It seems most pundits are focusing on groups and identity
politics to pinpoint where Romney
failed. Why did Hispanics reject
him? Why were women luke warm? Why did evangelicals not get fired-up? To me, that is like analyzing a football game
using baseball terminology. You can’t
explain a Republican loss using Democrat terms. Democrats are the ones who see the electorate
as groups. Their strategy is to
individually target each group, give them whatever they want, and then pass the costs on
to another generation. It works very well when done right. Republicans win when they see the electorate
as individuals, not groups:
individuals with whom the idea of limited government will resonate when
properly presented and contrasted with the unlimited government of the
left. Both sides are very successful
when they stick to their respective plans and have likable candidates. Both sides lose if they try to employ the
other’s strategy.
Mitt Romney lost because he did not try to explain to the American people how liberalism and Barack Obama were responsible for our recent tragedies. He also did not try to explain how conservatism was responsible for our recent successes. He surrendered unconditionally on these issues.
The first and biggest surrender was about Bush and the
Financial Crisis of 2008. Mitt Romney’s
line throughout the campaign was “Sure, Barack Obama inherited a mess, but he
made it worse!” In other words, the mess
was Bush’s fault. This was an insane
surrender in a campaign that seemed to be about the economy. Perhaps Mitt Romney believed it really was
Bush’s fault. Perhaps he didn’t want to
fight the zeitgeist. Either way it was
bad strategy. And it was wrong on the merits! Barack Obama did not inherit the financial crisis; he, the Democrat
Party, and liberalism created it!
The fact is, the
financial crisis of 2008 was the direct result of a re-distributionist scheme to
provide mortgages to anyone regardless of ability to pay. This began in
earnest under Bill Clinton and was nearly reigned-in by responsible conservatives under George W Bush. Who stopped them? Among them, a junior Senator
from Illinois named Barack Obama who had spent the last decade advocating for
this very scheme, first as a Community Organizer, next as a State Senator, then
as a US Senator, and finally as President.
All the risk from
this redistribution was supposed to be assumed by wealthy taxpayers via the
Federal Government in the form of government agencies initialed FNMA (Fannie
Mae) and FHLMC (Freddie Mac). No government official took more money from
these “toxic twins” and at a faster rate than the junior Senator from Illinois
named Barack Obama. His closest competitors in that money grab included
Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and Hillary Clinton.
(We may soon hear about the third and fourth government
mortgage agencies known as FHA and GNMA, but that’s for another day…)
Unfortunately,
when the scheme went bad, the damage spread unintentionally to the private
banking and investment sector bringing the entire global financial system to
its knees. Mitt Romney was supposed to
be a business expert but he never brought any insight to any of this!
The second surrender
has to do with Osama bin Laden. It may have been hard to argue that Barack Obama was not responsible for finding Osama bin Laden,
after all he was the Commander-In-Chief at the time, but the fact is, Osama bin
Laden was located DESPITE Barack Obama, not because of him. Barack Obama was an impediment to this
success!
It took ten years
of hard work to capture high-value terrorists, interrogate them, gather the
intelligence, follow the leads, pinpoint bin Laden’s whereabouts, and finally
pull off the successful Seal Team Six raid that killed him. Barack Obama
opposed every single aspect of that effort.
Moreover, every tactic, every technique, and every shred of key intelligence
originated prior to Obama’s presidency.
Mitt Romney never challenged this hagiography and never explained it to the people!
Barack Obama
opposed capturing terrorists at all, and still does. That’s why anyone
suspected of being a terrorist is executed via drone (along with their
immediate family if any are near). Virtually no non-domestic terrorists
have been captured since Obama became President. This has been a disaster
from an intelligence standpoint. Without
captured terrorists we never would have gotten the leads that eventually led to
Osama bin Laden.
Obama opposed
Guantanamo Bay and military tribunals for terrorists. This has been a
deadly disaster of a policy. Obama, both as Senator and President, has
advocated for the release of dangerous terrorists from Gitmo in order to
eventually close the prison and avoid the messy trials. That’s how the
leader of the 9/11/12 Benghazi attack got released from Gitmo and sent back to
Libya while Obama was advocating for these very policies from the Senate. Gitmo prisoners were the ones who led us to Osama
bin Laden.
Obama opposed
interrogating terrorists. There has been no effective questioning of
terrorists, harsh or otherwise, under President Obama. Without interrogations, bin Laden would still
be alive and free today.
Obama opposed
wiretapping terrorists. As President, he has quietly allowed some
wiretaps, but his rhetoric has always been at odd with this. Without wiretaps, bin Laden’s courier would
never have led us to the Abbottabad compound where bin Laden was holed-up.
Obama is no
friend of the Military or the Intelligence branches. In fact, up until a
month ago, the Obama Administration was actively seeking legal action against the
very interrogators who got the intelligence that led to bin Laden. Let
that sink in: For almost four years,
Barack Obama was legally harassing the very people who were
responsible for getting bin Laden. What’s more, these individuals were denied
legal assistance and left to fend for themselves!
Mitt Romney never
called Obama on any of this. Obama got a
free ride with his radical base by opposing every single element of the effort
to get bin Laden, and at the same time got to play to the rest of America by
taking credit for the success and spiking the football!
The third surrender has to do with Barack
Obama’s character. This surrender is
best exemplified by Mitt Romney’s oft repeated line; “Barack Obama is a nice enough
guy, he’s just in over his head!” Again,
this was probably Romney just playing to the polls, which showed Barack Obama
as a likable fellow. But challengers
are supposed to challenge! Challenge
conventional wisdom, challenge the media, challenge the pop culture, and challenge
the hagiography. Mitt Romney did none of that.
Barack Obama is arguably not a “nice guy” and he’s certainly not in over
his head. He has burdened our kids with unprecedented debt and financial obligations
that they can never repay. He has
offered no credible plan to reverse any of this. All he has offered is an all-out war on the
reasonable suggestions of others. How is
that nice? He has championed an explosion
in dependency and poverty: More people
are on food stamps, welfare, unemployment, disability, and Medicaid than ever
before and the all the money for that explosion is borrowed from our kids. How is that nice? Barack Obama is a self-described follower of
Saul Alinsky, Karl Marx, and Cloward and Piven. Their strategy is to destroy the existing
system of equal-opportunity and replace it with one of equal-outcomes after an
economic collapse which they hope to foster.
This has never worked out well anywhere throughout history. How is that nice? He has promoted class warfare, race warfare,
and union thuggery all in a cynical pursuit of political power. How is that nice? Barack Obama has lied about everything from
economics to Benghazi and everything in between. How is that nice? Mitt Romney never explained!
Finally, Mitt
Romney surrendered his own character. As
Democrats and the Obama operation were slandering him and accusing him of the
most egregious offenses including a woman's death, conducting a war on women,
committing felonies, cruelty to animals, tax fraud, bankrupting companies, etc.,
he continued to act as a character witness for Barack Obama! This was preposterous. The Romney strategy seemed to be based on the
belief that Americans would somehow see what was happening, recognize it as a
blatant attempt at character assassination, and reject it out of some
high moral principles that they supposedly had. In what could qualify as the understatement
of the year, that was a miscalculation.
It may be that
this was not a winnable campaign from the outset. It’s hard to run against the pop media, pop
culture, pop academia, pop music, pop entertainment, and the entire world, which awarded Barack
Obama a Nobel Peace Prize just for showing-up. Moreover, in a country that has made everyone
part of the entitled class and left it up to the unborn to pay for it all, sanity may come only when it must.
