Why Romney Lost

Just what you need, another amateur coroner autopsying Mitt Romney’s rotting political corpse.  But really, could I do any worse than the genius experts on the right who thought he’d be President Elect Romney now?   At least I can back-up the things I’m about to say with things I was saying all along!

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. 

Why Obama Won

(Updated)
Why did Obama win?  Two words, Alinsky and Inception.    

I'm borrowing the term Inception from the 2010 movie by the same name.  In case you haven’t seen the movie, "Inception" refers to the implanting of ideas by entering the subconscious during an induced dream state and then manipulating the dream to get the implanted idea to take hold.    

In the movie, Leo DiCaprio plays the protagonist, Cobb, who explains the power of ideas:

  

Cobb: “What is the most resilient parasite? Bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm? An idea. Resilient... highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it's almost impossible to eradicate.”

The elements of Inception are these:

• An idea to implant
• An induced dream state
• A compelling dreamscape
• Active manipulation of the dream
• A strong defense against competing ideas  

The left has either consciously or unconsciously understood this concept for decades and used it to make their ideas resilient, contagious, and impossible to eradicate.  Today, the right has nothing to counter this strategy.    

Here’s how the left has achieved inception success:

•  An idea to implant:  The left's idea is that they will give you whatever you want, work is optional, you will suffer no negative consequences, you will not be held accountable, you will not be judged, and some faceless rich guy will pay for it all!      
• An induced dream state:    With their near monopoly position in entertainment, academia, news media, and pop culture, liberals have unique access to the subconscious.  Whether sitting in a classroom,  in front of a TV, reading a newspaper, or in a theater, the captive subject is in a state of “suspended disbelief” where the critical mind is on standby and open to implanted ideas.   
• A compelling dreamscape:  Free stuff is awesome!   Add in, social security, social justice, equality of outcomes, utopianism, lowered seas, and a healed planet and, voila!   A one-sided presentation of these benefits makes the dream irresistible.  Of course, the costs and the moral hazard are never mentioned in the dream.  Why spoil it?    
• Active manipulation of the dream:  To advance these ideas,  every possible tactic is used, including disinformation, and outright deception.  There are no limits.  As Saul Alinsky, the father of Community Organizing and the left's tactical guru tought in "Rules for Radicals", the ends justify the means.  No tactic is off limits.       
• Finally, a strong defense against competing ideas:  The left works very hard to destroy any competing ideas, regardless of merit.   Polarization, ridicule, and fear-mongering are just some of the tools utilized to make competing ideas toxic. Again from Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals":

• “…Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” 
• Thus Mitt Romney became a greedy villain who hates women, tortures animals, cheats on his taxes, and is responsible for a woman's death.  Paul Ryan is shown throwing granny off a cliff.     
• “…Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”   
• This is why Comedy Central, Broadway, and Saturday Night Live spent inordinate amounts of time ridiculing Mitt Romney, including even attacking his religion.   

Conservatives have a marked disadvantage when it comes to Inception:  

• The right does not have access to the subconscious.  With the possible exception of a few media outlets, conservatives have almost no active voice in the pop culture, pop academia, or pop media.  Even religious communities, which were traditionally right leaning, are on the wane or have moved left.        
• Even if conservatives had access to the subconscious, they still could not easily make their dream compelling!   Personal responsibility, accountability, and hard work are, well...hard.  Work sucks!  Who wants a job when you can get everything you need without working?  
• Conservatives are programmed to tell the truth.  Of course, nobody’s perfect and conservatives wander plenty.  But high standards, accountability, and veracity are traditionally conservative values.       
• Conservatives are pre-disposed to avoid gratuitously destroying their enemies.  Decorum, manners, honor, and tradition are all conservative concepts.  Liberals have no similar fealty to such antiquated notions of behavior. 

Until conservatives understand the tactics of Alinsky and Inception, they cannot compete.  Mitt Romney had no idea what hit him.  The left successfully destroyed his sterling character and resume.  What did Mitt Romney do in response to being smeared and destroyed?  He smiled, said nice things about Mr. Obama's character, and told Americans he'd find them a job!  

As you can see, this was never a fair fight.  With half the country now paying zero income taxes, and an equally large segment on some kind of government assistance, it is near impossible to see how economic conservatives ever regain power in the US until after the collapse: the very painful economic collapse which we are steadily moving "Forward" towards.  

In the movie "Inception", DiCaprio's character uses a spinning top to remind him whether or not he's dreaming.  If the top spins indefinitely, he's dreaming;  if it stops, he knows he's awake.  I'm gonna find me a top and start carrying it from now on, just to remind me.  

The "I Don't Live in a Swing State" Blues

Barack Obama – Master of Disinformation

Win or lose, Barack Obama has been a master of disinformation.  If you are incredulous at that assertion, you are by definition an accomplice.  Sorry to be so blunt.  

In the interest of time, mine and yours, I’m limiting this to just two issues, one for domestic affairs, and one for international affairs.  Herewith, my case:

Domestic – The crown jewel of Barack Obama’s disinformation campaign has been blaming the 2008 financial crisis on anyone but himself and his fellow redistributionists.  The fact is, the financial crisis was the direct result of a redistributionist 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 Republicans 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 two government agencies initialed FNMA (Fannie Mae) and FHLMC (Freddie Mac).  No government official took more money from these two 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.

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.

The disinformation on this has continued during the campaign in the form of compulsive references to Mitt Romney and Republicans wanting to “bring back the very policies which got us into this mess in the first place”.   The level of delusion required to say this and believe this is beyond comprehension.  Then again, that is the goal of any disinformation campaign.   This has been a classic case of the arsonist returning to the fire as a fireman and claiming he’s here to fix the mess started by that other guy, the arsonist. 
     

International – The disinformation campaign on international matters has been extraordinarily successful.  Until Benghazi, that is.  It’s hard to argue that Barack Obama is not responsible for Osama bin Laden’s death, but he’s demonstrably not.  Facts are facts and Obama was the President at the time, hence history will credit him with bin Laden’s death.  But history is full of disinformation. 

It took ten long years 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.  Every single aspect of that effort was opposed by Barack Obama and every shred of intelligence which led to bin Laden’s demise originated prior to Obama’s presidency.

·    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 they are nearby).  Virtually no non-domestic terrorists have been captured since Obama became President.  This is a disaster from an intelligence standpoint.  That’s part of the reason al-Qaeda can be openly flying flags in Benghazi, and every single government except ours does the math and gets out.  Not only did we stay, we failed to provide adequate security in the wake of that intelligence vacuum. 

·   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 it and avoid the messy trials.  That’s how the leader of the Benghazi attack got released from Gitmo and sent back to Libya while Obama was advocating for these very policies from the Senate.  The pressure to do this came almost exclusively from Obama’s party.  

·   Obama opposed interrogating terrorists.  There has been no effective questioning of terrorists, harsh or otherwise, under Obama.  Again, no new intelligence. 

·   Obama opposed wiretapping terrorists.  (As President, he has quietly allowed some wiretaps, but his rhetoric has always been at odd with this.) 

·   Obama is no friend of the Military or the Intelligence branches.  The military and intelligence services got bin Laden with no support from Obama.  In fact, up until a month ago, the Obama Administration was actively seeking a lawsuit against the interrogators who got the intelligence which led to bin Laden.  Obama was actually suing the very CIA people who were responsible for getting bin Laden!  

These were all the elements that found and eventually got the al-Qaeda leader responsible for murdering thousands on 9/11.  Obama opposed every single element of that effort, yet he has taken credit for all of it.  Again, the arsonist takes credit for putting out the fire.    

I could go on and on citing cases of gross attempts to deceive the public through disinformation from the Obama Administration.  Books will be written.  Some already have.   But my point here is to address the voters before Tuesday Nov, 6th:  you either understand the above by now, or you don’t, and are a willing accomplice.    

The Case Against Obama

Why blog when Bill Whittle so succinctly makes the case against Barack Obama?
http://www.pjtv.com/s/GEYTAMBQ

Along these lines, I made this cartoon 6/11 early in the primary season.  Holds up well:


More to come on this before election day...

Dogonomics

Bin Laden IS Dead, But Obama Didn't Build That!

ICYMI

This Presidency has been Photoshopped

(Update:  Awoke this morning to the news that unemployment miraculously fell to 7.8%!     I rest my case.)
Every aspect of this Presidency has been Photoshopped.  It’s been air-brushed, edited, manipulated, faked, phonied, cropped, distorted, misrepresented, massaged, tweaked, falsified, misreported, and staged.  What you see is not real.  Almost nothing you have been told about Barack Obama is true.  Ditto for Mitt Romney.  Even when you think you are seeing them speak in their own words, you are being duped.  That’s why Mitt Romney’s debate victory last night was such an unexpected surprise to so many.     

The deceptions started from the moment Barack Obama walked onto the national stage.  Air-brushed was his work as a “Community Organizer”: a job title originated by revolutionary Saul Alinsky, who advocated for the destruction of our society in pursuit of an undefined utopia.  Unreported were Obama’s associations with terrorist Bill Ayers, Communist Frank Marshall Davis, anti-Zionist Rashid Khalidi,  racist Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and many others with similarly controversial ideologies.  Edited was his race baiting and divisive rhetoric aimed at previous administrations, white Americans, and the rich.  Cropped was his avowed affinity for “Marxist professors”, disdain for “typical white” people, and conflicting stories on everything from his religion, to his Mother’s death.  Unasked were any tough questions by the media or any follow-ups to his deceptive answers.

Once the campaign of 2008 got underway the Photoshopping went bipartisan.  John McCain was falsely accused of an extramarital affair in a huge front-page feature in the New York Times.  Misrepresented were his mostly moderate views.  Cropped was Senator Obama’s record as the most liberal member of the Senate.  Unmentioned was his nickname as the “Senator from Fannie and Freddie”.  Scrubbed was his distinction as the man who received campaign contributions from the “toxic twins” at a higher rate than any other public official.   Covered-up was his long-time advocacy for the very policies which were the immediate cause of the financial crisis:  subsidized mortgages for irresponsible borrowers.  Staged was Obama’s preferred meme for the cause of the crisis: greedy bankers, Bush, and The Republicans. 

The Photoshopping then continued throughout Obama’s Presidency.  Unreported was the fact that the recession officially ended in June 2009, before Obama policies largely took effect.  Falsified was the fact that Obama’s nearly Trillion Dollar stimulus, printed out of thin air, added not a thimbles worth of net value to the American economy.   Lied about was the notion that Obama’s unprecedented government-run GM bankruptcy was somehow better than a normal lawful court-run bankruptcy.   Air-brushed has been Obama’s featherweight work schedule, a calendar filled with none of the markers of diligence…except to politicking, golfing, and recreation.  Buried was the unprecedented partisan nature of the entire ObamaCare process.  Photoshopped was Obama’s opposition to all of the Bush policies which led to the killing of Osama bin Laden (Live captures, Gitmo, interrogation, and wiretapping).   Unreported is the fact that under Obama, US casualties have doubled in Afghanistan, the soldiers we are training are murdering us, and we are now in full retreat throughout the middle-east.  Even Government statistics like Unemployment, Inflation, and GDP Growth have been manipulated to always paint a rosy picture no matter how awful.  (Just the other day it was breathlessly reported that housing prices rose handsomely, while the volume of homes remained low.  This was celebrated as an indication of improved economic conditions, instead of being reported as dollar weakness and inflation, which it most likely was, given the unchanged volume!) 

Finally, lied about is the Presidents propensity to be on both sides of every single issue.   It is impossible to find an issue on which Barack Obama has not taken opposing positions.  These are not flip flops.  This is a deliberate smoke screen of cognitive dissonance designed to hide the revolution and maintain power.     

The Presidential Campaign continues to be Photoshopped.  Edited were Mitt Romney’s 47% comments (The hidden tape of his remarks runs for over an hour, yet the 47% comment is abruptly cut-off just as he is likely to elaborate!).  Faked is an MSNBC clip that falsely paints Romney as churlish and petty.   An edited Mitt Romney gets almost universally negative coverage from both the US and foreign press.  Photoshopped images of Mitt Romney unable to spell his own name are taken as real and become punchlines.  Made-up comments make repeated rounds on Facebook and elsewhere, until the lies become mainstream.   Falsified is the image of Mitt Romney as a murdering, misogynistic, tax cheating, greed-head, who is mean to puppies.  Meanwhile, an air brushed Barack Obama gets universally positive coverage.  Unreported go the reprehensible cover-ups of Fast and Furious and the Libya debacle, skipped security briefs, failed Afghanistan policy, Iraq failures,  jailed filmmakers, support for the violent Occupy movement, dismal economy, compulsive mendacity, and on and on.    

This could go on for pages, but the point is not to provide a history lesson.  The point is to say this:  if you were totally blindsided by Mitt Romney’s debate performance and equally surprised by Barack Obama’s, you need to think long and hard about your media sources.  You are being played like a Stradivarius. 

Can't this guy even spell his own name?  Photoshopped!

Media Summary of the 2012 campaign:

Basement Liberals

One of the most enduring images from the GOP convention in Tampa was when Paul Ryan said: “College graduates should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life.”

Then there was Mitt Romney’s hidden camera riff about the 47% who will vote for Obama no matter what because they want everything for free, pay no income tax, and see themselves as victims.   

These two images get to the essence of what really separates Liberals from Conservatives, not just in the US, but also around the globe.  It also gives me an opportunity to make a philosophical point, which ought to be a central theme in conservatism today and ought to be front and center in Mitt Romney’s campaign:  The Federal Government must never be the safety net! 

Liberals and Government:

Liberals view government as their parent.  Accordingly, they want a really cool parent.  One that lets them live in the basement indefinitely, buys and cooks the food, does the laundry, pays the bills, gives them a free cell phone, and takes care of them when they are sick.  A cool parent asks no questions and makes no demands.   A cool parent wouldn’t care if you smoked weed in the basement, slept until noon, played video games all night, had frequent wild parties, and blasted loud music.  Really cool parents wouldn’t mind your alternative lifestyle because it would just enhance their own coolness!  They might even remodel the basement for you, put on an addition, and add a private entrance to make you totally comfortable living there.  Really cool parents are awesome, no?  In fact they are so awesome, why would you ever leave the basement?

And there’s the rub; you wouldn’t.  You would happily live the decadent life of a dependent mooch in your parent’s basement where you would obtain none of the habits or skills to ever be independent or make a positive contribution to society.  Then one day your parents or the money would disappear, and you would be one angry helpless slacker living in a dark basement that the bank wants to repossess. 

This is why socialism eventually fails wherever and whenever it is tried.  Sure, it might take a few generations to breed all the success traits out of the population, but eventually that will happen and the society will crumble.  

  

Conservatives and Government:

Conservatives don’t view government as their parents, don’t want to be dependents living in anyone’s basement, don’t care if their government is cool, and are not afraid of being independent. That does not mean Conservatives reject all government.  On the contrary, Conservatives understand that for them to be free they need strong federal and state governments.  But conservatives want a federal government that only does the things no other entity can, like defense, lawmaking, judiciary, money, foreign relations, and taxing.  All the other things, like taking care of dependents, healthcare, education, retirement, and free cell phones, should be done by the states, individuals, families, non-government organizations, religious groups, and private companies.   These are the fibers which weave together to form a resilient society.  The States and the society must provide the safety net, not the federal government, and for good reason. 

The federal government is unique in that it alone can print money!  This sets up a classic conflict of interest.  This is why the federal government must never be the safety net.  Keeping these entitlements and safety net items out of the federal sphere is the only way to insure that the voters don’t ever have the power to vote themselves free money and “rights” which belong to other generations.  Thus, the states and non-government society are in a better position to honestly provide a sustainable safety net.  I wish this philosophy was front and center in Mitt Romney’s campaign.

Incidentally, this is the way the country was laid out in The Constitution.  Those founding parents may not have been “cool” but they sure were smart. 

Here’s what it looks like when the process is complete:  

The 2012 race in a nutshell:

  

Obama is Awesome

Worth revisiting...