Thursday, November 22, 2012

Ann Coulter's op-ed: Romney was not the problem



At the Daily Caller on Wednesday, Ann Coulter had a new op-ed entitled: 

Romney was not the problem
The idea that Romney failed to present a clear contrast with Obama or was too “nice” is also nonsense. If Republicans continue to tell themselves comforting myths about our candidate being the problem, they better get used to losing a lot more elections.

The only Republican to defeat a sitting president in the last century was Ronald Reagan in 1980, when he beat Jimmy Carter, the second-worst president in U.S. history (pending the final results of Obama’s second term). Because of that, and also because he is in the top two best American presidents, Reagan’s example is worth studying.
And study it she does. She goes on for the next page and a half to describe why Reagan provided less contrast with Carter than Romney did to Obama. 



Romney was the most libertarian candidate Republicans have run since Calvin Coolidge. And he got more votes from the dwindling white majority than Reagan did.

Ouch. Before you say she's not being fair to Reagan or being too fair to Romney...

Some conservatives didn’t trust Romney because, as governor of a state between blue and North Korea, he had instituted a health insurance mandate, one feature of the hated Obamacare. 
As governor of a purple state, Reagan had signed the most liberal abortion law in the country and imposed the three largest state tax hikes in the nation’s history. Nevada Sen. Paul Laxalt’s nominating speech hailed Reagan’s governorship of California for producing “a veritable Great Society of aid for schools, minorities and the handicapped,” as the Times put it. Reagan had also been an actual member of the godless, treason party. 
This is not to diminish Reagan. It is to say that Romney wasn’t the problem. 
(emphasis mine)



So what was the problem? 

Romney lost because he was running against an incumbent, was beaten up during a long and vicious primary fight, and ran in a year with a very different electorate from 1980. At least one of those won’t be true next time. But we’re not going to win any elections by telling ourselves fairy tales about a candidate who lost because he wasn’t conservative enough, articulate enough or mean enough. - Ann Coulter

The piece is worth reading in its entirety. Ann Coulter won a lot of respect from me when she admitted she was wrong about Romney and got full-sails behind him. She has even more of my respect now that many are piling on our candidate after a disappointing loss and she is not among them.  


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6 comments:

Ohio JOE said...

First off, I am no fan of this lady, in fact I like her less than I do most Romneyites. While she makes some good points she has her head in the sand. Mr. Romney is not a bad man and he would be better than Mr. Obama to be sure , but he is no Reagan.

Her blaming the other primary candidates is also foolish and sour grapes because while they are not blameless, the Romney camp is more to blame for disunity in the party than any other single camp.

To be fair, Mr. Romney is not the problem per se, but he took a lot of bad advise from his advisers in his camp. Yes, his ground game was OK other than the serious computer glitch, but his TV ads sucked. He failed to keep pace with Obama TV ads and he had no response to his devastating 47% comment. He had bad pollsters (but Mr. McCain did too) and while his camp tried to respect and find out what was going on in the local communities, they had no clue.

Mr. Romney's first debate was excellent, yes he promoted Conservative values in that debate at least as well as Mr. Reagan, but one debate is not enough to win the hearts and mind of the people. He played it too safe in the following debate and his camp instructed Mr. Ryan to play it too safe in his debate.

Most of us would have also listened to such silly advise if we were in Mr. Romney's shoes so to be fair, he was not the problem per se, but if his camp members do not realize what poor advise they gave their camp leader, I for won am finished with the party. These clowns did not figure out what the difference between a primary and a general election was and they wasted our time.

My county and a neighboring county voted for Mr. Romney despite not voting for either Mr. McCain or Mr. Bush. Our chairman's were even Romneyite establishment types. However, they reached out to other camps and unified the party, so no, in the end, Mr. Romney was not a problem in my county. Meanwhile the Romneyite chairman in a few other neighboring counties did not invite other camps or the Tea Party to help in their campaign as a result, their local ground game sucked. Yes, Mr. Romney won those counties too, but so did Mr. McCain and Mr. Bush and Mr. Romney failed to increase GOP margins in those counties so he indirectly was a problem there, but his camp's foolishness failed to give him good margins in GOP friendly territory.

Jana said...

I believe that the free gifts , and many loess associated with them, plus the liberal media, are the problem. We can't judge if Romney is a Reagan because he did not serve. Additionally, the people of this country were better people in the 80's. Popular culture, aided by the Left, has done a huge disservice to our country. I supported Romney and continue to do so. He was up against a tsunami and he did the best job he could do.

Joel2012 said...

Many of Ann's points in her article are right on the money. As for those who have stated here and elsewhere that Mitt Romney is no Ronald Reagan, I agree. Romney would have been even better than Reagan had he had the chance to prove it. It is what it is, very unfortunate.

MrX said...

I think Romney just didn't fight to win in the last two debates and was trying not to lose instead. I think if he kept up what he did in the first debate, he would have won. In the next two debates, there were SO MANY chances for him to nail Obama and he let it go.

Anonymous said...

Kind of hard to go 'after' Obama when the willing press will lie in a debate you had nailed, until Crowley interfered.

cimbri said...

Ohio Joe, a minor correction - Romney was very tough on Obama in the 2nd debate and probably would have defeated him if Crowley had not intervened. He was agreeable in the 3rd (foreign policy) debate, mostly because many indies are still scared of the neocon wing of the republican party. I think some of yall continue to underestimate all the right wing baggage Romney was carrying.