http://www.boston.com/news/politics...ent-obama/2QWkUB9pJgVIi1mAcIhQjL/story-0.html Interesting post-mortem. Fascinating details on how important programming was to the results, Also interesting how both sides looked to Bush's 2004 campaign as a model to build from. The strategies employed by both sides is really good stuff if you're a political strategy and gaming junkie. Tidbits: Obama really did not prepare nor appear to take the first debate very seriously. And this : For those who feel ads make no difference, the people involved clearly felt they did indeed make a difference. Probably not as much as the amazing ground game Obama had running, but impact nonetheless.
What is it with all of this "well he didn't even want to run anyway" stuff that's been coming up? Is it some suggestion that he sabotaged his campaign so he wouldn't have to do a job he didn't want?
That's actually in the article, linked above, part of an interview with Tagg Romney. Now, consider this: Tagg runs his mouth off to the media a lot, apparently. He's got a gift for gab. IIRC, Tagg is the one that wanted to "punch" the President after the Town Hall Debate.
Yeah, that's why I was asking about it. Unless the article cut off? Ack, it did. I hate paginated articles, so I like to hit the print button to view the whole thing. Apparently that doesn't display the whole article either. Grumble. Guess I have more reading to do.
Take the Tagg quote with a grain of salt; if he's speaking on the record he's almost certainly doing his best to make his old man out in the best light possible.
OK, read the whole thing. Not a lot of new news, but it provides lots of confirmation to what we already know: Romney ground game sucked compared to Obama, Romney screwed up by letting Obama define him early on, etc.
Well gee, you think a guy with an elevator in his garage is going to have a tough time trying to relate to people struggling to put food on the table? there isn't a facet of his life they could have portrayed in a positive light.
There are some fairly telling points in the article, but one which struck me in particular was this: That sounds like they're trying to blame the delivery of the message - specifically, the messenger - rather than the message itself. This is SOP in most political discourse, naturally, but to see someone blatantly state this feels very strange; I suspect Rod Serling will drop out of the sky at any moment. ETA (Terribly sorry, had to clear this up): Effectively, they are stating that their message about the messenger did not convey the messenger's message well enough, nor sell the message to the masses and the masses on the messenger; accordingly, the mess of messages they massaged the masses with were a massacre of methodical modi, and therefore, were it not for the poor way it was handled, obviously Romney would have won.
I didn't realize the depth of the programming wars that were going on. I knew Obama's ground game was good this time, but the details of their strategy and execution were damned impressive,
The Orca/Narwhal stuff I've read about before, though it's no less hilarious after another month or two.
The implication is that "Well, you'd have to be crazy to want this job!" Cue drum roll, dramatic pause... "Like our current president!" In other words, if they make Romney the noble loser it assuages guilt over a poorly-run campaign and laughable primary season, as well as casting aspersions on the guy who had his shit together enough to win it.
Obviously dear old Dad couldn't possibly have lost if he really wanted to win. Therefore he must not have really wanted the job. QED. Also: He was making a sacrifice for his country! No interest whatsoever in power or influencing policy outcomes for this personal benefit. Just an upstanding citizen trying to do his best for God and Country -- you should all feel blessed that he deigned to take the effort. Your loss that you didn't elect him!
Tagg's full of shit. If Dad didn't want to run, we wouldn't have been doing the early fund raising and public meetings in the spring of 2009. You have to jump in at those points, not be dragged in.
The funny thing is that Romney basically never said what he'd do as president, and essentially just gave weak platitudes amounting to "Trust Me". So much for their "policy strategy". Maybe that had something to do with why he lost, rather than not being personable or whatever. But hey, go right on thinking you need only put more lipstick on the pig.
Romney didn't tell voters what he wanted to do until the debates, at which point he told voters he wanted to do what Obama did, but harder. Which, you know, made no fucking sense so people didn't vote for him. So hey 2016 Republicans, I advocate for your choosing a platform that makes sense, supports the GLBT sandwich community, welcomes immigrants and is serious about cleaning up the environment. Sick of the opposition party being a cray cray right wing ghetto.
Notably absent from that article: an accounting of the primary strategy, which made it rather easy for the Obama campaign to paint Romney as a right-wing loon. That's unsurprising; it's an article sourced from people close to Romney so other than some token "Lay the blame on me," type stuff they're not going to go into the details of exactly how bad they fucked up.
It was a good article, but one thing that was also glaringly absent was the entire mess over the tax returns: how Romney's camp could have been caught so unprepared for that and how it took up so much attention for so long.
I'm still curious about how bad those returns must have looked for them to still have decided keeping them hidden was the superior option given the beating they took over that whole situation for months.
The tax returns, the 47% thing, Bain, etc. Romney's camp was just trying it's hardest to not respond to problems promptly and effectively. They let so much shit just sit around in the open under the theory of "if we don't talk about it, people will stop paying attention!" instead of actually trying to fight the negatives he had sitting around. Then as Aeon pointed out he went hard on the "So my policy is, uh.. more of Obama! But fuck that guy, right!?" And you can't run on "that guy is a useless dick!" while taking the same policy positions with the only difference of wanting to tax the rich less.
Total horseshit. The accounts I read post-election were that Romney and his entire staff were positive he had the election locked up. He hadn't even prepared a concession speech he was so certain.
I remember hearing somewhere that Romney thought it was his destiny to become the first Mormon president. That would be consistent with not really wanting to run (because he felt no compelling need to address some problem), not really having policy positions, and being confident you're going to win.
So... if we don't elect the Mormon for president the goddamned Congress will be broken? Seems to be coming true.
