The Blame Game.
Let’s get it out of the way, shall we?
The GOP fucked up in several levels. Once again they failed to seek a candidate that appealed to the core base of Conservatives as well as the most moderates. I believe that Mitt Romney is a good person (I met the guys years ago) but he is too “narrow” in his approach. Even though we are pragmatists, we do need to feel our candidate has a deep understanding of the Constitution and that did not come out well. The Republicans were never able to shake the blackout that the media had imposed on Romney’s message. The GOP still believes that the Old Media controls the message and played against their strengths instead of looking for their weaknesses.
The other big mistake was the treatment of the Hispanic population. In essence the GOP thought all Hispanics were of Mexican extraction and played accordingly. The Bush clan was keenly aware of this fact and knew what to say and do. Pundits declare that the immigration issue was a death knoll for the Republicans, but the East Coast Hispanics could not care less about it since the majority (Cubans and Puerto Ricans) are immune from any enforcement of the Immigration Laws and a great majority of other Hispanics Caribbean & South America) came legally or can achieve legal status easily and were leaving countries that turned socialist. Failing to use the images of Chavez, Correa, Morales & Kirchner is inexcusable. The Bush clan was great with Hispanics because: a) They were part of the family and b) knew the difference between what East Coast Hispanics worried about and same for the West Coast Hispanics. But apparently the Romney campaign forgot to borrow the manual from the Bushes.
There are some other stuff, but I’ll just stay with the above for now.
The Libertarians….. All I saw through the election cycle makes me comfortable in saying that the Libertarian Party is a myth as understood by the majority. Many people call themselves Libertarians because they believe in the principles enunciated by Ayn Rand in her works, but Rand herself had little of no patience for the Libertarian party and refused to be associated with them. Apparently Libertarians have managed to “hijack” Ayn Rand and that is what the majority of Americans see and feel attracted to. In reality what i have seen of the hard core Libertarian is the Right wing equivalent of the Anarchist/Occupy Wall Street movement but with a deep belief in personal hygiene. The Hard Core Libertarians are the Hipsters of our side.
Hard Core Libertarians are dogmatic. I tried to engage several of them and ask about some things that I did not agree on at face value to see if I was misunderstanding the message. Generally the answer was a rotund “Fuck you, that is the way it is.” which is not conductive to attracting people to your cause. The inability to accept people who do not toe what passes for the ideological line of the day/person guarantees very low numbers joining your cause. Double down if you yourself are unable to explain your position to the uninitiated and demand absolute obedience because it is a sure indicator that your philosophical base is not as solid as you thought. In lay terms, you don’t know what you are talking about.
And even between its Hard Core membership, the Libertarians do not have one cohesive message. The following pics are extracted from Facebook yesterday.
One Libertarian denies they were responsible and the other is literally basking in the embers of payback. That is a Schizophrenic message in anybody’s book and has been the theme since the election was over. Hard Core Libertarians firmly believed Ron Paul was electable when he wasn’t and same for Gary Johnson and as long as they behave they way they did all through this campaign, nobody is gonna give a rat’s ass about your candidates. That is not a conspiracy but simple market strategy: If you can’t sell it, don’t blame the customers.
To summarize: One group abandoned its ideals and smarts for power and the other has no idea what their ideas are and cannot sell what they don’t know. That is not a way to run a winning election.