The changes weren't meant to appeal to AA's - that's so mighty white of them to think this way.

My blood is boiling after reading that last line. How arrogant and delusional are these people? I am a black woman who has never applied for welfare. I didn't vote for Obama for food stamps.

Let them delude themselves into complete irrelevancy. Soon, they'll be as relevant as the Whig Party.

In essence they are saying:
Their opponent was organized, addressed issues that were important to voters, reached out to ALL types of voters ( instead of ignoring 47% of them), and used campaign money wisely and effectively.

Gee....what a concept for winning an election!

"duhhh..I jus' dunno how he done it"

As if welfare is just flowing free and supporting people who are living like kings and queens.

But in crazy republican world Obama gave out free stuff for AA votes.

I nor my family or AA friends mentioned welfare benefits during the many election conversations I participated in.

Obama as a hedge

It's always about the ground game. What exactly were the Cons running on? Lowering taxes on the rich and repealing Obamacare. They effed up the economy and Obama isn't fixing it fast enough. That's all I heard and I'm in Iowa with all the ads.

Maybe it's because people weren't buying what they were selling?

And I'd yell at the TV, "so what is it??" Besides cutting taxes on the rich and the magic of the free market. Guess that was it...oh.

All campaigns must go into elections believing they have the ability to win. They all must be prepared to lose. Romney and his handlers were well aware of the problems they faced: years of being referred to as a conservative milquetoast; the near collapse of his campaign in September; the jokes made about his relationship with Ryan; descriptions in the media of a tied race. Even they must have seen in their own polls that their support was declining, even with their "unskewing."

Even if they believed they would win, they were veteran operatives who have experienced loss before. Indeed, Romeny's career had many more political losses than victories. He should be steeled against such optimism.

If there is something that Romney's handlers should learn, it's demographics: you moved so far to the lunatic fringe that your support declines.

During WWII, General Eisenhower dismissed the intel he was getting that the Germans were preparing to launch a large scale winter offensive because he believed the German military was too weak to do such a thing. Many thousands of Americans died in what is called the "Battle of the Bulge" needlessly as a result of Ike's decision to go by what he believed over the intelligence reports.

"we'll see in a couple of weeks who's bluffing"

Edit: I like this quote in there.. "they're so anti-science it extends to all forms of being anti-evidence, including the polling concerning the very thing they're trying to win."

Talk about "schadenfreude-tastic"!

10 percent of Republicans voting voted for Obama.

Sam

Or Option B: admit that your data looked much like everyone else's and that you're smart enough to know that all along that you were losing, but that the rules of the game prevented you from publicly admitting that. That's partially because, via the 'bandwagon effect,' it might depress turnout, but mostly because it would depress contributions from big money donors who don't want to waste their money -- thus becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy because you then wouldn't have the money you'd need to even have a shot at winning.

Do you think that the Sheldon Adelsons of the world would be willing to open up their checkbooks for future races, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, when they find out that they've simply been lied to about Republican chances in order to keep the dollars flowing? Remember, these are guys who've been promised that they were getting the unvarnished truth about the campaign -- the platinum-club insider access -- and now they're finding out that they're getting grifted, just as standard campaign operating practice. (As you no doubt know, Karl Rove is having parallel problems with his American Crossroads donors.)

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/11/10/1160010/-Rethinking-shellshocked-Romney

1. He didn't bother to write a concession speech.

2. He did bother to spend $25K on his little self-congratulatory fireworks display, which was not cancelled until he lost.

And 2 personal opinions: in the concession pix, HRH Ice Queen Ann is stoically holding back tears, not her usual aggressive, snarly smile, and Ryan's wife looks really sad as well. The wives never saw it coming.

I do suspect Ryan saw through it. He alone looked happy on stage. He figured it out in time to save his old job. Piteh.

And with their heads up their asses didn't realize how much they pissed off the majority of the electorate.

“We just didn’t expect the African-American vote to be so high.”

After 4 years of the most open racism I have seen since the early 1960's, including racial insults to the President, they really thought no one would vote against them?????
edited to add:
This line from the article:
"If you’re basing your entire campaign on white people, it leaves you little margin of error. That's where Romney’s troubles as a candidate hurt him."
which should have read: ""If you’re basing your entire campaign on white MEN...."

Let them continue to be anti-immigrant, anti-women and anti-gay and our country will continue to be anti-Repuke.

They are awake and voting...Hallelujah!!

I wonder who returned it to the store?

One doesn't simply go to a store and purchase class A fireworks shells and mortars.

> Mitt Romney says he is a numbers guy, but in the end he got the numbers wrong.

Flip-Flopper was never, is not, and will never be a "numbers guy". He is just a high-class grifter, thief, tax evader, draft dodger, coward, and white-collar super-criminal.

Life is three dimensional and if you don't look at the flesh and blood buried in all those numbers you will miss a lot.

The smaller factor is they they didn't realize the "independents" included TeaBaggers who no longer called themselves Republicans.

The larger factor is that WE (in the Va - the Kaine campaign I know of first hand) flat out OUT WORKED them. Their ORCA program was a disaster from the techonilogic side to the implementation side....and it was was a scam on their own campaign.

would win....i think Romney knew he had little chance; and his internals suggested this also.