“Romney Lost Because Republicans Behaved Like Undisciplined Clowns.”

[Draggingtree]

Right Wing News:

 

 

“Romney Lost Because Republicans Behaved Like Undisciplined Clowns.”

 

Written By : Susannah Fleetwood

November 12, 2012 se

 

All warfare is based upon deception. If your enemy is superior, evade him. If angry, irritate him, If equally matched, then fight him. If not–split and re-evaluate.

 

Politics is warfare and all politics is based upon deception, as well as perception. And right now, the perception of the Republican Party is that we are a bunch of clowns. Don’t believe me? Well,

Chris Cilliza and Aaron Blake of The Washington Post have the numbers, and as my old college calculus professor used to say, “The numbers don’t lie”. According to the numbers, Mitt Romney out-performed eleven out fifteen of the Republican Senatorial candidates, and the four that he didn’t out-perform were from very blue states that Republicans never win. In fact, I’ll let Mr. Blake fill you in on all of the details below:

 

The blame, as it often is, has been thrust on the candidates. And, at least in this case, for good reason. After all, Richard Mourdock and Todd Akin essentially gave away seats with their comments on rape and pregnancy.

 

But the trouble for the GOP wasn’t just in Indiana and Missouri.

 

In fact, as the chart below details, Republican Senate candidates under-performed GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney in most of the important races of 2012.

 

In five races, the GOP candidate under-performed Romney by at least nine points.

 

[Draggingtree]

No.

 

 

 

 

By: Erick Erickson (Diary) | November 12th, 2012 at 04:30 AM | 101

 

 

If you see ten troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you. — President Calvin Coolidge

 

For five years I have consistently maintained that Mitt Romney could not be elected President of the

United States

. The only thing that changed was Barack Obama’s terrible debate performance and I made the unfortunate mistake of going with the herd toward “he can win now.” A year ago — to be precise, November 8th of last year —

I wrote that Mitt Romney would be the nominee, conservatism would die, and Barack Obama would win.

Regrettably, I told you so.

 

At RedState, our front page contributors will continue to be pro-life. Our conservatism is not negotiable with the ebbs and flows of electoral politics.

 

We will continue to fight the left, but we will also continue to clean up the right.

 

Our Republican leaders in Congress are intent now on caving on virtually every issue. Karl Rove

is signaling

he will play in primaries to fight against conservatives. Even some conservatives think we should give up the fight against Obamacare, set up state healthcare exchanges, and succumb.

 

I have no intention of giving up the fight. I have no intention of succumbing. More bluntly, I have no intention of standing athwart history yielding to the Republicans who got us to this point and you shouldn’t either.

http://www.redstate.com/2012/11/12/no/

 

[Draggingtree]

Coburn: "We Didn't See A Positive Vision," Didn't Explain What We're For

 

 

"You have to demonstrate what you're for, not what you're against. I think that's the key ingredient, and sell a vision that's positive for America, not a negative vision about what's wrong with America. I think you have to have both. But we didn't sell a positive vision, we didn't explain to people what we're for. And I think that's the one thing I took away from the election is and that's what was lacking," Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) said on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday.

 

Posted on November 11, 2012

 

Posted by Ian Schwartz

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/11/11/coburn_we_didnt_see_a_positive_vision_didnt_explain_what_were_for.html

[Draggingtree]

Missing the Boat

 

 

November 11, 2012 - 3:38 pm - by Richard Fernandez

 

The Smithsonian magazine has an article about seven famous people who might have sailed on the Titanic but who, for some reason or other, missed the boat. They included Theodore Dreiser, Guglielmo Marconi, Milton Hershey, J. Pierpoint Morgan, Henry Frick, and Alfred Vanderbilt.

 

The President ran a brilliant campaign. He ran overwhelmingly negative ads, early and focused and targeting the battleground states. He was able to define Romney, and his messaging was perfectly calibrated for his target audiences. Given his first term record, he really had no other choice, and his execution was first-rate.

 

But now he will reap what he sowed. His pretense of being a uniter, someone who can reach across the aisle and work together to solve pressing problems, lies in ruins. Whatever reservoir of goodwill and trust that existed in January 2009 is now bone dry.

 

So, yes, he won. But it will almost certainly be a Pyrrhic victory. He chose to divide the country deeply to win his second term. He will find that the nation he will again lead is not governable by him, and he may have tipped it to where it is not governable by anyone. He is so deeply despised by so much of the country that he will never be able to do what needs to be done (assuming he even wanted to, which does not appear likely). http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2012/11/11/missing-the-boat/

[pollyannaish]

I have to say that Akins comments were abhorrent and played to every horrific stereotype possible. That is a kind of idiotic conservatism I don't want to be a part of. That he lost is neither surprising nor disappointing.

 

What disappoints me is that people like Mia Lobe lost. She is the face of today's conservatism and she would make an amazing leader and voice for real people. What the ))&@@&$: happened there?!

[Draggingtree]

Posted by Darleen @ 9:05am

November 12, 2012

 

My advice to “social conservatives”

 

It’s unsolicited, but here it is, anyway: leave the GOP. Give your two weeks notice. Because you are always going to be portrayed as the problem, and the solution is always going to be that you need to shut your clownish pieholes. Not only that, but you use your franchise in a way that simply isn’t helpful, voting in primaries the way you do for candidates that don’t have the cross-over appeal of electable candidates like Mitt Romney, who though he wasn’t elected, electable though he was, is not to be blamed for the election loss, having outperformed Senate candidates (who are OUTRAGEOUS EMBARASSMENTS) in Missouri and Indiana.

 

Mike Lee, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz — these were all flukes. Sure the GOP establishment actively worked against them in the primaries — not their fault, though, because they were merely sticking with incumbents and centrists with crossover appeal, which is the only way to win, unless you are any one of the liberal Republican Senatorial or House candidates they backed who lost, or you’re George H. W. Bush, or Bob Dole, or John McCain, or Gerald Ford, or Mitt Romney — but ignore that: the fault for any loss is yours. It’s your clownish extremism.

 

http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=45291

[pollyannaish]

Social conservatives are not the problem. The way social conservatives talk is the problem.

 

There is a difference.

[Argyle58]

I take a totally different tack on this issue. It is neither the message or the purveyor of the message that needs to be addressed. If this were so then hacks like Alan Grayson would not ever be elected to office.

 

It is, instead, the way the message is presented by the media that needs reformation. American journalism has always been politically motivated, but has become so coalesced on the liberal side of the political fence that there is little fairness in the way the message is presented to the public, when it is presented at all.

[pollyannaish]

Excellent post @Argyle58. So how can we work around them? How do we get to the people who need to hear us?

[Argyle58]

Excellent post @Argyle58. So how can we work around them? How do we get to the people who need to hear us?

Quite possibly we need to rethink our stance on the "Fairness Doctrine". The Liberals embrace this concept because it was written in a time when radio was the only media for broadcast news, and therefore only applies to the one form of broadcasting that the right dominates today.

 

Instead of fighting the Fairness Doctrine, let us embrace it, as long as it is modernized to encompass ALL forms of broadcast media. That would at least put us on equal footing.

[Draggingtree]

November 11, 2012

 

The Disappointment of Living in an Electoral Republic

 

 

By Clarice Feldman

Tuesday's returns seem inexplicable.

 

(a) Logic Took a Powder

 

Jeff Dobbs, a regular at Just One Minute, did some work and shows why the election results this week seem inexplicable and unpredictable:

 

Fun with Exit Polls...

 

19% of voters who described their view as "abortion should be illegal in all cases" voted for Obama.

 

13% who described themselves as supporting the Tea Party voted for Obama.

 

15% of people who think Obamacare should be repealed voted for Obama.

 

24% who identified with the statement "government is doing too much" voted for Obama

 

13% who describe the country as on the "wrong track" voted for Obama.

 

37% of voters who say taxes should not be raised to help cut the deficit voted for Obama

 

57% of voters trust Obama to handle an international crisis

 

15% of voters said Obama's response to Sandy was the most important factor in their vote (and 73% of those went for Obama).

 

64% of all voters said Obama's response to Sandy played a factor in their vote (and 62% of those went for Obama)

 

 

has,

This compendium of voter illogic is not complete without acknowledging, as Breitbart

 

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/11/the_disappointment_of_living_in_an_electoral_republic.html

[Draggingtree]

Published on Saturday, February 12, 2005 by FAIR

The Fairness Doctrine

How We Lost it, and Why We Need it Back

 

 

 

by Steve Rendall

 

 

 

A license permits broadcasting, but the licensee has no constitutional right to be the one who holds the license or to monopolize a...frequency to the exclusion of his fellow citizens. There is nothing in the First Amendment which prevents the Government from requiring a licensee to share his frequency with others.... It is the right of the viewers and listeners, not the right of the broadcasters, which is paramount.

� U.S. Supreme Court, upholding the constitutionality of the Fairness Doctrine in Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 1969.

When the Sinclair Broadcast Group retreated from pre-election plans to force its 62 television stations to preempt prime-time programming in favor of airing the blatantly anti�John Kerry documentary Stolen Honor: Wounds that Never Heal, the reversal wasn�t triggered by a concern for fairness: Sinclair back-pedaled because its stock was tanking. The staunchly conservative broadcaster�s plan had provoked calls for sponsor boycotts, and Wall Street saw a company that was putting politics ahead of profits. Sinclair�s stock declined by nearly 17 percent before the company announced it would air a somewhat more balanced news program in place of the documentary (Baltimore Sun, 10/24/04).

But if fairness mattered little to Sinclair, the news that a corporation that controlled more TV licenses than any other could put the publicly owned airwaves to partisan use sparked discussion of fairness across the board, from media democracy activists to television industry executives.

 

 

Nor, as Rush Limbaugh has repeatedly claimed, was the Fairness Doctrine all that stood between conservative talkshow hosts and the dominance they would attain after the doctrine�s repeal. In fact, not one Fairness Doctrine decision issued by the FCC had ever concerned itself with talkshows. Indeed, the talkshow format was born and flourished while the doctrine was in operation. Before the doctrine was repealed, right-wing hosts frequently dominated talkshow schedules, even in liberal cities, but none was ever muzzled (The Way Things Aren�t, Rendall et al., 1995). The Fairness Doctrine simply prohibited stations from broadcasting from a single perspective, day after day, without presenting opposing views.

http://www.commondreams.org/

 

 

Not that I think we need it back, which I do not//

 

One other comment The Free Market should be able to handle what is broadcast on any public station.

Edited November 12, 2012 by Draggingtree

[Rokke]

It is almost amusing that the RNC ran a very socially moderate candidate, who continued the successful losing streak started by an even more socially moderate Presidential candidate, and the solution is to become more socially moderate. Got it.

[pollyannaish]

It is almost amusing that the RNC ran a very socially moderate candidate, who continued the successful losing streak started by an even more socially moderate Presidential candidate, and the solution is to become more socially moderate. Got it.

 

I don't think it is moderation that this the problem. I think it is modernization. We have to speak and communicate better with our contemporaries. We don't change our core values, but we change the way we talk about them. We SHOW single women and minorities and other growing demographics why conservatism offers them the best hope for a productive and happy life. The conflagration of Romney's disinterest in this, the media and the color of Obama shut us down this time. I believe we did the best we could under the circumstances. But to blame it on one man, or even the RNC advisors is to miss the problems we are facing.

 

Republicans took a shellacking. It's not like super-conservatives won either. When people like Allen West and Mia Love are struggling, there is something wrong with how we are perceived in general.

 

Guys like Akin and Murdock did not help. I swear, I completely agree with Karen Hughes when she said if another Republican Man talks about rape she would cut his tongue out. That is indefensible and does us more damage in fifteen seconds than years and weeks of intelligent discussion.

 

I am interested in the concept of equal time that @Argyle58 mentions. I am just not sure that I am comfortable with burdening regulation on the owners of radio stations who must figure out how to make money in this economy and with shrinking audiences. Same holds true for TV. All of it will die within ten years, and we're going to have to figure out how to make inroads with a more fragmented society.

 

Personally, I think we need to be thinking down the road further on this issue. We can't go back, but we can do better in the future.

[Rokke]

What if a male republican candidate is asked about abortion in cases of rape in a debate? Should he just say "no comment"?

[Draggingtree]

It’s All Over. Not.

 

 

"The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you've got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man. And give some back."

 

 

By Andrew Klavan November 9, 2012 - 1:03 pm

 

I think it was Orson Welles who said, “If you want to tell a story with a happy ending, it all depends on where you stop.” To put it another way: every story is a tragedy, if you tell it to the end.

 

As with lives, so with republics. Freedom is a living thing. It dies. Conservatives are like doctors. They can only win for the moment, the day, the year, the election cycle. And no matter the victory, time only goes one way. The republic grows older every day, the people travel further from their founding values and nothing lasts forever.

 

Since Tuesday, I have heard enough conservatives saying, “It’s over! We’re through!” in serious, important-sounding voices to last me the next four years. I don’t care how important you make it sound, it’s whining; any child can do it. I’ll let you know when it’s over by putting you in the ground and throwing six feet of dirt onto your face. Until you get that secret signal, really, pull yourself together. http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2012/11/09/its-all-over-not/

[Draggingtree]

Our Path Forward Is Not Moderation, It Is Infrastructure

 

 

By: Aaron Gardner (Diary) | November 12th, 2012 at 08:30 PM |

 

has been addressed in detail by many of the editors here at RedState the usual suspects have gleefully sounded the call for a purge of social conservatism, as they always do, as a political, cultural and structural solution for all that ills the GOP. Those rushing to the media to make these pronouncements are acting like frightened children lost in the woods, an unsurprising development considering the immaturity of thought found in the consultant class.

 

This isn’t to say that the GOP is doing all that much right, in fact I am drawing a blank attempting to think of something for which to give them praise this cycle.

 

I don’t believe our answers lie in the GOP any more. As a friend said to me, parties exist to win elections, if they aren’t doing that what is the purpose?

 

In many states, some of which are key swing states, the parties have been essentially banned from running a coordinated, unified campaign that has the ability to enlist actual grassroots support. At the national level attempts to do so often result in disasters such as Project ORCA.

 

The structural failures that took place on Tuesday should have been predictable, and I blame myself for getting sucked in to the Romney bubble and not seeing it sooner.

 

My concern now is that, in our rush to finally purge the Grand Old Party of those damn Christians, many are trying to fix the wrong problem. We actually don’t need to be talking about who to kick out right now, we need to be talking about who we can bring in and subsequently turn out, and how exactly we go about doing this.

 

http://www.redstate.com/2012/11/12/our-path-forward-is-not-moderation-it-is-infrastructure/

[pollyannaish]

What if a male republican candidate is asked about abortion in cases of rape in a debate? Should he just say "no comment"?

 

I suppose that depends. But my recommendation would be to say that it is a heartbreaking situation and that rape is a horrific violence. If the candidate is pro-life except in the cases of rape or health of the mother, then say so. If the candidate is completely pro-life, don't address the mother or the act, but instead focus on the child by saying that child should not be punished for it's life circumstances and denied an opportunity for a productive and honorable life. Refuse follow up questions and say that your position speaks for itself.

 

I have to say I'm a bit rogue on abortion actually. Personally, I am pro-life in every circumstance. However, If I am honest, I do not believe that we will ever change the law and efforts to do so directly are not effective. So I spent some time doing research and worked on solving one question I had: How can I help save as many children as possible. As a response to that I have come up with an alternative plan that works around the government legal/illegal question.

 

1. Support, financially or by volunteering, your local Birthright International groups which give support and encouragement to the demographic most likely to consider abortion. I guarantee you doing this will save more children than giving money to a political organization whose existence .

 

2. We can not deride young women who get pregnant out of wedlock on one hand and then scream about her not wanting to have the baby on the other. Obviously, we want to encourage women to wait until they are married before they have children. But that horse has left the barn, and we need to figure out how to talk to single women more effectively. As it is, we have essentially punished them coming and going, and that is not helping children, women OR our nation. I always tell young women I meet that having a baby out of wedlock is the only mistake you can make in life that comes with a difficult, but eventually fulfilling reward. And then I try to be there for them so that they are not just left out in the cold to become bitter about their situations.

 

3. We need to work with young men to be more responsible. Abortion and children are now largely being left to single mothers. This is a two sided conversation, and young men need to be included in it. They can not just jump from place to place without taking some responsibility. The "it's my body" meme has hurt them as much as it has hurt women. I often discuss this with my son's friends and they are looking for relevance. The GOP could offer this in a way the Democrat party can not.

 

If I had my way, I would take pro-life as a term off the table, and start talking about being life affirming instead. Young, old, unborn, disabled, gay, etc. We need to value each and every life from the moment of conception until death, and we need to find ways to explain why the conservative message is actually more life affirming and has more trust in the human race than the Democrat party. That is the only way we are ever going to rid ourselves of the "old angry white guy" label...which isn't fair and isn't true...but still applied.

[pollyannaish]

One more thing on this: We are conservatives! Why are we waiting around for the government to solve this problem?!

[Draggingtree]

One more thing on this: We are conservatives! Why are we waiting around for the government to solve this problem?!

Thank You, you have scored 100 on this test

[Draggingtree]

Dennis Prager

 

November 13, 2012

 

“It’s time to embrace ‘the vision thing’ and proselytize for conservative principles” [Darleen Click]

 

The most widely offered explanation for Mitt Romney’s defeat is that the Republican party is disproportionately composed of (usually “aging”) white males.

 

That is, alas, true.

 

But the real question is what Republicans should do with this truth. [...]

 

The Democratic party and the Left generally have done a magnificent job in identifying conservative values as white-male values. One reason for their success is that they dominate virtually every lever of influence: the high schools and universities, television, newspapers, movies, pop culture, and everything else except talk radio. Another is that they really believe that conservative values are nothing more than white-male — especially aging-white-male — values. Remember, Leftism has its own trinity, the prism through which it perceives the world: race, gender, and class. In this case, the race is white; the gender is male; and the class is the rich.

 

As a result of this identification, there is no debate over whether whose values are right. The Left has successfully forestalled any such national discussion by simply reducing conservative values to the dying fulminations of a former ruling class. [...]

 

This identification seems to be working. But it’s intellectually dishonest.

 

Who the hell cares the melanin content or the genital configuration of the promoters of a particular set of principles? Are those principles worthy or not? Why are they or why are they not?

 

 

To accept the Left’s premise of über tribalism over principles is to lose the Republic as founded by a bunch of aging, religious, white men.

http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=45339

[RedlegDuke]

I had a thought this morning, while enduring my 75 minute commute from southern New Hampshire to work in Mass...something I do five times a week, both ways.

 

I believe that somehow, we must exact a payment, or condition for accepting government assistance. If you want to be on welfare, AFDC, food stamps, etc, fine. If you want to remain on them indefinitely, fine. However, while receiving these monies, your franchise priviledges will be suspended. Reason: It is a conflict of interest to accept government largesse while voting for it to remain or increase.

 

Voting while under suspension would be a felony punishable by loss of citizenship and either 25 years in prision or permanent expulsion from the USA and its territories and protectorates.

 

Once someone has left government assistance by getting full-time work, and kept it for a period of one year, franchise priviledge will be restored.

[Pepper]

That is as good a suggestion as Rush Limbaughs and legalizing the illegals but no franchise privs for 25 years. Count me in, @RedlegDuke

[Draggingtree]

Known Unknowns

 

 

 

By: Erick Erickson (Diary) | November 13th, 2012 at 04:30 AM | 35

 

“[T]here are known knowns; there are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns; that is to say there are things that, we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don’t know.” —Former United States Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld Byron York has a terrific article in this fact free | http://www.redstate.com/2012/11/13/known-unknowns/

[Valin]

I had a thought this morning, while enduring my 75 minute commute from southern New Hampshire to work in Mass...something I do five times a week, both ways.

 

I believe that somehow, we must exact a payment, or condition for accepting government assistance. If you want to be on welfare, AFDC, food stamps, etc, fine. If you want to remain on them indefinitely, fine. However, while receiving these monies, your franchise priviledges will be suspended. Reason: It is a conflict of interest to accept government largesse while voting for it to remain or increase.

 

Voting while under suspension would be a felony punishable by loss of citizenship and either 25 years in prision or permanent expulsion from the USA and its territories and protectorates.

 

Once someone has left government assistance by getting full-time work, and kept it for a period of one year, franchise priviledge will be restored.

 

Sorry the USSC pretty much ruled on that years ago. I can find it if I try.