The Romney/Republican Excuse Thread

So with all the things going for them -- a poor economy, a base of electoral votes from about half the country, probably a billion dollars of support for ads, Obama's various missteps -- Romney lost.

What do you attribute his defeat to?

1. His not being conservative enough?
2. Voter fraud?
3. Pro-black racism?/New Black Panther Party?
4. Romney's personality? His religion?
5. Hurricane Sandy?
6. Chris Christie's quasi-endorsement of Obama?
7. Rape and the Republican obsession with outlawing abortion in rape cases?
8. The debates?
9. The mainstream media?
10. Biased polling?
11. Chicago-style politics?
12. Ignorance on the part of voters?
13. Flaws in his campaign organizations?


What do you think?

His inability to present a good plan going forward and show it to Americans without constantly flip-flopping on everything.

14. He was just awful.

I think this about nails it.

But why didn't we just trust his never-revealed plan? And now that he lost, will he consider sharing the results?

Oh I forgot: his comments about the 47 percent.

God likes Obama better.

OR

God is punishing America for the gays.

When you have two candidates without clear intentions (Obama's feel-good campaigning without substance, and Romney's "substance" that changes according to the people he's addressing), an election necessarily becomes a case of "majoring in minors." When that happens, the power of incumbency helps a lot.

If one of the candidates had actually had a good, sound, clear platform and the other didn't, that candidate might have won (if it was a reasonable platform). If both did, then the election would be about issues instead of personalities. But that was not the case this time. Obama supporters could point to very little he has actually done that is worth doing from a liberal point of view, and Romney supporters could point to very little that made him a good candidate other than "he's not Obama." So it appears that by a very small margin, the country went with "the devil you know."

Which, when you think about it, is not surprising at all. It happened in 2004 as well.

When hasn't it happened (last)?

Nah no excuses. It was a good horse race. It looks like Romney will come very close in the key battleground states but he is going fall slightly short in every one of them. While I hoped for a victory by Mitt just because he is one of the first presidential candidate that I personally like (he was a truly brilliant person when I heard him speak behind close doors in a MIT lecture that I attended), however I certainly DID NOT bet on his victory.

Neither of my parents voted in this election. As Romney said in the first debate, the 1% will be just as well off under either administrations. In the final analysis, we are only debating one guy favoring 2% or 3% more government redistribution over the other guy.

I praise President Obama for being the more intellectually honest candidate during this election. This is especially reflected in his brave admission in the 2nd debate that certain manufacturing jobs are never coming back to America.

I praise Romney for being a truly compassionate person that I know he is. I know many people like him who will assist any strangers in need but also have a distaste for the same action provided by the government.

In end, we have to remember that respect for human dignity is the cornerstone of any great society. Without empathy for and from our fellow being, each of us is left isolated in an often harsh world. With it, we can overcome all of the challenges both internal and external that we face.

In my humble opinion, I think both candidates share this belief but prefer a slight different sets of methods to achieving it. One would prefer a bit more actions by the government and the other through more encouragement of sharing your personal largesse.

I shudder to think about what your definition of genius is.

The implication being that you possess the superior intellect?...

Genius is losing a Presidential election and going on to earn $100K-an-hour speakers' fees.

I didn't say genius in the league of Poincare, Newton, Gauss, Lagrange, Euler, etc.

I meant brilliant like the people that I hang out with such as faculties and students from the MIT/Stanford engineering departments.

Romney is not a natural politicuan so he can appear to be stumbling on the stumps.

Just from an hour of listening to him, behind close doors and among highly educated people such as the students and faculties at MIT, I was able to tell that he has a very good grasp of wide variety of complex subjects.

BTW this opinion is shared by my PhD adviser who was a tenured professor in the MIT Course 16 department.

The implication being that while I would not classify Mitt Romney as stupid, I wouldn't classify him as brilliant either.

Wasn't sure where to post this, but here's as good a place as any:

"Just yesterday I was swearing my undying love and support to Romney but NOW I know he was just a RINO! We need to move even FURTHER to the right, even FURTHER away from the majority of Americans, in order to win elections."

Just wait. It is coming. The same folks who couldn't suck enough Romney dick will now declare they never liked him and claim becoming even more extreme is how they will get a majority in the election. You know, instead of the common sense approach of moving back to the center and no longer allowing the extremists to dictate their policy.

Shit, some professor at MIT thinks Romney is brilliant? THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING.

Seriously, I could probably find you more than a few professors who think Obama is brilliant or a genius, but their opinion on the matter means about as much to me as Karl Rove's views on premature ejaculation.

I thought Romney's concession speech was superb. Hit the right notes, said the right things without going overboard into smarmy phony praise or going in the other direction toward "kiss my ass" bitterness and left the stage with his dignity intact. As I think it was Chris O'Donnel noted, it's too bad that Romney didn't show up. He showed more sincerity and character in that concession speech than I saw in his whole campaign.

And here I thought you were one of the bad ones...

Well I merely expounded on the level of brilliance. I didn't mean it as an appeal to authority type of logic argument.

Sure. I agree Obama is brilliant in certain areas and so do my adviser.

Obama won his first term after accomplishing nothing so it stands to reason that he would win his second term after accomplishing nothing. The American people are in fact that stupid.

You can't point to just one or two reasons on that list.

Fact is that Romney got close but couldn't seal the deal and convince enough people that Obama is wrecking the country.

One could say it didn't happen in 1992. Bush I was a good president who got blamed for economic problems that were not his fault, and also had to deal with an arch-conservative third-party candidate who stirred up the pot even more.

It also clearly didn't happen in 1976. Carter's "trust in me" program was never very specific, and Ford was lackluster. But the Democrats went about conducting a big investigation of Ford's role in Watergate during the election (it was clear he had no part in it, because he had no connection the the White House when it happened, and he was approved by a Democrat-controlled congress when Agnew resigned). Once the damage was done and enough people were wondering how much he had to do with Watergate, the Dems announced: "Surpise, surprise, we didn't find him guilty of anything." It was just the usual dirty politics, aimed at obtaining power rather than caring about truth or justice. (And it backfired on them big-time, when Carter was so dismal that America elected Reagan by a landslide in 1980 and the Republicans became as powerful as the Democrats for the first time in a generation.)

So it doesn't always happen that, absent real differences between the two, the incumbent wins, because other factors sometimes come into play. But it's still the most common scenario.

I think Romney's biggest downfall was existing.

Yay! A sore winners thread.

he clearly looks too sane so most reps stayed at home

note to GOP: nominate ann coulter.

He comes across as a bit of a nutcase, as do most Republican candidates in recent years. Why don't the Republicans ever put forward a more normal candidate? Bush was probably the worst of the lot but that bastard actually won! Crazy ass country.

Nailed it! But hey, I can at least say I tried, and apparently Georgia as a state did too. As I looked at the map, pretty much all the states worth a shit voted red, so at least that's something I guess.

#1 - affirmative action works at the highest level

what an embarrassing pre-tense of the CiC