Rmoney's own internal polling efforts showed Obama wayyyyyy ahead in Ohio.

they knew.

Rasmussen is a joke poll. Rasmussen always over estimate republican percentages, to the order of as much as 6%. That Rasmussen predicted a 3.5% Romney win but Obama won by about 2% does not surprise me one bit.

They lived in a bubble, used their own inside polling (which turns out to have been wrong),adn thought their ground game was better than it actually was.

For example, I heard on TV that the reason the Romney team thought they could win PA, even though all five polls in November showed Obama leading there, was because their inside polling showed it as tight there, with the possibility of a Romney win.

Judging from Romney's shellshocked look, the lack of a concession speech...I do believe they had duped themselves in their bubble. They simply didn't believe the outside polling (which turned out to be correct, electoral vote count wise).

Red State of all places, has an article that puts forth the theory that consultants and analysts inside the Romney camp purposefully sold the campaign false information as a form of job security. After the Citizens United decision this theory seems plausible to me. Before the decision, when campaigns had much stricter budgets there was more incentive for these consultants to provide accurate results since future employment in campaigns would depend on performance. When a campaign budget balloons to a billion dollars I think it creates enough money\incentive for consultants to misinform in order to keep the cash flowing. I'm not saying that is what happened, we would have to have real hard numbers showing how much the campaign paid out and to who, but with a billion dollars floating around I think it is at least a possibility. Of course, I think the theory you present is also entirely plausible.

so less opportunity to be swindled by outside consultants.

Obama's team has trained a new generation how to run a campaign. They took community organizing to a whole new level.

I distinctly remember the Romneys' appearances over the weekend before the election and their tone, body language, etc, clearly telegraphed things were not going well for them, imo.

If there was any genuine shock it would have been that the Ohio Sec of State and the Florida Sec of State had failed in their despicable attempt to block citizens from voting for President Obama.

Interesting. Wonder why they had so many private jets flying in for the ceremony? Because, it seems to me those people were suckered in too.

This was about Republican blind faith rather than acceptance of unpleasant facts.

Whales figure out how they were fleeced by the Harvesting. Willard and crew knew damn well what was what and he Conned the whole damn Press Corp. The question that should be asked is,how much did the Willard and Turd Blossum make on this Stage production.

Cement Boots for the Turd Blossum??? Willard will get his own Planet and his Hairum of wives after his stint as King of the Cult.

Exit stage right.

The commonplace repuke masses. They were sold bullshit and were utterly shocked that money boo boo didn't win. Why this is bad for us is because they thought he was going to win and they feel robbed and have a lot of animosity.

I think Romney thought he was going to win because god told him that and will now turn to atheism

of a landslide by Democratic voters of 400+ proportions. That could have happened, too, because evangelical voters were none to enamored by Romney, and that's most of the South.

There was a smaller core who knew. They also knew that if they told folks widely about it, the money would dry up.

I posted about why their claim of not knowing their polls were off was bogus:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=1789895

There's no good path out for them. Either they tell folks they got their polls wrong or they have to admit they defrauded their donors. The choice between those two is a simple one when looking forward.

The use of a war-related metaphor and his name in the same breath is startling.

They were fleecing donors. We should've learned by now that they're all con artists. You could see in their body language they knew they were going to lose. I'm just glad that they're off the stage. Good riddance.

In my state, alone, two out of the seven races were as close as 10-11 points. The rest were rigged toward the GOP, except for Jim Clyburn's seat, where they put most of the Dems in one district. He beat out an independent with 95% of the vote. Joe Wilson ran unopposed. Every state with a republcian-run state legislature was like that. The polls had nothing to do with it. Had we voted based on 2008 districts, there would likely have been a GOP bloodbath. There were FAR more Dems who beat republican incumbents than the other way around, in spite of the gerrymandering.

And he ran unopposed?

*sigh*

With redistricting, he is now my congressman. Ugh. But, sadly, the previous guy, Jeff Duncan, is WORSE if you can believe that. He is a teabagger, and is as nutty an asshole as there is. He's right on par with Michelle Bachmann.

"Keep the money flowing" sounds like motive enough.

That pays down ticket, in the House races where gerrymandering skews who gets the prize for Conservative turnout.

because they have a prophet in the Mormon religion who told them they were destined for the White House. They were some mighty fine actors on Election night if they knew they were going to win.

Booman makes great points.. maybe there was more than a little bit of both goin' on? That would be possible with the double dealing mittload.

But I'm mixed on this one.

It all hinged on turnout at the polls, and that was something nobody could predict with certainty unless they were psychic - that RV/LV split made an enormous difference if you ever played around with any of the poll map apps, much more of a difference than taking out quite a number of the less reliable polls from the equation.

I think those close to Mitt Romney could well have underestimated the ground game by that seven-point margin, partly through wishful thinking, but partly because the media and their own apparatus fed the myth of Mittmentum and painted a more chaotic picture of the electorate than actually existed.

I do think they were shellshocked, unless all the accounts I've been reading from different sources are wrong.

For instance, from various reports over the course of the election, Mitt leant heavily on his wife, and would "dump" on her about how the campaign was going if they'd been apart for any length of time. She's quoted as being incredulous that they were going to concede late in the evening. If Mitt had known the real situation, I don't think that would have happened.

I do think at least some, if not most, of the consultants engaged in the Romney campaign had a clearer idea of the real situation, though, and probably weren't surprised. I just don't think Romney ran a campaign that rewarded honesty in his subordinates and employees and contractors. Would you want to be the one to tell Mitt that he was going to be trounced by somebody he held in such transparent contempt? Especially after screwing him for big bucks on the promise of results?

We'll learn more about this as more behind-the-scenes revelations emerge in coming months.

assumptions his campaign made about relative motivation of respective camps. To wit, Rape-publi-scum were supposedly highly energized to vote while Dems were supposedly deeply dispirited.

Of course, you demonize African Americans, gays, women and Latinos at your peril. I think the electorate manifest a collective "F-U RMoney" moment that conventional assumptions was bound to miss. Latinos voted 75-25 for Obama. That is a jaw dropper.

but I think rove was sincerely bitch slapped. His face was red, he was stuttering, and he looked like he'd just touched a live wire. I think they should make a major motion picture film out of those seven minutes. I'd attend every night and twice on matinees.