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If you want to know what went wrong with the Romney
campaign, you need look no further to the headline on Patrick Howley’s Daily
Caller column:
Romney
breaks silence on Candy Crowley’s debate interference
It took Mitt Romney fifteen months to respond to Candy
Crowley’s egregiously irresponsible and highly partisan interference in the
second presidential debate between him and President Obama.
What was he waiting for? Romney should have responded in
fifteen seconds.
Romney responded vigorously to his fellow Republicans in the
primary debates. He attacked his fellow Republicans fearlessly in the same
debates.
And yet, when it came time to attack President Obama and his
enablers in the media, Romney became Casper Milquetoast. Apparently, he was
afraid of the mainstream media and Barack Obama. The only people Romney and
many other Republicans are not afraid to attack are ... their fellow Republicans. No other explanation makes any sense at all.
Howley describes Romney’s current decision to break his
silence about Candy Crowley:
Former
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney offered a harsh critique of CNN
debate moderator Candy Crowley’s interference in his second debate with
President Obama in 2012.
Crowley
infamously butted in to an exchange between Romney and Obama regarding the
Obama administration’s changing of the Benghazi talking points. Crowley’s
assertion that Obama was right in the argument led to multiple rounds of
applause in the studio audience — an agonizing moment that was featured
prominently in the new behind-the-scenes Netflix documentary “MITT.”
Howley describes Romney’s current attitude:
“Well,
I don’t think it’s the role of the moderator in a debate to insert themselves
into the debate and to declare a winner or a loser on a particular point. And I
must admit that at that stage, I was getting a little upset at Candy, because
in a prior setting where I was to have had the last word, she decided that
Barack Obama was to get the last word despite the rules that we had,” Romney
said.
“So she
obviously thought it was her job to play a more active role in the debate than
was agreed upon by the two candidates, and I thought her jumping into the
interaction I was having with the president was also a mistake on her part, and
one I would have preferred to carry out between the two of us, because I was
prepared to go after him for misrepresenting to the American people that the
nature of the attack,” Romney said.
Even today, when Romney has broken his silence, his words
bespeak cowardice. He says he “was getting a little upset” with her. He thought
her jumping into the action was “a mistake on her part.”
How weak can you get?
As for Romney’s professed interest in going after the
president over Benghazi, he could done it at any time and in any place. He did not.
The Romney campaign did not go out with a bang; it went out
with a whimper.
6 comments:
Go along to get along. It's a moderate position which requires a choice.
My own interpretation of the Romney strategy: Team Romney thought that the bad economy would undo Obama all by itself, and all their candidate needed to do was (a) appear Presidential, and (b) seem bipartisan enough to pull voters away from Obama. So, following the plan, he just stood there, above the fray and in what he assumed was a dignified posture.
Why didn't it work? Because you can't beat something with nothing. Romney is an empty suit, and believes in ABSOLUTELY nothing. He hasn't got a conservative bone in his body -- or any other style of bone, for that matter. And it showed.
No. Wrong. Whine. Hiss. Complain.
To lose in splendid fashion, you have to follow the Romney campaign rules:
The first rule: do not attack a sitting president who happens to be black and panders to "working class folks" and does NOTHING (again, nothing) to create an economic atmosphere that leads to job creation. And this impacts black people most, but you don't point this out because then you'll be a "racist."
Second, don't respond directly to a woman who is operating outside the agreed boundaries of a carefully-planned presidential debate structure, lest you be labeled a "bully." By design.
Third, don't be opposed to the new, magical issue if gay marriage, or you are a "hater."
Fourth, don't counter the extreme position of sanctioning late-term abortion on demand... at all. In fact, don't even mention it.
Fifth, don't align yourself with a fiscally-restrained, responsible, conservative movement like the Tea Party is "extreme" while our nation going broke.
Sixth, sit there for months while your opposition spends millions defining your candidacy, with no response. Say "I don't have any money because I spent it on a bruising primary fight" as an excuse.
Seventh, don't stand up for yourself and directly answer the nonsense. You're told women are unsettled by such behavior, that women want peace and harmony and palsy-walsy relationships. (meanwhile, you wonder if the people giving this advice have never been to an ice hockey game where there's a fight... where women all stand up with the men to watch the action, and cheer of their gladiators when they live by a code and win). Time for Republicans to grow up and notice that both men AND women like a candidate who plays to win.
Eighth, hire a moron artiste know-nothing screenwriter to run your entire campaign (read: Stuart Stevens... look it up and weep).
Ninth, hold a traditional party convention. After all, all opinion polls say Americans love political parties and lap-up phony accolades from cheerleaders. Be a wimp and play by the same-old tired game... avoid taking your campaign on the road and to the people. Kiss-up to the media gauntlet where you'll never win anyway.
Tenth, never boldly state the obvious... you might win votes.
Ten excellent rules for failure. And all the others you'd like to fill in. Mitt Romney was a loser because he thought he had everything figured out, and thought he could ride the safe path to victory. He was dead, dead, dead wrong. And nobody cares about him anymore. It took Willard Romney 15 months to complain about Candy Crowley, putting his cowardice on parade. Candy Crowley isn't fit to moderate a high school forensics debate. Who's next? A "serious" journalist like Ashleigh Banfield?
All of this is borne of this consultant approach to telling the candidate what to do because it seemingly aligns with this group or that group and panders to their every need. The Obama campaign actually pursued each group, dug deep roots within each, had a communication strategy for each, and mobilized the vote for each. The Romney campaign was beaten soundly ON THE GROUND. And that's the only theater that counts.
The fact is that people will respond to you if you stand for something. Romney didn't. So now he's Citizen Romney instead of President Romney.
Until you fight back and stand your ground, no man nor woman will respect you. And if they're undecided, they won't vote for you. They may just stay home, as so many conservatives did. Romney was the ultimate disaster candidate in this scenario. The Democrats defined him and the destroyed him. All's fair in love and war.
Tip
If, perhaps you think I'm being too hard on Romney and the Republicans, please take a moment to watch the Republicans' DISASTROUS response to tonight's State of the Union address. Please note the maternal, feminine, condescending, phony-empathy approach to delivering the message. Par for the course. Yes-yes, I know she's a woman, but it don't change a thang... speak to people like ADULTS!!!
Tip
Romney won the white vote, the Democrats have simply imported enough votes to nullify the voting franchise of conservatives, there's no real point in going on about anything else. This isn't 1980 where a largely homogeneous electorate blows hither and thither according to, say, economic changes, the new voters are going to vote their group interests, which largely means using government coercion to extract money from someone else - it's a game the Republicans can't win under any circumstances. Why vote for Democrat-lite when you can vote for the real thing?
Open borders mean the end of conservatism and the Republican Party, full stop. It's even worse than that for the Republicans: they have provided very little (read: virtually nothing) for most of their base for decades, even when they had the ability to do so. Now they are losing even the ability and a significant number of their supporters are dropping out in apathy. They're getting it coming and going. This phenomenon was already a major factor in sinking Romney, a candidate largely chosen because he was inoffensive to the opposition. Why vote against Democrat when the alternative is Democrat-lite?
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