As we have witnessed the conclusion of the 2012 RNC one thing has become abundantly clear, Romney has no chances of winning the election whatsoever. Of course the heads of the Republican party are strutting about triumphantly right now like a fat house cat that has just shat in your favorite pair of shoes, but as Romney so eloquently stated, his campaign isn't going to be dissuaded by fact checkers. With bookies now giving Romney's odds of winning at less than 30%, let's take a look at how this election was lost and how Republicans can try to redeem themselves come 2016.
1. Will the real Mitt Romney please stand up?
Romney's inconsistent stances on the issues have not been consistent with a candidate that somehow "saw the light" and decided to change his mind, they reek of being wholly opportunistic. He played himself as being the most liberal Republican on the market when running for office in the Liberal state of Massachusetts, claiming even that he would be a better advocate for gay rights than the late Teddy Kennedy. Suddenly, come 2008 he has re-branded himself as a staunch pro-life, pro-traditional family values candidate in order to woo conservative voters. He has already gained a reputation as being inconsistent with the possibility of being a loose cannon in office that will rule not based on principle or ideology but by bribes and favors. This argument may be rehashing old news when it comes to criticisms of Romney, but he faces an serious uphill battle in trying to sell his credibility to the public.
2. He believes in what???
As stupid as I think to use a candidates religious beliefs as a determining factor for elect-ability, historically speaking you are going to have a hard time getting elected as POTUS if you hail from anything that isn't considered a protestant religion. Of course a big factor in the minds of your average voter is how likely a candidates religious beliefs may cloud their ability to make logical and rational rather than faith based decisions. Believe it or not, there is a huge chunk of the voting population that can be swayed to vote for one candidate over the other based entirely on where the candidate stands religiously. In national polls Mormons are only slightly more trusted than Muslims.
3. Call in the "Yes" men.
Often we have seen a strategy used when candidates select a running mate to pick a candidate based upon the fact that they would have an expertise in an area where the main candidate may be deficient. Obama chose Biden because Biden's experience inside Washington was a point they could play on to balance the fact that Obama was still a fledgling politician. Similarly, McCain chose Palin to try to be able to connect with the average voter whereas he was viewed as being too much of a Washington insider to be able to connect with the masses. In selecting Ryan as his running mate he chose a candidate that is virtually indistinguishable from himself and who also has a reputation as a brown-noser and a yes man. Ryan's purpose in the campaign has come off as being entirely decorative.
4. You are what we are voting against.
Right or wrong, voters have come to associate the corporate tempered white male as the symbol of economic turmoil. Romney has done little to fight off the perception that he is an aloof millionaire with warehouses full of dirty laundry and who obviously knows nothing about what it is like to struggle to pay your bills. His refusal to be entirely candid with his tax returns has not lent him any credibility in this area. Obama definitely holds the high card when it comes to tales of who had it worse growing up and who better understands the perils of the working class.
5. I will shit where I eat, and you will vote for me anyway.
Romney had the nomination in the bag by the time of the RNC one way or another, there was no way by any of the rules in place at the time that Ron Paul would have been able to take the nomination, but the Republican party made every attempt possible to shut him and his supporters out of the convention to the point of muting microphones whenever mentions were being made of delegate votes that were going to Ron Paul. In a presidential election, often times a single swing state can be the difference between victory and defeat. Instead of offering the Paul camp an olive branch Paul was handed a metaphorical knife and asked to commit hari-kari on stage if he wanted to be able to speak at the convention (only allowing him to give a pre-approved speech and only if he gave a full endorsement of Romney.) The treatment of the Paul camp at the RNC was a PR nightmare, and left anyone paying attention with the impression that leadership under Romney would make Orwellian style censorship seem tame in comparison. The disenfranchisement of the Paul camp and the large minority they command may very well be the sliver ofs voters Romney would have needed in order to tip the scales in the swing states. In adding insult to injury, officials with the Republican party have stated that they expect Paul supporters to vote for Romney regardless of how poorly they were treated as a vote for anyone but Romney is a vote for Obama... this leads us to the final reason why the Republicans have already lost this election.
6. Simpy being someone other than your opponent is not reason enough to get people to vote for you over your opponent.
Aside from some lip service about family values and needing to get the economy back on track, most of what you hear coming from the Romney camp are criticisms of Obama without concise plans as to how Romney plans to do it better. When it comes to the issues that voters really care about, many of them are hard pressed to be able to list major differences between the ideology of the Obama and the Romney camp, though the Obama camp is making a better case about being less secretive and more open to criticism and suggestion than the Romney camp. Romney is failing in many of the same ways that John Kerry had failed, being viewed as a stiff and inconsistent caricature who's entire campaign strategy is dependent on people voting for him simply because he is the alternative to his opponent.
In conclusion:
Since the end of the Bush administration the only victories that have been enjoyed by the Republican party have been by the hands of the Tea Party (love them or hate them) and their efforts to try to radically change the face of the Republican party. Once the career politicians of the GOP started to drop like flies the influence of the Tea Party was reigned in real quick with politicians such as our own Orrin Hatch priding themselves in "breaking the back" of the Tea Party to ensure business as usual within the GOP.
At a time when all indicators are pointing to the fact that the GOP needs to seriously change course and redefine it's image, the structure of the party has become increasingly rigid with it's primary concern seeming to be how to keep out the undesirables rather than the evolution of the party.
If career politicians are allowed to maintain their stranglehold on the GOP and refuse to take Neo-conservatism off life support and allow the next wave of conservatism to be able to grow within the party then anywhere the GOP is present everyone will view it for exactly what it is, a walking corpse with no connection to the world of the living, imposing its will as harshly and ruthlessly as possible as it tries pathetically to hold on to every shred of power it has left.
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