Why Mitt Romney Lost: Now Let The Circular Fingerpointing Begin

The dust has hardly settled from Election Day, but the post-silly season fingerpointing has already begun...and it's seldom a pretty sight. Candidates who crisscrossed the country, convinced that they had the winning combination to win the voters' hearts and minds, are crushed: oh, my God...how could they elect that other idiot?  But I won those debates!  I worked my @$# off!  I slept badly in Holiday Inns for 24-plus months, for...for...THIS?  J#s@s H. Judas Mother-o'-Mary F#ershluggin' you-know-what Kee-rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-ist!

The handlers aren't far behind: you shoulda done this, you shoulda done that...if ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we'd all have a Merry Christmas...should coulda woulda tacked center, if we'd had the chance, blah-blah-blah...the media were out to nail us, yada-yada-yada...and Mitt Romney's inner circle is no exception.  How could formerly moderate Mitt possibly lose to an incumbent struggling to overcome the toxic fumes of an 8 percent unemployment rate, a cranky electorate, and a lousy economy?

As a public service, we at Ramen Noodle Nation present an economy tour of what the GOP's top movers and shakers have been telling the Fourth Estate, as the smoky plumes drift over the Charles River,  past the crumbling ruins of Uncle Mitt's second (and presumably final) failure to win the White House...just so you don't have to read it all, OK? All right, here we go, then... --The Reckoner

1.  Forget The Buck, It's The Crazy Truck That Stops Here: "Rick Santorum rejected the separation of church and state. Newt Gingrich challenged the notion of judicial supremacy. Michele Bachmann claimed the government had been infiltrated by radical Muslims. Donald Trump refused to recognize the validity of Obama’s birth certificate. Rick Perry wanted to take down more parts of the federal government than he could successfully name. In the debates, the country saw the GOP talking to itself and sounding like a bizarre fringe party, not a responsible governing one." (Slate, "Why Romney Lost," 11/07/12)

2. Hmm, Maybe We Really WERE Better Off Shooting This Particular Messenger:  "One top Romney bundler offered this blunt analysis to Politico's Maggie Haberman yesterday, 'We had no message and we gave it to the worst communicator in the world.'" (ABC News: "GOP Asks: What Went Wrong For Romney?", 11/08/12)

3. It's  The Welfare Brats' Revenge, Stupid: "Washington Times columnist and National Rifle Association board member Ted Nugent is responding to President Obama's re-election by saying that Americans "voted for economic & spiritual suicide" because Obama will "destroy America." He also referred to Obama's supporters as "subhuman varmint[s]" and "Pimps whores & welfare brats & their soulless supporters." (Media Matters For America: Ted Nugent's Post-Election Freakout: "Subhuman Varmint[s]" Re-Elect Obama To 'Destroy America,'" 11/07/12)

4. Left At The Altar On Cinco De Mayo Day, We Presume?: "Kelly Romney, a distant relative of Mitt Romney's, believes that he could've stopped Romney from damaging his own campaign. 'It's just a real tragedy. I think that he did not connect with us where we could've helped him. I really think it would've made a difference in the election,' Kelly told ABC/Univision as he watched election coverage on Fox News." (ABC News: "Romney's Cousin Says Mitt Failed to Court Latinos," 11/08/12)

5. Maybe He Should Have Reached Under The Couch For Some Spare Change: "But in the eyes of top aides in both campaigns, that early summer period when Mr. Romney was busy fundraising was perhaps the biggest single reason he lost the election. The Obama campaign spent heavily while Mr. Romney couldn't, launched a range of effective attacks on the Republican nominee and drove up voters' negative perceptions of Mr. Romney.

"The problem: Mr. Romney had burned through much of his money raised for the primaries, and by law, he couldn't begin spending his general-election funds until he accepted the GOP nomination late in the summer." (The Wall Street Journal, "How The Race Slipped Away From Romney," 11/08/12)

6. Ohhhh, OK, We Got It: Too Many CH-CH-CH-Changes (INNA David Bowie-Stylee): "His vexing negativity goes hand in hand with an unwillingness to stick with any bedrock beliefs. The Washington Post ran an excellent editorial denouncing Romney's 'contempt' for voters, and his changing his positions radically over the course of his career. As the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy declared of Romney back in 1994: 'I am pro-choice ... My opponent is multiple-choice.' The line brought down the house in Boston."  (The Daily Beast, "Mitt Romney's Personality Problem," 11/05/12)

7. Premature Preparations (Why Denial Ain't Just A River In Egypt) Dept., Take I.: "Another unnamed senior adviser explained that as returns came in and battleground states went into President Barack Obama's Electoral College column, they felt their paths to potential victory narrowing. CBS reports that the campaign was unprepared for this in part because it had ignored polling that showed the races favoring Obama. Instead, it turned to its own internal 'unskewed' polls, which it believed more accurately reflected the situation on the ground. They didn't."


Take II: "...As evidence of the Romney campaign's sincere belief that the former Massachusetts governor would emerge victorious on Tuesday night, the Boston Globe reported Thursday that it had planned to fete Romney's election with an eight-minute display of fireworks over Boston Harbor."

'It was not an intense, grand finale-type of display for eight minutes, but it certainly was a fast-paced show to cap off the evening, if it were necessary,'" Steve Pelkey, the CEO of Atlas Professional Fireworks Displays, told the Globe.

And, Once More (With Feeling), Take III: "Romney also told reporters on his campaign plane earlier this week that while he had written a victory speech, he hadn't prepared concession remarks." (The Huffington Post, "Mitt Romney 'Shellshocked' After Lost Election, Adviser Says"

8. The Incredible Shrinking White Man: "Exit polls showed that Mr. Romney won handily among white Americans—almost six in 10 of them—but lost by breathtaking margins among the nation's increasingly important ethnic groups: By almost 40 percentage points among Hispanics, by almost 50 points among Asians, and by more than 80 points among African-Americans."  (The Wall Street Journal, "Tough Loss Leaves GOP At A Crossroads": 11/07/12)


9.  This Just In: If You Didn't Support Uncle Mitt, It's Because You (Ahem) Wanted Something, Like, Uh...STUFF: "'Half the country wants free stuff,' O'Reilly said. What is that half like? First he hinted: Latinos, blacks, and maybe women would vote for Obama. Then he got reeeal explicit: 'Obama wins because it's not a traditional America anymore. The white establishment is the minority. People want things.'" (The Atlantic Wire, "The Sad Faces of Fox News on Election Night," 11/06/12)

10. Uhhh...Maybe That Secret Underwear Was Notched A Shade Too Tight: "It's also worth noting that Romney's peers—men who have vied with him on political stages—can't stand him. I mean, it's more than the usual give-and-take, spirited conflict between rivals. Kennedy, famous for having friends and allies on the other side of the aisle, found Romney hard work on a personal level. Sens. John Kerry, Harry Reid, and John McCain—two Democrats and a Republican—are three other senators known to loathe Romney." (The Daily Beast, "Mitt Romney's Personality Problem," 11/06/12)

Tin-Eared, Teary-Eyed And Tone-Deaf, Richard Mourdock Exits The Indiana Stage

Losing doesn't mean having to say that you're sorry -- apparently, that's what Republican Richard Mourdock sees as his biggest takeaway from his loss on Tuesday to Democrat Joe Donnelly. But candidates reveal as much about themselves in defeat as they do in victory, and Mourdock's sour-noted concession speech proved to be no exception, as this nugget suggests:

"I will look back knowing I was attacked for standing on my principles, for coming into this public process with the idea that you ought to put forward something to offer the public so that they can make a clear choice."

Hoosier voters certainly had no trouble making a clear choice after the third debate, when Mourdock sealed his electoral doom with the now oft-quoted, infamous jaw-dropper: "‘I think, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something God intended to happen." 


As bizarre and ugly as that statement reads, and sounds, it also wasn't the first time that Mourdock gave the whiff of someobody who'd just stumbled off the crazy truck, as this May 2011 MSNBC soundbite suggests:

“Bipartisanship ought to consist of Democrats coming to the Republican point of view. We entered this campaign wanting to be a voice and hoping to give more of a national voice to the idea that Republicans -- and more specifically conservatives -- would be in the majority of the United States Senate, and the House, and hopefully that we have a Republican in the White House. If we do that, bipartisanship means they have to come our way.”

And, of course, let's not forget this delightful bit of Mourdock backyard folk wisdom from a May 2012 MSNBC interview: “To me, the highlight of politics frankly is to inflict my opinion on someone else on the microphone or in front of a camera, to win them over to my point of view.”

Anyone who paid more than a shred of attention to this race, of course, would have heard the latter soundbite -- one that Donnelly's campaign gleefully highlighted and echoed into infinity during their TV ads.

It's hard to think of a national candidate who did as much recently to harm his own cause as Mourdock -- whose poll standings cratered by a full seven points overnight, after the smoke cleared. In fact, had he made his infamous rape comment a month or so ago, we'd have happily nominated him to Ramen Noodle Nation's Cognitive Dissonance Hall Of Fame -- right next to his Missouri counterpart, Todd Akin (he of the equally infamous, and odious, "legitimate rape" statement).

Back on the losing podium, though, such thoughts were far away from Mourdock's mind, as he offered this glimmer of insight into his gaffe-plagued, Not Ready For Prime Time Players-style candidacy: "I’ve said many times over the last few months this race wasn’t so much about Richard Mourdock versus Joe Donnelly or even Republican versus Democrat but about the direction of our nation as a whole."

Indeed, it was -- just not the direction that voters desired, apparently, which might explain why Tea Party faves like the now-former Congressman Allen West, of Florida -- whose own Bizarro World quotes deserve a post unto themselves -- will have plenty of time to finish those word search puzzles laying around his campaign office.

Lest anyone think that Mourdock made a mistake, he reasured his supporters that no such admissions would ever be forthcoming:

"To all of you who are Republicans of longstanding, I hope you appreciate that I always tried to stand for conservative values.

"For those of you who came to this process and God bless you – especially from the Tea Party who [sic] have never involved before, I hope you know that I stood and stand for the rule of law and the Constitution of the United States.

"And last but not least – and last but not least – though I was attacked for it as well – make no mistake, I stand that all life is precious in the eyes of God."

All in all, these closing words make amazing reading -- if not quite on the level of Richard Nixon's oft-quoted vow of 1962 ("You won't have to Dick Nixon to kick around anymore").  What's striking is the blind pettiness, the flinty-eyed petulance, and sheer scope of self-delusion that's on display. For someone whose background required him to deal with facts and figures on a regular basis, Indiana's chief bean counter seems to have an awfully slippery grasp of reality.

After all those long months on the campaign trail, all those days and nights spent shaking hands, sipping stale coffee and spouting platitudes aplenty, Richard Mourdock wants the world to believe that he lost because, well...there was some kind of conspiracy against him, doggone it, and all them "reveooners" and slick big city reporters and women's libbers just had it in for him.

It's a school of reasoning that owes more to "The Dukes Of Hazzard" than what really happened Tuesday night...and, certainly, a view that only Mr. Mourdock's hardcore cheering section may feel inclined to accept -- even as they wind up reaching for the comfort of a gas mask and a stomach pump. --The Reckoner