In Case You Missed It......(8-25-13)

In Case You Missed It (Why Romney Lost Edition)......

There has been no shortage of theories as to why Mitt Romney failed to defeat the worst president in our nation's history. I decided to compile a few for all of us to ponder. I don't agree with all of them. I'm interested in knowing which theories are readers subscribe to. There's something here for everyone!

Have at it....
___________________________________

Mitt Romney - As reported by the New York Times

....“With regards to the young people, for instance, a forgiveness of college loan interest was a big gift,” Mr. Romney said. “Free contraceptives were very big with young, college-aged women. And then, finally, Obamacare also made a difference for them, because as you know, anybody now 26 years of age and younger was now going to be part of their parents’ plan, and that was a big gift to young people. They turned out in large numbers, a larger share in this election even than in 2008.” The president’s health care plan, he said, was also a useful tool in mobilizing black and Hispanic voters....
___________________________________

Bobby Jindal - As reported by Huffington Post

Lousiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) rebuffed Mitt Romney's claim that President Obama won reelection because of "gifts" to minorities and young voters, calling the statement "wrong."....

...."Mitt Romney is an honorable man. He's a good honest man. He deserves our respect, and our gratitude," Jindal said. "The reality of it, the campaign was too much about biography. It wasn't enough about a vision of where they wanted to take our country, and how they would do it ... The reality is people are not being inspired by a biography."....
____________________________________

Michael Hirsch - National Journal

....But in the end, Obama secured a second historic election victory—in the face of staggering unemployment—largely because the alternative portrait that Romney presented to the country was far too incomplete. By failing to fill in critical details that would have fleshed out both his personality and his policies, the Republican challenger gave the American people a mere pencil sketch of a candidate. It wasn’t enough, and it was much too abstract. Too many voters couldn’t figure out which Romney would show up in the Oval Office. Would it be the Massachusetts-moderate redux they saw in the last six weeks of the campaign, or the right-wing ideologue from the Republican primaries who embraced a small-government zealot, Rep. Paul Ryan, as his running mate?....
____________________________________

Ramesh Ponnuru - National Review

....Romney was not a drag on the Republican party. The Republican party was a drag on him.....
____________________________________

Bill Bennett - CNN

....We must counter the discourse and speak and educate in terms of family, faith, freedom, principle, values, work, country, community, improvement, growth, and equality of opportunity. No longer can the Republican Party be solely the party of business. Who controls the terms of discussion, dialogue, and education controls the country and, therefore, the election....
_____________________________________

Tucker Carlson - Daily Caller

....But it was a flawed candidacy from the start. Romney’s caution and ever-shifting policy positions made him seem fearful, which is to say weak. His biography hurt him. During a cycle when voters remained angry at Wall Street, Romney bore the weight of a finance background. And because of his own history in Massachusetts, he could never effectively go after President Obama on Obamacare, the president’s biggest political weakness.....
______________________________________

John Dickerson - Slate

....How did the Romney team get it so wrong? According to those involved, it was a mix of believing anecdotes about party enthusiasm and an underestimation of their opponents’ talents. The Romney campaign thought Obama’s base had lost its affection for its candidate. They believed Obama would win only if he won over independent voters. So Romney focused on independents and the economy, which was their key issue. The Republican ground game was focused on winning those voters. “We thought the only way to win was doing well with independents and we were kicking ass with independents,” says a top aide. One senior adviser bet me that if Obama won Ohio, he would donate $1,000 per point to my favorite charity. (That would be a $10,000 hit since Romney lost Ohio but won independents by 10 points). In the end, Romney won independents nationally by five points—and it didn’t matter one bit....
_________________________________________

Kathleen Parker - Kansas.com

...The truth is, Romney was better than the GOP deserved. Party nitwits undermined him and the self-righteous tried to bring him down. The nitwits are well-enough known at this point – those farthest-right social conservatives who couldn’t find it in their hearts to keep their traps shut. No abortion for rape or incest? Sit down. Legitimate rape? Put on your clown suit and go play in the street....
_________________________________________

Sean Trende - Real Clear Politics

....But most importantly, the 2012 elections actually weren’t about a demographic explosion with non-white voters. Instead, they were about a large group of white voters not showing up.... ....So who were these whites and why did they stay home? My first instinct was that they might be conservative evangelicals turned off by Romney’s Mormonism or moderate past. But the decline didn’t seem to be concentrated in Southern states with high evangelical populations....
__________________________________________

Mark America (This is a fantastic piece by Mark America. Make sure to read the whole thing.)

....The most fatal flaw was the candidate. Whether by ineptitude, or by sabotage, his campaign missed too many opportunities to attract voters and score big when Obama fumbled. They let the media put them off their game with ludicrous notions. They permitted the Obama campaign to define Mitt, and he did not effectively counter. Most of all, however, Mitt Romney failed to capitalize on the natural constituencies of the conservative movement, perhaps in part because he was at least as unpalatable to them as they were to him. I said early on in the primary fight that Romney seemed to have been planning to ignore the Tea Party and evangelicals on the basis that they’d show up anyway. In many important ways, they didn’t, and this is what spelled defeat for Romney. That, and I don’t think he was supposed to win. More on that later.

If you like what you see, please "Like" us on Facebook here.
Please follow us on Twitter here.

In Case You Missed It.......(11-13-2012)

Paul Ryan: 'We were shocked we lost"



____________________________________________

Karl Rove on the chopping block with GOP donors?

One can only hope.....

Republicans across the country are upset with the party’s election defeats last week, and many see strategist Karl Rove as a major culprit. 

His Crossroads groups raised more than $300 million to defeat President Barack Obama and regain GOP control of the Senate. They failed on both accounts, and many donors to the cause aren’t too happy. 

Some of them are upset that Crossroads had such inaccurate polls, and others say more money should have been spent at the grassroots level rather than on TV advertising, sources tell Politico. Rove’s competitors within the party charge that he’s doing more harm than good and are trying to draw donors away from him.......

______________________________________________

Obama is considering John Kerry for Defense Secretary

President Obama is considering asking Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) to serve as his next defense secretary, part of an extensive rearrangement of his national security team that will include a permanent replacement for former CIA director David H. Petraeus......

 _______________________________________________

Michael Steele wants his job back as RNC Chairman

Say what you want about the guy, but he did preside over one of the biggest landslides in party history!

......“It's not a bad idea. I can go shake up the house a little bit more, what do you think?”.....

If you like what you see, please "Like" us on Facebook here.
Please follow us on Twitter here.

In Case You Missed It...

Donald Trump Takes Credit For Mitt Romney’s Big Win In Nevada

“There was a lot riding on that particular race in Nevada and it was interesting, because the numbers were much, much greater than you thought,” Trump gloated. “And a lot of people are giving me credit for that. And I will accept that credit.”

_______________________________________________________________

Now that the Romney campaign has successfully destroyed Newt Gingrich, their attack machine is now zeroing in on Rick Santorum.

...The campaign has sent out three press releases attacking the former Pennsylvania senator in the past 24 hours — and is trotting out lead-surrogate former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty to attack Santorum in a conference call this afternoon....

________________________________________________________________

Santorum responds..."This is typical Romney..."


________________________________________________________________

Mark Levin has had enough of Romney's perpetual smear campaign.

"...If Romney is the nominee, we're actually going to have two candidates running for President who do not want to discuss their record...."

"....How about spending $15 million on why we should vote for you, not why we should vote against one of the other Republicans."

______________________________________________________________

Running out the clock?

Mitt Romney Hasn’t Answered A Question From A Voter In Three Weeks

The last time Romney took audience questions, Jan. 13 in Hilton Head, S.C., he got two off-the-wall ones. A girl doing a science project on germs wanted to know how many hands he shakes and how often he washes his hands. (He said he washes regularly and uses Purell sanitizer, too, “just to make sure.”) And an older woman asked whether he believes in “the divine saving grace of Jesus Christ.” (He said he did.)

In Case You Missed It...

Mitt Romney was spotted outside Lucas Oil Stadium earlier today. Fortunately, someone took a picture....

_____________________________________________________________

CNN's John King calls Romney 'Governor Mormon.' Intentional? You be the judge...


______________________________________________________________

Gingrich, Santorum, Paul in Minnesota Monday. No Romney.

Romney had planned on visiting Minnesota, but opted to spend more time in Colorado instead. _____________________________________________________________

Hot Air editor, and Minnesota resident, Ed Morrisey endorsed Rick Santorum today.

....Why Santorum? In my estimation, Santorum is the last consistent conservative standing, and the only one both promoting the conservative agenda and campaigning as a conservative in the race. That doesn’t make Santorum perfect; he lacks the executive experience I’d like to see, and some of his positions in the past and present give me pause. However, compared to the heterodoxies of his competitors in the GOP race, Santorum has a superior record on promoting conservative policies and values.

Even more than that, though, Santorum has demonstrated a level of personal integrity in this race that outshines the rest of the field. Santorum has campaigned with blue-collar Reagan Democrats in mind, pushing for an economic plan that would revitalize manufacturing and small business. He could easily have tipped over into class-warfare populism while Gingrich and Romney bashed each other over their work at Bain and Freddie Mac in order to ingratiate himself with that sector by playing on latent envy. Instead, he defended capitalism and both of his competitors on the campaign trail more effectively than either could defend themselves. In contrast, Romney keeps demonstrating a lack of fluency in conservative politics and philosophy, while Gingrich has conducted a personal, angry campaign that threatens to reinforce every negative stereotype about conservatives, both at times putting themselves and their ambitions above the party they seek to lead.....

______________________________________________________________

I have decided to vote for Santorum in the Minnesota GOP Caucus on Tuesday. Although I had been leaning his way over the past few weeks, I was truly undecided until this morning, when PPP released a poll showing him with a slight lead over Romney. I was prepared to vote for the candidate with the best chance of defeating Romney. I have to say, I'm a bit relieved that I won't have to resort to casting a vote for Ron Paul.

In Case You Missed It...

The Right Scoop has unearthed this embarrassing piece of propaganda from 2010. CNN traveled to North Korea to report on the festivities around the introduction of Kim Jong-eun to the North Korean people. CNN is a disgrace.


_____________________________________________________________

The following video depicting the manufactured tears of the North Korean people is one of the most disturbing things I've ever seen.



*More below the fold*

In Case You Missed It...

David Frum wants to keep borrowing and spending. So this is what a "progressive" Republican looks like...

"There's lots of time to worry about the deficit. The world is happy to lend the United States money for 10 years at less than 2%. I say keep borrowing as much of that money as you can and use the money to address the immediate trauma of an economy in crisis..."

_____________________________________________________________

David Brooks, another "progressive" Republican, thinks Jeb Bush may jump in to the race.

In Case You Missed It...; Update: Palin calls in to Shannon Bream to weigh in on the campaign

Update: Palin doesn't seem too enthused with the field of candidates either...

...“My endorsement will be with sincerity and enthusiasm. I’m not there yet, and a personal endorsement does not amount to a hill of beans compared to the wisdom of the American voter,” former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin today said in a telephone interview with Shannon Bream of Fox News....

...Gov. Palin expressed frustration that “some in this field have had the opportunity to engage in sudden and relentless reform at the state and Congressional levels” but did not seize it and then speak about their plans and intentions moving forward. “Without naming names,” Gov. Palin said this frustration could apply to the entire field of candidates....

_____________________________________________________________

Last year, Mitt Romney said he wanted to "repeal the bad, and keep the good" parts of ObamaCare. This year, he says he wants to repeal the whole thing.



What would he really do? Apparently, we'll have to elect him to find out! What could go wrong?

Hot Air makes an important point.

...As you watch this video, remember: When Romney talks about an “incentive” to purchase insurance, he’s talking about the individual mandate and the fine that applies to anyone who violates it....

To summarize...as of last year, Mitt Romney favored mandates at the federal level.

In Case You Missed It...

One has to wonder if Sarah Palin is regretting her decision.

...The grassroots conservative movement has yet to throw its support behind a Republican presidential candidate because “we don’t have the female Ronald Reagan running — and that’s Sarah Palin,” said Amy Kremer, chairwoman of the Tea Party Express.

“We haven’t engaged in presidential politics yet because the movement hasn’t coalesced around anybody, so we’re just sitting back and waiting,” Kremer added.

Predicting that a good slice of the country’s conservatives will not make up their minds until they are standing in front of the ballot box, Kremer singled out the former Alaska governor as “the only person out there right now that can truly excite the base.”...

**********
This won't sit well with Bachmann's constituents back home. Primary challenge, anyone?

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) won’t be returning to Congress on Friday to vote against a $1 trillion spending package that preserves funding for President Obama’s healthcare reform law, her office told The Hill.

(...)

Bachmann has amassed the 10th-worst attendance record in Congress. She has missed 501 votes — or 11 percent of the total — since entering the House in 2007,...

In Case You Missed It...

I thought I'd try something new. If anyone can think of a better name than "Odds and Ends," I'd be interested in the feedback.

***********
There's nothing illegal about this, but it may complicate things for Rick Perry if he survives past Iowa.

...Perry makes a $150,000 annual gross salary as Texas Governor. Now, thanks to his early retirement, Perry, 61, gets a monthly retirement annuity of $7,698 before taxes, or $6,588 net. That raises his gross annual salary to more than $240,000…

[T]he disclosure is sure to spark criticism of Perry, who has called for sweeping changes to Social Security for average workers and has railed against special “perks” that members of Congress get...

*************
Nikki Haley's endorsement of Mitt Romney didn't sit well with tea party members in South Carolina. I like Haley, but one has to wonder what effect this will have on her 34% approval rating. If Jim Demint is considering backing Mitt in the primary for a second time, this should definitely give him pause.

“The overwhelming sense that I get from talking to people is deep betrayal,” said Karen Martin, the founder and organizer of the Spartanburg tea party, who has not endorsed a candidate. “She’s not going to be able to come back from this with the tea party. If there’s anybody credible who will run against her, I believe the tea party will support them whole-heartedly.”

**************
Conservatives Network has devoted significant time and effort into exposing Ron Paul for the racist comments that have been uncovered from his newsletters. If he was a serious candidate, you can bet that this would be dominating the headlines.

...In the interview, he did not deny he made the statement about the swiftness of black men.

“If you try to catch someone that has stolen a purse from you, there is no chance to catch them,” Dr. Paul said.

He also said the comment about black men in the nation’s capital was made while writing about a 1992 study produced by the National Center on Incarceration and Alternatives, a criminal justice think tank based in Virginia.

Citing statistics from the study, Dr. Paul then concluded in his column: `Given the inefficiencies of what DC laughingly calls the criminal justice system, I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal.”

“These aren’t my figures,” Dr. Paul said Tuesday. “That is the assumption you can gather from the report."...