Was Romney too moderate to win?

As I predicted - the response from the Republicans is going to be "We didn't run a conservative enough candidate!"
 
I wander if I could sell chocolate tea pots to the tea Party people...
 
DevilsAdvocate said:
Obviously it was the "true conservative" voters who were dissatisfied that Romney was too moderate and so voted for Obama in droves. That’s how things work. :boggled:
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When Democrats lose, people write articles about how their guy should have loudly stuck more on messages for The People.

This is nothing new, and won' be anything new in 100 years.
 
Both parties have a base that essentially believes in nonsense. They envision politics as a game of tug-of-war, where if you pull the other party into the center, this allows your party to move further right (GOP) or left (Democrats). Indeed, Ben Burch suggested just this argument with his post about how if the Republicans were finally defeated forever, the Democrats could split into two parties; the Democrats and the Greens.

Of course, this ignores history. The Republicans pulled the Democrats to the center in the 1980s, and the result has had the Donks winning four of the last six presidential elections (and narrowly missing a fifth).

Don't get me wrong; there is a time for tugging on the rope, but it's between elections. During the election, Nixon's dictum of running to the center still applies. IMHO, the Republican primary electorate was quite sensible nominating McCain and Romney the last two cycles; the problem was that the GOP ran into a significant headwind.
 
I agree that the GOP needs to go even further to the Right!! Let's try to make this "common knowledge"
 
Um... they are the conservative party. If the lack of conservatism was a problem for them the party could simply have not nominated him. The real conservatives in the party pretty much imploded in the primaries. If anything he might have been too Mormon.
 
This is predicatable. Sad, but predictable. I actually wanted to put this in a Letter to the Editor before the election:

I no longer care how reasonable, prudent, or even intelligent a GOP economic platform sounds (though this campaign's budget "plan" is completely vague). I learned from the Republican Revolution, where they ran on economics--and once in office, immediately turned to their narrow, Christian, social agenda. Fool me once, shame on them; but it will NOT be shame on me for believing there is any intent to focus on economic issues.

Until and unless the Republican Party stops bowing to the Religious Right, they will not get votes from middle America. We, the people, aren't that stupid. The RR seems to not understand that one can personally disagree with a behavior, but still think that it is inappropriate and/or unconstitutional for the government to outlaw it.

My dream Third Party is one that supports smaller government by respecting ALL the rights of the citizens--property rights AND civil rights--and recognizes that we, as a society, have long ago decided that a certain amount of redistribution is in all of our interests. Once you admit that that's going to happen, you can focus on having the process be as fair and inexpensive as possible.

I don't love a lot of the Democratic Party approach: They are too willing to say, "This would be a good thing" and spend other people's money doing it, instead of actually looking at what the cost/benefit analysis is. Yes, having every child learn to play an instrument would be a "good thing" but that doesn't make it something the government should, or even can, do. Throwing millions of dollars at such a program that are needed to ensure that people have access to emergency services, to vaccines, to the court system, to education that will let them be self-supporting...is just plain stupid.

As P J O'Rourke so amusingly put it, tax-supported programs need to pass the "gray-haired granny test": Would you put a grandma in jail for not paying taxes to support this program? If not, then it should not be paid for with tax dollars. Courts, national defense, reasonable environmental protections, public health issues, infrastructure maintenance, preserving some of our wild lands and wildlife for future generations...I can get behind all of that. Once you make the governement the payer of last resort for emergency health care, then funding a certain level of preventative (and chronic health condition) care is cost-effective. But I don't think it's appropriate for the government to be funding Viagra or a boob job!

I don't think it's the government's business whom I sleep with, what I consume in my own home (or a friend's home) for entertainment, or what books I want to read or write. I *DO* think it's a public safety issue if I'm driving while impaired, or if I own a weapon that can knock my neighbor's house down; or own a deadly weapon without insurance for mishaps. (I just don't get it: If you own a car, you have to have liability insurance in case you accidently harm someone with it. Why can't we treat firearms the same way?)

I also think any sane human will look at the US Tax Code and say: Simplify and enforce. That the budget needs to include both reducing spending (including entitlements) and raising at least some revenues. Most importantly, I think that conducting the People's Business is way, way, more important than scoring cheap partisan points by blocking needful legislation, or passing meaningless bills.

So what party am I? I don't know; I just vote for whomever seems to me to be the least likely to make my life worse. At the moment, that's usually the Democrats. (Though Washington State Republicans tend to be much more liberal than those in most of the country; similarly, I would expect that an Alabama Democrat would be pretty conservative by our standards out here.)

I do think that we will see a movement to third parties on at least a state level fairly soon. The online world has made the media advantage of the main two parties much smaller. The Dems will soon have a Green party split off, I think; and the GOP will possibly have two, one for the Libertarian types and one for the Fundies.

Only time will tell; but meanwhile, to return to the OP topic: This is exactly backwards. Romney lost because he had to come on so extreme to win the primary, and then couldn't tack back to center without looking like he didn't know WHAT he believed. As in the last election, I think the choice of running mate basically gave the election away: It was a clear announcement, "I'm either from the Religious Right, or up to my backside in debt to them. I'm willing to put this zealot a heartbeat away from the Presidency so I can buy some votes."

FWIW, I think Obama did a better job with a very bad hand dealt him for his first term than he is often given credit for; but understanding that is perhaps a bit nuanced for a campaign slogan. ("He kept us from being really, really screwed" isn't much for posters.) But even if I had thought he hadn't, he really was the only option for this election.

Just my thoughts, MK
 
bonzombiekitty said:
As I predicted - the response from the Republicans is going to be "We didn't run a conservative enough candidate!"
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Good call, but a bit easy; it's the party "brand". Of course, if they lost it was because their guy wasn't conservative enough.
 
The GOP better slide to the left on social issues..a long way and jettison the tea party if they hope to stand a chance of defeating Hillary Clinton in '16. The shifting demographics of this country will not abide anything less than a moderate social agenda.
The angry white guy party has sung its last hurrah.
 
No, sloinker. I want the GOP to shift to the right even more. That's their only hope to winning future elections.
 
Puppycow said:
Maybe the "true conservative" voters just stayed home?

Roughly 9 million fewer people voted this time than last time. And about 1 million fewer than in 2004, when South Park famously suggested that it was a choice between a turd sandwich and a giant douche.
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Peephole said:
We have no way of knowing how many people turned out, the full results aren't in yet.
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You are correct. I jumped the gun on that. :o

Although there may still be a few more votes to be added, it's now at least clear that more people voted this time than in 2004.

At least 2 million more. Almost 3 million more including third party candidates. About 6 million less than 2008 though.
 
fishbob said:
How can we know?
Romney never stuck by a position long enough for any realistic evaluation of his moderacy.
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Indeed. I see no reason to believe that the Mitt Romney who became gov of MA, aka Moderate Mitt, is any more or less legit than the "extremely conservative" version.
 
Note that the president is supposed to be the chief executive of the whole country and not just the republican party. To win you have to get support from the bulk of the country, who are not extreme.
 
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