GOP Stung by Romney Loss and the Second-Guessing Has Begun

We can frame the election, and the failure of Mitt Romney to capture the flag, a number of different ways, but most Republican pundits are getting it wrong, targeting the “pandering” of the Dems to a variety of voting blocks and special interest groups and creating a divisive campaign that sharpened a class war between, in essence, those who work and those who want government freebies.

They couldn’t be more off the mark.

Let me note that I’m a white heterosexual guy just a few years short of 60 years old. I grew up in a wealthy town, went to private schools, worked as a reporter and editor for a small daily newspaper, worked on Wall Street as a marketing guy then a product manager and owned a small business. I own a house and a very large 12-year-old SUV. I’m a father, consider myself a political moderate and a capitalist.

Romney should have had me at hello. He shoulda, coulda and woulda won if he and his party eliminated the stupid mistakes, kept on the old Romney’s more moderate positions and embraced the idea that America isn’t made up of old white guys like me.

Instead of outlining specific ideas on how he would put America and its business back on track, in the face of unemployment topping out above 10 percent and falling by election time to around 8 percent (and probably significantly higher since a chunk of people stopped bothering to look for work), he followed a “no information” policy that seemed offered no new ideas, boldness or, in the end, leadership.

He and his advisers seemed to take every opportunity to trip themselves up. Whether it was the long talk about not releasing his tax returns, flip-flops on key issues like health care, abortion, the auto industry or outsourcing jobs, Romney presented himself as a moving target even for those who supported him. And while that support was often lukewarm, thanks in large part to GOP hardliners who continually questioned his “conservativeness,” he did end up with the Republican flag and a chance for the big prize.

Even the most Democratic observer would have to admit that at the start, President Obama looked fabulously vulnerable. But Romney was done in by his party’s far right turn and his willingness to chuck the supposedly “moderate” Romney for the far-right one. 

The fact that he wasn’t very good on his political feet added to a growing sense that this thing was slipping away. And in dramatic fashion . . . despite the high rate of unemployment, rising debt, virulent hate for Obama and a mystifying (and I’d argue non-existent) war on religion . . . the Republicans lost, and Romney was turned into just another guy who couldn’t close the deal.