Okay, don’t get me wrong. I was not in love with Romney by any means, but I would rather have sold my soul to the devil than vote for Obama. Let’s face it; Obama is totally economical with the truth. I was around politicians for almost 25 years and I have yet to meet an honest one, but Obama takes dishonesty to another level.
Some would have us believe that he saved the American auto industry with his economy stimulus package. In a sense he did, but they have yet to make a profit, and they owe the American people millions of dollars. The one great success of the recovery in the auto industry was Ford Motor Company who returned the money they received from Obama and succeeded in the old American way by helping themselves in selling a good product.
Days after his election victory, The Obama health care has already had an impact in my life. I’m a part-time employee working a maximum number of 35 hours a week. Under Obama’s health care plan, employees working 30 hours or more per week will be entitled to benefits. My employer has already reacted by hiring more people ensuring that nobody works more than 30 hours thus ensuring that part-time staff will not have to be given benefits.
Speaking of the economy, a once great nation is trillions of dollars in debt, but apparently the economy was not an important issue in this election. Could it be because the under 35s don’t have the capacity or patience to concentrate on the news. It is glaringly obvious that the TV news media has dumbed down the news coverage to accommodate the younger generation. The under 35s are not really concerned about health care reform either, as they still regard themselves as immortal.
Despite the fact that Obama has created the biggest deficit in history during his four years in office Romney could not defeat him. Why not you may ask and I will attempt to tell you for better or worse. Let’s hit the ground running and state that Romney did not have the “it” factor. He was not sufficiently charismatic to appeal to voters who were only interested in image and not substance.
Obama won the Electoral College by 100 votes, but the popular vote by just 1%. Romney’s camp new that the Electoral College is weighted towards four states: California (55 votes,) Florida (29 votes,) New York (29 votes,) and Texas with 38 votes. California and Texas normally cancel each other out, but Florida is a swing state, which makes it mystifying why Romney did not pick Senator Marco Rubio from Florida as his running mate. Needless to say Vice Presidential Nominee Paul Ryan’s state of Wisconsin fell to Obama.
But another mitigating factor in Romney’s defeat was his failure to recognize the voting demographics. Hispanic voters comprised 10 per cent of the electorate. Obama won seven out of 10 of their votes. The president also won 93 per cent of the black vote, and more than 70 per cent of Asian voters. He led by 12 points over Romney among women and by 38 points among unmarried women. Among young voters, he secured two thirds of the preferences of those aged between 18 and 29. They are almost a fifth of the electorate.
Veteran political analyst Dick Morris, a regular on Fox News, predicted a week before the election that Romney would have a landslide victory. Morris said all his analysis suggested that the media polls were wrong — and that conclusion was based “on the assumption that they were wrong, the media was wrong, in saying that there would be the same high level of black, Latino and young voter turnout in 2012 that there was in 2008.” Because there wasn’t the same level of turnout in the years prior, he added.
“I was wrong,” he said, “and the media polls were right.” Respected political journalist George Will also predicted a landslide victory for Romney, so does that make Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod, a political genius? He reportedly said in August that Obama would secure a comfortable victory, and there was nothing to worry about.
Contrary to all conventional wisdom, the economy also appears to have mattered less than social issues. During its convention in the summer, the Republican Party took a big gamble. Hardly anyone who spoke in prime time mentioned abortion – or, for that matter, foreign policy – as the party once known for championing “family values” tried to brush its more unpopular views under the table. Noisy evangelicals were kept well away from microphones, as well as both ex-presidents Bush. Instead, Romney made a single argument: the recovery is weak, I am a competent businessman, and I can make it stronger.
The Democratic Party, on the other hand, conducted a more holistic election campaign and bet that the majority of Americans not only wanted to hear about their social policies, they preferred them.
The Democrats bet correctly. Not only did Americans with more liberal social views support Obama all across the country, they also voted in Indiana against Republican senatorial candidate Richard Mourdock, an evangelical who declared last month that if a woman was raped and became pregnant, that was “something that God intended to happen”. That particular seat had been held since 1976 by a moderate Republican, Richard Lugar – until Mourdock, a Tea Party favorite, ousted him in a primary. The Right-wing of the party won that battle, and then lost the war.
A similar drama unfolded in Missouri, a state Romney won but the Republican senatorial candidate, Todd Akin, managed to lose. Akin claimed last summer that women’s bodies can magically shut down and ward off pregnancy following a “legitimate rape”. Millions of Republicans, too pro-choice or pro-science to stomach those comments, split their ballots. Thus Republican Missouri will have a Democratic senator for the next six years too.
In the short term, the hapless Dick Morris attributed some influence to Hurricane Sandy. “We all owe a debt of ingratitude to Chris Christie,” he said, also noting that the storm “stopped Romney’s momentum dead.”
But the pundits alone were not at fault. Romney alienated the “47 per cent” of the population who, in a private speech to donors caught on video, he said were “dependent on government” and therefore would never vote for him. Included in that 47 per cent, presumably, are soldiers, civil servants, pensioners and millions of other Americans who have historically voted Republican.
How did Romney’s campaign team get it so wrong, many of whom have been around since his failed 2008 presidential bid, and some even longer than that? That’s the crux; they are a bunch of losers. Campaign manager Matt Rhoades prided himself on avoiding inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom. He was communications director for Romney’s 2008 bid and ran his Free and Strong America PAC.
If nothing else, this crushing defeat should force a rethink by Republicans who must now see that the Reagan-era coalition of fiscal conservatives and evangelical Christians no longer holds water. They have now lost five of the last six popular votes in US elections. They must decide to broaden their appeal and – at the very least – re-engage with the Latino populations of Texas, Florida and Arizona or face electoral oblivion.
The obvious candidate for me is Senator Marco Rubio from Florida with strong Hispanic roots. The current selection process for nominating a presidential candidate is tiresome, boring and long-winded. It was conducted over 18 months comprising politics of self-destruction, and the last man standing was the guy with the least number of skeletons in his cupboard. Let the dust settle for a year and nominate Rubio; giving him time to articulate the issues and formulate his policies to the American electorate.
