIR faces! Fight hard, fight dirty, enough of the "Marquis of Queensbury" rules crap. They're playing Streetfighter and kicking our a$$, and in the process killing the spirit of what remains of America. If we want to save our Republic, we have to fight like our patriot forefathers- not in straight lines like the British, but from behind rocks and trees and from ambush! And be prepared to finish them when they're down. Take no prisoners!

19 I was told here that every minute we spent talking about something other than the economy was a minute we were losing the election.

20

"the MSM being a donk propaganda machine is their default position"

____

fixed

21 Thanks, Gabby, for flinging the BS early, so I could skip the rest of your sewage.

Anbody here gonna explain what happened with Romney's super-duper, ultra-modern ground game?
It had apps!
It had strike lists!
It brought in fewer Republican voters!

22 wut?

23 Epiphany last night as I was checkin facebook - my just-got-out-of-Marines niece's husband was posting how much he enjoyed the preznit's victory speech, and that he thought "the best man won".... Young people really are teh stupid No matter where they are from or what their background, what they know is: Rich, old. white men BAD - young, hip and of color GOOD

24 Republicans didn't lose a policy debate. They lost a PR contest.

Yeah...no.  You're wrong.  Dead fucking wrong.

All the PR in the world wasn't going to convince shallow, superficial, greedy people to vote for a guy who wanted to give them an opportunity to work over a "rock star" Hollywood hip-hop mogul who promises them Free Shit.

Americans no longer want to be free, they want to live in ease and have a good time (and a significant fraction want to feel good about themselves by bullying us subhumans who just want to be left alone by government into doing their bidding...looking at you, eco-fascists, gyno-fascists, QUILTBAG).

Making fun of Democrats--pointing out the gyno-fascists radiate half the sexual charm of Michael Moore, for example--does not change the fact that they want to let you sit around watching TV all day and the Republicans think you should be doing something productive with your life.

25 We lost because single, young women bought into the war on women meme, something so obviously false and ridiculous that it was never countered. And of course because of a monolithic minority vote. And I will not discount the fraud aspect.

26 Any mocking or criticism was immediately labeled racist. That had the self-censoring effect the MSM wanted.

27 Posted by: we are so screwed at November 08, 2012 09:40 AM (HEa5q)



I looked at all that in VA and OH which gave Obama the election.  Obama still lost a LOT of votes in that State.  The problem was so did we.


The unions may have helped in from losing any more, but it is not what cost us VA and OH.

28 We were too nice to put the "free phone" girl in an ad and run it 24/7.  That would have been racist.

29 America lost - as the libs go around the next few months in smug self-satisfaction - we morons know better..... A lib friend a day before the election was saying the stock market was going to soar after the re-election of Obama....it soared all right - in the wrong direction. A few clients of mine are just besides themselves..... One client has canceled all my work. He said now - he does not know if he can survive another 4 years of Obama - thanks a lot Barack. He said he will have to lay-off people based on what his accountants are telling him - that is if his sales stay at the current level - which they won't. Boeing is scaling back - a guy in Vegas just fired 22 people. Obama will keep fudging the numbers - but after awhile - it will be clear that America is screwed....... Torches & Pitchfork stocks will rise.....

30 Kinda hard to work the cultural angle when debate moderators like Stephanopolous are coordinating with the White house to ask questions about contraceptives to Republican nominees during the primaries a week before his HHS forces people to pay for them. Then they turn their entire campaign into that, which I'm sure was a total coincedence.

Posted by: Mr pink at November 08, 2012 09:37 AM (EQT2D)

THIS.

and that we are not allowed to write the discussion only constantly to react to the things "worthy of discussion according to the DEM media and Their g-ds"

If  we try to discuss anything ITS shrieking BINDERS, VAGINAS.

31 I greatly admire Mitt and think he ran a good campaign, but I am mystified as to why he didn't explain that it wasn't Bush's policies that drove the economy into the ditch but the well intentioned CRA which finally came home to roost as it created the sub-prime mortgage crisis. I sent several emails to the Romney campaign, to no avail.

32 We didn't go negative. In fact, I recall people screaming, "NO! Keep hammering on the economy!!! Don't talk about Benghazi!" Think now about how ridiculous that advice was. You need to character assassinate to win. You can't say the other guy is a great American. You have to destroy him.

33 We lost because of cultural issues -- binders, Big Bird, birth control, and blame Bush. Wildly incorrect. But keep telling yourself that. That, if you want to skip the rest of this post, is the point. Okey doke. We lost because of cowardice in the GOP leadership and candidate, for the most part. The same reason why ObamaScare is now permanently part of our landscape instead of being repealed after the 2010 elections (because our cowardly GOP couldn't dare think of having the poor, widdle feral government be shut down by Barky and Reid). The same reason why America has been suffering irreparable damage all through the past 4 years without any pushback to speak of. Not the hill to die on. Well, the dead are strewn on every one of the hundreds of hills that have been passed and there's no one left to fight and nothing left to fight with. And fucking Weeping Boner still won't step down, the fuckshit.

34 So long as we allow the extreme social conservatives of the party to yell the loudest and attract the most attention to the republican party, the party as a whole will always be dragged down by them. I want you to just think about what happened on Tuesday, solely from a social conservative perspective:

- Todd Akin was defeated, due to comments on abortion

- Richard Murdock was defeated, due to comments on abortion

- Washington legalized gay marriage

- Maryland legalized gay marriage

- Maine legalized gay marriage

- Minnesota failed to pass a ballot that would amend their state constitution to ban gay marriage

- Florida failed to pass a ballot that would have allowed public funds to go to private, religious schools

- The first openly gay politician was elected to office

All of that happened in a single election-an election where turnout for democrats was lower than it had been in 2008. Now, ask yourself after looking at what happened on Tuesday, do you honestly believe that allowing extremest social conservatives to continue to have the type of influence that they currently have in the party will end up having a positive outcome for republicans in the future?

35

No Gabe, we REALLY lost because slightly more than half the American people are stupid.  Ignorant.  Idiots who can't think for themselves and who couldn't reason their way out of a fifth grade math problem. 

 

Because that's what YOU'RE really getting at. 

 

People who let cultural issues push them to voting in someone who is going to destroy the country are stupid.  People who vote against a Senate candidate because of a flub in his words are stupid.  People who are more concerned about the GOP not giving them free rubbers than they are about being able to find a job after college are stupid.

 

In short, cultural liberals are stupid.  They are stupid, self-centred, worthless little people who, in a perfect world, would not be allowed within a mile of a voting booth. 

 

I, for one, am kind of glad, in a strange way, that these people are going to be the ones who bear the brunt of the difficulties when the economy collapses, and society follows it shortly thereafter.

 

Sure kids, try defending your homes from marauding bands of looter with your free condoms and tapes of Sesame Street.  They almost deserve to be victims in the insuing maelstrom that is going to engulf this country within a decade.

36 I wonder how an ad featuring the Obama phone girl would have played with Asians?

37 [If there's one thing to take away from this loss it's that you can't force voters to pay attention to political issues.]

Yup. I try engaging them on social media using logic, charts and math. I try to depersonalize it and avoid the cheap shots so it's not all negative and icky for them.

It doesn't work. You simply can't get through to them.

The thing is, Romney/Ryan went big and bold with Medicaid reform. They offered, for once, to treat voters like adults. And the voters chose to be treated like children instead.

So honestly? I'm done wringing my hands over it. Fuck it. Give them what they want. They want to be lied to. They want to talk about stupid, frivolous issues. So fuck it. Give them the collapse.

38
We lost because single, young women bought into the war
Posted by: real joe




You mean single young women preferred the guy who promised to take care of them and give them the most free stuff?

Seems unlikely...

39 Again repeat, Obama voters said Sandy and Bush economy.


Romney screwed up when he didn't fight the "Blame Bush" meme and the MFM virtually handed to Obama.


Romney did not energize the base to get off their ass was the main reason though.

40 Good point Gerry. Romney was such a great candidate in every way, except he forgot to get people to actually go vote.

41 i'm with Mark Steyn I don't think America gets a decades long comfortable slide into decline. I think the wheels come off and it's fast and violent. And the dumbest among us will be very very shocked.

42 Sean Trende's analysis this morning indicates that in the swing states, the negative ads kept whitey home...

http://tinyurl.com/b3tnm8d

$100 million in negative ads, concentrated in 7 states, with zero opposition for 3+ months... and that $100 million was not at peak rates, bought well in advance, so effectively probably like $250 million... and then 18-30's still showed up to vote, which nobody really expected

43 To sell a product you must make calls.  I paid for my college education selling books door to door.

You can only make so many calls a day.  You can only pay someone so much to make calls for you.

When you have three major networks and every major media outlet with "The Magical Negro" love, you simply can not make enough calls.

Does anyone think for a moment the Libya cover up would not have lead the NY Times and Wa Po if a Republican had been president?

Mitt tried to get along.  It got him NOTHING. 


Reagan did not try to get along.


Reagan won.

44 Put in the simplest terms: Republicans need to find a way to make fun of Democrats on something other than political grounds. Something to cackle over at the water cooler.

It will immediately be called racist for making fun of democrats.  There are a great many ways to joke about democrats and the typical democrat voter.  It's just that it's almost political suicide to do so.  The media has made sure of that.

45 Hey - can I use (OGkoS) as my handle from now on?

46 I'm gaining a new appreciation for the founders' concept of suffrage.

47 TLDR

Election's ovah. Did they cheat for victory? Probably. Only two things to worry about now:

Prepare.

Resist.

48 Plus a truckload of vote fraud.

I was pissed with the socons for having ignited the rapebortion nonsense. Still am.

But it appears that they at least did show up at the polls in reasonable numbers if not in overwhelming strength. Some had accused them of having not done so.

It really seems as though the election hinged on:

-- Vote fraud

-- Demographic shifts

-- Idiot yoof, particularly white female ones

There isn't that much that can be done at a campaign level about the first two.

The last one could have been defused. Romney needed an instant and overwhelming response to Akin. Ace saw the disaster developing. Many morons did. Romney needed to go there himself and personally pressure Akin on the spot in Missouri to leave the race.

Simple stuff. Just say, "I'm pro-life, strongly and proudly pro-life, but this man's comments are so insulting and so wrong on the facts that I don't think they have a place in our national discourse."

If Romney had successfully forced Akin out, it would have defused the issue with a lot of the worried young women. And it probably would have meant that that klutz Mourdock would have measured his own words more carefully. Perhaps even, I don't know, practiced them in front of a mirror in response to a question that was obviously coming?

What kills me is how CLOSE this thing was. A few hundred thousand votes out of over 130 million votes cast.

(We might even have won the Missouri seat where rapebortion got going, if Akin had bailed and been replaced. Air Claire was an incredibly weak candidate and there were better GOP alternatives on hand.)

49 THE MFM are really only activists/advertisers and true believers for the Progressives.
THEY make the rules
Republicans   can  fight that how?
binder was an unforcd error? bah
akin comment was, i agree

how many crazy comments by Obama and Biden wer made that were nothingburgers to the media?

50 We lost because of the media, pure and simple. There's no other explanation for having such a good record of winning governorships with conservatives and not winning national elections. No candidate can win against a constant barrage of negative information from the media. Most of the American people aren't paying attention and are led by sound bites. Until we control the media or at least can fight against it, we're never going to win nationally.

51 Well Gabe, do we need to hire Special Ed people to write our campaigns? Wow, what a pretty kettle of dog dicks the American Electorate has become.

52 Many women seriously believed Mitt was going to take away their tampons and birth control, and were stockpiling both. Benghazi was not going to make a difference to them.

53

Romney should never have said "Planned Parent hood - we are going to get rid of that".

I agree with him! I'd love to get rid of planned parenthood. But I am in the minority.

Instead - Mitt should  said --  "Tax payer funded abortion--  in the face of our economic troubles, tax payers should not be forced to pay for abortions."  -  The democrats NEVER would have  touched that. The democrats would have never made a TV ad with that quote.

 

54 I started my secession yesterday. What I mean is I have detached from it all. The American government is now an abstraction to me. To those of you who are saying "let it burn"..... I say "yeah". I'll watch the house fire that has started, from across the street, cordoned off from the event by the yellow tape put up by the Democrat Party.
After all, they started the fire, they are the first responders, and the Nightly News truck reporting it is theirs, too.
Me, just an abstracted bystander.

55 ------- The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane. Marcus Aurelius ------------------- off call for a home energy check done FOR FREE by local PUBLIC utility. Because, FREE. Who knows, they might even give me other stuff FOR FREE while they're doing the energy check. -

56 America was a nice concept but it's over now.

We let the other side get their way.

When they pushed left and weren't' smacked down they advanced their agenda.

When we kept voting for people who have never seen a hill worth defending the left advanced their agenda.

When we ceded the schools, the culture and now the military, the left has advanced their agenda.

When Obama names three new Supreme Court nominees during his term, as he surely will, the lefts agenda will be enshrined.

Their is no stopping the leftward push of this country and society, if you believe there is you have not been paying attention for the last 30 years.

The Republican plank and platform has not changed since Ronald Reagan was innaugurated but our society has.

It's all over but the shouting.

57 You will get a very good, new example why we lost in a few weeks.

Boehner will fold like a lawn-chair during Sandy on fiscal issues.

We will get new tax rates and become complicit partners in our countries fiscal destruction.

When it comes to fully standing on principle and showing the American people the reality of their choices we will show them our "principles" are always negotiable.

And we really didn't mean it.

It was just politics, not conviction.

58 I posted this on the end of the last thread: A) young voters, idiots that young people usually are, went for obama B) White voters are down to 73% which is catastrophic for us C) minorities are voting as a block, which is undemocratic and unintellectual and again catastrophic for us D) welfare/fed handout scum are at 51%. Again catastrophic for us. Now if you need a Gov handout for a specific reason that does NOT make you scum at all, but when you EXPECT and figure it is your RIGHT, yes that makes you scum! Short of a real War and/or Nuke dentonation in this Country I see no way to reverse this

59

Welcome to Athens in America.

“Nor were the superior classes in the actual enjoyment of a rational liberty and independence. They were perpetually divided into factions, which servilely ranked themselves under the banners of the contending demagogues; and these maintained their influence over their partisans by the most shameful corruption and bribery, of which the means were supplied alone by the plunder of the public money.” Tytler, op. cit., Book 1, Chapter VI -- Political reflections arising from the history of Greece, p. 216, 1792

               

Isn’t this a wonderful phrase?; “The banners of contending demagogues”.

ItÂ’s truly ironic we actually title the demagogic banners “Democrat” and “Republican” in whatÂ’s supposed to be a democratic republic.  I swear to God or Nature weÂ’re as ignorant and misguided as Athenians and will probably end up in the same trash heap of history.

The Democrat banner won. The Republican banner lost.

Actually “rational liberty and independence” was the loser in, to quote myself, “Athens in America.”  The “partisans”, those “bribed” to “servilely” rank themselves under separate banners, truly lost.

It’s why I self-identify as a small “l” libertarian and try to vote in defense of “rational liberty and independence.”

Citizens of Athens in America, enjoy the presidency of your current factional demagogue-in-chief. You chose him!

Shakespeare:

Romeo:
Hold, Tybalt! Good Mercutio!
[Tybalt under Romeo's arm thrusts Mercutio in. Away Tybalt]

Mercutio:
I am hurt.
A plague a' both your houses! I am sped.
Is he gone and hath nothing?

60 Mitt never lost the Mormon missionary on the front porch, non-threatening at all costs, beta male persona.  It didn't work.  It never will. 

61

The takers.

A nation of takers.

Come on tax payers - I want to be an artist and you should pay.

http://tinyurl.com/afe3n66

 

62 Gain ideological control over education season with time and presto people think and act the "correct" way. It isn't magic it's engineering

63 That whole article boils down to....the electorate is fuckin' stupid.  They're too shallow to bother to educate themselves so they swallow, hook, link and sinker everything the pop culture throws at them.


And they're gonna choke on it because....math is hard.

64 @48

I wouldn't go to hard on the vote fraud shit.  We only won two more states, NC and IN.


VA, OH and FL?  all lost to Black turnout. 

65 - The first openly gay politician was elected to office

Posted by: thatonepersonguy at November 08, 2012 09:44 AM (WyTqs)

/ / / / / / / / / / / /

What was Barney Frank?

66 If they can't see Obama and Biden are cartoons, then there was nothing we could do.

67 We lost because we haven't hit rock bottom yet. But we will, soon. This petty unemployment number is easily covered up by the MFM. The poor - just give them more handouts so it's not on the surface. The time is coming when the MFM won't be able to gloss over the rioting that is coming. Question is, will there anything left to save or is this Americas final days.

68 i'm with Mark Steyn I don't think America gets a decades long comfortable slide into decline. I think the wheels come off and it's fast and violent. And the dumbest among us will be very very shocked. Posted by: we are so screwed at November 08, 2012 09:45 AM (HEa5q) The Fed will lose control of interest rates sometime in the next couple of years and that will be it. The End. Fast and ugly. Debt service will immediately shoot to over a trillion a year and there will be nothing left. Then it gets really, really nasty, seeing who is holding the levers of power and how cowardly the opposition is. It will all be blamed on the GOP and Israel and the GOP will acknowledge that it is their fault - just as the idiots did for Barky's intentional demanding of a lowering of our credit rating by threatening to hold back the checks day after day on TV.

69

Not to beat a dead horse here, but when the Akin controversy broke, many commenters here on AoSHQ and elsewhere immediately jumped up and said Akin had to go, and that Romney had to be the one shoving him off the ticket.

 

Why?  Because rape is everyone woman's nightmare, and for an old white man to hold the completely retarded view that women's bodies could distinguish between boyfriend/husband sperm, and legitimate rape sperm, is beyond offensive.  It was and still is a firing offense.

 

Women are a bigger share of the electorate than men.  Women hate rape and live every day of their lives knowing they could someday be a victim.  For Akin to put himself and Romney and every Republican in a position of arguing about legitimate rape on every TV show in America, was an unforced error and seeped into the consciousness of the electorate.

 

The Republicans were way too timid here, and were so afraid of offending the religious right in Missouri, that they did not take the bold step they needed to take and "shut that thing down".

 

The Mourdock comments about rape being a gift from G*d if a baby is conceived as a result of rape were just icing on the cake.

 

 

70 We are down to 14 House seats in California. Is it time for the GOP to just pack its bags.

1. under 30% GOP registration
2. Weimar Republic

71 I don't why I did this but before the election but I tuned into those nightly entrainment shows. Michelle and Barry were on them just about every night. Mostly Michelle. She wasn't campaigning mind you just talking about diet etc. Barry showed up on Letterman. We made fun. Sadly it works. I know Ann did a little of this but the dems have this market corned. Honestly I think this why the dems were so scared of Palin and waged war on her. Palin was good at this stuff too.  Personally it turned me off to Palin. I hate this entertainment crap but it works for the low info voter.

72 by the way, I did not mean to imply that 'here' is the "ranks of the insane" 'Here' is the "ranks of the morons." Like a hammer, or something. longbow. _

73 Gabe,

There may be some truth behind your theories.

74 Posted by: Nevergiveup at November 08, 2012 09:49 AM (79ueO)


According to the exit polls Obama lost ground with the young voters this time.

75 Barack Obama is a stuttering clusterf*ck of a malignant traitor.

76 https://vimeo.com/37151341

77 You're right...and we need a barn burning fight like hell conservative who can PERSUADE!!! Romney...too nice a guy...played it safe...zzzz

78

It's the media.  As long as Pravda is in the house, the elections are going to go to The Party.

They showed us what the Democrats wanted us to see about both candidates, and hid what they wanted hidden.  Every negative issue about Romney listed in the post-mortems became an issue because the media wanted it to be an issue.

79 Wasn't there some gay dude congress man from Masshole before Barney? He got caught banging his intern. When merely censored by the House, he stood and turned his back to them. Forgot his name.

80 Gabe you are partially correct. First as you stated it wasn't that Mitt was not conservative enough. He out did the more conservative senate candidates who lost . Also the changing demographics and the dem GOTV made it a base election. As to the cultural issues yeah binders big bird akin ( and the morons on this site that claimed the issue would drop in a few days ought to reexamine their perspective ) probably energized people that were going to vote dem anyway , well akin may have been an exception . As to mocking Obama, it unfortunately gets described as racism in the MSM. The MSM still has power with the uninformed. Listen to FM radio and you get MSNBC like news reporting every 30 minutes. Same with many right wing news talk radio. Rush has to share airtime with Ann fucking Compton. We need to increase our base. Rubio might have gotten some Latinos , Ryan sure didn't accomplish much.

81 The main reason the election was lost - ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR, CNN. Oh, and did any of them mention that Big Bird is a billionare?

82 You know what discussions should have been had during the campaign?
 If america should have loaded up drug cartels in Mexico / without the govt of Mexico's knowledge., without follwing the guns in fact making sure they Weren' followd?.
   300+ dead and   gangwalker...

Benghazi.

83 Oh and I agree this is laughable;

>People telling themselves that we had an insufficiently conservative candidate, that having a more conservative candidate would have made a difference, are kidding themselves.<

There is so much wrong with a person that believes that- it is hard to comprehend.

We've become a nation of takers. Until someone has the stones to stand up and really show people there is no more to take, we will lose.

It's about convictions and the realities of choice.

84 70 We are down to 14 House seats in California. Is it time for the GOP to just pack its bags. 1. under 30% GOP registration 2. Weimar Republic Any conservative business person staying in California will be cutting their own throat.......

85 How can we possibly take back the culture if the Marxists in the school systems poison our children against us, as they have been doing now for well over 40 years?! You will never win the culture battle if the other side is raised from kindergarten to post-doctorate to believe that you are not different or wrong or misguided, but inherently EVIL and must be destroyed?! IT"S THE SCHOOLS, STUPID. ALWAYS WAS. ALWAYS WILL BE. AND WE WILL NEVER GET THEM BACK. THE END.

86 Think about this: You can easily refute Obama's entire tax-the-rich-and-reduce-the-deficit argument with just a few short sentences and a link.

If you tax the rich at the rates Obama advocates, it raises about 80 billion a year.

The yearly deficit is about 1.2 trillion.

So now what?

See how simple that is? I pose this question all the time to moderates/leaners. And do you know what? They don't care. They don't want to hear it.

They want someone else to just FIX IT and not at their expense.

And that's the extent of their "thinking."

I don't know how to get through to them. In fairness, I'd make a lousy salesmane because ... uh ... logic and facts and stuff are more my thing. Empathy? Not so much.

I don't know what to do with these idiots anymore. So fuck it. I'll worry about me and mine.

87 Typical Gayb shit. It was about the candidate as always. Ace's 10 point analysis was better. Sandy was the black swan, and Christie ate it. Final nail in Romney's coffin.

88 According to the exit polls Obama lost ground with the young voters this time. Posted by: Vic at November 08, 2012 09:52 AM (YdQQY) Maybe lost ground, but still way ahead.

89 Akin and his family should be ashamed for not doing the right thing and stepping down. They are good people, but deadenders politcally.

Hopefully Akin losing by 20%, will be used against any other GOP Senate Candidate with a big mouth in the future, and show the GOP primary voters cannot win

90 65 - The first openly gay politician was elected to officePosted by: thatonepersonguy at November 08, 2012 09:44 AM (WyTqs) / / / / / / / / / / / / What was Barney Frank?


He meant openly lesbo and in the Senate.

91

The chronically stupid and cultural idiots that voted for this guy are probably those whom are chronically unemployed, high debt and basically a me generation type. The big issues will bite these people hard and I mean real hard over the next four years. Condoms, Big Bird, Binders, Romney Killed My Wife, etc. doesn't pay the bills or put food on the table. The rest of us that are rugged individualists (Not dependent on the Gov for maintaining a lifestyle) will at the worst maintain our present quality of life and may improve upon our QOL because we are of the current situation and where we are going. The rift between the haves and have nots will increase over the next four years rather reverse course. Yea I may have to pay more for gas and electricity, but I have prepared for this scenario and it will not alter my QOL too much. The chronically stupid are going to suffer badly and all along they thought Obama was going make everything even. I don't feel sorry for these people because they got what they wanted and now they must live with it ! With that I toast these idiots with a dramm of Laphroig 10 and a Arturo Fuente Hemingway and say "Own It Losers" .......

92 There is not enough money on the planet to overcome the amount of campaigning he got for free on every network channel on TV for four years straight.

93 And as a topping on the cake: This may fuck us in the Supreme Court for the next 25 years.

94

@34 - "Todd Akin was defeated, due to comments on abortion"

"- Richard Murdock was defeated, due to comments on abortion"

 

Neither was defeated due to comments on abortion.  They were defeated because they made STUPID comments that could be spun and twisted by the MSM to make it appear that they were excusing, or even condoning, rape.  Quite a bit of difference, there, especially when we note that Republicans at least stayed at their present levels in the Senate and House, picked up some governourships, and even expanded their presence in several state legislatures (including Ohio's).  Most all of those Republicans are pro-life, and certainly are perceived as being such by a voting public. 

 

Using extreme outliers is not a good way to build your general case, sorry.

"- Washington legalized gay marriage

- Maryland legalized gay marriage

- Maine legalized gay marriage

- Minnesota failed to pass a ballot that would amend their state constitution to ban gay marriage"

 

All of them are liberal states, too, so it's not exactly surprising.  This doesn't, all the same, indicate some sort of general trend for the nation at large.  It just means that liberal states will approve gay marriage, while conservative ones (which have mostly already dealt with the issue) don't.  If nothing else, it's federalism at work.

"- Florida failed to pass a ballot that would have allowed public funds to go to private, religious schools"

 

As a socially-conservative movement conservative, I wouldn't have voted for this, either.  Both on the basis that I don't want the government to control what religious schools teach, and also because I don't want my tax monies to support schools for groups not my religion.

In other words, this isn't exactly a "SoCon" issue.  Certainly not one that you can point to and claim that it's part of a huge trend against social conservatism.

"- The first openly gay politician was elected to office."

 

I assume you mean first openly gay *Republican* politician, since there have obviously been many openly gay politicians elected before (e.g. Barney Frank).  The same argument applies here as applies above for the gay marriage issue - this election took place in Massachusetts, so it's not exactly like you can draw normative conclusions from it.

 

Look, I realise that you may personally dislike social conservatism, and I realise that as a libertarian (small l), that Gabe does as well.  But these arguments you all are making are simply nonsensical.  Face it - this was a free stuff election, and people wanted free stuff.  Other than in very specific and "special case" instances, what we saw was a failure of economic conservatism to attract the support that economic conservatives thought it should have.  This is not due, I don't think, to the wrongness or unattractiveness of economic freedom, per se, but because Romney was simply a terrible articulator of it, and failed to make the connexion between economic liberty and liberty in a larger sense.

95

Masses  and  masses  of  dumbasses.

96

Before election day, I posted multiple times that if Romney lost we could not say that he did not run the best campaign he could.  No one disputed that point.  I did it specifically because I knew the recriminations against the Romney campaign would come tumbling out in the event he lost.  Unfortunately I was correct. 

 

In hindsight, I believe no Republican campaign could overcome what America has become.  It took this election to confirm my suspicions that we crossed the Dumbicon.

97 Shorter version: postmodern Dems excel at agitprop. They're the ones with Maher, Stewart and Colbert. And there's a reason for that: They're the Resistance. It's always easy to laugh at the status quo. It is very difficult to laugh at the Resistance, however. You just can't make fun effectively of the ubiquitous obsession with "binders." It's so close to self-parody that you can't parody it. It's easier for the Left to make fun. Remember, they're the Joker and we're the Dark Knight.

98 Sorry about OH guess, really I am. I so thought our ground game had it. By all indications, we were outperforming at every level. Anyway, I feel bad coming here and spewing positivity when the results turned out just the opposite.

On a different note, while some of this stuff is currently still under investigation, fraud to play a part. Did it carry the day? I don't think so. But it was prevalent. This year I had 8 districts to assigned to me in the downtown area. One precinct was as bad as the next. And I feel it was coordinated. I'm trying to get information from some other folks working the urban precincts to see if they feel the same.

If you asked me to describe the fraud in one word? I'd use Obama's -- unprecedented.

I'll tell one thing. If we ever want to carry another swing state we HAVE to stop early voting before 2016. We absolutely must. Will never win another Presidential election if we don't.

99 I don't know if this fits in "pop culture," but I was taken aback when I watched my DVRed episode of Jeopardy yesterday evening.  "U.S. ambassador Stephens was killed in this Libyan city" was the answer in the Summer 2012 category.  We haven't even gotten an answer to "what is Benghazi" yet. 

100 This analysis of the ridiculousness of the electorate itself is ridiculous. Romney won the Independent vote. By a large margin too. No small feat for a Republican. A once in a generation accomplishment. Republicans in droves didn't turn out. That's the story of the election. That and the obvious point of lock step voting by the various Democrat racial identity groups (a lost cause for the GOP if there ever was one). You have to run the numbers. It's not that difficult. Compare Bush's vote total from '04 and the R % of the electorate that year with Romney's vote total on Tuesday and the R % of the electorate. Literally millions of Republican voters from '04 mysteriously have disappeared. And, no, it's not because they've become Independents. That's a media meme. The math doesn't work. Even if you assume that 100% of the added Independent voters this year are disaffected Republicans from '04 (and obviously some of that bloc are former Democrats) you'd still have lost over 3 million '04 Republican voters. They're not there. They didn't vote. The GOP non-vote and the Dems' racial turnout machine are why Romney lost. Period. End of story.

101 WI voters kicked the unions in the nuts again Tuesday, voting down the "collective bargaining is a constitutional right" thing by 58-42.  Unions out another $45 million in another failed effort to rebuff Gov. Walker.  In many ways, this election was a schizophrenic mixed bag...

102 One thing I learned from this. Running on ideas is dangerous. If you have to run on an idea, run on as fluffy, value-less ideas as possible. Putting out ideas means you can lose votes; you will never gain votes for having a good idea. Expect more fluffy unicorn campaigns from both sides in the future. Ryan had big ideas; Romney had some ideas. Obama ran strictly as far away from ideas as possible, even clinging to Geinther's "We don't have any ideas, but we know we don't like yours" line of argument. Campaigns will become even more tribal and even less about ideas.

Better to stick to snarky sound bites. That's sad, but true.

103

Democrats do not care about reducing the debt.  They  CARE  ABOUT REMOVING  PRIVATE  WEALTH  and  placing that wealth into the corrupt democrat big government  machine.

 

104 As we delve deeply into reasons why we lost, one simple thing needs to be considered: people just vote for who they like better. Maybe that's all there is to it. I've always thought the "who would you rather have a beer with" question to be idiotic, but maybe to most voters it isn't. In 2008, when I said I was voting for McCain, my wife asked me "Do you even like him?" To me that was a weird question. What does liking him have to do with anything? But, I think I'm in the minority there.
 
Look over the past several elections: the guy more likeable to the general public tended to win: Obama vs. McCain, Bush vs. Kerry, Bush vs. Gore (ok, Gore got more votes, but he was riding Bill Clinton's coattails, and he probably would not have received more votes if not for the Bush DUI story), Clinton vs. Dole, Clinton vs. GHW Bush, Reagan vs. both of his opponents, etc.

This, of course, applies to low information, middle of the road voters, of course. I don't understand why Obama is "likeable" but apparently he is. Leftists certainly don't understand why Bush was likeable, either. And all that really matters is that he's more likeable than the other guy.

105 Honey Boo Boo voters....As long as the EBT card is full they don't care who fills it.

When the time comes to fell real pain, remember the Media will work hard to blame the Republicans where the ones who did not fill the EBT card that they have used for then 6 years.

106 As Rush said - it's hard to compete with Santa Claus....... Once the freebies start being taken away then the free-loaders will start rioting like they do in Greece. The democrats own it all. The Republicans in the House should keep telling Obama his ideas are DOA just like his 2nd term. Eventually America will run out of other people's money......printing more will just slide judgment day out a few years.....Obama's idea is to let the shit hit the fan on Jan 20th. 2017

107 Gabe, I agree (to an extent). I am disgusted with the fact that "independent" voters are so fucking stupid. Alas, given the fact that they are stupid (and thus will be swayed by binders, big bird, etc...), we should be hitting back culturally (or pre-politics as you might say). After noodling this disheartening event, I have come up with this idea: The right needs to fight at every level. That is, we need to not only hit the left on the political level regarding the economy/spending/taxes/et al., we need to fight on the moron level. That is, we need to spread rumors akin to Obama supporters' rumors re: tampons. For instance, did you know that Obama is planning to institute a "one-child policy" via Obamacare? It's true, look at the various morons posting it on facebook/twitter!!! Every damn Republican should be routinely asked to disavow these "moron" attacks. Every day. And what should their answer be? It should approximate Gingrich: "well, that is silly. Although the "rumor" is unfounded in the particulars, the underlying theory is well-founded. Obamacare will dictate how the american people will make their personal and private health care decisions." Alternatively, the professional pole could respond by insinuating that the press is being unfair in asking for a response re: moron rumors, but unwilling to demand that leftists disavow their garbage. See, we hit them on many levels. The stupid "Romney will ban tampons" level, the "political" level re: individual choice/freedom, and the media bias level. These attacks should be leveled by disavowable warrior morons (such as ourselves), but it must be clever enough (read: funny and on point) that is picked up by the cultural mavens. Imagine if we were clever enough to co-opt a stupid celebrity such as Katy Perry (accusing the repubs of wishing X)? AWESOME. Then we respond/rinse/repeat. We could be these idiots at this game. If we tried. The last two elections have been run by "gentlemen" repubs. McCain and Romney never attacked Obama/Dems on the personal level. Well, that was our mistake. They threw the kitchen sink at us and it worked. We must respond in kind. I think it would be fun and instructional for all the stupid "tampon" voters out there. They should be forced to make a choice too! Right?

108 Gabe, While I think it is AN answer to why a certain demographic voted for Obama, I don't think it is THE answer as to why we lost. And it does not address the lower GOP turnout. And no, conspiracy kooks. That was not a "signal" for you to jump in.

109 Good write-up.   It is an indictment of the sorry state of affairs.  We feel like the country is awake because it is who we talk to (our bubble), but it is not.  When someone makes the claim that Obama (or anyone) looks presidential (like on a beach), I think it is ridiculous, but I am the stupid one as it is now apparent that this was huge. 

We need to make fun of how he throws a baseball and claims the White Sox are his favorite team (yet can't name any).  We need to plaster the pictures of him riding the bike everywhere.  Play endlessly and comment on his thoughtful quip about he bowls like a retarded kid.  etc etc

The left are kings of hypocrisy... we must make them own it... it doesn't play well.

It has to be about simple things that are self-evident - unable to be spinned.

On our side... we are told that Donald Trump could NEVER win.  I am not a fan per se of the Don.  But would he have not won a hell of a lot more votes?

The Republican brand kind of sucks right now.  We need to end it somehow... lets just go ahead and make it politicians (the left) vs. the American people. 

110

So...we need Karl Rove back?

 

Some thoughts. One fault here is we didn't apparently win the Regan democrats back. If you are going to rely on whites, you need to maximize your gains there. Looking at the exits, it looks like a lot of working class whites in coal country Ohio and Penn thought Romney looked like thier boss.

We should try to win asians. Unlike the other minorities, they are natural conservatives.

We need to utilize the wedge issues going forward to divide the democratic coalition. This may not have been attainable in this election, but will be a big deal going forward. I think we have to raise taxes, but ONLY in turn for a hard debt ceiling. We announce this at the time. We frame it as willing to raise revenue, but not to add to future debt. Once we hit the debt, which will happen, it will pit public unions against voters, Mexican americans against new arrivals, etc. The economy will suffer, but we make sure Obama is holding the knife.

We need to find a way to appeal to Socons without holding hard and fast to gay marrige and marijuana. I actually side with the socons here, but I realize we lost. Its over. We should emphasize that to mazimize thier freedom of religion it means government cannot interfere anywhere.

111 Is there any place that is auditing electronic vote totals against the people who requested ballots? I'm mostly in the let it burn camp, tried hard for 4 years to be more political and save this country from sliding into becoming Greece and even if they cheated at least 47% of this country voted for looting. But still -- so many anecdotal stories of high turnout in conservative districts and fewer votes for Romney than for McCain? That doesn't compute for me and I'd sure like it investigated, not in a "we'll reverse this election" but on a "we may need to cancel contracts with ie Diebold" and possibly have some local prosecutions if the #'s have been jiggered to protect future elections. I know we don't want to be all derangement syndrome but if people don't have faith that their votes are for sure being counted what is the incentive to turn out? Also if people feel like "damn our precinct turned out strong but those lazy so and so's in the rest of the state did not or voted with the looters" its also disheartening. Some investigation to know for sure what happened would be in order, no sense fixing something that was not the actual problem.

112 Well, I will say, in NC we did our job. 


We turned the state, we elected THREE more House members, we kept the State House and Senate AND we elected a Republican Governor.

First time in over a hundred years we have controlled EVERYTHING!

Trust me boys, the democrats are buying KY by the case, cause every fucking pork barrel bullshit in the state is on the line.

It is going to be sooo much fun fucking these assholes who have fucked us for years.

113 But I will bet ANY Moron here that the RNC will keep its current primary rules and the same squishes will push another damn "moderate" candidate for 2016.


Every moderate candidate we have ran since RR has lost except Bush.  And he ran as a conservative and then jumped left.

114 Oh, and we're not going to turn into Greece. 

We're going to turn into Zimbabwe.

115

@ 64 "I wouldn't go to hard on the vote fraud shit. We only won two more states, NC and IN."

 

Let's face it - vote fraud played a major factor in this election, whether you like it or not.  It's the only thing that explains the disconnect betweem all of the independent variables pointing to a Romney win before, and the Romney loss that happened.  Plus, it explains why the GOP lost on statewide races, but remained pretty much where it was at in the House - House districts are actually harder to defraud than statewide races becuase most House districts exist outside of the hard-core Dem urban political machine bases of operation.  When you don't have a Dem machine in place in some suburban or rural district, it's much harder to manufacture tens of thousands of votes for the Dem.  Meanwhile, you can swing an entire state merely by kicking the fraud machine in motion in Miami or Philly or Milwaukee.

116 Remember Vietnam? We lost because we didn't implement the tactics necessary to win. To take back the US will require infiltration and insurgency. We are already 40 years behind the game. It's sundown in America -- Time to wake up and smell the napalm.

117 We can still shut down the MFM and the Hollywood sellouts.

2. Stop watching the news or cut your cable entirely.

3. Let the advertisers know why.

4. If you absolutely can't then patronize a conservative outlet.

5. Stop going to movies, renting movies or buying movies (exceptions, see line 4.)

6. make sure any and all advertisers in your (presumably liberal) paper know that you will not patronize them unless they stop advertising with that paper OR that you are canceling you subscription OR will never purchase the rag against because of it's lies and coverups and that you hold them responsible for it's existence.

7. It's time that some protests began being aimed at the Media.
Notice they never get a lot of flack over any thing they say no matter what. No one holds them accountable.

Doing all the above won't make the next 2-4 years better but may make it more palatable to you and may eventually do some good if we can make at least one of these lying douchebags pay for their propaganda.

118 Russia expects President Barack Obama to show more flexibility in a dispute over U.S. missile defense plans following his re-election, the country’s deputy prime minister said Thursday. The controversy over the planned missile shield has strained the relations between the U.S. and Russia. Moscow has rejected Washington’s assurances that the shield is intended to fend off potential missile threats from Iran and voiced concern the system could threaten Russia’s nuclear deterrent. In March, Obama, unaware that he was speaking on an open microphone, told Dmitry Medvedev, then Russian president, that he would have more flexibility on the issue after November’s election. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin appeared to try to remind Obama of his promise when he said Thursday that Moscow hopes that the U.S. president will take into account Russia’s concerns about the U.S.-led NATO missile defense for Europe. “We hope that President Obama after his re-election will be more flexible on the issue of taking into the account the opinions of Russia and others regarding a future configuration of NATO’s missile defense,” Rogozin told an international conference in Moscow. I just want to cry

119

Wait a sec, the analysis so far has shown that our base was just not mobilized/enthusiatic/giving enough of a shit and  Romney clearly won swing voters.  So Malor's take is that Romney didn't appeal to swing voters?

 

Is there some good reason I should read the rest of this "analysis"?

 

The data so far directly contrdicts  the whole opening paragraph.  I'm surprised I made it through the third. 

120 One thing I think is true in this post- People did "feel" (I hate that word almost as much as I hate "fair") that TFG could "relate" better- but that, in itself, points to a failure other posts have mentioned.

Swing voters say they hate negative ads and mud-slinging politics, but those tactics (almost invariably) work.  We used them against Gore and Kerry, and they worked.  We didn't against Obama, and he was elected twice.

Even when FDR won election the first time, he did it by going incredibly negative.  So did Clinton when he beat Bush.

Negative ads work.  Maybe it was because we couldn't believe others didn't see it, or maybe it was because Romney wanted to appear "above the fray" but the case was never made to the American people that Barack Obama is a stuttering clusterf*ck of a miserable failure, let alone that he's a stuttering clusterf*ck of a miserable tyrant, or a stuttering clusterf*ck of a malignant traitor.

121 First off, I'd say give Gabe's thoughts some extra weight because of all the AoS cobloggers only he got the result right. Well done, Gabe.
 
To add a point on TFG's win, look at where he went for the last month of the campaign -- to social media television sites like MTV.
 
He knew what he was doing, or at least it worked.

122 we could be[at] these idiots. ack. or not.

123 Brought forward from previous thread. Cause I wanted to.


How about "slim form factor sex kitten"?


Posted by: EC at November 08, 2012 09:48 AM (GQ8sn) 



Too wordy




339 What can you do about fraud? You can go to jail after beating a graduated senseless with a baseball bat.





A few of these and we'll be fine.



We just have to find some beaters down for the cause.

Posted by: Truman North at November 08, 2012 09:48 AM (I2LwF) 




Hi. Have I mentioned that I played baseball for close to 20 years? Went to college on a partial athletic scholarship?

124 Mitt had five problems as a candidate, IMO

1) Obamacare was neutered as an issue

2) Culturally, he is Thurston Howell,IV or the generational equivalent

3) He does not act like a fighter for us, himself, or anyone. He waited too long to respond to the attacks...like Bush.

4) His body language was harmless and almost self-apologetic. I came to like him but never thought for a second he would have my back

4) The Mormon thing gave Democrat bigots a wedge to paint him as The Other

125 Well, I will say, in NC we did our job.


We turned the state, we elected THREE more House members, we kept the State House and Senate AND we elected a Republican Governor.

First time in over a hundred years we have controlled EVERYTHING!

It was very close, too close IMO.  NC should not have been a close call at all.  Lets see how McCrory does.  I'm ready for some fucking slicing and dicing.

126 I think conservatives need to start having more babies, and homeschooling them.

127 Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin appeared to try to remind Obama of his promise when he said Thursday that Moscow hopes that the U.S. president will take into account RussiaÂ’s concerns about the U.S.-led NATO missile defense for Europe.

Meh. Europe loves them some fucking SCOAMF, and they got what they wanted.

128 We don't have to do shit. I"m 45 years old, and I can tell you all of my peers, having grown up in the northeast, couldn't give a good goddamn about anything that goes wrong under an Obama administration. Republicans are bad racists, Democrats good guys looking out for the little guy. If the misery of the last four years didn't convince them NOTHING WILL. they are not convinceable. They don't even know enough basic facts about the Constitution or system of government that would make them convince able. Bankers, lawyers, doctors, PhDs ... they are ignoramuses. Voting Democrat makes them feel good about themselves. They know zero history. They think people who serve in the military are chumps who they regard with pity. Trust me. It's over. They regard you with distaste at best. Most of them despise you. You will never be able to convince them of anything.

129

I know Ace already beat it into the ground, but Akin and Mourdock hurt all Republicans.  If you read lefty social media and websites the first thing they do is impute this stuff to all of us.   Many of us  are  uncomfortable with abortion, especially late term abortion, but as always somehow we were dragged into defending the weakest position at the worst possible time.  

 

Abortion should be a tough moral issue for everyone.  Women are humans with the right to control their own bodies.  But humans are created from fertilization onward and viability goes up with time. 

Untangling conflicting fundamental rights isn't for kids.  Akin not only was wrong in what he said but he then claimed he had only misplaced "one word".    Mourdock was just fundamentally tone deaf and stepped in a philosophical minefield instead of redirecting to some talking points.  Worst was Mourdock seeming to confirm the lefty claim that's the Republican view of abortion in the case of rape.    

 

You have to have a simple soundbite answer to these impossible  and complex  questions which moderates and swing  voters  can live with.   Crazy, but that's politics.

 

      

130 We lost because the voters who did not vote did not identify with Romney. I think those people do not even think about binders big bird etc. McCain/Palin got 2 million more votes! @#$%it! Are you kidding. Unbelievable but it's is so. McCain had Palin who was able to articulate in simple catchy words that penetrated thru the msm to the voters and drove the left nuts. Romney and Ryan great people as they are, did not grab those voters get off them their sofas and make them want to vote. It seems crazy considering the crap state this economy is in but the msm insulates them are Palin was able to get thru. New media is great especially since I don't watch cable news, but the fact is most people probably don't do what we do. We need someone that can go thru them to reach those voters. I do not know anyone who take the savage beating Palin did and come out the other side. Not any true politician anyways, at least the way I identify a true politician.

131 In the end, this election was tribalism come full face to the American Socialist Superstate - blacks, hispanics, asians and guilt-ridden whites banded together to kill America. We let the third world flood the nation and the first chance they got they moved to destroy it. Big friggin surprise ...

132 "93 And as a topping on the cake: This may fuck us in the Supreme Court for the next 25 years." We were fucked by the Supreme Court this year. John Roberts has grown. The Supreme Court is not for you. It is for them.

133 86 Think about this: You can easily refute Obama's entire tax-the-rich-and-reduce-the-deficit with just a few short sentences and a link. If you tax the rich at the rates Obama advocates, it raises about 80 billion a year. The yearly deficit is about 1.2 trillion. So now what? Yeah that $80 billion gets spent in about 8 days..... SO now that is $80 billion taken out of the private sector that could have created more wealth - instead it is like another hit to the crack addict..... Cold Turkey - that will be the only way America weans itself off of debt - otherwise it will die a horrible painful death --------

134 It was very close, too close IMO. NC should not have been a close call at all. Lets see how McCrory does. I'm ready for some fucking slicing and dicing.

Posted by: EC at November 08, 2012 10:02 AM (GQ8sn)

I am going to Raleigh to help with some cutting!   It WILL get ugly. 

Fuck them.  The worst are the democrat law firms that now are frantic to hire some Republicans.

135 If there's one thing to take away from this loss it's that you can't force voters to pay attention to political issues. Remember now, swing voters are already a "special" group of people. They don't want to take sides. Politics is icky for them. So trying to persuade them on political grounds is not an efficient use of time. You have to persuade them on cultural grounds.

Swing voters really didn't want to think about the economy.




When the whole fucking country come crashing down the drooling retards can be thankful that they still have Big Bird. People that stupid shouldn't be allowed to vote

136 I'm not going to invest one second of my time in "why we lost." At this point it does not matter why we lost. We lost. It's time to figure out how to survive.

137

I'm sorry, but I think binders and contraceptions pale in comparison to the media. I've never seen anything like these past 5 years in media bias.  

As for all this 47% moocher stuff, I think it's somewhat exaggerated.  I'm in the 47% and I voted for Romney.  My younger sister is a postal worker and she voted for Romney. However, my older sister who has a good-paying job with a major corporation voted for Obama, because she equates her company (which she hates) to Bain and Romny.  

She's been sending me anti-Obama emails for four years, but she's so angry with her employer that she (and everyone in her office) voted for Obama. 

138 Every moderate candidate we have ran since RR has lost except Bush. And he ran as a conservative and then jumped left.

Posted by: Vic at November 08, 2012 09:59 AM (YdQQY)

 

That's not true but you know that.  Compassionate Conservatism was a campaign slogan. 

139 Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers. 

140 Lot of rants here. Maybe a variation of Cloward -Piven is the only way we really come back.

141 We lost because even though 10 million fewer Democrats voted this year than in 08, fewer conservatives/Republicans also voted than they did in 08.

142 Barry won because he is black. Simple as that.

143 Negative ads work. Posted by: AllenG (Dedicated Tenther) All Dead Inside at November 08, 2012 10:00 AM (/eBe Yes. I kept expecting Mitt to go nuclear on Obama like he did his fellow Republicans. It would not have been hard, but he never did. I think maybe he was afraid of the--er, backlash--if he went negative and then won. Remember the riot threats?

144 or I guess I should say "black".

145 What fraction of the vote do you suppose constitutes the "tampon" voter? Is it significant? The fact that it was easy for Dems to demonize us with little or no response/attack is our undoing. We don't need to "dumb-down" our principles (although we must be able to articulate and "sell" them) but we need to have a multi-front war against the dems. hit them at all levels. Tampon-level on interest/intelligence too. Beat the idiots into submission or at the least parity (if that makes sense).

146 139 Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers.


i never have.

147 Ironic about the hurricane Obama/Christie coverage. You can blame us blue staters for many things but while it was happening in real time for the rest of country, we were blissfully not aware. Obliviously our focus was elsewhere. I have yet to see the picture TFG in his bomber jacket. Doubt it had any effect here but we were already in the Obama so it didn't matter.

148 Most people who are not committed social conservatives are just plain frightened of what the perceive as social conservative policies on matters like abortion and rape.  You can argue about the perception being wrong all you want.  No social conservative candidate, or any candidate who is seen as having to bow to social conservatives like Huckabee or Santorum, can be elected at the national level.  Women are more than half the electorate. Huge numbers of women will not vote for candidates who favor using the law to prohibit abortions, especially in cases of rape or incest. Even if they would not have an abortion personally and generally favor fiscal conservative values.

149 Sworn testimony by a computer programmer on electronic voting fraud:

If I had a dollar for every line of computer code I ever wrote I'd be a gazillionaire or something. It would be child's play to write one single line of code to take away every tenth vote. It would simply disappear without a trace.

But I'd be pretty stupid, and lose my job for certain, if I took away 10,000,000 votes from the eventual winner. There's an explanation, but I doubt it's something (like in the software) which could be so easily reverse engineered.

150 Posted by: polynikes at November 08, 2012 10:06 AM (m2CN7)


Yes, I hope you like what you got. 4 more years of Obama

151 Translation: culture wars. Buchanan was right all along.

152 We lost because the voters who did not vote did not identify with Romney.

Yup. "Identify with"--for fuck's sake, they weren't picking a Chief Executive, they were voting for a Dancing Celebrity.

We don't deserve the coming shitstorm, but the people who voted for it sure do.

153 This country has turned into a majority of freeloaders and unserious overgrown children; that's the only kind of coalition that could have voted for a second term of the type of rank thumbless incompetence we've seen the last four years. I've tried not to be as cynical as some of the guys my father's age are, but I'm done with that. This country is done as a superpower.

154 Abortion is to the Right as Gun Control is to the Left--AN ELECTION LOSER!

Either shut up about it during elections or learn how to answer gotcha questions. This is the most basic PR stuff in existence, yet we have candidates that fuck this up every single time. It gets old being on the side of the stupid people.

155 I am going to Raleigh to help with some cutting! It WILL get ugly.

Oh really?

Raleigh is going to be a big change from Charlotte.  I hope Pat does keep his word and start with a ritual sacrifice of some state dems for his inauguration.

156 I agree wit Gabe but I think that the problem goes beyond messaging. While I think that that is part of it I think that we continue to get out hustled on election day by the unions. And if Obama's continues to try to unionize health care workers (and he will) then it will only get worse. I also think that 2016 is already lost because anyone who thinks that HRC isn't already lining up her troops is stupid. Obama's organizers become hers - which would explain why she' been so quiet about his failures - he's paving the way for her to become POTUS. With his organization she (like him) can't lose, period. First woman POTUS following the first AA POTUS, please - the Repubs won't stand a chance. We won't have another shot at the WH until 2024 at which point it won't matter who runs because the only candidate with a prayer will have to be center left.

157 Whoever will rob Peter to pay me will always have my support.

158 I'm tapped out.

159 And now the economy is going to slam the swing voters in the face. Sequestration (defense contractors already laying off workers), higher taxes (regardless of how Boehner tries to hold that off) and coming soon -- inflation. Yes, we'll be able to say: "I told you so." Won't help us now...but maybe four more years of misery will wake them out of their slumber. Maybe.

160 Oh, and we're not going to turn into Greece.

We're going to turn into Zimbabwe.

Posted by: HeatherRadish™ loves sausage at November 08, 2012 09:59 AM (/kI1Q)

Someone on another blog wrote, We are all Rhodesians now. Not in a racial way but that those who work are being surrounded by a larger group who want to take everything we have and like Rhodesia/Zimbabwe we have a thug as president who will give it to them

161

Teh left wing machine blamed "the bankers". They have no clue that is was "the government" who ruined everything.

Barney Frank ruins lives.

162 As much as we hate the education system, we need to encourage our kids to become teachers.  We need to sit on school-boards.  And we need to stand up to grievance mongers like the NAACP and ACLU.

What we don't need to do is take on "tenure" and the Teachers Unions.  Infiltrate the unions.  Take them over from within.  A single teacher can do a lot of good for conservatism.

That said, I don't think we have time.  I seriously think the collapse is coming too soon for that to stop it.  It's still necessary, because we need people in place when the recovery begins, but this is positioning for what comes after, not to stop what's coming.

163

Good  morning, Comrades!  It's a beautiful day  in  the  glorious  People's  Republic of Amerika. 

 

What will everyone be doing after their morning prayers for the health of our  Glorious  Dear Leader?

164 Well it looks like all three of my employers are going tits up as of today. Those on the government dole and payroll aren't going to be too happy when there isn't enough capital left to confiscate from the serfs to send the checks out on the 1st and 15th of each month.

165 117 We can still shut down the MFM and the Hollywood sellouts. While this appeals to me, it's the equivalent of retreating to a Unabomber shack. I'm all for withdrawing support from MFM advertisers, but we still need to be acutely aware of what the MFM is doing.

166 DJIA +0.03% Woot!

167 41 i'm with Mark Steyn I don't think America gets a decades long comfortable slide into decline. I think the wheels come off and it's fast and violent. And the dumbest among us will be very very shocked. Posted by: we are so screwed at November 08, 2012 09:45 AM (HEa5q) I agree. And the sooner the better. From the ashes will rise the phoenix of our return. It will be horrible and painful, but we'll endure. BRING. IT. ON.

168 How about "slim form factor sex kitten"?

Posted by: EC at November 08, 2012 09:48 AM (GQ8sn)

Too wordy


But the alliteration makes it work! 

169 I'm tapped out.

Posted by: Peter

Tough shit.  Pay up.

170 Can we now finally put Rove out to pasture?  Just leave, Karl.  You helped elect Bush but destroyed the Republican Party in the process.  Go away.  How much money did he siphon into his pocket while wasting donations for his worthless ads.

171 128: Not all dems are like that, but I agree that lots, especially the young hipsters, are both stupid and condescending. But there are at least 58 MILLION of us. And at least 54 percent of adults over age 45 voted for Romney. For what it's worth...

172 141 We lost because even though 10 million fewer Democrats voted this year than in 08, fewer conservatives/Republicans also voted than they did in 08.

Posted by: Carman at November 08, 2012 10:06 AM (C8XlI)

 

True. We got out organized and played a regular election in a base election.

173 Can we now finally put Rove out to pasture? Just leave, Karl. You helped elect Bush but destroyed the Republican Party in the process. Go away.



I still say that Rove had less to do with electing Bush than the shitty candidates the Dems fielded.

174

Something we can look FORWARD to in the age of Obama.

 

"Acela Strategy: making money by exploiting regulation rather than by creating more effective ways to finance the rest of the economy.”

175 Remember now, swing voters are already a "special" group of people. Short bus window lickers. Got it. From here on out they will be treated as such.

176 They regard you with distaste at best. Most of them despise you. You will never be able to convince them of anything.

Posted by: separate at November 08, 2012 10:03 AM (JWT7J)

---

I agree. I have left-wing facebook friends who know me personally, know my politics, know I'm not an idiot or a racist, yet still post nonesense about how racist and stupid conservatives are. In other words, even though they have evidence to the contrary, they still post untrue garbage that insults people like me. And yet, they're the high minded ones.

We have one party talking about the effects of taxation on productively and job creation, debts and deficits, the problems facing medicare and social security, and the other talking about binders and birth control and some fictitious "war on women" and other such trivialities. And yet, they're supposed to be the smart, serious thinkers. It's laughable.

And also, it basically comes down to women vs. men. Women are winning.

177 Those on the dole have priority.  You, f off.

178 Not all dems are like that, Posted by: LASue at November 08, 2012 10:11 AM (gjIQF) ALL dems are despicable, lying scumbag America-haters.

179 If Obama could win a 2nd term after what he's done to this country in his 1st term, then it's over for us.  We are a European nation.  Deal with that accordingly, a true "conservative" won't be elected again.  It's not what the people want anymore.  Our only shot is if a Euro nation truly fails and is thrown into absolute chaos, then maybe people will see that and realize we're headed down that path.  But I'm not even sure that would convince people.

180 [Didn't ace ban you? Why, yes. Yes, he did. Sorry your 1500 word essay got zapped. Hope you didn't spend too much time on it.]

181

"We made Kerry out to be a squish and a traitor (thank you, Swiftboat Veterans) and it stuck. It had nothing to do with politics, or perhaps it was pre-politics. "

Oh, brother. The difference between what was said about Kerry in 2004 and what was said about Romney is that what was said about Kerry was true and what was said about Romney was a lie. I know this concept is foreign to you Beta Male Dickless Wonders who are incapable of ever defending a conservative. But try working on it. Rush Limbaugh and Bill Maher are not comparable. Write that 500 times until it sinks into your thick skulls. Oh, nevermind. You'll never get it.

182 This sudden Clover Piven collapse people are orgasming about isn't going to happen. Instead Democrats will gain increasing control over a fading empire.

183 What does blood sell for these days? Free money!

184 "Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers."

Hey, who told the press about my sleepovers?

185 Wealth confiscation is next.  Those 401ks have lots of money that could be used for things other than your retirement, like buying telephones for Peggy Joseph. 

186 We ARE ALREADY acutely aware of what the media is doing. why do we need to be more acutely aware?!

187

60% of people aged 18-29 voted for Obama.

Young people want free abortion, free stuff, and they want their student loans forgiven and paid off by tax payers. Obama and Reid will give it to them.

 

188

@ 149 "But I'd be pretty stupid, and lose my job for certain, if I took away 10,000,000 votes from the eventual winner. There's an explanation, but I doubt it's something (like in the software) which could be so easily reverse engineered."

 

The issue is not the 10 million votes disappearing from Obama's total, but a potentially indeterminate amount disappearing from Romney's.

 

Not hard to do when taking place in a few hard-core Dem-controlled urban centres (Miami, Philly, Cleveland, and Milwaukee come to mind).

189 Btw I really do wonder what would happen if Peggy Joseph was used in an add with Obama phone girl, and after running the clips the caption "Obama's not paying for it, if you still have a job you are" appeared.

190 That was a delightfully long post to skip entirely.

191 Our only shot is if a Euro nation truly fails and is thrown into absolute chaos, then maybe people will see that and realize we're headed down that path. But I'm not even sure that would convince people.

They can't even fucking find Europe on a map.  All the know is Europe is full of white people who came here to oppress them, so fuck 'em.

192 Who is eating crow now? I warned everyone here about the loss that was the coming. The Republican party needs a major overhaul and enter the 21st century.

193 Tell me again why we haven't banned Warren Bonesteel yet.

194 But the alliteration makes it work!

Posted by: EC at November 08, 2012 10:10 AM (GQ8sn)

Fun to read, tough to scream out....I mean.....tough to say.

195 We lost because the Media refuses to tell the truth about the Democrats.  If we had a media that investigated all parties equally, no Democrats would ever be elected to any office. It's that simple.

196

Issues with Romney:

 

1) Wasn't conservative enough to motivate his base (as evidenced by the fact that the base turnout was far lower.)

 

2) RomneyCare.  Inextricably related to #1.  The only real tangible wedge issue of the campaign was off the table (evidence is self evident)

 

3) Poor campaign advisers.  (evidenced  by the bad or woefully incomplete data)

 

4) Poor Strategy.  It was painfully obvious to some of us that he waasn't responding to negative campaign ads in swing states AT ALL, let alone forcibly enough.  We were told "It's the ground game stupid."  No, no it wasn't.  (Evidenced by results)

 

5) Karl Rove.  Tough to distance yourself from Bush when The Architect is such a key player.  Can we just put him out to pasture now?  Enough of the big donors might now agree that it's time.

 

197 I am not sure there were any swing voters to lose really, at least not ones that would vote for the Republican party. If you look at the results, the minority vote carried the day for Obama, I don't think that vote was really up for grabs. The media and the DNC (I know same difference), have turned the Republicans into the white people party. When Obama told his followers to vote for revenge he was speaking in a tribalistic manner telling nonwhite voters to punish the Republican party for daring to oppose him. Romney became the personification of evil rich white men everywhere.

198

"To add a point on TFG's win, look at where he went for the last month of the campaign -- to social media television sites like MTV."

Yeah.  And, where was Romney?  I guess maybe he thought it wouldn't look presidential or something to be on MTV or hit the late night shows like BHO did, but these shows are how you reach a lot of people who didn't watch the debates, or who don't watch the news. And, you can bet that the Democrats will have this as part of their strategy in future elections.  Question is, will the Republicans? 

Maybe that question about which candidate would you want to have a beer with is more important than we think.

199 Okay, so how do you respond to those? I still do not understand what binders of women even means. What, Romney made a tiny bit amusing misstatement during a debate when he was referring to the binders full of women's resumes? You are talking cultural signifiers to idiots. Telling people that Romney had an exemplary record of hiring women is a calm, factual response to an utterly idiotic meme. Big Bird. Again, how do you respond to that on a cultural level? Telling people that Children's Television Workshop is worth nigh to a billion dollars and that the US taxpayer shouldn't be subsidizing it is, again, a rational response to stupidity. Birth control. The only possible cultural response to that is a two pronged approach. First, if I am paying for someone's birth control, I am going to be the one fucking that person. Second, where's my batteries, bitch. Neither response are ones that a Republican candidate can use. Bush. Every single Republican is going to get hammered by but but Buuuuuush for the next 40 years. Bluntly, I do not know what practical and effective steps could have been done on a cultural level to counteract these things. Someone noted today that this election proves that children want candy and not vegetables. That sums up this election in a nutshell. The Republicans are the party of eat your vegetables, brush and floss your teeth and for the love of Pete, pull up your pants. The Democrats are the party of getting someone else to pay for your Plan B. Good luck fighting that.

200

Posted by: Warren Bonesteel at November 08, 2012 10:12 AM (WwR1j)

 

Did you take a big hit of the ganja before you wrote this?

201 179 We are a European nation. We'll be very fortunate if the decline stops with something like becoming a European nation.

202 Btw I really do wonder what would happen if Peggy Joseph was used in an add with Obama phone girl, and after running the clips the caption "Obama's not paying for it, if you still have a job you are" appeared.

Not a single station would ever air it, citing "community standards."

203 Wealth confiscation is next. Those 401ks have lots of money that could be used for things other than your retirement, like buying telephones for Peggy Joseph. Posted by: ejo at November 08, 2012 10:13 AM (GXvSO) The toe of the feral government is already dipping heavily into WEALTH with ObamaScare and its transaction tax on house sales. Watch how shit like that grows and morphs.

204 What if Romney was the problem?  In Ohio, Romney's Jeep speeches and ads confirmed a nagging doubt they had with him: He's hard to trust.  I bet the Jeep ads did more to hurt Romney in Ohio than anything Obama or the MSM did.

205 Indies turned out. The base didn't. And there are 5.5 million missing republican votes.

206

The only silver lining that I see in all of this is that Nancy Pelosi has to look at BHO's smug puss for 4 more years, knowing that she did all of the heavy lifting and now he gets to take credit for all of her hard work while she rots in obscurity.

He won't give her the time of day now that she's out of power, and the press doesn't fawn over her like they used to.

Warms the cockles of my cold, shriveled heart, it does......

207 Enough with the comments that qualify as short stories. Protip: few if any people read them.

208

Now Reid's senate will  come up with creative ways for the rest of us  to pay for Obama's wasted debt.

The removal of private wealth is the big democrat goal. 

209 People telling themselves that we had an insufficiently conservative candidate, that having a more conservative candidate would have made a difference, are kidding themselves. We didn't lose because of conservative or even liberal issues. We lost because of cultural issues

Unfortunately I think this too is probably kidding ourselves. The election is a symptom, not a cause, of the dire and unsolvable problem. We have a large majority of all colors and genders addicted to entitlements, and a large demographic ethnic minority voting bloc. Both of these things are irreversible. I hate to be all doom and gloom, but there's a good chance Bush was the last Republican president of the US as currently constituted. Conservatives been saying for decades that this endgame was inevitable in some abstract "the future", but now it's here

It was scary when the Titanic hit the iceberg, but there's no point in hanging out in the ballroom wishing it hadn't happened. It's time to start formulating a lifeboat strategy, because the ship is lost.

210 The Republican Party needs to throw George Bush under the bus. We need to distance ourselves from him. We also need to neuter the Santorum/Social Con/ Nativist wing of the party.

211 156 HRC can have 2016. If we make it that far. The financials just aren't there. From underfunded pensions to O Care, we are broke. MATH. HOW. DOES. IT. WORK?

212 The conventional wisdom has always been that people vote their pocketbooks.

"It's the economy stupid."

The conventional wisdom is also that America loves a sunny, optimistic candidate.Angry, sullen ones don't generally get elected.

So what happened? Obama had a miserable economic track record and he ran a small, petty, meanspirited campaign. He offered no hope, no plan, little optimism.

And he won.

Someone explain that to me.

213

We lost because the Media refuses to tell the truth about the Democrats. If we had a media that investigated all parties equally, no Democrats would ever be elected to any office. It's that simple.

 

I'm disappointed  in you, Comrade. Don't you realize that the Media is the Truth?

214 I had a pleasant dream last night.  My parents were alive and our son was little.  We were walking down the beach near the house we used to vacation at.

Then I woke up and realized, again, that Obama was re-elected.  I'm no longer in the grief stage, I'm entering seething anger stage.

215 I don't agree with this at all.  If this were true, independents would've gone for Obama, and they didn't.  Republicans didn't show up, and they have no interest in Bird Binder Bullshit rhetoric.  A good portion of the Republican base didn't accept Romney from the beginning, and it was apparent during the primaries.  That's what we need to examine.

216 Gabe I like you but this post is just wrong. We lost by not promising a comfortable life for free to an electorate that is naive enough to believe such promises that cannot in reality be fulfilled. The American Dream used to be "In America, if you work hard you can achieve the good life for you and your family". A house in the burbs and white picket fences and a good job and all that. Democrats have convinced people that the good life part of the American Dream is something you are entitled to, without that corresponding hard work part that's such a drag. They say you are entitled to it and they are the ones trying to give it to you, but then create the Big Bad Wolf Rethuglican Party of rich people who already have that good life (which the didn't earn but stole from the regular Joes) who can only keep their good life by keeping you from having your good life. This is not about Big Bird or Sandy or binders, it's about basic human laziness and envy and stupidity. It's the electorate we have.

217 We lost because the see nothing/report nothing mainstream media has run interference for Obama since the day he showed up on the national stage.  That's not going to change just because we come up with clever one liners.  They'll just ignore or undereport those too.  What is the solution to combating the mainstream media?  I don't have one.

218 " Romney did not energize the base to get off their ass was the main reason though." Anyone who had to be energized to vote against 4 more years of this crap is a moron.

219 Yes, I hope you like what you got. 4 more years of Obama

Posted by: Vic at November 08, 2012 10:07 AM (YdQQY)

Ok, so who should have run?

220 Gabe is somewhat right. Romney never really stood for anything, culturally or economically. He was just the anti-Buraq Hussein. He was a coward. He refused to explicit spell out what he was going to do on the economy and culturally where he stood. His persistent flip flops over his career didn't help either. When you don't spell out explicitly what you economic program is- then cultural issues matter by default. As are Boehner and McConnell. Conservatives do have some sound cultural ideas that have been poorly articulated. But the problem is that Republicans who are so afraid of spelling out where they stand are easily labeled and seen as pander monkeys.

221 24<i>Yeah...no. You're wrong. Dead fucking wrong.

All the PR in the world wasn't going to convince shallow, superficial, greedy people to vote for a guy who wanted to give them an opportunity to work over a "rock star" Hollywood hip-hop mogul who promises them Free Shit.

Americans no longer want to be free, they want to live in ease and have a good time (and a significant fraction want to feel good about themselves by bullying us subhumans who just want to be left alone by government into doing their bidding...looking at you, eco-fascists, gyno-fascists, QUILTBAG).

Making fun of Democrats--pointing out the gyno-fascists radiate half the sexual charm of Michael Moore, for example--does not change the fact that they want to let you sit around watching TV all day and the Republicans think you should be doing something productive with your life.</i><br></br>This.  Times infinity.  This country is done, because the electorate has fulfilled de Tocqueville's prophetic warning in the 1830s.

Posted by: HeatherRadish™ loves sausage at November 08, 2012 09:41 AM (/kI1Q)

222 Maybe simply change the party name to Conservative Party. Republican seems like a bad word to many. conservative is much broader too. May sound stupid, but I'm serious.

223 Where are all the people who were calling me a concern troll now? Told You so and tried to warn you all what was coming.

224

127 Meh. Europe loves them some fucking SCOAMF, and they got what they wanted.
-------------------------------------

 

I'm with you 100%.  Why are we spending trillions of dollars a year defending those layabouts?  Let everybody around the world start paying for their own defense, AND let them deal with the Russian Bear on their own.

 

The rest of the world has been slamming America for decades now, so fine, get the hell out of all those countries, save the money and pay down our debt.

 

Let them negotiate for their lives with the enemy that wants to kill them.  Those people hate us anyway, so why are we paying for their defense?

 

225 Perhaps I'm having a tantrum, but if this is a tantrum, it has been a loooooonggg time coming. I want to get every person who voted for Obama out of my life. I will go to great lengths to make this happen. Socially, financially, geographically eventually ... all of it. whatever reserves of tolerance i have left over I will spare for a couple of family members who I'm particularly emotionally attached to. the rest can go to hell.

226 Gabes is right, we lost the culture war. Breitbart knew that, and he knew what to do about it. But Andrew is gone. We represent almost half of the country, but our numbers shrink with every election. I don't know how we win the black vote. I don't know how to convince single women that I don't want to control their uterus. Perception has always kicked reality's ass, and it picks up steam every year. The scale has tipped, the electorate is content to loot the treasury. I don't see a way to reverse it. There is no historical precedent for it. We will burn, just as surely as Rome burned. That's the way I feel about it right now, maybe that will change. Also, you can bet I will be looking for the union label, and avoiding whenever I can. These bastards are done using my money against me.

227 Levin was on fire last night and right on target. He had one great idea concerning the demographic issue. If the libs want to bring the illegals across the border by the million, the Republicans should invite people from Eastern Europe, India and Cuba to come here and register Republican. Heh.

228 When Obama told his followers to vote for revenge he was speaking in a tribalistic manner telling nonwhite voters to punish the Republican party for daring to oppose him.

This is why we're going to end up Zimbabwe instead of Greece.

229

Posted by: Warren Bonesteel at November 08, 2012 10:12 AM (WwR1j)

Social issues were all but ignored by Romney/Ryan and most R's at the federal level.  So the dems created the "war on women" themselves.

And even libertarian types, who have no interest at all in pushing social issues, were lumped into that "war on women" as well, because they want to "limit a woman's access" to birth control by not requiring insurance companies to pay for it.

230 @ 222 teebone

I agree, the Republican Party needs a name change. We also have to get off this abortion high horse.

231 The thing for the next republican presidential candidate to remember next election is the 18 to 30 year old age bracket that kicked our ass? Take 10 years off those age numbers and treat them accordingly.

So you're looking at 8 to 20 year olds.
Some of them have hormones raging so: BIRTH CONTROL!
Some of them are still watching Sesame Street: BIG BIRD!
Most of them are clueless so: BINDERS!

Todays letter is "B" and the number is still 16 trillion.

232

 Is it just me or haven't we been told not to bring up social issues? That there is no culture war? And who brings it up over and over again? In fact, we are in an undeclared ideological war and the American side is not fighting.

 

And BTW what is the logical rebuttal to "Binders!"? Folders? Jump drives? Face it, the schools and media have succeeded in filling the country with a good percentage of nitwits who have so much self-esteem they believe it is unnecessary for them to become informed on important issues so long as they know how they feel.

 

 

233 I've always loved an adventure, who doesn't? My biggest so far was when I packed up everything I owned and, with my wife and son, left socialist Canada for the freedom of the USA. When I arrived in the US, I had no place to live, no credit cards, no real job, and very little money. But within 3 years I'd bought my first house and I'm now a proud America citizen.
I've never had the opportunity to see first hand the disintegration of a country. The Germans and the Japanese did in WWII, but to all Americans it's a difficult thought to wrap your mind around.
I look at it as the start of another great adventure.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is this: America is great, not because of the Constitution but because of the people that could create such a wonderful document. American spirit can't be defeated. So, to paraphrase the old standard; 'pick yourself up, and dust yourself off'. This is another great adventure.

234 Can we now finally put Rove out to pasture? Just leave, Karl. You helped elect Bush but destroyed the Republican Party in the process. Go away. How much money did he siphon into his pocket while wasting donations for his worthless ads. Posted by: ejo at November 08, 2012 10:11 AM

Rove wasn't the only one, not by a long shot. The list of "Experts" that ought to be sent to the glue factory is long. For starters, you can add all the "conservatives" employed by the MFM, then move on to Sean Hannity, Dick Morris, Jonah Goldberg, Rich Lowry, Erik Ericson, Ed Morrissey, Michelle Malkin and many others.

As far as I'm concerned, teh Noot is on the bubble, too. And so is Limbaugh. I suppose I should applaud them for realizing that four more years of treason is good for their personal popularity (and thus, bank accounts), but I can't.

When Race and Free Shit make the country collapse, we're going to need some brass-balled leaders to get things right, not the eunuchs currently at the head of the pack.

235 ALL dems are despicable, lying scumbag America-haters.

This.  Look at what the Democrat party stands for.  Look at the delegates (who are, more or less, the definition of the 'grass roots') Booing adding God back into their platform.  The Democrat party is evil.  And anyone who supports it is therefore also evil.

If you're someone who's been a Democrat "forever" and hates that- either take back your party (which means you'll get blasted just like Republicans) or quit the party.

236 Speaking of Facebook, I see a lot of libs posting little pictures saying "Just because we disagree doesn't mean we can't be friends!"

I'm sure they'd post the exact same thing if Romney won, right?  Right.

237 Shorter Gabe: We didn't have enough "Romney: He's Got Electrolytes" commercials?

238
211 The Republican Party needs to throw George Bush under the bus. We need to distance ourselves from him. We also need to neuter the Santorum/Social Con/ Nativist wing of the party.

Posted by: Hector at November 08, 2012 10:17 AM (CX71c)

Well, looky looky.....

239

Damnit, I don't know how to properly post quotes.  Let's try that again:

 

24Yeah...no. You're wrong. Dead fucking wrong.

All the PR in the world wasn't going to convince shallow, superficial, greedy people to vote for a guy who wanted to give them an opportunity to work over a "rock star" Hollywood hip-hop mogul who promises them Free Shit.

Americans no longer want to be free, they want to live in ease and have a good time (and a significant fraction want to feel good about themselves by bullying us subhumans who just want to be left alone by government into doing their bidding...looking at you, eco-fascists, gyno-fascists, QUILTBAG).

Making fun of Democrats--pointing out the gyno-fascists radiate half the sexual charm of Michael Moore, for example--does not change the fact that they want to let you sit around watching TV all day and the Republicans think you should be doing something productive with your life.

Posted by: HeatherRadish™ loves sausage at November 08, 2012 09:41 AM (/kI1Q)

This. Times infinity. This country is done, because the electorate has fulfilled de Tocqueville's prophetic warning in the 1830s.

240 Blogger said he did not want to write about binders, and regrets he didn't because such things matter to swing state voters.

I say you didn't need to write about binders, as no swing state idiot reads visits this site.

They watch things like the Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert shows for their news. It's all about "entertain me."

241 Tami nailed it yesterday when she said even Reagan couldn't have won in this election.

And I hope Sandy Fluke comes down with a painful STD.

242 When it does burn down, chances that it gets rebuilt under the Constitution will be slim to none.

Oh and stock up on food and water folks
 

243 @ 227 J.J. Sefton

Hate to burst your bubble but Europeans and Indians would vote Democratic at first. They come from Statist Socialist nations. Your attitude is why the GOP lost. We need to win hearts and minds, not bitch about the demographics.

244

I'm NOT a reistered Republican, so the word "we means little".

REPUBLICANS lost for several reasons.

First - they haven't kept pace with a changing electorate. Not being able to attract Latinos is a MAJOR problem that will hamper that party for years (and already has) unless they WAKE UP. Boehner should've pushed a House version of Rubio's "Dream Act" thru and landed it on Harry Reids desk. This would have eliminated any perceived Democratic advantage. And for gods sakes, YOU CANNOT RUN ON DEPORTING MILLIONS OF ILLEGALS!

 

Second, you're in trouble when your Senate candidates need to take sensitivity training on social and womens issues. If you cannot intelligently arriculate a MODERATE position on abortion and contraception, YOU LOSE!

 

Third - so-called "social" issues have become economic ones, and that's the way your position should be explained. In poor economic times, people gravitate towards "safety nets" such as FoodStamps and SS Disablility. Having 47 MILLION people on FoodStamps is unsustainable from an economic perspective (less workers and taxpayers and a drain on the Treasuty). That's how you should be talking to Americans about "social" issues. Entitlments are BROKE...PERIOD! If you can't make that clear to Americans who view YOUR PARTY as the ecomomic one, YOU LOSE!

Lastly - with the Boomer age dying out, your base keeps shrinking. That's another reason why their are fewer Republican voters. You need to find a way to attract new voters NOW!

This race was winnable, even with a mediocre candidate. It's NOT gonna get any better than this when challenging an incumbent. I've known for 4 years that there was no way Obama could piss-off that many people and keep that many voters. HE LOST TEN MILLION AND YOU STILL COULDN'T WIN. What a disgrace. Republicans desperate need to realize once and for all that the elctorate has changed and they're behind the curve.

 

I'm thru supporting Republican candidates for National office and throwing my vote away until the Republican Party WAKES THE HECK UP!

245 Jon Stewart is worth a dozen Rush Limbaughs right now.

246 I smell dog shit

247 Posted by: alexthechick - SMOD. Coming not nearly soon enough. at November 08, 2012 10:15 AM

The only possible cultural response to that is a two pronged approach. First, if I am paying for someone's birth control, I am going to be the one fucking that person. Second, where's my batteries, bitch. Neither response are ones that a Republican candidate can use.

Seriously I would pay to hear you say that some lib chick's face. If this country is going to shit, I might as well be entertained.

248 @ 238 BCochran1981

Did I not turn out to be correct about the election?

Thought so!

249

@220

Basically Romney is our Kerry and this was 2004 in reverse? Yeah, I agree to that.

250 Why did the GOP agree to have Lefty Moderators in the debates? There should have been at least ONE conservative moderator. The fact they did not insist makes me wonder if they really wanted Romney to win at all.

251
All the PR in the world wasn't going to convince shallow, superficial, greedy people to vote for a guy who wanted to give them an opportunity to work over a "rock star" Hollywood hip-hop mogul who promises them Free Shit.

This!
Free Shit> Working For Shit.

252 Gabe, we have to add another "B" to your list, and that is Bain. It looks like the "mystery white voters" who stayed home and even some who voted for Obama, did so because the Bain Capital ads worked. They turned off blue-collar white voters on cultural as well as economic grounds. And they resonated in a way that made people think Romney really wasn't the guy to fix the economy - at least, not for the "little guy" like them. These people aren't small business owners. They're not college educated. They used to be Reagan Democrats, then they became soft Republicans. And the Obama ad campaign succeeded in convincing them that Mitt Romney is an out of touch plutocrat who doesn't care about them and doesn't like them. This was entirely predictable, and neither the Romney campaign nor the RNC or super-Pacs did anything to rebut it, except for a weak comeback about attacking success.

253 When Obama told his followers to vote for revenge he was speaking in a
tribalistic manner telling nonwhite voters to punish the Republican
party for daring to oppose him.

This is why we're going to end up Zimbabwe instead of Greece.

"Hello, how much for that SCAR-L?  I've got cash."

254 Heard a lovely audio clip of young Obamabots celebrating by saying "Goodbye Israel!"

Nice.

255

SHIT!! One more time:

 

24Yeah...no. You're wrong. Dead fucking wrong.

All the PR in the world wasn't going to convince shallow, superficial, greedy people to vote for a guy who wanted to give them an opportunity to work over a "rock star" Hollywood hip-hop mogul who promises them Free Shit.

Americans no longer want to be free, they want to live in ease and have a good time (and a significant fraction want to feel good about themselves by bullying us subhumans who just want to be left alone by government into doing their bidding...looking at you, eco-fascists, gyno-fascists, QUILTBAG).

Making fun of Democrats--pointing out the gyno-fascists radiate half the sexual charm of Michael Moore, for example--does not change the fact that they want to let you sit around watching TV all day and the Republicans think you should be doing something productive with your life.

Posted by: HeatherRadish™ loves sausage at November 08, 2012 09:41 AM (/kI1Q)

 

This.  Times infinity.  This country is done, because the electorate has fulfilled de Tocqueville's prophetic warning in the 1830s.

256 He was a coward. He refused to explicit spell out what he was going to do on the economy..........When you don't spell out explicitly what you economic program is- then cultural issues matter by default. 



Congratulations. You've just written the stupidest thing on the site today.

257 Someone explain that to me.

Posted by: Warden at November 08, 2012 10:17 AM (0DlnM

 

 

 

 

 

Sweet, sweet, government cheese. People voted for the freebies. My brotgher and sister-in-law own a large day care. Wager a guess on how much of the income is government subsidies on child care and meals? Wonder why they vote for the "O" even though brother is a conservative by nature, hunts, fishes, camps?

M O N E Y

 

Free. Money.

258 Kind of OT, but has anyone offered an empirical explantation for 13 million fewer voters this round especially in light of the anecdotal "excitement" and "long lines"? I find it odd that the Dem GOTV is lauded for its efficiency but managed to get TEN MILLION fewer votes than it did in the historic, unprecedented election of 2008. Now that's progressive.

259 211 Hector: "The Republican Party needs to throw George Bush under the bus. We need to distance ourselves from him. We also need to neuter the Santorum/Social Con/ Nativist wing of the party."

And that will clench the next election for Republicans?

260 243 @ 227 J.J. Sefton Hate to burst your bubble but Europeans and Indians would vote Democratic at first. They come from Statist Socialist nations. Your attitude is why the GOP lost. We need to win hearts and minds, not bitch about the demographics. Posted by: Hector at November 08, 2012 10:20 AM (TVbdM) I agree about the hearts and minds. But people coming from communist countries are by very large margins conservative. But again, agreed on your first point. Conservatism first.

261

We lost because the Media refuses to tell the truth about the Democrats.

------

100% True, the steno pool of networks are the cause.

Next thread.....

262 #233 Appreciate that POV; Thanks.

263 Shorter Gabe: We didn't have enough "Romney: He's Got Electrolytes" commercials?

Romney should have come out with an "Ow, My Balls!" ad.

264 Short of a real War and/or Nuke dentonation in this Country I see no way to reverse this

Aren't you forgetting something?

265 Let's say Mitt won, we kept the House, and took the Senate. Then what? The Democrats could have it all back in four years because they own the MFM, the Unions, the schools, and the popular culture. America is addicted to government Step 1: Federal Income Tax (automatic withholding added later) Step 2: The New Deal (Social Security and the cultural icon that government solves economic and social problems. Step 3: The Great Society (New Deal 2.0 with two free games included.) Step 4: EbolaCare (Sorry, Grandma. Next?) Step 5: The Abyss

266 Where are all the people who were calling me a concern troll now? I think were were calling you a useless dick actually. The judgment still stands. You contribute nothing to our discussion.

267

@242

Can't shoot a looter or commie with water. Plus, this world has two types of people. Those who have the guns, and those who don't have water. (Paraphrased from The Good, Bad, and the Ugly)

268 Also, we lost because nice guys finish last, at least in politics.

269 221 Aren't people gonna be surprised when they find out communism isn't the storybook fairy tale that they have been led to believe? Fuck them. May they die for their stupidity. Because they sure are wanting me to.

270

I'm slowly moving from grief to trying to figure out what happened

I certainly understand that Romney had flaws but I think he was uniqually qualified to deal with the current financial crisis and hopefully getting govt under control again.  Having watched him in MA I think he would have been more conservative than most people here state.  Also there was hope for a better future that has now been dashed and we are back to 4 more years of crap

Thoughts on loss

1.  Still want to understand why larger crowds, historic enthusiasm, etc led to lower votes than 2008.  I believe Truman N posted that GOP projections at 12  noon were for a R romp

2.  Sandy stopped R's momentum and moved the needle back to O.  A relative in FL pointed out that both FL and NC have experience with hurricanes adn might have affected their results

3.  Low information voters don't understand the shitstorm that is coming with debt, entitlements etc and thought O was ok

4.  MSM obvious covering for O and slanting stories for him

271 Speaking of Facebook, I see a lot of libs posting little pictures saying "Just because we disagree doesn't mean we can't be friends!"

If you're begging a tyrant to enslave me so you can get free shit, you're not my friend.

272

Oh and for all the crap the Palin family has taken these last 4 years, it's the Palin family that understands how to fight the left on the left's battlefield.

 

The Palin's are out there on the MSM all the time, they are on TV, they get talked about in social media, they are warriors for the conservative cause.  We need an army of Palins on our side, doing battle every single day.

 

During the last election, David Mamet the playwright had a public conversion to conservatism, and Rush interviewed him.  Even Rush was a bit taken aback during the interview.  We need public faces of conservatism out there every single day. 

 

Breitbart understood this.  It's why the left hated him, he was a big man who could get in the left's sandbox and make it his.

 

 

273 Posted by: eman at November 08, 2012 10:24 AM (sRus3)

You missed "popular election of Senators."  Otherwise, your list is spot on.

274 While the Republican Party consents to the White share of the population declining year by year, it consents to conservatism becoming more irrelevant year by year, and to the electoral task becoming harder by a percent or two every election cycle, and to its own ultimate defeat.

There is no way around that.

And increasingly non-White electorate will take any joking the White Party does at the expense of the anti-White Party badly. Sometimes it's not the comedian, it's the audience.

In any case, joking at the expense of Democrats will be called racist. Are you up for taking on the whole "racist / anti-racist" meme knot, and calling out its users as anti-White? Understandably, no. OK, then you can't do anything that will be called "racist!" because you'll crumble when that label is used.

It's the demographics. There is no joking your way around that.

275 Has anyone considered that some states went blue out of fear? Valerie Jarrett said it was payback time and said we don't forget our enemies.

All Dems that turned their backs on Obamacare and did not endorse Obama will be the last ones to get a little trickle down government action. I'm in a blue state that went red (like last time). We'll be penalized for sure, unlike states like Va.

276 Posted by: Hector at November 08, 2012 10:21 AM (TVbdM) Hey Hector, can I "borrow" twenty bucks? I'm gonna need it. Thanks, buddy.

277 " I bet the Jeep ads did more to hurt Romney in Ohio than anything Obama or the MSM did."

-- The ad was called factually accurate in the same WaPo fact check that gave it four Pinocchios. That's part of the culture; no one bothered to read the ad, they just trusted that labeling it a lie meant it was a lie, even when the person saying it was a lie was careful to note it really wasn't.

278 Let it now and forever henceforth be known that I haven't got the faintest idea what I'm talking about.  I know nothing about the US or Americans and I hereby apologize to all Europeans and other foreigners for thinking that they were a bunch of socialist pussies since we have proven that we are the biggest socialist pussies in the world.

279 @ 259 CJL

yes if the GOP was more inclusive, tolerant, focused on economic matters and stop with NeoCon nation building garbage, they would defeat the Dems.

280 Plus, fraud on the order of 5 to 12 million erased Republican votes made the death of the Republic assured - and it guarantees that no free election ever occurs in this land again. It wasn't "messaging" or "GOTV" or any of the vaginal bullshit. This was stolen months ago. The totals were pre-determined and every vote over a certain number were just ignored. We had overwhelming turnout that magically turned into a ghost town - contrary to witnesses and fact and documentation. The vote totals were just scripts that Democrat traitors read from. That's why nothing tracks across the state & local to the national races. America was murdered, we're living under tyranny and every single leftist is an enemy of the Constitution.

281 I'm no longer in the grief stage, I'm entering seething anger stage. I tend to process all emotions through seething anger, so at least I've got that going for me.

282 @267

You are correct.
I have some of those black guns and ammo to go along with it.

283 Ok, so who should have run?

Posted by: Tami at November 08, 2012 10:17 AM (X6akg)

See post 16

284 Rockmom It makes me sad but yes Bain worked against Romney. What makes me even sadder I thought of it as a plus ... this what we need someone who can turn this country around like floundering cooperation.

285 Furthermore, watch the Mexican firehose get turned up to 11.
Permanent dem majority.
Que?
No Habla!
Donde esta lugar de votación?

286 Bullshit!  Give people an alternative.  Be proud and open about what you believe.  Left and more left ain't a choice.  R's will never sneak into the white house and that's exactly what Mitt had in mind.

287

@252

Right on. Romney got defined before he defined himself and lost Regan Democrats. He didn't even maximize the white vote.

288 236 Sorry. I can't be friends with baby killers. And to think, at one time, the left accused our returnint Vietnam vets of being baby killers.

289 Aren't you forgetting something? Posted by: Fiscal Cliff at November 08, 2012 10:23 AM (5iuEW) The "fiscal cliff" (outside of the insane defense cuts and death of the Bush tax rates) is about the only sort of thing that could actually save Washington. This is the weird part of this whole debate. If the "fiscal cliff" is averted and the money tap remains open, that will be the fuel to let the burning continue and finally implode spectacularly ... which, of course, is what is going to happen. Deficit spending of more than 8% of GDP to crow about less than 2% of GDP in "growth" is intellectually offensive in the extreme.

290 Breitbart was right.

Now we need to go out and start pressuring congresscritters to make no deals. Allow all the Bush Tax RATES to expire and allow sequestration to happen. Give the libs what the want. They WON after all.

291 What is all this economy talk. My welfare check comes on time and the store still takes the EBT card. Santa Claus gov is going to bring me a bag of choom, cheetos and condoms.

292 The existing CPU based voting machine designs suck...they're all corruptible.

They only way to have a secure voting machine with a CPU in it is to have specially designed hardware that's physically isolated from the CPU do the tally and selections.  That physically isolated hardware's only interactions with the CPU should be :

1. Choice status (a CPU input) - a choice was "made" or not "made".  NOT what the choice was.  What the choice was has to be latched separately in the isolated hardware and physically inaccessible to the CPU.

2. Choice committed (a CPU input) - when the voter hits a commit button (that the CPU has no physical access to), the choice that's been latched is used to select/strobe one of many different count UP configured counter chips, and a status line indicating a choice has been committed is made available to the CPU. 

3. Move to next race (a CPU output) - tells the isolated choice circuitry to move to the next race, which would alter the "chip enable" pins on the previous set of counters to off, and set the chip enable on the next bank of counters to on.  Forcing the inactive counter banks to hi-Z makes it harder for even a hardware hack to read interim vote tallies as it could only see the active counter bank.

293 Well said Titus.. that is a big reason we lost.  Kids are fucking stupid.  I had one of my daughters friends (black) who had the fucking nerve to post on my FB post that this is all for the best and she is sorry I am upset and will pray for me.  FUCK HER!!  She's the reason we lost.  She voted for Obama because he's black and thats the ONLY reason she voted for him.

294 Reality will hit when we run out of money. Then, stand by.

295 And now, folks, it's time for "Who do you trust!" Hubba, hubba, hubba! Money, money, money! Who do you trust? Me? I'm giving away free money.

 

296 Permanent dem majority.
Que?
No Habla!
Donde esta lugar de votación?

At least until you hear:

"Lo siento, amigo. No hay dinero."

297 Its not about binders, big bird or birth control. Mark Steyn is right, its about demographics. Its culturally acceptable to hate white people, the hispanic and black versions of the KKK (La Raza and Black Panthers), are upheld as completely acceptable. No race based power groups should be socially acceptable in America. We are being Balkanized so that the far left can govern long term in America. The best part of this all being that this has largely been put together by very liberal white people filled with nihilistic self loathing.

298 And the way to rebut the "binders" attack? How about some freaking TV ADS with those women that Romney hired?? Where the hell were they? Why were they not sent on a bus tour, booked on "The View" and "Ellen," etc. etc.? I know one of these women personally, and I saw her quoted in some obscure articles, but never saw her face on TV. And she is a Democrat! Where were the "Democrats for Romney" ads? I am old enough to remember 1968 when John Connally chaired a "Democrats for Nixon" campaign that actually ran its own TV ads. Where were the ads that touted all those newspaper endorsements by papers that endorsed Obama in 2008? Where was ANYTHING in the close of this camapign about the 2002 Olympics? You talk about a cultural touchstone. And this was an Olympic year! They had all those Olympians at the RNC convention, but none of them during prime time. Where was the TV ad with Derek Parra, a Latino skater, or Kristi Yamaguchi and Scott Hamilton? WOMEN LOVE FIGURE SKATING. Why were there zero ads with these people??? ***headdesk***

299 So by muting the SoCon voices we lost on social issues?

300 Images are important.  We're moving away from a literate society.  People get their content from videos and images, or from oral commentary, not from reading sources.

We need to assert a cultural presence that can take the form of popular images -- in so doing, we need to use them to define our political opponents in a manner that is helpful to us.  Its the new form of communication.  We have to adapt.

301 If you're begging a tyrant to enslave me so you can get free shit, you're not my friend. Posted by: HeatherRadish, Crankypants at November 08, 2012 10:25 AM (/kI1Q) Fuckin' A!

302 We also lost because half the country is comfortable with their hand out. Simple as that. With all due respect, Gabe your coming at it from the cultural angle because of your personal interest in it. Our side cares about the math. Their side cares about the graft. We have turned a corner in this country. We need to face that and now. Playing into fighting the 'culture wars' insofar as binders and big bird is bullshit and its exactly what the left wants. Well, fuck that. It has to be about the culture wars to keep the proles in line. It has to be about culture because half the fucking country isn't invested in themselves. They don't give two fucks about the economy when the government is paying their fucking bills, putting food on the table and giving them pain pills so they can fade into oblivion peacefully. Oh, some of them will bitch when it comes time to try to get chemotherapy, but they'll accept the pill because their conditioned to have their hand out. After a few years, they won't even bitch, they'll simply take the pill. Perhaps we should let them have it. Cede all the social issues. Five them everything they want. Give them gay marriage and legal drugs and abortion whenever and however they want it and free phones and the rest. Let the fucking progs have it all. Just stand aside and let it collapse under the weight of their 'rights'. Fuck it. I'm rambling now...sorry.

303 Posted by: eman at November 08, 2012 10:24 AM

Assuming (and I use that word intentionally) that we win another election, we will subsequently have to be as judgmental and hard-assed as the Democrats: mass firings at all levels of "public service," replacement of the resulting jobless with people who share our ideology and moral values, laws governing what may/may not be taught in schools, draconian cuts to all entitlement programs and mandated adherence to the Constitution.

This is what has worked since 1932. It will always work until the intelligence and awareness of the average citizen are forced upward.

304 @ 285 Roland THTG

Yeah like European immigrants from Socialist countries would vote Republican. Wake up and try to win. Attitudes like yours cost us Florida, Virginia, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico. Keep up and we will lose Texas.

305

I agree with your third point about entitlements, the case was not made that disabled people are suffering more now because all the newly poor are clogging up the system with their applications for relief. For instance, Section 8 now has a three year wait list. That means a disabled person will have to gut it out for years in a group home or homeless shelter until an available unit comes up, since families get priority in Section 8 world.

 

But I don't agree with the following:

What a disgrace. Republicans desperate need to realize once and for all that the elctorate has changed and they're behind the curve.

We hold two thirds of the governorships. Four suburban Philly counties that went for Obama sent their GOP incumbent house members back to Congress. How did those four incumbents manage to avoid the stink of the #war on women, binders, and Romnesia jokes?

306 SO- aim the campaign message at stupid shallow people who can't make up their minds, having not paid much attention since the last election. Got it.

This is sure-fire shit.

307 Shit.. forgot to change my nic on this computer.

308 Why were they not sent on a bus tour, booked on "The View" and "Ellen," etc. etc.?

Why do you think The View and Ellen or even The Today Show would book pro-Romney guests for any reason other than to mock them?

309 If you're begging a tyrant to enslave me so you can get free shit, you're not my friend. Yep. I told one of my "friends" that I can not be close to people who would gladly send me to the camps.

310 Some of those Mexican hovels made of pallets and cardboard are kinda cute.

311 BTW, I have no doubt in my mind that there was some voting machine fraud.   Its just too easy to do, and the people running elections too tech incompetent to ever know it happened.

312 "Still want to understand why larger crowds, historic enthusiasm, etc led to lower votes than 2008. " still afraid to say "fraud", are we?

313 What's sad is that if our problem is cultural in terms of makers outnumbering takers, then the next four years will only amplify the problem. The Dems goal is to rule (yes I used that word) in the same way that Chavez or any other tinpot ruler does, control who gets what thereby keeping all of the related factions satisfied, at least enough to keep them in line. Those that get out of line get smacked so hard that they'll never do it again, enter the Chicago machine to that end. As such Obama ran as a quid pro quo candidate in 2008 and continued to do so in 2012. Conservatism can't survive in that type of environment - it sucks but I don't see any way out of this. That's why they pushed O-care through the way they did because it creates (by a factor of 100) and perpetuates dependency and their power. Obamaphone indeed.

314 See post 16

Posted by: Vic at November 08, 2012 10:27 AM (YdQQY)

Uh, yeah.....and? 

315 The more I think about it, Gabe is only half right.

Romney won independents. We didn't get the base excited. But it WAS cultural. As someone said above, the blue collar conservatives didn't connect with or trust Romney. The numbers actually support this in Ohio in places like Athens county which is a very poor, white area.

I don't know what he could have done. Picked Portman? I loved the Ryan pick at the time, but maybe they were too similarly wonkish and intellectual.

Maybe we need some buffonish cartoon like Biden to appeal to lower class whites? Is that what they want? I just don't know.

316 Also, don't forget the importance of reality TV on the youth vote.  We've been living in a popular culture that glorifies game-shows that allow the audience to vote.  Voting has become "cool", and I'd wager it has some impact upon the increased young voter turnout.

317

@306

 

Somewhat tellingly we lost Honey Boo Boo. I did not know at the time what a cultural touchstone that was or its significance. Looking back I realize it now.

 

We, as a nation, a culture,  are fucked.

318 Speaking of Facebook, I see a lot of libs posting little pictures saying
"Just because we disagree doesn't mean we can't be friends!"






Get off of Facebook. It's run by a commie fuck face Obozo lover. If we're going to starve the beast. Starve all of it

319 The sad fact is (and this is why whatever arises from the ashes will not, at least at first, be based on anything resembling the Constitution) Liberty and Self Government constituted on the concept that all men are created Equal, and that they have certain inalienable (natural) rights- and that Government's job is ONLY to secure those rights, are completely foreign to most people in the world.

You think restricted suffrage was an accident, or an artifact of the founder's culture?  No.  It was a deliberate choice.

You think that the States' Legislatures selecting the Senators was just some oversight?  No.  It was a deliberate choice.

Most people don't understand those.  Heck, on this very forum, we get into vile arguments about suffrage rights and who should have them. 

Europeans just don't get (as a rule) the idea that Government is not the source of our rights, but a burden on them.  They just don't get (as a rule) that when a government can "create" rights, then that same government can take rights away.

Hopefully people will come to understand this again one day.  Until they do, the best we can do is a holding action, and taking care of ourselves.

320 #258 Of course there is an explanation for the lower turnout this time. Obama wanted this to be a low turnout campaign. He went negative early on. He gave no soaring speeches, didn't even try for the 80,000 person rallies and such. It was a small-ball, intense, focused effort to harden a few core constituencies and turn them out. Such campaigns do not inspire lots of occasional voters to come out and vote. It was a TOTALLY different campaign than 2008. We tried to run the exact same campaign we did in 2008, only a little better and with a better candidate.

321 How many of the folks that voted for Ebola also wanted EbolaCare repealed? How many of the people who failed to vote for Mitt by not voting at all also wanted EbolaCare gone? Basically, we lost because we were Bull Halsey chasing a phantom Japanese fleet and there was no one left to stand in our stead. America is a junkie that keeps finding bags of heroin on the ground. It will never go into rehab until the bags are all gone. By that time it will be too late.

322 The solution to the whole mess is to draw a longitudinal line matching up with Washington, DC all the way across the country to CA.  CA will all be by definition above the line


All area to the North of that line will be a new country called Communist US.  All area to the South will be called the good country.


It is time we split this country into the workers and the looters.

323 Republicans lost because Republicans really didn't want the job. 

324 Breitbart was right. Now we need to go out and start pressuring congresscritters to make no deals. Allow all the Bush Tax RATES to expire and allow sequestration to happen. Give the libs what the want. They WON after all. ------ And Boehners speech yesterday should have been one sentence long. The upcoming dent limit is the DEBT LIMIT, have a good day.

325 Uh, yeah.....and?

Posted by: Tami at November 08, 2012 10:32 AM (X6akg)

It answers your question.

326

301

The left always talks about equality but freedom goes against equality because people are free to make themselves unequal through their own efforts. If your goal is equality, we are far more equal when we are all enslaved by a tiny benevolent overseer group that has taken the burden of being "more equal" upon themselves so the rest of us can enjoy equality in servitude. 

327 There is no way to make this work. Compromise only hurts us. The only way is what Ace alluded to yesterday - several smaller countries - Red States and Blue States no longer belong together, period. Someday enough shit will come down that there will be opportunities to pull out of this pathetic "Union" - until then, hunker down, it's gonna be pure hell.

328 Where was ANYTHING in the close of this camapign about the 2002 Olympics? You talk about a cultural touchstone. And this was an Olympic year! They had all those Olympians at the RNC convention, but none of them during prime time. Where was the TV ad with Derek Parra, a Latino skater, or Kristi Yamaguchi and Scott Hamilton? WOMEN LOVE FIGURE SKATING. Why were there zero ads with these people??? What are you talking about, I definitely saw ads with at least some of those people in it. It could be that those ads simply weren't running in your area for some stupid reason. There were also repeated mentions of Romney turning around the Olympics in various ads. We lost because people want their free shit. We (by which I mean I) are stunned by the magnitude of the election because we assumed that people were not nihilistic enough to say fuck the children give me mine now. Hell, we were stupid enough to think that the populace understands the math about what will happen.

329 #315 In a moment of pique last night, I actually tweeted that apparently what the GOP needs is a cartoon character, an Internet meme, and a late night comedy news show. It's scary, but it may be right.

330 324 unfortunately Boehner is a pu$$.

331 @304
Bullshit, er caca del toro or something.
Euro immigrants? really? How many are you talking about?
Did they walk across the the fucking ocean?
20 million + illegals in this country from where again?
Latvia?

332 297 Drew: "Mark Steyn is right, its about demographics. ..."

Basically, the entire Democrat Party is the protected class. That's why they're so think-skinned that we can't even unpack our ideas without getting shouted down. They are entitled to preferred treatment in all forums, every stage, in publications and airwaves. They hate us and they can't even articulate why. In their eyes, we're lucky they let us live here. Oh, but our money's good enough for them.

333 Mrs. Sailor unfriended 75 people last night. She was sneering as she did it.

334 Gabe, this sounds a lot like well we didn't say our message right. Not entirely, not dismissing this post. But maybe not - in full, you are saying what I have been saying for a while. The electorate is unserious. So they voted for unserious leadership. And its been that way for a while - since 2006. Think about it - John Kerry was a dope but at least he was a serious dope. Democrats in Congress are a clown college. And Barky is Jon Stewart with a tan. That is what we (not you and me, but the electorate at large) want. We want to hear the President on Pimp with a Limp and on the View and making bracket picks. Romney and Ryan are serious people. And we just aren't interested in that. And now, think on this. It isn't just on the Left where this is the case. There is a reason why Sarah Palin was so popular, and why McCain (that ticket) got more votes. I am not saying that Palin is unserious, but she isn't *all* serious. She is a fun person, she's attractive and wears Sexy Monkey pumps or whatever. There is a reason why people camped out overnight to see her. We made fun of Obama's celebrity status, but that is what people like. So, I go back to what I've said before - next time, we run Biz Markie.

335 #112 - good news but then why did R have a problem winning the state?  Same for WI where the GOP took over the statehouse but also elected a far left sentaor and reelected O?

336 Oh, and btw, that is why the Left hated on Sarah. Because she got it. And continues to.

337 Ann Romney did appear on "The View" and was treated as expected.

Whoopie Do asked her since Mitt had never served in the military, how she would comfort family members with loved ones coming home in "bags" (nice).

I realize no one on that show has two brain cells to rub together, but the irony that we have a prissy little nobody as CiC who never served was completely lost on that pig.

338 335 #112 - good news but then why did R have a problem winning the state? Same for WI where the GOP took over the statehouse but also elected a far left sentaor and reelected O? Posted by: NoBama12 at November 08, 2012 10:37 AM (ykY2u) I lived in WI for 20 years, there is no explaining that crew.

339 Gabe is right, we lost a PR contest.  The "swing" and "undecided" voters are very low information (read: unengaged, illiterate, dumb, whatever --) and they respond to that PR. And it can't be long-winded PR, it has to be in short bits, like binders and Big Bird. Yes, it's dumb to us, but to the youth/minority low-info folks, its the last thing they remember. Then they vote (twice :-)).

As Republicans, we continue to take the high road but that only resonates with our own, and we are continually astonished that stupid sh** actually sticks, and works. Since the McCain campaign, I said we need a PR firm 24-7-365 that explains conservatism in easy-to-read billboards, on the radio and in sound bites. And it needs to target out natural allies on economics by being in English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, etc.

We have no one to blame but ourselves.

340 Simple; a lot of Obama's voters probably just voted top of the ticket and ignored the rest.

341 #328 I saw one ad with the Olympians in it, it was a super PAC ad that ran during the summer around the Olympics. If there were others that showed later in the swing states, I am glad. All I saw at the end in PA was Obama's abortion ad and nothing from Romney that appealed directly to women.

342 And why the mainline GOP hated her, too. They didn't like the unserious part.

343

I understand what you are saying here, Gabe, and I even agree with you to a certain extent, but I believe it is a bit disenguous to lament that we lost on cultural (social) issues after the way social conservatives were treated during the election.

 

How many times was it said social cons need to shut up? How many times, whenever a social issue was raised, were socons hissed at, and told "its the economy you dumbass...this is the most important election EVAH and no one wants to talk about ____." How many times was it said "The Republican Party would get along better if it wasnt for those damn social conservatives."?  

344 Remember now, swing voters are already a "special" group of people. They don't want to take sides. Politics is icky for them. So trying to persuade them on political grounds is not an efficient use of time. You have to persuade them on cultural grounds.

This is true. 

It's also the reason I am not participating in politics anymore. 

I know how to persuade people.  I've been in advertising and marketing, and I've been a trial lawyer. My whole life has been devoted to the art of persuasion. 

My experience tells me that we're lost, and there is no hope for a sale of conservative values of liberty to voters.  It's gone.  Americans are now too corrupt to be appealed to.

Like any good marketer (or trial lawyer), I have learned to ask the most important questions first -- What is the political marketer selling, anyway?  What business is the government in?

This is where a lot of marketing clients get things wrong.  Let's say you're in the restaurant business.  What are you selling?  Food?  No.  You're not in the food business.  You're selling a place to sit and be catered to.  You're selling time -- a a short-term stay at a spa.  Sometimes customers want the ultra-quick in-and-out experience of just having someone make them a sammich.  Sometimes they want the full Monty and have a butler wait on them for 2 hours.  Whatever.  But restaurants are selling something other than food. 

Let's say you're in the book business.  What are you selling?  Books?  No.  You're not in the book business.  You're in the coffee shop business.  You're in the Miniature Theme Park business.  Successful booksellers are in the business of setting up a cafe where people will come and hang out and THEN buy the overpriced paper that contains entertaining words and pictures.  That's why Borders closed.  They thought people came into their stores to buy books. They didn't.  Bookstores are not like AutoZone or Walmart.  Customers came in to relax and be stimulated by a zillion different topics.  They can "buy books" from Amazon, cheaper.  You can't relax at Amazon.

So, what business are politicians in?  What does government sell? 

They're in the violence business.  They sell death and pain and jail cells. 

But part of being in the violence business is pretending you're not in the violence business.  That's actually Rule No. 1.  You can't talk about it. 

So, politicians are also in the lying business.  They're in the Magical Thinking business.  They're in the Fantasy business.  They sell pleasant fantasies.  Just like Disney, only Disney does it without the rape rooms. 

The ONLY thing that matters in government is the issue of freedom from violence, usually freedom from its own violence.  This is the key question in everything that government does or could possibly do.  In all issues of the State (i.e., "policy"), there's only one question (couched in a billion different forms) -- who's going to get the stick? 

Who's going to get the gun pointed in his face and forced to comply? 

Who's going to get the cocoa butter hand job?  But in actuality, that question really is about who is going to get the barbed cock shoved up his ass and forced to give someone else a cocoa butter hand job.

That's all government is.  That's all it CAN do.  Government is guns.  That's all they've got. 

Now, as freedom-loving conservatives, we think that guns should be used only on bad people.  For defense.  Someone tries to steal your shit or rape your daughter?  He gets the gun. In those circumstances, guns=good.  Yes, fine. 

The Left does not think this way.

They're completely immersed in the Fantasy side of the business.  The Magical Thinking side of the governmental operation.  They think Free Shit is great.  They don't EVER want to hear about who's getting the stick.  In their world, no one gets the stick.  When you tell them about the stick, they STOP LISTENING. 

So, when Conservatives approach the customer (the Swing Voter) with a sales pitch that describes in careful detail exactly who's going to get the stick (criminals), and who's not going to get the stick (employers, business people, investors), and all the well-thought-out reasons for distinguishing between the two, they get confused. 

The Swing Voter thinks, "I've had NONE of my Buying Motivation buttons pushed!  Where's the pleasant fantasy?  Where's the fun and sparkle?  Where's the part where buying what you're selling makes her more intelligent/mysterious/powerful/fun/attractive person?" 

The Left is fully in the Fantasy Business.  The Fantasy Business serves a very important marketing function for them, which is to hide the government's real business, which is SWAT teams and prisons. 

The Fantasy is an indispensable part of the whole operation.  There's a reason that you NEVER see Disney characters in the Magic Kingdom walking around without their masks on.  You never see the 20-something dude take his Tigger mask off when he's taking pictures with the kiddies.  It kills the fantasy, which is the WHOLE POINT for being there. 

You can't sell reality to people who CAME TO BUY AN APPEALING FANTASY. 

So, that's it.  We're past the tipping point. 

Save yourselves.  It's only going to get worse. 

345 59 C) minorities are voting as a block, which is undemocratic and unintellectual and again catastrophic for us
-
Whites need to be a lot less "intellectual" and a lot more like block voters, which is to say winners.

The Republican Party could help out by running for things they want to  vote for. Apparently the pure cold water of economic rationality isn't it.

346 "Speaking of Facebook, I see a lot of libs posting little pictures saying "Just because we disagree doesn't mean we can't be friends!"" From the people who called us racists. Fuck them. Next election we don't play nice.

347 @ 331 Roland THTG

Lets say they did come here in drove, you think they would be voting Republican, dream on. You Nativists would be bitching about the Euros as well. We need to win hearts and minds, not demonize people.

Your mentality is why we lost.

348 DrewM has his version up now.

349 I don't know what he could have done. Picked Portman? I loved the Ryan pick at the time, but maybe they were too similarly wonkish and intellectual.

Thrown them some more red meat, maybe?  Rick Perry's line (which, I'm still convinced, if he'd stuck to would have won him the nomination, if not the election) "I promise every day to make Washington, DC as inconsequential in your life as possible" resonated.  People liked it.

In many ways, it was the Conservative version of "Hope and Change."  When he spoke of the flat tax, he spoke of it in terms of "simplicity" and "fairness."  "Hey, it's not fair that you have to spend all that time doing your taxes" (never mind that, for most people, it takes minutes to an hour or so).

Now, this is not to say Perry was a better candidate than Romney (at least during the primaries); it's fairly obvious he wasn't.  But I think those kinds of things speak to white-collar Conservatives. 

Conservatives often flounder when asked "what are you going to do for me."  We need to be able to answer with things like "My policies will lower your cost of living, giving you more money and time to do things you want to do."  We need to be able to answer with things like "I'm going to make college more affordable for you."

350 Really?  This is silly.  Yes, we lost the culture war - about 6 years ago (Katrina).  Rs lost this election because most of the voters hate us - there are less of us accordingly.  Binders and Big Bird?  Yeah, I don't think so.  Ridiculous statement, seriously - those voters were never voting for Romney.

How do you counter Blame Bush?  IDK, apparently he's going to kill the entire party.  Apparently, Rs cause hurricanes, and Ds fix them.  2 Hurricanes result in the destruction of our republic - where's providence now, socons??

Funny how we get beat on abortion and rape and SCIENCE!, and so many think it was because we didn't run a a pure enough socon candidate?  Yeah. if your goal is to get no more than 40% of the vote.

I thought our "silent majority" would turn out, but it doesn't exist anymore.  The reason there are less Rs is because our dead folk don't vote.

Most of us won't even engage in the culture war ... a battle many refuse to even believe it exists, yet, somehow Binders and Big Bird were the final straw?  A joke, really ...

Socons can go home now, and sit in their ideological purity, completely alone ...

351 One appearance by Ann Romney on The View was not enough. I think Ann was tragically underutilized in this campaign. As were the many women who Mitt Romney promoted in his business and government careers. Meg Whitman may have run a lousy campaign for Governor of California, but she is an appealing woman who could have cut some ads to show in the Eastern states. She pretty much made eBay, and everyone uses and loves eBay. We never saw her in this campaign.

352 There wasn't low turnout in Republican precincts in Ohio. That is simply inaccurate from observations on the ground.

353 A lot the stuff we laughed at as ridiculous like Big Bird and binders, and rightly so, enough cretins voted for that. Imagine the depths of their stupidity. It gives me a headache trying to figure out the most simplistic ways of communicating to them.

354 Demographics are gone for conservatives. Period. Any way that Republicans can use to attract those demos will not be conservative. I am no longer relevant in that I can not expect to see conservative values become mainstream ever again. The progressive agenda is now the norm. My concerns will be much more personal, local, and family centered than before. I served my country, I fought the long fight for 66 years, and I lost. Time to retire, time to move to the heartland, time to embrace the suck.

355

We passed the rubicon Tuesday night. For staters, pollsters are shit. Explain to me how Ras had a 15,000 person party ID poll Monday at R+5 and we end up with D+6 Tuesday night. To this moron, that seems as statistically impossible as me hitting the bunk with Kate Upton.

And if we really are a D+6 country, then we are toast; culturally, ethically, morally, and financially. We simply cannot compete with half of the population being moochers, takers, binders, Big Bird, educated by Marxists, wanting free shit, etc..... Now that we are clearly outumbered, at some perverse level, I am at peace with this. We now know the path ahead of us....we can see it. They cannot.

So prepare.

Spend time with your family, your God, your like-minded neighbors.

Seriously, if you morons don't own a firearm, run, do not walk to your local gun shop and buy 5.....and ammo.....lots and lots of ammo.

They think protection is about rubbers and pills. We think otherwise and now that the writing is on the wall for this Republic, we must alter our mindset from elections to collapse, survival and rebirth.

(Gawd, I sound like that Rawles guy......)

 

356 Cal Thomas on the Gimme Voters:

http://tinyurl.com/b938374

357 @ 350 Joe

Agree, screw the Socons and Nativists.

358

Posted by: Phinn at November 08, 2012 10:40 AM (oFH2D)

__

If all that you said is true, the electorate won't come back to the GOP on a presidential level unless we experience a visible, undeniable existential threat, such as we did on Sep. 11, 2001. Because the MFM had no choice but to cover that situation. When their own asses were that close to GZ, all of a sudden they liked conservatives.

359

The left always talks about equality but freedom goes against equality because people are free to make themselves unequal through their own efforts. If your goal is equality, we are far more equal when we are all enslaved by a tiny benevolent overseer group that has taken the burden of being "more equal" upon themselves so the rest of us can enjoy equality in servitude.

 

Welcome to the Party, Comrade. Shared equality is what makes Amerika the greatest country in the world!

360 Romney and Ryan are serious people. And we just aren't interested in that.

Posted by: Golan Globus at November 08, 2012 10:36 AM (NuQ2+)

Finally, some else here gets it. Everyone is going through deep and complicated explanations about why people who are not deep or complicated vote the way they do. I saw plenty of facebook "friends" who were cheering the reelection of Obama who probably could not tell you what the unemployment rate is. Or how much debt the U.S. current has (in fairness, neither can Obama). Or which party controls the House or the Senate. Or don't know that our budget deficits are higher under Obama than Bush. Or think that Obamacare means that they get free healthcare (can't wait until some of them face the fines for not having health insurance). Or that Mitt Romney really wants to ban tampons. Etc. The left and those who vote with them are fundamentally unserious people. We need to stop acting like they are if we want to win.

361 <i>One fault here is we didn't apparently win the Regan democrats back</i>

1980 was more than thirty years ago. The Reagan Democrats are dead or in retirement homes. I wish it weren't so, but this is simply not the same country as it was then.

We are demographically sunk. Minority voting blocs are addicted to free stuff, and some substantial majority of unmarried white people are too. Obama's re-election is not some disaster that happened, it is a symptom of a disaster already in progress.

362 This is what has worked since 1932. It will always work until the intelligence and awareness of the average citizen are forced upward. Posted by: MrScribbler, banned at TepidAir at November 08, 2012 10:29 AM (yKUrR) Mitt and the GOP would never do that. Partly because they would not want to do so (Mitt ain't a Conservative) and partly because they are too cowardly to do it. The Dems would cream them in the next two elections in 2014 and 2016. Look at what the Dems did to Mitt and the GOP this year, a year where the GOP had not tried to reform a damn thing. Those reforms would trigger an immediate blowback and no politician will risk it. The sad truth is the chance to fix the fiscal crisis came and went back in the Eighties. Ironically, it could not be done then because the crisis was too far off, and now it can't be done because it is too near. First the Abyss and if we are lucky, the Recovering Republic.

363 306 hah worked for Obama

364 By the way, folks, the more we talk about "free shit" and "people who vote for a living" the more we turn average voters off. Gas prices have doubled under Barack Obama. Why was that left on the table? That is a cultural issue too, especially useful in generating the East Coast Elite vs. Flyover Country contrast. We didn't touch it. Team Romney made the call to make their campaign about Jobs, Saving Medicare, and the national debt.

365 Akin and then Mourdick hurt big time. Akins supporters whomdefended his idiocy hurt us eve more. And the assholes on this site who claimed " let it pass , it will be forgotten in 3 days " are just as bad.

366 Those of you who think the 47%—scratch that, the 51%—are going to be the ones to suffer in the impending implosion are not paying attention.

367 "Socons can go home now, and sit in their ideological purity, completely alone ..." Yeah, fuck off buddy. Your side ran its dream campaign with irs dream candidate, and it was a cataclysmic failure. Keep running Scott Browns, and maybe the whole country can continue to have results like MA. Because Northeastern Republican candidates know how to succeed.

368

Gabe:

Can we ban the America haters from this site. I am tired of hearing the constant mantra of burn baby burn from these know-nothing, keyboard warriors. They sound like a bunch of spoiled, crazy-bizarro world right-wing version of 1960 Haight-Ashbury hippies.

 

Stop sounding like spoiled brats. This is a great country. We have elections all the time that allow us to change things. We just happened to lose this one. If you withdraw from politics and stick your head in the sand like an Ostrich, how you think that will change things.

 

Gabe -- I agree with your point to a limited extent. This election was lost due to marketing and persuading (or our lack thereof), but I disagree with you about the binders, Big Bird theory. I think that was an absolutely horrible marketing mistake by the Democrats and I think, but for Sandy, it might well have cost them the election. Yes, it spoke to their base -- but it turned off anyone who is not part of their base. Yes, their base may be bigger than ours, but I still think there were people who could have been persuaded outside of the bases. Those ads did not do it. Hell, we should have paid for those adds to run in some places.

 

I do agree though that we need to pay attention to cultural issues and spend more time on persuading and selling. The more I think about it, I think Romney's 47% comment was more than a gaffe (or maybe it was the Mickey Kaus version of a gaffe, a politician accidentally speaking his mind). It revealed Romney (and many Republicans view of the world), i.e., we are never going to persuade that 47%, so why try. But in doing so, we are giving ourselves very, very, little room to win elections. We have to start selling ourselves to at least 60% to 65% of the country (not just 53% percent).

 

Also, after a 2 days to think, I wonder if we are overthinking this. We have lost elections. Is this worse than than the 1936, 1940 or 1964 defeats. No. We came back from those. We will come back. The Democrats will misread this election and think they have a mandate. They will do stupid things. The media can't carry their water for ever. Late night talk shows can't keep making jokes only at Republicans expense. The tide will turn.

369 Drop to their level.

And afterwards, I'll slit my wrists.

370 I'll let you political geeks and amatuer Karl Roves sift through the wreckage.

We lost because the electorate failed.

The people failed.

And I'll leave you to it.

371

Speaking of Facebook, I see a lot of libs posting little pictures saying "Just because we disagree doesn't mean we can't be friends!"
------

Haven't seen that one. It might have something to do with manually blocking 10% of my list of "friends" a couple days ago. And the 22 year old niece who I got sick of seeing her love of all things Disney for the past few years. As I was going down the list I figured, yeah, fuck her too. 

372 "He ate a dog" kills among Republicans. It doesn't work so much among swing voters.
-----

Huh?  I don't know about that.  I doubt more than 25% of swing voters has any knowledge about the story of Obama's canine culinary past.

373 Good Lord, deleting my facebook account was the first thing I did yesterday morning. before coffee even. it's a gimme.

374 #360 That is it. I said so on Election Night. Obama ran an unserious campaign and we all laughed at him. But it worked. This recession has affected blocks of people differently. Most single, younger people actually have jobs and they are financially comfortable. Mitt Romney said absolutely nothing to them to win their support. Obama gave them Big Bird and Gay Marriage and Jon Stewart and Wow Those Crazy Republicans Want You To Have Rape Babies.

375 It is time we split this country into the workers and the looters. Posted by: Vic at November 08, 2012 10:34 AM (YdQQY) Yes, and later we get the Northern section back because its population will have taxed and aborted itself into oblivion.

376 297 Its not about binders, big bird or birth control. Mark Steyn is right, its about demographics. Its culturally acceptable to hate white people, the hispanic and black versions of the KKK (La Raza and Black Panthers), are upheld as completely acceptable.
-
That's true.

297 No race based power groups should be socially acceptable in America. We are being Balkanized so that the far left can govern long term in America. The best part of this all being that this has largely been put together by very liberal white people filled with nihilistic self loathing.
-
In fact non-White race based power groups with anti-White agendas are socially acceptable in America and will remain so. Do you think the left will spontaneously decide that winning is no fun and they should stop?

This is a gunfight, even if you think it should be a boxing match. You can bring a gun to the gunfight, and have a small chance, or not bring a gun to the gunfight, and get shot for sure. Those are the options.

377 The cultural deficit goes way, way, beyond "A Good Enough Snark."

378
319 The sad fact is (and this is why whatever arises from the ashes will not, at least at first, be based on anything resembling the Constitution) Liberty and Self Government constituted on the concept that all men are created Equal, and that they have certain inalienable (natural) rights- and that Government's job is ONLY to secure those rights, are completely foreign to most people in the world.

You think restricted suffrage was an accident, or an artifact of the founder's culture? No. It was a deliberate choice.

You think that the States' Legislatures selecting the Senators was just some oversight? No. It was a deliberate choice.

Most people don't understand those. Heck, on this very forum, we get into vile arguments about suffrage rights and who should have them.

Europeans just don't get (as a rule) the idea that Government is not the source of our rights, but a burden on them. They just don't get (as a rule) that when a government can "create" rights, then that same government can take rights away.

Hopefully people will come to understand this again one day. Until they do, the best we can do is a holding action, and taking care of ourselves.

Posted by: AllenG (Dedicated Tenther) All Dead Inside at November 08, 2012 10:33 AM (/eBe

Cut. Jib. Newsletter.

Although, in this day and age, a blog might work better than a newsletter. You should look into getting one of those.

379 Since Romney still won Indiana and Mo, despite those scumbag Akin and Mourdick, it possible Romney didn't lose any swing voters , bit rather it just energized Bozos base to come out heavier. Yeah Akins comments were really forgotten. Assholes like that have to be banned , and only women should be spokespeople for life. Men fall into the meme

380 279: Hector: if the GOP was more inclusive, tolerant, focused on economic matters and stop with NeoCon nation building garbage, they would defeat the Dems.

Hector, what specifically should the GOP be more inclusive and tolerant of?

The values of economic freedom are inherently inclusive. And are you speaking of social tolerance, meaning lifestyle choices? Are you drawing a distinction between tolerating and subsidizing? As for abortion, GOP candidates know it's legal and most accept there will have to be a change of heart before numbers decline.

Your last point about "nation-building garbage" tells me that you're Libertarian. If that's true, then you will likely never agree with much of the Republican party on matters of foreign policy and defense.

If you are a Libertarian, did you vote for Obama out of pure hatred for Republicans? If so, did you knowingly choose to punish Republicans even if it meant that devastating consequences for our country?

If I misunderstand your views in that last paragraph, I apologize. My intent isn't to be mean but to understand. These are only ideas, and what's the threat of those on a thread? If we're not thin-skinned we can actually make progress in understanding one another.

381 This post is right. The whole idea that we aren't "conservative enough" is ridiculous. When Romney shifted to the middle during the debates (we all know it happened), his numbers went UP, not DOWN. While he was being painted as an arch-conservative, he was lagging badly. The far right is gonna bitch because that's what the far right does. They forget that Reagan (whom we all love and rightly lionize) WAS A MODERATE! He governed from the middle, worked well with a democratic congress, increased spending, and raised taxes. He was not the epitome of a modern ultra-con. Romney lost for a lot of reasons that we need to struggle to understand. But I believe that if just a few things had been different, we'd be looking at a Romney presidency right now. Thing 1: He should have nominated Marco Rubio, and embraced a platform that was inclusive to illegal immigrants. "WHAT?!?!", you say. Yes. McCain was going in the right direction on that issue. Latinos are a growing constituency, and the immigration issue is divisive. If we ever want to win national elections on a regular basis, we have to embrace them with a reasonable and welcoming path to citizenship. Thing 2: Akin and Mourdock not raising rape/abortion to an election issue. A large part of this loss lays at their feet. This election was never going to be about abortion. But then these two boneheads gave the Democrats a red herring to beat Romney over the head with and scare women. Imagine this election without that issue being front-and-center. It would have been completely different. I fear for my country and I fear for my party. The Republican Party is on the verge of being torn apart. The extreme social conservative positions on immigration and abortion are simply not palatable to a changing national electorate. Our stance on gay marriage is going the same way. There is a larger and larger constituency of latino immigrants and younger voters that we simply are not reaching out to. We can gripe and moan about the moral state of the nation, but it won't change the hard facts. If SoCons want to go down with the ship, then so be it.

382 Posted by: Phinn at November 08, 2012 10:40 AM (oFH2D) ---------------------------------------------- Ok, that was seriously brilliant. I could not agree more. You should ask Ace to write a guest blog post to further develop your thesis. Spot on......

383

I do agree though that we need to pay attention to cultural issues and spend more time on persuading and selling.

 

Unless your face is constructed of Gorilla Glass and responds to  touch, you'll be wasting  your time. Amerikans no longer relate to other people, they relate to those machines they hold constantly. Whatever those  things tell them to do, they do. They vote the way they are told  and think the way they are told to think. The Progressive Left controls those machines.

 

Step outside of that idea and you are criticized, ostracized, and mocked. Think for yourself, challenge today's conventional wisdom, go against the grain of "popular thinking" and see what happens to you. Welcome to the New Amerika  and its electronic peer pressure, Comrade.

384

"Also, after a 2 days to think, I wonder if we are overthinking this. We have lost elections. Is this worse than than the 1936, 1940 or 1964 defeats."

nc at November 08, 2012 10:47 AM (Cxl7g)

 

Why yes it is. In 1936, 1940 and 1964 we had a manufacturing base, we still made things, people still went to church on Sunday, the family unit was intact, kids were taught about real American history and we were not in debt as a nation to the tune of 100% of GDP not to mention we weren't $100T more in the hole due to underfunded entitlement liabilities.

 

We are none of this now. So yes it is worse. We have half of the nation that is morally bankrupt, concerned about free shit, Obama-phones, who's going to pay for my house and gas, we don't make shit....except paper money that won't be worth anything by the time mid-terms roll about in 2014.

 

So you may choose to call some of us defeatist, I think the more accurate term is realist. The writing is on the wall. You can sell youself to 60-65% of the country when less than 50% would even listen to you in the first place. We aren't the America-haters....the other 51% are.

385 http://tinyurl.com/d76wqwp

Here's an article talking about the low turnout among white voters. Libs spent all the post-election talking about how the GOP is dead because the white voters aren't there. Well they are there, but they just didn't turn out (unless they did, and shenanigans prevailed) because Obama attacked Mitt as wealthy and out of touch going all the way back to February.

To win in 2016 we need a short primary, a blue collar candidate that can excite the big doners, sharp negative ads that define the opposition, and GOTV efforts that target low-propensity white voters (the kind the Romney camp swore they were getting in early voting, but shenanigans).

(I posted this in an earlier thread, bumped here for relevance)

386 nah im agreeing, ive said for yrs that the cultural front is where we should be. we're a welfare nation yeah? so lets make fun of it. make fun of it on tv shows, the news etc. that obama-phone lady? put her front and center and rail on it. every liberal you know? call em a welfare bum when the chance arrives. tell em they want free santa gifts, and tell em to run to santa and grab it. nail em on it. guilt trip them about their laziness at every turn, itll work if done correctly. big bird? picture big bird in a nest filled with govt cheese and resting on big daddys lap. infantilize them. we like to talk about how theyre nothing but couch slouches etc so show them for what they are. and be relentless about it. its really not too difficult to do. single mothers? who gives a fuck at this point. jack them up too, show the differences between classy, and gorgeous pin up girls from the 50s to the sloven, shabby ghetto single mothers of today. oh trust me IT WILL WORK. women constantly compare themselves to other women, and if they dont vote for us? who cares, we fucked anyway. go for broke, it can work wonders.

387

@344

That shit was epic and absolutely correct.

388 My sense is that insisting on social conservatism is the big killer. I am even more socially liberal than I used to be. I am strong on national defense, ant-crime, but not the stupid excessive penalties, and strong on personal freedom and free markets. We lost because we insist on championing issues that are only liked by a small minority. Many of us don't like that fact, but it is true. It is a big factor in why we lost so badly. We may lose the social conservatives, but where will they go?

389

Bevel Lemelisk @346-

 

Yeah, I am seeing that, too. And you know, I like to think that I am mature enough to accept that little tiny twig of an olive branch and move on. But you know what? They made their bed. Yep, their guy won. Its all theirs. And when it breaks into a million pieces, all of the million pieces will be theirs, too. Just do not expect me to come in and clean up the mess.

 

The election results Tuesday angered me. A lot. But now that anger is past, and has become contempt. I used to love this country; I used to have respect for its institutions, and its customs. But not anymore. I venerate what this country started out to be; I respect the history and the sacrifice that went into creating this nation and making it what it once was. But all that is past now; this new nation, conceived in divisiveness and dedicated to the proposition of free stuff, is not something I will recognize nor support. 

390 One thing we have to do. We are roughly half the population, with over half the wealth. We have to watch where we spend. When you say "go Galt" people roll their eyes, I know. But we have to stop financially rewarding the people who wish to destroy us.

391 Here's an excerpt from a story in today's Philly Inquirer about the extraordinary turnout in some wards of the city (overall Philly turnout was 60%, about the same as 200 : "In Campbell's ward and in the nearby 44th, people said that they believed Obama had done a good job and that they had little confidence in Romney. Tim Bee, 51, of the 44th Ward, voted for Obama and would have not been happy with a loss. Sitting next to Bee, James Tharrington, a 46-year-old Community College of Philadelphia student from the Fourth Ward, praised the president for recognizing that the country is a "melting pot." Standing a few feet away was Janean McGee, a 22-year-old supermarket supervisor, wearing an Obama/Biden pin. McGee, who voted for Obama in 2008 and Tuesday, said she opposed Romney because of his stance on abortion and other women's issues. "There's more than a 'binder full of women' out there," she said, referring to Romney's remark during the second presidential debate about his efforts as governor of Massachusetts to hire women. The presidential race was not even the subject of much discussion in her West Philadelphia neighborhood because "everyone said straight Obama." When McGee mentioned Romney's name, a passerby jeered, tossing profanities in her direction. Shakiena Williams, a 35-year-old mother of two, said it was unfair to blame Obama for the country's problems. "It's all been a mess from before he was elected," Williams said of Obama, for whom she voted in 2008 and again in 2012. "I like what he talked about . . . the middle class, the economy, and schools." Holding her 2-year-old daughter, Jahira, by the hand, Williams said she thought the community was less enthusiastic this time around. "Everyone was so dependent on [Obama] for hope and change, it doesn't happen just like that," she said. Barbara Martinez said she, too, went to the polls Tuesday because she believed Obama deserved a second term. "I think he needs more time to get the job done," Martinez said. An 84-year-old who has voted for the Democratic candidate in every election, Martinez called Romney "more of a businessman than a politician."

392 Gabe, nail, on the head. We are now an unserious nation and we ran a serious race. (And, boy, did we ever get the perfect President for that nation!)

393 >>>Yeah, fuck off buddy.

Your side ran its dream campaign with irs dream candidate, and it was a cataclysmic failure.

Keep running Scott Browns, and maybe the whole country can continue to have results like MA.

Because Northeastern Republican candidates know how to succeed.

Nice sentiment, socon, but you make my point exactly.  Even with decent candidates, a united coalition, and a completely failed incumbent, we cannot win because we are so despised in the culture.  I'm sure Akin or Mourdock would've done soooo much better nationally.  Our bench is a joke.  I am in Colo - NOT the NE - and we lost the entire state 2 yrs ago due to running ridiculously unqualified pro-lifers who were open to the war on women attack.  Obama took this strategy and played it nationally, and it won for him, because BINDERS!  lol

394 Gabe, I don't think your analysis jives with the actual results... Romney is said to have won the independents, but you say he didn't reach out to them enough? That doesn't make sense...

395 agree 390, and we have to make sincere efforts to decide where we will spend our money and which businesses are on our side. that might get tricky but it's by far the most productive thing we can do at this point. and for God's sake, don't buy union ever.

396 The tide will turn. Posted by: nc at November 08, 2012 10:47 AM (Cxl7g) You are dreaming. Plus, you start out with a plea for banning folks you don't like to hear. Have a nice fucking day.

397 Finally, we are going to get beaten by "But, Bush" for the next two elections

because:

1) He was our guy but we didn't defend him
 
and

2) We still are not hitting back on that, we are agreeing


If you don't analyze what is losing and change it to winning strategies, you keep losing.

Do you have any fucking idea how much I hate losing?

Almost as much as I hate teaching people shit they should have learned in 1992.

398

227 Right on the money.  I've been saying for years that our immigration policy should be let anyone in who is:

1) Aged 18-40

2) Can speak, read and write english at a 12th grade level.

3) Pass the citizanship test.

Once they've been here a couple of years, have been gainfully employed and have clean record, they can then bring in their spouses and children.

 

No racial quotas! No preferences for politically connected ethnic groups!  No chain migration! 

 

Not only would we have steady influx of bright, motivated people coming into the country which would go a long way towards our age demographic inbalance, but we would have millions of young people around the world learning English and about the American Constitution.  It would literally change the world overnight.

 

399 Next year, when those tax increases happen, fun!

400 I fear for my country and I fear for my party. The Republican Party is on the verge of being torn apart. The extreme social conservative positions on immigration and abortion are simply not palatable to a changing national electorate. Our stance on gay marriage is going the same way. There is a larger and larger constituency of latino immigrants and younger voters that we simply are not reaching out to. We can gripe and moan about the moral state of the nation, but it won't change the hard facts.

If SoCons want to go down with the ship, then so be it.

Posted by: ByLaw at November 08, 2012 10:55 AM (kJJ2z)

So being against illegal immigration is extreme? Tell you what I'm going to rob you but don't try to stop me because of your extreme position on theft

401 I'm sorry but i will not cater to anyone stupid enough to make big bird or binders a serious issue. if they are that silly and stupid, they can suffer the rewards of their idiocy or grow the F up. the time for coddling idiots and trying to persuade is over. They will get no help from me when they are laid off from their jobs and the welfare checks run out. conservatives are already preparing for the economic collapse and will let the others suffer their consequences.

402 Fuck them. Next election we don't play nice. Posted by: Bevel Lemelisk at November 08, 2012 10:40 AM (NersQ) -------------------------------------------------------- This is something else RR didn't get (and conservatives/R's as well). The Dems are simply more ruthless than we are in terms of implementing their agenda. We're the Romans and they're the Goths. We'd like to negotiate while they'd prefer to skip a step and slit our throats. They simply want it more than we do at this point and they're constantly on the offensive. Case in point - the tea party was successful because finally we got in their faces (imagine that) and shocked them into realizing that we were serious. We have got to be more like Breitbart/O'Keefe and less like simpering fools pleading with the other side to play nice.

403

Romney's fundamental problem is that he never realized he was running against two presidents, Obama and Bush.  And even then he attacked the one that was less important.

Most conservatives have forgotten how deeply unpopular Bush was and is.  I guess it's human nature to filter out of our memories mistakes we've made, like my/our previous support for Bush.  So we've forgotten about him.  The rest of the country has not.

 

Especially after Obama really started hammering the line "Take us back to the policies that got us into this mess in the first place." after the conventions (and Clinton's very effective speech), Romeny should have attacked Bush's policies even more than he did Obama's.

 

Romeny's line that Obama's policies didn't work or made things worse was just not credible with the Honey Boo-Boos without this full throated attack on Bush.  Only after destroying Bush and his policies would he have any street cred for going after Obama's. The Honey Boo-Boos still loves them some Bush-hate and so without Romeny joining in on the bashing, Obama's tying of Bush to Romney worked like a charm.

 

Coulda, woulda, shoulda...

404 I think nearly everyone is wrong. I believe the reason we lost is very simple. People that don't follow politics very much just didn't like Romney. It's that simple. I talked to quite a few people before the election (in Ohio) that don’t really give a crap about politics and nearly every one of them said “I just don’t trust that guy” or “there is just something about him I don’t like” or “it’s a lesser of two evils thing”. People just didn’t like him, that’s all it was. Most of the people I talked to wouldn’t even vote for Obama, but they still had a hard time supporting Romney. It didn’t have anything to do with social issues, demographics, or level of conservatism. Romney has a likability problem with people that are not right wing conservatives that keep informed about politics. If you try and view Romney from their perspective, it makes sense. I think this is the same reason he lost the primary in 08.

405 Posted by: nc at November 08, 2012 10:47 AM (Cxl7g) You should get the Tenth Plague treatment - you have called for your own punishment thinking it would be meted out on others.

406 People that don't follow politics very much just didn't like Romney.

Because they are failures that failed.

407 I bet the Jeep ads did more to hurt Romney in Ohio than anything Obama or the MSM did. Posted by: BadCandidate at November 08, 2012 10:16 AM (XIFQU) You'd lose that bet. The MFM are way more powerful than some ads from Romney. 24/7 propaganda tends to be.

408

396 Eman

@

Yeah, guilty as charged -- I am pretty intolerant of people who want to watch America burn. Go find a world where everyone is exactly like you -- and good luck finding it.

 

And all of you who think we are doomed -- what is your plan? To keep saying we are doomed? To find a bunker and hide there? Do you think everything goes right all the time. Live a little - it does not. But as long as we are alive, we have a chance to make a change. And I am not just saying that as some kind of pop, feel good psychology. We are a player in this game. We get to affect how things happen. It may take a while, it may not be noticeable, and it may be frustrating. We may feel like we are Sisyphus -- rolling a rock up a hill just to have it keep coming back down. But I think we have a good message. We just need to use it. People can be persuaded. Just because someone is Hispanic or AA (or the child of a hippy) doesn't mean that they do not want more for themselves. I just think that it is wired into our DNA to have dreams and go for them -- and I think that is what we are about. I get it, that its probably also wired in our DNA to get free stuff without working for it. But that is just something we will have to deal with.

409 It's simply that Romney overestimated the intelligence and maturity of the average American voter and Obama and his cronies understand the actual stupidity of the average American voter all too well.

410 I don't think it was really the cultural issues that lost the election which was really decided in the Midwest rust belt. I do agree that the Romney people were foolish in disregarding the cultural attack. The should have at least pointed out that the Obama people were specifically lying about these issues to scare people but never did. The election was lost because the democrats successfully stereotyped Romney as a fat cat who wants to send blue collar workers jobs to China. That's it. Basing his campaign entirely on economic opportunity and ignoring the fact that many feel insecure and need to be approached from the perspective of economic security was a mistake and it ended up losing him the election. Yes, this means that idiot blue collar whites voted for liberals who drive their imported Prius's to sodomy and quiche parties are more for the 'common man' than Republicans.

411 405 -- I am too lazy to go read Exodus right now, and too dumb to understand your comment.  What are your trying to say?

412

To make it simple.  Gabe, you're wrong.  Do you really believe that those voters in Cleveland, Phillie, Chicago, etc. care about anything other than their entitlements?  Of course they don't.   Do you think the Dem apparatus cares about Gay marriage, abortion, etc.  Of course they don't.  The Dems only want to stay in office and make money.  To do that they are willing to give the country what it wants.  And thanks to FDR and LBJ, that means entitlements.

Unless we are willing to compromise our basic principles on this we will never win.  So should we do that?  Nope.  Because those voters will never believe us anyway,  It's been too long for them.  I'm afraid no matter what the voter registration rolls say this is  a Democrat controlled country.  At least until the the money dries up.  And who knows, they may find some way to blame us for that too.

413

Looking forward to the next republican candidate for pres, here's what I see:

 

1) Compelling personal story - i.e., blue collar or ethnically exotic.  Or both, like Barky and Biden.

 

2) Abortion and rape are off the table.  Abortion is the law of the land. It's a personal choice, and shut the hell up about legitimate rape.  It used to be that the majority of people were squishy pro-life.  I don't think that's true anymore. 

 

3) Lifestyle.  This is going to tick off base republican voters, but the ship has sailed on gay relationships.  Younger people know lots and lots of gay people.  Start right now and figure out an acceptable position on gay relationships.  The Log Cabin Republicans and guys like HillBuzz should take the lead on this.

 

4) Get aggressive in the public square and make it cool to be a republican, owning your own business is cool, making decisions for yourself is cool,  and sitting around waiting for Santa to deliver your free stuff is uncool.

 

5) Save the heavy thinking for position papers.  Educational research is showing that younger people have grown up in a digital world and have shorter attention spans and think differently.  The KISS principle needs to be invoked.  Math was a loser.

 

6) Nixon's Silent Majority is dead.  Reagan's Democrats are also dead or in a nursing home.  The majority of older voters next time out will be baby boomers.  They are not going to be conservative republicans automatically.  They are white-guilt old fogies who still crave to be cool.  Being old, they will turn out to vote in large numbers, and it's a big bulge demographically.  We need them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

414 Posted by: nc at November 08, 2012 11:22 AM (Cxl7g) I do not want to see America burn. I see it already burning and the fire is out of control. This country will collapse just as the USSR did. It can't be stopped, but the thing that comes after can be a good thing.

415

happy talk keep talkin happy talk...

talk about things you like to do.....

 

 

416 I think we all were proud when Romney and Ryan decided to treat us all as grown ups and tackle the huge problems that are facing us. To argue they now should have talked in jingles or spent their time with Pimp with a Limp is silly. That's not who they are and not who we are as a party. Obama and his plans will implode. The MSM will get tired of covering for him since there is no Republican boogey man to protect him from. And the young set will grow up and figure this out. At least that what I hope.

417 Santa > Cancer Rays Guy. Its that simple. Romney wasn't my 1st choice, but in the end I liked him a lot. He seemed really concerned about America's fiscal problems and had a plan. Punch anyone in the mouth that claims 'negative campaings are bad' because this election proves they work. You don't even need a plan. Just demonize and lie. Ignore your own record. MFM will cover it up for you. Compare the number of stories of the magic decline to 7.8% to the almost silence of it going back up to 7.9. We can't beat the MFM and their Santa.

418 Posted by: @PurpAv at November 08, 2012 10:28 AM (/i+eU) And you know they will never do it that way because the Dems won't stand for having actually secure voting machines.

419 I am too lazy to go read Exodus right now, and too dumb to understand your comment. What are your trying to say? Posted by: nc at November 08, 2012 11:26 AM (Cxl7g) The explanation is in the comment, itself, genius.

420

drive through virginia or pa- off the main roads-they are economically depressed.  they would like/need? a government job or a hand out.  they hate rich people (anyone earning more than they do) unless they are entertainers or atheletes

any govt hand out they currently receive is a right

they have been taught that to avoid being mocked as ignorant and inbred they must worship diversity and accept the government's thoughtful rules and regulations/ including energy destroying fracking rules

big business bad/doctors bad/big pharma/bad; lawsuits/good

that's why their gov't runs on lottery sales-aka the poor people's tax

 

421 Two reasons, the cultural aspect you write about and the get out the vote effort. Obama paid $15 an hour to his temp workers and targeted the important swing states. (I'd love to know how much was spent overall on "campaign workers".) Please advise me who to go work for, starting today. Let's pick our 2016 candidate and cover the pr for the next four years. Let's start collecting money for that campaign right now. I believe our current president was picked and supported many years before he won the nomination. The music in the 60s was great because the musicians stole ideas from each other, admitted it too. Let's pick our candidate and start erasing the flaws (because everyone has flaws). Let's steal their idea and raise our game at the same time. I'm picking up Good Vibrations.

422 too late. welcome to socialism. obamacare will do that. my super wealthy friends are leaving the country.

423

414  Eman

 

Ok --thanks for the clarification.  I disagree.  We are nothing like the USSR and never will be.  Maybe,  maybe we will end up like the UK -- but I doubt even that.  And even if we do, things can change.

 

I have little statistical proof of this, but anecdotally, I can tell you that most immigrants I know come here because there is opportunity in this country.  Yes, Democratic policies are training people to ask for a handout and not work, but I don't think the demographics of this country fundamentally dooms us.  I am a descendant of people from the British isles. At one time, we made up a majority of the population of this country (ok, I am too lazy to check that point, but I am assuming most early immigrants were from England, Scotland and Northern Island -- with a decent number of Germans mixed in).  That changed pretty quickly.  My wife's father is 1st Generation American -- his family is from Italy.  He owns his own business and is more conservative than I am.  My brother's wife is from Latin America and is very conservative.  Yes, this is anecdotal -- but racial origin is not destiny.  I do think cultural background plays  a huge part in how you view the world -- but viewpoints can be changed.

 

Don't be a nihilist.

 

 

424 Hey Gabe, You're right but you're also wrong for this reason. Let's say you're riffing on something hilariously ridiculous about Obama, some policy or personal foible, people are laughing, a good time is being had by all and then an Obama supporter comes up and shuts it all down with two words- Can you guess what they are? "You're racist." Maybe you get- "Oh, you just hate Obama because he's black." Nothing you've been saying has anything remotely to do with race but, yeah, you're the racist. This is the genius of having a the first black president be an America-hating, radical socialist. It's never Obama's policies you hate according to them- it's always his race. The GOP better figure this out fast and have their own minorities ready to run in 2014 and 2016 because the Dims will definitely have a woman or Hispanic or practicing Muslim or whatever next cycle. They've found a winning formula.

425

419

 

Dude, I clearly don't speak your code.  I am not calling for plagues on anyone, but apparently you think I did.  Sorry if I offended.

426 Sorry Gabe, you're wrong. We lost partly because the DemocRAT party lies, but mostly because people want free stuff and refuse to think about the bill. Look at credit card usage in society. Look at student debt. People are just looking for freebies and Obama promised a bunch.

427 We lost due to an electorate indoctrinated and propagandized for over 100 years into an entitlement mentality and into thinking the DNC is about the little man while the GOP is about the evil rich man. We lost due to the fact we put value on life, beginning at conception. We lost because it is racist to vote against a black man but not racist to hate and want to kill a white man. We lost because there are more of them then there are of us. We lost because of an electorate that has been educated so poorly on civics and economics that it can not critically think past the indoctrination and propaganda. We lost because the GOP and their pundits play by the rules set by the liberal progressives. And when this country comes crashing down it will be blamed on the obstructionist House, the evil rich capitalists, and most importantly the white man.

428 I've got to agree with Gabe.

It's not policy arguments; it's not appeals to individual liberty; it's not cogent facts about economic recovery. None of these makes a dent with a 'swing' voter, an ordinary Joe or Josephine. It's all BORING to them. Or it's over their heads. Or they don't understand the words that are coming out of your mouth. You may as well not put in the effort.

It's who is cute; who is likable, who communicates that they are the most like them; that's the person they will vote for.  Also, the candidate who is lampooned and made fun of by their cultural icons  is the candidate that these pop culture skimmers are NOT going to vote for. And we know who that invariably will be -- the republican/conservative/fuddy duddy/dad figure/white man/choose your term.

When you go after the great unwashed and undecided, you must be smiley, cool, with it, clued in to the cultural "dogwhistles" if you like, attractive, hot (if possible), young (if possible).

Of course, all those positives for knee jerk voters can be neutralized by a goofy face by Jon Stewart, or continual degrading by standup comics, or demeaning jokes and assumptions by characters on favorite TV shows and sitcoms.

The battle for America is not fought on the Op-Ed pages. It's fought on the airwaves, the silver screen, pop culture Internet sites, and to a secondary degree, the halls of high school and academia.

429 Posted by: nc at November 08, 2012 11:48 AM (Cxl7g) Oy. The reference was not to wish a plague on you but to express to you the same as was expressed to Pharoah - whatever punishment he tried to inflict on the Jews would be inflicted on him and his own people. You called for bans for idiotic reasons that offend your delicate sensibilities (you would ban Atlas Shrigged, I guess) and it would be appropriate if your own recommendation of a ban was applied to you. Like I said, this was all clear from the original comment. Sheesh.

430 I disagree on one count-binders. The fact of the matter is Romney actually WON white women. He won the group that was and would be outraged about his "binders" comment. It was the way he was hammered by ethnic women that caused him to lose women. And quite frankly, I doubt ethnic women give a rip about binders. They really did vote against Romney on substance- that substance being, "No more handouts" So, that said, I don't think "binders" hurt him. I think he lost huge with a subset of people he would have lost huge with anyway.

431 Shorter  answer,  "It's never just the economy stupid."

432 This was the purpose of Andrew Breitbart, mostly. I think his passing also didn't help us either. Too soon. Too soon.

433 @#34 So to win we should be wrong and support abortion on demand? Then what is the point of being a political party..why don't we just join the Dems. It is funny that you say social conservative like it is the plague. Murder is social...are you against that? Bestiality is social...are you against that? Stealing your stuff...rejecting a man employment because of the color of his skin.....and keeping women out of the workforce is social...are you against that? Hell keeping a man in slavery is social are you against that? Each of those things were socially deemed correct by our society except for murder and stealing at one point. It took a political process and a war to prevent it all. Actually it took Republican social conservatives to prevent it all. The dems were for it. What does the government have to do with marriage in the first place? Why do homosexuals need to be married? I suggest that you register Dem. Actually small government and sound fiscal policy is social as well. Society is social.

434 But why wouldn't he hate a dog work. I mean it's a lot more weird than saying binders. This post makes no sense if the whole point is that the electorate can be easily distracted them yea someone eating a god should work just fine.

435

@#433  No, we don't have to give in on abortion, but we have to be smarter and somewhat disingenuous, i.e. act like liberals. 

 

The way to do this is to hammer at late-term abortions and then pretend that all abortions are like late-term abortions.  Honey Boo-Boos are used to slick 3-D animations in movies, use them to generate videos that show a sanitized, although still guesome, view of what a late-term abortion looks like.  Then run ads along the lines of this:

 

"Abortion is murder.  Here's is what a late term abortion looks like..."

 

See.  Tie something morally wrong with something that is truly despicable and use slick graphics to illustrate the point.  The liberals in politics, the media and in the broader culture do this all the time, except the thing they're going after isn't actually morally wrong, such as taking responsibility for yourself and getting a job.

 

It. Works. Every. Time.

 

 

436 Stopped after first paragraph. If a guy won't defend his positions why vote for him? If a guy won't mention Bengazi in a serious way, why vote for him? Mitt tried to play nice and lost. Do not play nice.

437 377 The cultural deficit goes way, way, beyond "A Good Enough Snark."

Spot on!  The idea that the way to win the culture war is MOAR Palins is kinda like saying the Japanese could've won WWII with more Midways.

They voted with their vaginas, now we are stuck with this pussy.

438 #34

Does the name Barney Frank mean anything to you? Harvey Milk?

Openly gay politicians are not a recent development.

439 435 It. Works. Every. Time.

So, socons would win the abortion debate if we only posted more fetus pics on FB? 

See, this was Robert's genius - he realized a judicial solution was not a political solution.  40 yrs after umbras and penumbras and we are still getting wedged by this issue.

440

439  In a word, Yes!  Look, a lot of people who support abortion either don't know what it is really like, or don't want to know.  Rub their faces in it and make sure they can't deny that they know tall the implications of their "choice".   Why do you think liberals fight so hard against provisions that make women learn about what abortion reallt means before they go through with one.

 

This is part of a broader problem that conservatives have;  you never make the liberals own the consequences of their policies.

441 We are Idiocracy.

"It has ELECTROLYTES"

442 #403

That is complete nonsense. It wasn't Bush's policies that created the insane MBS debacle. That was initiated and grown almost 100% by Democrats like Dodd and Frank. The Bush White House tried EIGHTEEN TIMES to draw attention to Fannie and Freddie, and every time they were told they were the worst kind of racists for the merest suggestion that this stuff needed to be reined in.

When people don't know what actually happened and whose policies got us there, all else is lost. Once the Big Lie is accepted as fact you're automatically discrediting your own side in the argument.

The leftist play a long game. The original Cloward-Piven Strategy article was published back in the 60s and they've been pushing it forward ever since. When the CRA and similar 'lets give mortgages to people who have no hope of ever keeping up with them' initiatives were pushed, the people behind them knew what the end game was. It succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

The real problem is an unwillingness to publicly label people who are genuinely EVIL as such. But what other word can be applied to those who push for policies that are guaranteed to be highly destructive failures? Time after time the supposedly right-wing politicians keep maintaining the public farce that the other side is honorable and there is merely a disagreement over some policy issues. Having a functional civilization is a policy issue?

443 439 - pro-lifers have been showing gruesome pics for decades - it just hardens their position due to the offense.  I'm not saying you aren't technically or morally correct - I'm saying abortion is an election loser for us.  Also, in case the socons didn't notice, all the gay marriage votes were PRO this time - I mean, look at the margin in IA - and, we were sposed to win that state because of gay marriage.  Culture has changed - 40 yrs of indoctrination has worked.  Getting government out of the boardroom but into the bedroom has always been an inconsistent position for us, yet the socons don't see the dissonance of their position.  Purge, rebrand, or go uppercase L - this is very very difficult for me, but I do not see how we can win another election from where we are at now.

444 Who the fuck cares what Gabe thinks?

445 I don't think we fought on any grounds outside of Mitt's qualifications as being an awesome governor and all around competent guy. Aside from voter fraud, I don't think we pushed any wedge issues that would make someone into a Romney-Democrat. And to be sure, we did get a fair number of Romney-Independents. Instead, Obama got to play both side of some major issues. Immigration Voter Fraud Gay Marriage Treatment of the Catholic Church Taxes (ok, this got some play) Drug legalization Abortion (the real kind, not rapebortion) I don't know, I had a whole list of things. But if Obama was going to go big on gay marriage, why not press him on it. It's a 50-50 thing in MD but maybe not in NC? Eh? Obama will always go to GOP left on immigration, then press him on it.

446 The real problem is an unwillingness to publicly label people who are genuinely EVIL as such. But what other word can be applied to those who push for policies that are guaranteed to be highly destructive failures? Time after time the supposedly right-wing politicians keep maintaining the public farce that the other side is honorable and there is merely a disagreement over some policy issues. Having a functional civilization is a policy issue? Your post is full of win, epobirs. Notice how conservatives call the Left's agenda "Free Shit" and "Santa Claus." That's sort of right, and funny, but it also sort of misses the point -- there is no free shit. What they really want is YOUR shit. Remember, Santa gives out gifts that come from Fantasy Land. They cost nothing. There is no Santa Claus, either. There is a core moral objection to be made to every Leftist idea, but conservatives keep avoiding it. We keep dicking around with the details, and avoiding the premises. Literally ALL of the Left's ideas are based on the same moral assumption, starting with You Didn't Build That. It's the same reason behind Sandra Fluke's grievances. It's the same reason behind Affirmative Action. It's the lie they used to sell Medicare, and Social Security before that. Hell, it's even the same reason behind the Income Tax. It goes ALL the way back to the early days of Communism in the early 1800's. They all spring the same claim -- "You owe us." We know it's all just theft. We know it's all bullshit. But we NEVER take the core moral stand -- "We don't owe you a fucking thing." Before a parasite will vote for more parasitism, he must first be convinced (by smooth-talking assholes like Obama) that he is not a parasite. That he is owed. When someone is owed, then taking what's owed is justified. So, before the theft will be committed, there must first be an effective justification story. The Left has been peddling the You Owe Us backstory (i.e., the Lie, the Fantasy) for 150 years. It's baked into the cake now. It's background, so they don't need to reinvent that wheel every election year. It gives them a huge head start in the PR war. The man who will look straight into the eye of the Professional Left and tell them, "We owe you precisely fuck-all" will become the next conservative President of the United States. I hope I live to see it, but I don't expect to.

447

Great post Gabe,

Bush 04 Understood this. Even if you don't run on every issue, you have to run on every issue. You need a full spectrum game. Obama declares there is a war on women, we hit back with a war on babies. Democrats especially Obama are so far left on the abortion debate. Slam him on the born alive act, slam him on parental notification, slam him as uncaring on abortion.

Slam him on gun control, bring his liberal voting record up on it.

Slam him on how he claims to be pro hispanic, and how he keeps deporting them. Slam him on every issue. In the PA TV market, Romney ran the same campaign add again and again and again. In the same 30 Minutes we got 4 of the same add, it should have been 4 different ads.

1. Economy

2. How super left his abortion record is

3. Bitter people clinging to Guns God and Religion

4. Jokes about how our Navy is as important to him as our Cavalry

448 <<People telling themselves that we had an insufficiently conservative candidate, that having a more conservative candidate would have made a difference, are kidding themselves.>>

No, dude. You are. This race was Obama vs. Obamalite and a chunk of the electorate either stayed home or just voted for Obama because they saw little difference between the candidates (because that was actually the case).

You want to beat the other guy? Don't send in a candidate who sounds and acts a lot like the other guy.

A markedly different, CONSERVATIVE candidate - not one who changed positions and made conservative sounding platitudes - would have won this election.

Your formula brought us Bush, McCain and Romney and what floors me is how you insist on trying again what worked only once - and that barely - before.

449 Too bad you folks don't seem to know about the immigrants from the old USSR. Conservative, religious, interested in getting ahead financially. In fact, Christians throughout the world are under attack right now. Why not make the case to bring them into this country? It could be done and might offset the Hispanic immigration a bit. Encourage more agri-business to set up shop in Mexico. The climate is better for agriculture and it puts jobs in Mexico.

There are lots of things that could be done that the Dems would have problems opposing.

450

until all voter fraud is exposed and,prosucuted i will not accecept this election,as is.

then after that i have to accecpt the fact romney lost,was because he was running a campaign trying to better america,and americans rather than,running an american idol contest.

it just keeps getting better,and better.

i wish these o'bama voters,good luck,socialism is a very personal,ugly,unforgiving,ideoligy,this will be the time ows'ers will be right,socialism is meant to lower the 99%,into equality,at the bottom,leaving the 1% on top.

i worked for over 40yrs.,raised two chrildren paid my taxes,utility bills,house,car,life,and health, insurance,bought cars,bought a house,saved for retirement,as one of my highest priorities,i lived frugally,nothing fancy,no new cars.

i'm not rich,but comfortable,this was accomplished in the america i grew in,this will not be possible for you,in the america you just voted in.

451 "And the hardest part is that we insufficiently understood that we were even fighting on cultural grounds and not for political issues. Swing voters really didn't want to think about the economy. But they sure had lots to say about Sandy clean-up. About Big Bird. About birth control and, God help us, rape. Those cultural issues that Democrats seized -- binders, Big Bird, birth control, and blame Bush -- went largely unrebutted by Romney."

This is hysterically funny given the amount of time people here spend bashing the social conservatives and shouting at them to SHUT UP about social issues.  Long lectures and some times banning threats to anyone who mentioned social issues because they distracted from the economy.  The entire dem party is ALWAYS about social issues, because that's all they have. Thats why they devote endless amounts of money establishing "culture."  And feckless republicans let them get away with defining culture and "legitimate" social issues and politically correct language.  I understand that, the MSM, and the entire Hollywood media complex understands that.  Breitbart understood it perfectly.  Glad to see that you finally noticed. Now if you could only get your fellow travelers to stop bragging about how they don't care about tv, movies, and music, we could begin to have a positive effect on the culture issues. 

452 You seem to think swing voters are those pathetic undecideds waiting until election day to pick a candidate. You know who a swing voter is? Me. I've voted for Republicans more than Democrats, but went for Obama in the last two elections. My peers, almost none of them will vote for Republicans now. We don't trust them on the economy (since when has a Republican actually cut government spending - their platform basically asks us to trust them to do something they've never done before). But we really, really don't trust them on social issues. How can I, a professional scientist, vote for the willful ignorance shared by a very vocal wing of the party. How can my Ph.D. students, 80% of whom are women, vote for a party that wants to turn back the clock 50 years on women's issues? I have two kids - how do I vote for a party that has proven their devotion to slashing education to pay for unfunded wars? The Republican party is fighting a cultural war that was over a long, long time ago. It's not about Big Bird - it's about their seeming desire to turn the clock back to 1958. That might be great if you're in the prime Republican demographic, old white men. The rest of us prefer to look ahead.

453 This piece manages to focus on all the people who voted AGAINST a Republican and FOR Obama.

That's fine but that's not why we lost. We lost because people who would have voted for Romney did not show up to vote.

If you're going to explain it to us, explain ALL of it. You left out the most important part. And in so doing, you explained ... nothing.