So, what happened to the Romney campaign?

[denverboz]

What I mean is that it wasn't a slaughter.

332-206

In most circles that would be considered a slaughter!!!

I'll bet Romney's billionaire backers do!!!

[Gilly]

It tough to run against dependocrats who promise to get the rich to pay and solve all problems....

Romneys 47% quote was a dumb thing to say out loud but it is spot on....

[Historian]

[imbondz]

My thoughts, take em or leave em:

Romney lost because he:

1) Came off as elitist, snobbish, and woefully out of touch with the American people from the start, and his 47% statements did not help him at all, and nor did his equally out of touch wife. Much like the previous two candidates who claimed MA as their home state, only to lose badly (Kerry and Dukakis in case you had attempted to forget), he showed no style, no charisma, no charm, and the only thing he was missing was inapropriate headgear. Yes, people don't like Obama, but like Bush he is charismatic and likeable. I mean really, who would you rather go have a beer with? Oh wait, that's right Romney can't drink. Frankly, and it is a failing in our electoral system, a candidate has to be likeable to win. People couldn't buy into Romney and his positions because he wavered and flip flopped constantly.

2) In addition to being rather unlikeable and disagreeable to the American electorate and needless isolating them, he demoralized and de-motivated his base. The first strike he had against him was being a Mormon. This alienated the sensibilities of many evangelicals, who stated that they would not vote for him because he wasn't a Christian. Then he lost a good deal of the Catholic vote and therefore the election when during the Ryan-Biden debate. I know that it will come as a shock to many on here, as most of you here who don't give a **** about abortion, or view it as a woman's rights issue, but in great parts of the midwest and the south this is not the case. In the past three elections, I can tell you the exact moment when the election was decided. In 2004 it was when Bush and Kerry were asked about abortion, and Bush said he was against it, and Kerry said pretty much what Ryan said. In 2008, its was when Palin was named McCain's VP candidate. In 2012, it was during the Biden-Ryan debate. Everyone knows Biden's stance on abortion, while Ryan appeared to be pandering. During that debate a lot of people were turned off because his abortion stance made him look no different than Obama.

3) This leads to another problem, Romney in trying to play the middle for all it was worth could not distinguish himself from Obama, and when he tried to he came off as a wacko with all the wrong stances. In foreign policy he couldn't really sell the Obama is soft on terror and weak on defense thing, especially when Obama took out Khadaffi and Bin Laden. He has the same ideas on much of Obama's foreign policy so he tried to say he was different by calling Russia our biggest threat which made him look out of touch and dangerous. Obama who has been attempting to enable the people of North Africa and SW Asia to lead their own regime change efforts, Romney came out for another War in the Mid-East and Americans are tired of war. He didn't look strong on foreign policy, and in domestic policy this continues. He was against Obamacare even though Obamacare was invented by Mitt Romney. His tax plan was ambiguous and looked to continue the current deficit spending. His jobs plan didn't look promising either.

4) Stupidity erupitions. Todd Akin and the other guy who talked about rape, the guy in Tennessee who told his lover to get an abortion, and of course Mike Brown.

that's about dead on right.

[DraftBoy]

It tough to run against dependocrats who promise to get the rich to pay and solve all problems....

Romneys 47% quote was a dumb thing to say out loud but it is spot on....

Even harder when you choose to alienate 62% of the voters.

[Albany,n.y.]

It tough to run against dependocrats who promise to get the rich to pay and solve all problems....

Romneys 47% quote was a dumb thing to say out loud but it is spot on....

Then it's time for Republicans to stop running or to start promising to get the rich to pay. Only an idiot knows his competition has a successful formula and then uses the same failing tactics & continues to fail. Sort of like the Bills management.

[bf1]

But it was. These results aren't just about this one race, look outside of it and then re-examine your premise.

k

[BillsFever21]

One of the guys I work with who is a huge right wing neocon nut that I've mentioned on here before about some of the debates we've had hasn't been into work since Tuesday morning. He must be so sick from seeing Obama winning that he can't even muster up the strength to come into work.

This is the same guy who defended Romney's 47% comment even though he is one of the 47% but still refutes it when the facts are stated to him. He has a couple kids and qualifies for the EITC and Child Tax Credit which means he gets back more taxes then he pays in. He says taxes are taken out of his check every week. I told him of course they are but once February comes around you get back more then you paid in so you don't pay federal taxes. It goes in one ear and out the other. He just says they're a bunch of n-----s which doesn't want to work so Obama is taking care of them because they are n-----s. He says he isn't racists though.

He also has a problem with government spending, workers and pensions but he has been crying about the possible defense cuts which would cost government jobs and government contracted jobs. At the same time he has a pension that he collects every month from a government job he had earlier in his life. Go figure.

[denverboz]

Adviser: Romney "shellshocked" by loss

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-...ag=AverageHero

Honestly, I have no idea how these people could have been so out of touch thinking he had it in the bag.

But I digress. My point of the post is to point out his adviser saying Romney was shell shocked by the loss! That I can easily believe! When I was watching his concession speech, I'm sitting there thinking 'there's something not right about him'. I was thinking they drugged him. That he had a breakdown, or was breaking down, and that was the real reason he took so long to come out and concede. Now I really believe that!!

The little spoiled frat boy, born with a silver spoon in his mouth and given everything all his life finally had someone saying no to him (the electorate) and he lost it!!!!

[denverboz]

One of the guys I work with who is a huge right wing neocon nut that I've mentioned on here before about some of the debates we've had hasn't been into work since Tuesday morning. He must be so sick from seeing Obama winning that he can't even muster up the strength to come into work.

This is the same guy who defended Romney's 47% comment even though he is one of the 47% but still refutes it when the facts are stated to him. He has a couple kids and qualifies for the EITC and Child Tax Credit which means he gets back more taxes then he pays in. He says taxes are taken out of his check every week. I told him of course they are but once February comes around you get back more then you paid in so you don't pay federal taxes. It goes in one ear and out the other. He just says they're a bunch of n-----s which doesn't want to work so Obama is taking care of them because they are n-----s. He says he isn't racists though.

He also has a problem with government spending, workers and pensions but he has been crying about the possible defense cuts which would cost government jobs and government contracted jobs. At the same time he has a pension that he collects every month from a government job he had earlier in his life. Go figure.

Good! I hope he's suffering with all the other ignorant, POS racists out there!!!

[BillsFever21]

Adviser: Romney "shellshocked" by loss

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-...ag=AverageHero

Honestly, I have no idea how these people could have been so out of touch thinking he had it in the bag.

But I digress. My point of the post is to point out his adviser saying Romney was shell shocked by the loss! That I can easily believe! When I was watching his concession speech, I'm sitting there thinking 'there's something not right about him'. I was thinking they drugged him. That he had a breakdown, or was breaking down, and that was the real reason he took so long to come out and concede. Now I really believe that!!

The little spoiled frat boy, born with a silver spoon in his mouth and given everything all his life finally had someone saying no to him (the electorate) and he lost it!!!!

You could tell he was definitely upset. After basically 6 years of campaigning to be President he finally gets the Republican nomination and loses. He went from basically telling people "you're fired" to the American people telling him "you're not hired" and he couldn't handle it.

[BillsFever21]

Poor Ann was crying? Ah I feel so bad for her. Was it worse then when she cried because Tiffany's didn't have the red shoes in stock so she either had to buy another color or wait a week until they got their next delivery?

[notacon]

I'm not trying to rub it in that Romney lost, I'm looking for legitimate thoughts and analysis here.

A few months ago, it looked hopeless for Romney. Then, out of nowhere, he pulled even in the polls and was even leading in some. The debates helped him greatly- he easily won the first two and arguably won the 3rd (and even if you argue that he lost, it was still a solid performance). It looked like he had a legit shot.

Then election night arrives. Romney didn't lose by much in terms of the popular vote, (50.4-48.0), but he was beaten pretty solidly in the electoral college. He lost at least 3 of the 4 major battleground states- Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania (and he lost pretty badly in PA as far as battleground states go) and is likely to lose Florida as well. To be fair, Va and OH were close, and FL is so close that they haven't even called it yet. If this were sports, he's likely to get swept in the series but lost 2 of the 4 games by 1 and took game 4 to overtime.

Many voters said the economy was their biggest concern, yet a majority of them still voted for Obama (this according to a WashPo article from yesterday).

So what happened? How did Romney lose on the economy? How did he do so poorly in the battleground states after gaining momentum late in the race?

From what I read, a lot of it had to do with voter mobilization. There was an apparent "enthusiasm gap" for Obama from '08 to '12, but it didn't really turn out that way on election day. African-Americans and youth came out and overwhelmingly supported Obama. I also read that Latino voters helped put Obama over the top. Makes you wonder what would have happened if Romney had picked Rubio instead. At the very least, he would have taken Florida and possibly VA.

Moving forward, though, it looks like the GOP has to do a better job of motivating their base, and they probably need to expand their base as well. They are definitely going to have to do something to attract more Latino voters, as that voting block is growing larger every year, but their hard-line stance on immigration makes it hard for Republicans to appeal to Latinos. For what it's worth, my dad is a staunch conservative, but even he is coming around and saying the GOP needs to soften their stance on illegal immigrants who are already here.

Thoughts?

The polls were wrong for the most part. The explanation is that simple.

well, the polls usually aren't wrong- why were they wrong this time? And how did people like Nate Silver get it right?

Sorry, but the polls were mostly correct. Very correct. I'm not surprised by the results one bit.

Nate Silver called every single state correctly, and was very close in his margin of each ending vote total. How did he do it? Only those that don't regularly read Nate would ask that question. Nate always noted the closeness of the nation popular polls, which he also always emphasized that the national popular vote total is irrelevant. He was able to quantify the disparity of a close popular vote and his landslide Electoral Vote total.

All based on polling.

What Nate Silver does is run models of how the voting would go in each state, based on averaging the polls. He does not do polling himself. He uses data that he has collected for years, and does an honest analysis based on the past record of accuracy from polling companies. For example, he did a detailed analysis on how polling companies fared for each race and how their accuracy was in relation to how many points they were off from actual results. He also looked for patterns on if any pollster was consistently biased in their accuracy.

Not surprisingly, he found Rasmussen to be very bad accuracy with high degree of bias toward Republicans.

So, he gives their polling less weight in his analysis.

All during the campaign, Nate had Obama with a very high chance of winning. There were ebbs and flows, but his data crunching is just a reflection of all pollsters.

The reason that some people think that polling was inaccurate is because they listened to the echo chamber of Fox, Rush, Sean and just about every single right wing blabber mouth out there. These are deeply biased and partisan sources which are desperately out of touch with reality. Facts are not important to these guys, and neither to their consumers.....millions and millions of right wingers hungry for anti-Obama bull****.

Much of that right wing chatter is picked up other, more credible news sources. One of the worst thing to happen to mainstream media is their sick desire to try and keep conservatives happy by appearing "balanced" and "fair". All it has resulted in is dishonest reporting.

[DraftBoy]

Sorry, but the polls were mostly correct. Very correct. I'm not surprised by the results one bit.

Nate Silver called every single state correctly, and was very close in his margin of each ending vote total. How did he do it? Only those that don't regularly read Nate would ask that question. Nate always noted the closeness of the nation popular polls, which he also always emphasized that the national popular vote total is irrelevant. He was able to quantify the disparity of a close popular vote and his landslide Electoral Vote total.

All based on polling.

What Nate Silver does is run models of how the voting would go in each state, based on averaging the polls. He does not do polling himself. He uses data that he has collected for years, and does an honest analysis based on the past record of accuracy from polling companies. For example, he did a detailed analysis on how polling companies fared for each race and how their accuracy was in relation to how many points they were off from actual results. He also looked for patterns on if any pollster was consistently biased in their accuracy.

Not surprisingly, he found Rasmussen to be very bad accuracy with high degree of bias toward Republicans.

So, he gives their polling less weight in his analysis.

All during the campaign, Nate had Obama with a very high chance of winning. There were ebbs and flows, but his data crunching is just a reflection of all pollsters.

The reason that some people think that polling was inaccurate is because they listened to the echo chamber of Fox, Rush, Sean and just about every single right wing blabber mouth out there. These are deeply biased and partisan sources which are desperately out of touch with reality. Facts are not important to these guys, and neither to their consumers.....millions and millions of right wingers hungry for anti-Obama bull****.

Much of that right wing chatter is picked up other, more credible news sources. One of the worst thing to happen to mainstream media is their sick desire to try and keep conservatives happy by appearing "balanced" and "fair". All it has resulted in is dishonest reporting.

Nat Silver is not polling. He is probability that uses polling as part of his model. Him being accurate does not make the polls accurate. Silver also uses census info, and past voting history to determine his probability. Much of his equation is kept secret for obvious reasons. He's very, very good, but him being right does not make polling right.

[notacon]

The point, BTW....is that the trajectory of the campaign did not change much for months and months. It showed close national popular vote and always over 300 Electoral votes.

So, nothing "happened to the Romney campaign". They were destined to lose from even before he won the primary.

- - - Updated - - -

Nat Silver is not polling. He is probability that uses polling as part of his model. Him being accurate does not make the polls accurate.

The polls were accurate. Don't look at Rasmussen and Gallup, and most were right on the money.

[DraftBoy]

The polls were accurate. Don't look at Rasmussen and Gallup, and most were right on the money.

Let's try this a different way, what is "accurate" by your definition?

[gebobs]

It tough to run against dependocrats who promise to get the rich to pay and solve all problems....

What a jackalope you are. No one but moron neocons believe the myth that the rich do a damned thing for the poor.

1000 points of light. What horse sheeee-ite.

[gebobs]

Let's try this a different way, what is "accurate" by your definition?

The impression I got from the polls I saw was that it wasn't going to be close. It wasn't. From my perspective, that's accurate.

[DraftBoy]

The impression I got from the polls I saw was that it wasn't going to be close. It wasn't. From my perspective, that's accurate.

What polls specifically? National, State, or Local level? Who were they done by? Professional pollsters or news agencies?

Accuracy is measured in a number of ways, simply saying Obama was going to win doesn't mean they were accurate from a Political Science stand point, which is the standard they are supposed to be judged at.

[DraftBoy]

What polls specifically? National, State, or Local level? Who were they done by? Professional pollsters or news agencies?

Accuracy is measured in a number of ways, simply saying Obama was going to win doesn't mean they were accurate from a Political Science stand point, which is the standard they are supposed to be judged at.

For example let's take Ohio;
Obama won by +1.9

Only three polls that were conducted after 10/30 had Obama winning and by two or less. They were Columbus Dispatch, Gravis, and Univ of Cincy. The other five that had Obama winning were 3 or more, and Rasmussen had them tied. So out of 9 polls, six were not correct (and only one was within the margin of error). That's not accuracy.