GOP threw the election / Demonized their own base!

Original Title was they ignored Ron Paul, but really as the quotes below show, it went WAY BEYOND just ignoring him. They ridiculed arrested, tormented, and lambasted not only Paul, but his active supporters as well! And then, they lost by an amount smaller than those votes that they intentionally drove away.



Looks like maybe they did! There are already several threads out there blaming Obama, blaming Demographics, blaming Sandy, blaming Christie, demanding a restructuring of the GOP platform, and all those threads have merit, but this graphic seems to be the most direct indicator.

Imagine Gary Johnson's million votes, and all those Ron Paul votes poured into Romney's total, and you have a GOP victory.

Paul was the only one that could have united the party and pulled some of the Democrats over to his side. Although he is religious, he isn't fanatical, although he is conservative, his conservative views satsify the liberals need for more freedoms. He is exciting, he had support of the military, etc.

Paul would have gotten all the same votes Romney got, it wouldn't have lost the party anything, but he would also have gotten a bunch of those Gary Johnson votes, and a bunch of those Obama votes.

Before you say, "Nuh uh," there are 3 black people in my office alone that voted for Obama, because the couldn't vote for Paul, and they didn't know anything about Johnson. They figured all things being equal, vote for the black guy, but if they had a chance to vote for a cause, or an ideal, or a political statement, they would have LOVED to have taken that opportunity.

If the Republicans had nominated a uniter and a visionary, they would have won the election. I would have voted for Paul, but never Romney. I voted Johnson, but if I had to choose R or D, I would have chosen Obama.

More to chew on:
Source

Governor Romney’s loss is not much of a surprise for many given the startling similarities between him and President Obama. Even during the primary many polls showed him losing to Obama in the general election and yet the Republican Party put a great deal of effort into squelching the one candidate who could beat Obama, Dr. Ron Paul.

How the GOP threw the election...

When Ron Paul went to the Republican National Convention in August, he brought with him the youngest delegation in the history of the Republican Party.

How were they welcomed? When they arrived, their signs were confiscated and torn up before their eyes. The Maine delegation was summarily unseated and sent home because they contained too many Paul supporters. At the last minute, the Rules Committee changed the ballot access requirement from five states to eight states to prevent Ron Paul’s name from being entered into nomination. They even prevented his name from being mentioned from the podium!

The establishment’s abominable treatment of Ron Paul supporters at the RNC was only the culmination of a corrupt and shameful primary season. In Louisiana, Ron Paul delegates were arrested when it became clear that they were in the majority at the state convention. In Arizona, desperate party bosses turned off the lights at the state convention to prevent Ron Paul supporters from being elected to a party position. In both Maine and Nevada, Romney campaign officials were caught distributing fake delegate slates. In Missouri, police were called to shut down the St. Charles caucus when a Ron Paul victory appeared imminent.

“It’s a shame the party hasn’t been more welcoming of these young people,” confessed a Romney delegate to me at the RNC.

Is it any wonder why the GOP lost? It alienated and disenfranchised its own most active voices and counted on the extreme religious right to carry it through. Bad strategy!

reply to post by darkhorserider


My response from now on to everyone who asks why the Republicans lost is.

God did it.

nuff said.

As an Independent voter I couldn't agree with you more!

Not 100% accurate. I picked Ron Paul in the primary but then I voted for Romney in the general election. I am pretty sure that there are many others like me. I don't think you can make the leap that you are making.

reply to post by grey580


so true.

Originally posted by GeorgiaGirl
Not 100% accurate. I picked Ron Paul in the primary but then I voted for Romney in the general election. I am pretty sure that there are many others like me. I don't think you can make the leap that you are making.

I agree, definitely not 100% accurate, I'm sure there were others like you.

BUT, there were also Independents and Democrats that couldn't vote in the Primary, but would have supported Paul in the general election, so those kind of offset the folks like you.

Also, lets not forget, any of those Paul votes that went to Obama counted double! It was 1 away from Romney, and 1 towards Obama. So, it was a double whammy! In thoe close swing states like Florida and Ohio, it doesn't take too many of those two-fers to change the election results.

Romney lost because he's a nutbar fundy with a canny knack for alienating everyone that wasn't from Stepford.
Also. It was God's Will.

Ron Paul would not be controlled by the puppet masters therefore they could not let him be POTUS.

Just becasue they are from the same party does not mean that they will support the agenda handed to them.

Originally posted by Scouser640
Romney lost because he's a nutbar fundy with a canny knack for alienating everyone that wasn't from Stepford.
Also. It was God's Will.

All true!

BUT, why did the GOP put him up as their guy? They had a half-dozen other qualified candidates that did not fit that description and would have stood a shot at winning. So, did they intentionally throw it? Were they scared of winning, scared of the stronger candidates, or is the party leadership nutbar fundies from Stepford just like Romney?

Romney was chosen by the media. He got all the press time, air time, etc, and RP and others were ignored or scandalized.

Who knows who would have won if we didnt have the worthless electoral vote. How many didn't vote because they knew it didnt matter? For both sides? Until all candidates get equal face time, we get rid of the two party system, and go with a straight popular vote the "people" will never choose a president.

reply to post by tnhiker


I agree the Electoral College has outlived its usefulness. It used to streamline things when it took a week to travel to the polls and months to count the votes, but these days we have early voting, public transportation and almost instantaneous counting results. There is no longer a need for the populace to designate electors to do their voting. These days the populace can do their own voting.

Getting rid of the electoral college means getting rid of the battleground states and election strategies to get to 270. It means the politicians have to pander to EVERY voter, not just the undecided ones in the battleground states.

I also believe the press should be outlawed from making projections or announcing results until all polls have officially closed.

The hard part to regulate will be the actual news stories leading up to the election. It is so difficult to discern between news and opinion these days. We need to get a handle on the press, but I'm not sure exactlly how to do that.

reply to post by darkhorserider

I agree, the press is out of control. Within 30 seconds of being on the air election night, the woman from the today show turned it into a "race" race. Mentioning how romney couldn't win with just the white vote. The media keeps us divided via race, economic standings, regional location and any other way they can to keep us reliant on what they tell us. They don't report news, just opinions. They don't report facts, but twist truths to appeal for better ratings.

Without the electoral college, as you said, every vote would count, and they would have to work as hard in traditional republican/democrat states as they do every where else. If they could ever get a truely secure system, people could use a SS# and picture Id to vote. Would be very easy to catch irregularities, duplicate votes etc that way.

Hopefully find a way to curb the tv ads as well. I would like to watch a football game without 100 political ads.

reply to post by tnhiker


It is true that no candidate can win with just the "white" vote these days, but that should never have been a strategy to begin with! If anyone counted on doing such a thing, then they aren't worth electing in the first place!

Whites are no longer the majority, but I don't believe demographics should be a primary concern of a candidate. I believe a good candidate can cross all those lines and be supported for their values and abilities.

Maybe I'm a sap.

reply to post by darkhorserider


Whites are the majority of the USA....making up 70%

Whites constitute the majority of the U.S. population, with a total of 223,553,265 or 72.4% of the population in the 2010 United States Census. Despite major changes due to illegal and legal immigration since the 1960s and the higher birth-rates of nonwhites , the absolute majority of the American citizens are still white, protestant and native English-speaking.

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by Trustfund


That is because "Hispanic" is not a race. Whites are still the highest population, but they have fallen in rank drastically, and now barely make up a majority of the population, and they are already less than a majority in births. As soon as the baby boomer generation moves on, the white population will be a clear minority, and we will no long have a majority of any race. We will be a country of Majority-Minority. (Wiki)

When you take the 72.4% on Wiki and deduct the 16.4% Latino, then you get a more realistic 56%, but that number is falling very fast.

Non-Hispanic White Births now minority.

Also, a lot of people (like me) are as much Native American as they are White, but we still identify white, because it is easier and more direct. Some mixed races do the same thing, especially the mixed races such as Asian or Islander.

Originally posted by GeorgiaGirl
Not 100% accurate. I picked Ron Paul in the primary but then I voted for Romney in the general election. I am pretty sure that there are many others like me. I don't think you can make the leap that you are making.

Ah Yes GG,
But How Many Votes like Mine did Obama Get, That Would have gone to Ron Paul.
I believe in Ron Paul because of His Policies, He could have ran under the `Wild Party`, and I would have Voted for Him, But Never another Neocon.

reply to post by darkhorserider


Yeah, non-hispanic whites are STILL the MAJORITY of the country. You didn't read what I posted, which comes from the census data.

Whites constitute the majority of the U.S. population, with a total of 223,553,265 or 72.4% of the population in the 2010 United States Census. Despite major changes due to illegal and legal immigration since the 1960s and the higher birth-rates of nonwhites , the absolute majority of the American citizens are still white, protestant and native English-speaking.

en.wikipedia.org...

Non-Hispanic White or European American 63.7 %

White or European American 72.4 %

Hispanic whites only make up 11% of the white population......