Why the Conservative Media Got It So Wrong

[Ava]

Are you still working in government, rightwinger?

Why does this matter?

He will have job security. Nothing to lose.

 

[Trajan]

A major hurdle for Conservatives is that they believe their own propaganda about Obama and think the rest of the country believes it too.

Obama and his family is generally liked by most Americans. The endless personal attacks did not help their cause. As much as the conservative media tried to spin it otherwise...Americans still blamed Bush for our bad economy.

Also, the current division of Red and Blue States means that Republicans start the race from behind

the endless personal attacks? the endless personal attacks helped Obama, plain and simple, hindsight seems to say, he never got past , really, the obama camp defining Romney as a greedy corp looter.

There is a difference between attacking your opponent's credibiltiy and attacking their surrogates/supporters.

Calling Ms. Fluke a "slut", Stephanie Cutter a "whore", Valerie Jarret even worse names don't just turn off women; it turns off independents as well. As we saw last night. The GOP, rightly or wrongly, is the party of attack. Look at the rank and file here (and possilby in the mirror) and tell me I'm not right.

Even at this juncture, there are those on this board who feel Obama was born in Kenya. You're not going to draw many persons who are intellectually neutral about the state of the union when you come off as intellectually bankrupt. Just a few days ago, Gone Berzerk was rationalizing the Ohio Polling for Obama as being done "in the ghetto".

It may be helpful fo you to try to make a case for the actual Party. Not just highlighting the good things about the party (i.e. "We're the party of fiscal responsibility" blah blah blah) but try to justify these kookie stances when the truth hit you like a ton of bricks yesterday.

There is a difference between attacking your opponent's credibiltiy and attacking their surrogates/supporters.

and this is a one way street? I am sure mrs. soptic if she has a conscience is shaking her head at her husbands allowing himself to used used or becoming so bitter he lied thru his teeth and Stephanie Cutter was happy to have him.....

exit question- in your opinion what campaign was 'more negative'?

 

[catzmeow]

He will have job security. Nothing to lose.

Did people have job and home security under Bush?

 

[editec]

a lot of good points here, plus I would add that for some, it just appeared inconceivable on this basis alone; that someone stuck with an anemic economy 3 years after the recession had ended would be reelected.





Why the Conservative Media Got It So Wrong

There is no doubt that going into the final days of this presidential election there was a greater disparity in the perceptions of what the outcome would be among the media elites of each political side than any other time in the era of modern technology. Liberals were completely convinced that President Obama would be reelected, while conservatives tended to not just believe Mitt Romney would beat him, but that he would do so in a landslide.

So why did the conservative media get it so wrong? Because I am a conservative who was confident that Obama would win a tight race, I think that I may be in unique position to explain why this happened.

First, while you would think that the advent of modern technology and the explosion of polling data which now exists (it is truly staggering how much more information there is today than there was, say, in 1980) would help in making political predictions, it actually does the opposite. This is because having access to so many numbers allows political partisans to cherry-pick which data points they like in order to fit their agenda and preferred outcome.

As Mark Twain is alleged to have said, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.

For conservatives, this natural human inclination to embrace the data that they like and discard the rest is greatly enhanced, and essentially injected with steroids. This is because they have a very understandable and highly justified distrust of a news media which has been showing open hostility to the prospects of our candidates for as long as any of us can remember.

While I am not the very first person to question the credibility of everything I hear in the news media, having once worked for a polling institute and having commissioned several high profile national polls myself, I understand that polls, while hardly perfect, should not generally be thought of as part of the biased news propaganda machine (which is why, ironically, the Fox News poll is often not at all favorable to conservatives).

But because conservatives are understandably so distrustful of everything they are told by the media, it becomes easy for them to fall into the trap of assuming that polls showing Obama winning are inherently flawed. They are even able to come up with enough real numbers to make arguments which appear to be based in intellect, even though they are really being driven by emotion and self interest.

This phenomenon was made even more pervasive because to the conservative political junkies who spend their lives absorbing every possible news item with the assumption that it is simply not possible to comprehend how anyone would vote to reelect Obama. This fed into their fervent belief that the polls must simply be wrong (as did their forgetting that, when nearly everyone votes in a swing state, it really doesn't matter how much more enthusiastic one side is than the other).

read the rest at-


John Ziegler: Why the Conservative Media Got It So Wrong

"Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest."​

except from The Boxer
by Paul Simon​

 

[Dick Tuck]

Republicans have lost a key ingredient they had, and that was how to use language to frame things. In the 24/7 world of instant information, right wing pundits are out there trying out gonzo each other. Republicans used to be able to use language to give them an easy time. Terms like "right to life" and "death tax" and "it's your money" certainly trump words like "communist" and "baby killer". I guess every right wing pundit wants to make the money that Rush Limbaugh makes, so try to out shock people and manufacture controversy.

I wish our population were better informed, but even with our decline in education, most Americans did think we were better off today. One keystone event in this campaign was the Romney tape saying he didn't care about 47% of us moochers. It was a great opportunity for the Democrats. You can no longer expect that your words and actions aren't going to be captured and used against you.

Did Romney think he'd open up those donors wallets more if he told them it wasn't his job to worry about 47% of the country? That said a lot about Romney, and perhaps his supporters.

 

[rightwinger]

A major hurdle for Conservatives is that they believe their own propaganda about Obama and think the rest of the country believes it too.

Obama and his family is generally liked by most Americans. The endless personal attacks did not help their cause. As much as the conservative media tried to spin it otherwise...Americans still blamed Bush for our bad economy.

Also, the current division of Red and Blue States means that Republicans start the race from behind

Are you still working in government, rightwinger?

Retired

I am now an overpaid Government consultant. Private sector is great

 

[rightwinger]

A major hurdle for Conservatives is that they believe their own propaganda about Obama and think the rest of the country believes it too.

Obama and his family is generally liked by most Americans. The endless personal attacks did not help their cause. As much as the conservative media tried to spin it otherwise...Americans still blamed Bush for our bad economy.

Also, the current division of Red and Blue States means that Republicans start the race from behind

the endless personal attacks? the endless personal attacks helped Obama, plain and simple, hindsight seems to say, he never got past , really, the obama camp defining Romney as a greedy corp looter.

There is a difference between attacking your opponent's credibiltiy and attacking their surrogates/supporters.

Calling Ms. Fluke a "slut", Stephanie Cutter a "whore", Valerie Jarret even worse names don't just turn off women; it turns off independents as well. As we saw last night. The GOP, rightly or wrongly, is the party of attack. Look at the rank and file here (and possilby in the mirror) and tell me I'm not right.

Even at this juncture, there are those on this board who feel Obama was born in Kenya. You're not going to draw many persons who are intellectually neutral about the state of the union when you come off as intellectually bankrupt. Just a few days ago, Gone Berzerk was rationalizing the Ohio Polling for Obama as being done "in the ghetto".

It may be helpful fo you to try to make a case for the actual Party. Not just highlighting the good things about the party (i.e. "We're the party of fiscal responsibility" blah blah blah) but try to justify these kookie stances when the truth hit you like a ton of bricks yesterday.

It all comes down to a lack of respect out of Republicans. Your opposition is vilainized not because they disagree with you, but because they are lazy, stupid, immoral, communist or illegal

 

[dblack]

A major hurdle for Conservatives is that they believe their own propaganda about Obama and think the rest of the country believes it too.

Obama and his family is generally liked by most Americans. The endless personal attacks did not help their cause. As much as the conservative media tried to spin it otherwise...Americans still blamed Bush for our bad economy.

Also, the current division of Red and Blue States means that Republicans start the race from behind

Are you still working in government, rightwinger?

Retired

I am now an overpaid Government consultant. Private sector is great

Awesome. Even the "private sector" isn't.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

A major hurdle for Conservatives is that they believe their own propaganda about Obama and think the rest of the country believes it too.

Obama and his family is generally liked by most Americans. The endless personal attacks did not help their cause. As much as the conservative media tried to spin it otherwise...Americans still blamed Bush for our bad economy.

Also, the current division of Red and Blue States means that Republicans start the race from behind

I see you have decided to be gracious in victory.

Not.

Can't really say I am surprised, after Obama turning the last year into a string of personal attacks against Romney rather than laying out his plans if he won you really have no choice but to continue the attacks despite the fact that, politically, the government we will have next year is identical to the one we have now. It is too bad you didn't throw in with a bigger man, it might have helped us go from bitterness and revenge to actually accomplishing something.

 

[Toro]

Excellent OP

 

[g5000]

a lot of good points here, plus I would add that for some, it just appeared inconceivable on this basis alone; that someone stuck with an anemic economy 3 years after the recession had ended would be reelected.

Reagan stomped Carter with the "are you better off now than you were four years ago" question. The UnConservatives tried to recycle it for this election, but they forgot that the frame around such a question is critical.

Their big blind spot was that the 2008 election was held right at the very peak of fear. Everyone was afraid we were about to plunge into the abyss.

That is different than a long drawn out feeling of malaise that was the hallmark of the Carter years.

The acute spike of fear that was present on Election Day 2008 was not there on Election Day 2012. So the "are you better off" question just had no fizz.

People simply did not feel as acutely fearful about the future in the voting booth yesterday as they did in the voting booth in 2008. That is an "improvement" which worked to Obama's favor.

Why the Conservative Media Got It So Wrong

There is no doubt that going into the final days of this presidential election there was a greater disparity in the perceptions of what the outcome would be among the media elites of each political side than any other time in the era of modern technology. Liberals were completely convinced that President Obama would be reelected, while conservatives tended to not just believe Mitt Romney would beat him, but that he would do so in a landslide.

So why did the conservative media get it so wrong? Because I am a conservative who was confident that Obama would win a tight race, I think that I may be in unique position to explain why this happened.

First, while you would think that the advent of modern technology and the explosion of polling data which now exists (it is truly staggering how much more information there is today than there was, say, in 1980) would help in making political predictions, it actually does the opposite. This is because having access to so many numbers allows political partisans to cherry-pick which data points they like in order to fit their agenda and preferred outcome.

As Mark Twain is alleged to have said, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.

For conservatives, this natural human inclination to embrace the data that they like and discard the rest is greatly enhanced, and essentially injected with steroids. This is because they have a very understandable and highly justified distrust of a news media which has been showing open hostility to the prospects of our candidates for as long as any of us can remember.

While I am not the very first person to question the credibility of everything I hear in the news media, having once worked for a polling institute and having commissioned several high profile national polls myself, I understand that polls, while hardly perfect, should not generally be thought of as part of the biased news propaganda machine (which is why, ironically, the Fox News poll is often not at all favorable to conservatives).

But because conservatives are understandably so distrustful of everything they are told by the media, it becomes easy for them to fall into the trap of assuming that polls showing Obama winning are inherently flawed. They are even able to come up with enough real numbers to make arguments which appear to be based in intellect, even though they are really being driven by emotion and self interest.

This phenomenon was made even more pervasive because to the conservative political junkies who spend their lives absorbing every possible news item with the assumption that it is simply not possible to comprehend how anyone would vote to reelect Obama. This fed into their fervent belief that the polls must simply be wrong (as did their forgetting that, when nearly everyone votes in a swing state, it really doesn't matter how much more enthusiastic one side is than the other).

read the rest at-


John Ziegler: Why the Conservative Media Got It So Wrong

Yeah, I just shortened that all last week to "remembering the hits, forgetting the misses", also known as confirmation bias.



.

 

[Trajan]

a lot of good points here, plus I would add that for some, it just appeared inconceivable on this basis alone; that someone stuck with an anemic economy 3 years after the recession had ended would be reelected.

Reagan stomped Carter with the "are you better off now than you were four years ago" question. The UnConservatives tried to recycle it for this election, but they forgot that the frame around such a question is critical.

Their big blind spot was that the 2008 election was held right at the very peak of fear. Everyone was afraid we were about to plunge into the abyss.

That is different than a long drawn out feeling of malaise that was the hallmark of the Carter years.

The acute spike of fear that was present on Election Day 2008 was not there on Election Day 2012. So the "are you better off" question just had no fizz.

People simply did not feel as acutely fearful about the future in the voting booth yesterday as they did in the voting booth in 2008. That is an "improvement" which worked to Obama's favor.

Why the Conservative Media Got It So Wrong

There is no doubt that going into the final days of this presidential election there was a greater disparity in the perceptions of what the outcome would be among the media elites of each political side than any other time in the era of modern technology. Liberals were completely convinced that President Obama would be reelected, while conservatives tended to not just believe Mitt Romney would beat him, but that he would do so in a landslide.

So why did the conservative media get it so wrong? Because I am a conservative who was confident that Obama would win a tight race, I think that I may be in unique position to explain why this happened.

First, while you would think that the advent of modern technology and the explosion of polling data which now exists (it is truly staggering how much more information there is today than there was, say, in 1980) would help in making political predictions, it actually does the opposite. This is because having access to so many numbers allows political partisans to cherry-pick which data points they like in order to fit their agenda and preferred outcome.

As Mark Twain is alleged to have said, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.

For conservatives, this natural human inclination to embrace the data that they like and discard the rest is greatly enhanced, and essentially injected with steroids. This is because they have a very understandable and highly justified distrust of a news media which has been showing open hostility to the prospects of our candidates for as long as any of us can remember.

While I am not the very first person to question the credibility of everything I hear in the news media, having once worked for a polling institute and having commissioned several high profile national polls myself, I understand that polls, while hardly perfect, should not generally be thought of as part of the biased news propaganda machine (which is why, ironically, the Fox News poll is often not at all favorable to conservatives).

But because conservatives are understandably so distrustful of everything they are told by the media, it becomes easy for them to fall into the trap of assuming that polls showing Obama winning are inherently flawed. They are even able to come up with enough real numbers to make arguments which appear to be based in intellect, even though they are really being driven by emotion and self interest.

This phenomenon was made even more pervasive because to the conservative political junkies who spend their lives absorbing every possible news item with the assumption that it is simply not possible to comprehend how anyone would vote to reelect Obama. This fed into their fervent belief that the polls must simply be wrong (as did their forgetting that, when nearly everyone votes in a swing state, it really doesn't matter how much more enthusiastic one side is than the other).

read the rest at-


John Ziegler: Why the Conservative Media Got It So Wrong

Yeah, I just shortened that all last week to "remembering the hits, forgetting the misses", also known as confirmation bias.



.

agreed- Romney added Indiana and NC, period, running unencumbered by what McCain had to carry, 2 wars, a financial meltdown ( he was responsible for) everything else left on the table, facing an opponent with his baggage.

Remembering that way more often than not the losers learn and fine tune as they are more self critical, I think, that 2010 blinded us, the myopia was powerful and I include myself, Romney left a lot unsaid or unexplained, yet, I thought he would win, not by a landslide but I gave him several more states...

 

[Trajan]

the endless personal attacks? the endless personal attacks helped Obama, plain and simple, hindsight seems to say, he never got past , really, the obama camp defining Romney as a greedy corp looter.

There is a difference between attacking your opponent's credibiltiy and attacking their surrogates/supporters.

Calling Ms. Fluke a "slut", Stephanie Cutter a "whore", Valerie Jarret even worse names don't just turn off women; it turns off independents as well. As we saw last night. The GOP, rightly or wrongly, is the party of attack. Look at the rank and file here (and possilby in the mirror) and tell me I'm not right.

Even at this juncture, there are those on this board who feel Obama was born in Kenya. You're not going to draw many persons who are intellectually neutral about the state of the union when you come off as intellectually bankrupt. Just a few days ago, Gone Berzerk was rationalizing the Ohio Polling for Obama as being done "in the ghetto".

It may be helpful fo you to try to make a case for the actual Party. Not just highlighting the good things about the party (i.e. "We're the party of fiscal responsibility" blah blah blah) but try to justify these kookie stances when the truth hit you like a ton of bricks yesterday.

It all comes down to a lack of respect out of Republicans. Your opposition is vilainized not because they disagree with you, but because they are lazy, stupid, immoral, communist or illegal

talk about myopia. for god sakes, I bet you think your excrement doesn't stink either

 

[Dr.Traveler]

A major hurdle for Conservatives is that they believe their own propaganda about Obama and think the rest of the country believes it too.

Obama and his family is generally liked by most Americans. The endless personal attacks did not help their cause. As much as the conservative media tried to spin it otherwise...Americans still blamed Bush for our bad economy.

Also, the current division of Red and Blue States means that Republicans start the race from behind

All three are true. When Con's start viciously attacking personal lives, they often end up helping the target. Then they experience disconnect from reality when that figure ends up well liked after their attempted bullying.

Take Clinton for examples. To hear a Con talk about Clinton he's the most reviled man on the planet. But Bill is popular enough outside the Fox/Rush/Sean bubble that he could easily win the Presidency if he could run again.

As for the Electoral College, now that it looks like Virginia is going to remain a blue state for a while the GOP is kinda screwed. Democrats get to start the race with well over 200 Electoral votes in their columns while the GOP starts down by a good 20-30 votes. Not good for them.

 

[candycorn]

the endless personal attacks? the endless personal attacks helped Obama, plain and simple, hindsight seems to say, he never got past , really, the obama camp defining Romney as a greedy corp looter.

There is a difference between attacking your opponent's credibiltiy and attacking their surrogates/supporters.

Calling Ms. Fluke a "slut", Stephanie Cutter a "whore", Valerie Jarret even worse names don't just turn off women; it turns off independents as well. As we saw last night. The GOP, rightly or wrongly, is the party of attack. Look at the rank and file here (and possilby in the mirror) and tell me I'm not right.

Even at this juncture, there are those on this board who feel Obama was born in Kenya. You're not going to draw many persons who are intellectually neutral about the state of the union when you come off as intellectually bankrupt. Just a few days ago, Gone Berzerk was rationalizing the Ohio Polling for Obama as being done "in the ghetto".

It may be helpful fo you to try to make a case for the actual Party. Not just highlighting the good things about the party (i.e. "We're the party of fiscal responsibility" blah blah blah) but try to justify these kookie stances when the truth hit you like a ton of bricks yesterday.

There is a difference between attacking your opponent's credibiltiy and attacking their surrogates/supporters.

and this is a one way street? I am sure mrs. soptic if she has a conscience is shaking her head at her husbands allowing himself to used used or becoming so bitter he lied thru his teeth and Stephanie Cutter was happy to have him.....

exit question- in your opinion what campaign was 'more negative'?

I think the Obama campaign was more negative. Easy question.

But then again, there is a difference between attacking your opponent and attacking their surrogates/supporters.

Nobody deducts much from taking a haymaker at your opponent. This is professional politics.

I'll try to explain it to you again. Obama won in 2008. He was the incumbent. To unseat the incumbent, you have to get more electoral votes. You do that by getting more popular votes in enough states to deliver the electoral vote advantage. To get the popular votes, you need to have people join your cause.

You don't get there by insulting the 47%ers. Even if they're not going to vote for you because many (if not most) don't know they are in that club.
You don't get there by having spokesmen for your party call Ms. Fluke a "slut".
You don't get there by having your supporters trash the other side in such a personal way. There are lines you can't cross in this arena; on this board they were crossed quite often. If I were trully an undecided voter, I would not want to conference with people who call others "asswipe" etc... and act as most conservatives here did during the election season. There are some liberals/dems who exhibited the same bitterness to be sure but by and large it was a wholly unattractive view of conservatism we saw for the past few months.

Look at the posts today...

A lot of Romney supporters can't bring themselves to even spell President Obama's name correctly. If you were to give many of them truth serum, they would be going birther in about 2 minutes I imagine.

To sum up; the GOP supporters did the GOP candidate no favors in a whole lot of ways. Look in the mirror.

 

[Trajan]

There is a difference between attacking your opponent's credibiltiy and attacking their surrogates/supporters.

Calling Ms. Fluke a "slut", Stephanie Cutter a "whore", Valerie Jarret even worse names don't just turn off women; it turns off independents as well. As we saw last night. The GOP, rightly or wrongly, is the party of attack. Look at the rank and file here (and possilby in the mirror) and tell me I'm not right.

Even at this juncture, there are those on this board who feel Obama was born in Kenya. You're not going to draw many persons who are intellectually neutral about the state of the union when you come off as intellectually bankrupt. Just a few days ago, Gone Berzerk was rationalizing the Ohio Polling for Obama as being done "in the ghetto".

It may be helpful fo you to try to make a case for the actual Party. Not just highlighting the good things about the party (i.e. "We're the party of fiscal responsibility" blah blah blah) but try to justify these kookie stances when the truth hit you like a ton of bricks yesterday.

There is a difference between attacking your opponent's credibiltiy and attacking their surrogates/supporters.

and this is a one way street? I am sure mrs. soptic if she has a conscience is shaking her head at her husbands allowing himself to used used or becoming so bitter he lied thru his teeth and Stephanie Cutter was happy to have him.....

exit question- in your opinion what campaign was 'more negative'?

I think the Obama campaign was more negative. Easy question.

But then again, there is a difference between attacking your opponent and attacking their surrogates/supporters.

Nobody deducts much from taking a haymaker at your opponent. This is professional politics.

I'll try to explain it to you again. Obama won in 2008. He was the incumbent. To unseat the incumbent, you have to get more electoral votes. You do that by getting more popular votes in enough states to deliver the electoral vote advantage. To get the popular votes, you need to have people join your cause.

You don't get there by insulting the 47%ers. Even if they're not going to vote for you because many (if not most) don't know they are in that club.
You don't get there by having spokesmen for your party call Ms. Fluke a "slut".
You don't get there by having your supporters trash the other side in such a personal way. There are lines you can't cross in this arena; on this board they were crossed quite often. If I were trully an undecided voter, I would not want to conference with people who call others "asswipe" etc... and act as most conservatives here did during the election season. There are some liberals/dems who exhibited the same bitterness to be sure but by and large it was a wholly unattractive view of conservatism we saw for the past few months.

Look at the posts today...

A lot of Romney supporters can't bring themselves to even spell President Obama's name correctly. If you were to give many of them truth serum, they would be going birther in about 2 minutes I imagine.

To sum up; the GOP supporters did the GOP candidate no favors in a whole lot of ways. Look in the mirror.

I pretty much agree with your premise but you conflate Limbaugh with the "gop" yet don't appear ( operative word appear) to give say Cutter and the PACS the same status......that Soptic commercial was hideous.


the 47% crack has minutes missing from it, but the damage was done and I agree it was ham handed and clumsy, no less clumsy than the clinging remark obama slipped on, in san fran in 08.

 

[Trajan]

A major hurdle for Conservatives is that they believe their own propaganda about Obama and think the rest of the country believes it too.

Obama and his family is generally liked by most Americans. The endless personal attacks did not help their cause. As much as the conservative media tried to spin it otherwise...Americans still blamed Bush for our bad economy.

Also, the current division of Red and Blue States means that Republicans start the race from behind

All three are true. When Con's start viciously attacking personal lives, they often end up helping the target. Then they experience disconnect from reality when that figure ends up well liked after their attempted bullying.

Take Clinton for examples. To hear a Con talk about Clinton he's the most reviled man on the planet. But Bill is popular enough outside the Fox/Rush/Sean bubble that he could easily win the Presidency if he could run again.

As for the Electoral College, now that it looks like Virginia is going to remain a blue state for a while the GOP is kinda screwed. Democrats get to start the race with well over 200 Electoral votes in their columns while the GOP starts down by a good 20-30 votes. Not good for them.

hello, ever heard of Pauline Kael and her quip?everyone has a bubble...

 

[rightwinger]

A major hurdle for Conservatives is that they believe their own propaganda about Obama and think the rest of the country believes it too.

Obama and his family is generally liked by most Americans. The endless personal attacks did not help their cause. As much as the conservative media tried to spin it otherwise...Americans still blamed Bush for our bad economy.

Also, the current division of Red and Blue States means that Republicans start the race from behind

All three are true. When Con's start viciously attacking personal lives, they often end up helping the target. Then they experience disconnect from reality when that figure ends up well liked after their attempted bullying.

Take Clinton for examples. To hear a Con talk about Clinton he's the most reviled man on the planet. But Bill is popular enough outside the Fox/Rush/Sean bubble that he could easily win the Presidency if he could run again.

As for the Electoral College, now that it looks like Virginia is going to remain a blue state for a while the GOP is kinda screwed. Democrats get to start the race with well over 200 Electoral votes in their columns while the GOP starts down by a good 20-30 votes. Not good for them.

That's the key. The states don't line up for Republicans and they will only get worse if they don't abandon the whack jobs in their midst. Virginia is going blue, Florida will become a virtual blue state. Republicans need to reign in those members engaging in hate rhetoric against blacks, women, gays and Hispanics......if they don't, the whole party pays the price

 

[emilynghiem]

Lets see?

Greedy corporate looter vs Socialist, Muslim, Kenyan, "Not a real American", Community Organizer?

I think the voting public sympathized more with Obama

I believe it was more of the DEPENDENT voters coming out who support Obama
than the independent voters who don't.

Also if there were 14 million fewer voters this election, how many of those were previous votes for Obama that did NOT shift to Romney but people just stayed away this time?

I wonder if picking Rubio would have made a difference with the Latino or Florida vote.

At the very least it could have brought up the issues of immigration reform (and NOT throwing all Latino's in with the liberal Democrat), by giving more opportunity for conservative Latino (and Black) constituents a chance to get their voice in the media.

Instead of focusing on the Numbers of voters and support base, I would like to see the shift to the CONTENT of what the policies and programs are with regard to the Constitution.
So that would not necessarily be based on greater quantity, but making good sound policies, no matter how many people vote for whom, and who is inside our outside govt.

Legislation and reforms should be crafted where they represent public interest, not party.

 

[Sallow]

the endless personal attacks? the endless personal attacks helped Obama, plain and simple, hindsight seems to say, he never got past , really, the obama camp defining Romney as a greedy corp looter.

Lets see?

Greedy corporate looter vs Socialist, Muslim, Kenyan, "Not a real American", Community Organizer?

I think the voting public sympathized more with Obama

what does that have to do with my answer to what you said? Romney never said those things ( comm. organizer yes and?)

Sure he did.

His own meme had Obama involved in wealth redistribution and setting up a culture of dependency. He also attacked Obama's religion.