I was watching this clip of Mitt Romney being interviewed on Hannity, and I sighed. A lot. I shook my head with disbelief and not a little sorrow. Here it is, watch it, see how you respond:
Although I definitely believe that we’d be in much better shape right now as a country if Mitt Romney had won last November, I (almost) can’t believe how . . . seriously, truly, deeply stupid he is about the “mistakes” he claims to have made. Hispanics. Really? That’s why he lost?
This is a deep and serious problem with establishment GOP: they honestly believe that their own big spending, big government solutions are way better than leftists’ big spending, big government solutions, and because they are so invested in this big spending, big government ideology, two major things happen (neither good for either the GOP or our republic): one, they compete for Democrat voters on Democrat turf, and two, they do so at the expense of their own base . . . failing to care that the base is deserting them in record, wacko bird numbers. They seem to think that GOP numbers are tanking because of the left; that’s only half right–they’re also tanking because conservatives are fed up with them and have been for years. What they don’t seem to understand is that they will never ever win by running as Democrats against actual Democrats.
Sure, if Mitt could have turned out Hispanics in the numbers (both real and fraudulent) that turned out for Obama, he’d have won. He didn’t lose by all that much, after all, but the people who didn’t turn out, who didn’t vote for him weren’t only the Democrat and Obama’s base; they were prominently, in large numbers conservative voters (seriously, this is what Mitt worries he did so wrong: he didn’t win over enough Obama voters. Yet if the GOP had run an actual conservative, conservatives would have turned out in huge numbers as we did in 2010). Instead of worrying that he, amazingly, turned out fewer conservatives than that national disgrace John McCain, Romney is worried that he didn’t turn out enough of Obama’s voters. You can’t make this stuff up, you really can’t.
It’s insane.
Yet this is what the GOP elite are thinking, planning for, and worrying about. How, they fret, will they ever convince Obama voters to vote for their big government instead of Obama’s big government? Gee, they wonder, what can we do to show that we’ll hand out just as many phones and other freebies as Obama? That they’ll grant amnesty without secure borders (ahem Rubio and Paul Ryan) just like Obama? How can they convince Obama voters that their big government solutions to “national” health care, “national” education, and a myriad other issues they want to solve via the federal government and increased tyranny are better than the Democrats’ federal programs, regulations, and general tyranny? If only they could solve that problem, they are certain, they’d win a presidential election.
Never mind that Americans are sick of, don’t want, and actively reject all that big spending, big government nonsense that does nothing for the American people (except enslave them and whittle away at that their God-given rights) and does everything for the political class and their cronies. Who cares what Americans want? Not the Dems. Not Obama. And no, not the GOP establishment who are trying to compete on regressive turf with regressive policies for regressive votes. They think that’s a winning strategy, and they think that even as the American public declares that it wants less government spending and fewer federal programs.
Never you mind that it doesn’t work, that an election that Obama never should have won was not won by Obama but lost by these regressive GOP establishment types who really, truly, deeply believe that their key to success is to out-regressive the regressives, to win over regressive voters with their bigger, better, more policies, programs, regulations, laws, mandates, and dictates. They just keep churning out unacceptable candidates that the conservative base of the GOP continuously rejects in hopes that they’ll finally hit on one who will appeal to not only indies but to a good portion of the Obama base. That’s the plan.
And they think it’s a good one.
They see headlines like Ted Cruz now leads GOP presidential pack and The conservative shift in public opinion has happened in all 50 states, and they conclude, as Mitt Romney does in the above video, that . . . Hispanics!
You can’t fix stupid. You can only vote it out of office, out of power, sweeping it out of the way.
Fuzzy Logic 
I’m sorry, I won’t watch it because I’m too worn out. These get along Republicans are grinding on me. Carl Rove and the good ol boys need to try to enter my house uninvited … please.
They grind on me, too, Odie. I really can’t understand why they are so focused on following regressives down the pigeon-holing of the American people path and not focusing–at all–on what makes America America, what makes the American people–all of us–who we are, what makes our country not only great but exceptional.
Great analysis as usual. Wish some of those guys would read it and pay attention. I’ve shared this on Facebook.
Thanks so much, Tina!
If memory serves, wasn’t the Republican Party originally founded with a focus on small government AND state’s rights? They need to get back to their roots.
Exactly, Lorie! If they did that, there would be no need to chase after leftist voting blocks, people would respond to the conservative message. Not all of them, of course, there are plenty of commies out there (some who don’t even realize that’s what they are, if you can imagine that), but those aren’t the votes the GOP should be competing for. It’s madness.
There are plenty of conservative women, and we’ve somehow managed to “resist” the siren song of the leftists; every other phony Democrat group, shoved into descriptive holes that diminish them as people (I’m more than my reproductive organs, Hispanics are more than their race, blacks are more than their skin color–but you’d never know that if you were a leftist . . . or a GOP elite who sees surface stuff, voters, not people. And certainly not the American people.) can do it, too.
We should reject, not embrace, this division, and that’s why the TEA Party has such appeal. It absolutely rejects those labels, that mindset, and that’s why it’s so dangerous to BOTH political elites who seek to keep the status quo of divide and conquer.
You don’t have to be a social scientist to understand why the GOP poll numbers are so bad. Dems hate the GOPers more than ever. Obama, Reid, Pelosi and a whole host of other progressives keep pounding home the message: Republicans are evil.
On the flip side, conservative voters look at the GOP surrendering to Obama at every opportunity – and they’re beyond disgusted at the betrayal.
The GOP is a party without a constituency by its own doing. And true conservatives are a constituency without a party.
No one (or no party) ever won anything by failing to stand for anything, and by focusing all its attention on trying to suck up to the mushy middle.
“The GOP is a party without a constituency by its own doing. And true conservatives are a constituency without a party.”
Perfectly stated.
The GOP establishment seems to be trying to remake itself in the image of the old Democrat party: center-left, big government, big spending, socially liberal, fiscally irresponsible, and generally unprincipled. The trouble with that scenario is that study after study, poll after poll shows that America is now more conservative than it’s been since the 1950’s. That’s an amazing Obama accomplishment (the only one that I’m glad of).
What has become abundantly clear is that the pols in neither party are listening to the people. At all. Witness how ObamaCare came to be law. Witness how Dems who voted for, support, and demand ObamaCare be implemented are now, in the face of elections, saying they want to delay it (something conservatives were demonized for and called “terrorists” for asking for only weeks ago!). And it’s not just Dems. Rubio repeatedly stated that he would not support amnesty while he was running, with TEA Party support, for the Senate. What does he do when he wins? Yep.
Pols have always lied to get elected. Always. But it’s mostly been principled lies (H. W. “no new taxes”), not out and out I’m not at all who I am telling you I am. I don’t know how to fix that, but I do know that it’s time to get rid of the “new” (old) Democrats in the GOP. No third party, just get them gone via the ballot box.
Linked here: http://bobagard.blogspot.com/2013/11/still-clueless-after-all-these-years.html
Thanks, Bob. 🙂