This election should not have been close given the results after
four years of Obama and the Democrats, but not only did Obama win reelection
Democrats gained seats in the Senate.
The 2010 Republican resurgence did not last. How could this happen?
·
Changing demographics = The American electorate
is very different than the one that elected Ronald Reagan and even George W. Bush
– ever less religious, ever fewer whites, ever more Hispanics, ever more single
women, ever more food stamp recipients, ever more who work for government.
·
The successful 50-year Democrat Dependency
Agenda strategy is working well – to relentlessly increase the percentage of voters
who are supported by government, either via a government job or a welfare
check. Add to that the single adult
women, who now (I hear) outnumber married women and who look to big government as a
surrogate husband, and the Democrats have a growing and reliable voter
base.
·
Romney ran on primarily one issue – the economy. Apparently, that wasn’t enough. Romney avoided or went light on most of the
Obama scandals, including Fast and Furious, Obamacare and particularly the HHS
mandates on abortion and birth control pills, and, surprisingly, Benghazi. Enough voters seem to still buy the line that
the bad economy is primarily Bush’s fault.
Also, after the first debate, Romney seemed to coast on the economy
issue and went easy on Obama on all the others.
·
Obama’s campaign attacked and smeared Romney as
a person (rich, out-of-touch white guy who doesn't care for ordinary Americans and probably is a felon who gives people cancer), while Romney attacked Obama’s record on the economy. As much as I hate to admit it, the Obama
smear campaign seemed to have some effect.
Republicans can’t completely play by gentlemanly rules while the
Democrats are in the gutter making inroads with low information, easily pliable
voters.
·
The power of the media’s relentless liberal bias
is hard to counter, but Romney surrendered and accepted the premise by agreeing
to four liberal debate moderators. Sure,
he and Ryan did well enough, but how much better would the results have been
with neutral moderators? Republicans
need to aggressively challenge the premise – consistently liberal debate
moderators, election after election, are symbolic of Republican self-defeating passivity.
·
On the whole, social issues hurt Republicans,
particularly abortion. Most voters seem
to be pro-choice, at least in the first trimester and after rape and
incest. Romney avoided the issue but the
Democrats tried hard to make it a big one, and were significantly aided by the
idiotic comments of Akin in Missouri and the misguided comments of Mourdock in
Indiana, both Republicans once favored in Senate races but who lost tonight after
stupidly falling for a Democrat Rope-a-Dope tactic which got them talking
enough about abortion to eventually say something stupid.
·
The Tea Party movement has brought much energy
to the Republican party, but has been dysfunctional sometimes in ousting
admittedly squishy Republicans but with good election prospects for more
consistently principled conservatives who turn out to be bad candidates who
lose elections (O’Donnell in Delaware, Angle in Nevada, and Mourdock in Indiana come to
mind).
·
Obama and many leading Democrats are exceptionally
hostile to fossil fuels, yet coal-laden West Virginia and oil and gas-rich
North Dakota and Montana today elect Democrats to the Senate. Figure that out.
The growing segments of the electorate and the Dependency
Agenda voters are generally not sympathetic to the traditional American and
Republican principles of limited government, individual liberty and
self-sufficiency, and free enterprise.
Republicans who insist this is a center-right country delude themselves.
Some significant soul-searching and new
strategies are needed, as well as candidates who will aggressively take issues to
opponents.
Obama may well feel emboldened for these next four years,
but determined Republicans in Congress will have their say, to be sure, and
will pursue the Obama scandals such as Benghazi, Fast & Furious, and
Solyndra-like financial corruption that have been so well suppressed so far by
the liberal press.
Overall, as distressed and despondent as I am about having Obama for four
more years, a free America can survive that – maybe not well, but survive it. But whether a free America can long survive
the evolving electorate that decided to double down on Obama's character and agenda
worries me much, much more.
John M Greco
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