Why Mitt lost (election wrap up #2)

Romney fell into the trap of 'If my opponent is for it, I have to be against it' on the auto bailout.  He stood by and supported Bush/Cheney's bailout of the Wall Street banks but then as soon as Obama got elected, he had to oppose everything Obama was for, it's what dumb politicians who don't want to cross right wing radio talk show hosts do these days. Romney then went on record as approving of the bail out Wall Street fat cats got but not the bail out of the auto industry.  Simple math should have told him that there are many more people in the auto industry and it's feeder businesses, tire companies, parts houses, etc, than there are Wall Street bankers.  That was his first big blunder and Obama hung it all over him.

The second big blunder was having to move so far to the right in order to get the nomination.  He morphed from a moderate, which I'm not sure he ever was because he'll say or do anything to get your vote, into a hard right conservative.  People noticed.  And most of those people were independents and moderate voters.  He had to go ape shit crazy right wing to seal his nomination and when he tried to move back to the center, Obama beat him over the head with it.

The third big blunder was the 47% speech.  No smart politician should ever ever ever think his comments aren't being recorded or off the record.  He came off sounding elitist (which he is) and like a greedy fat uncaring fat cat (which he also is).

The fourth and perhaps most damaging blow to Romney's campaign was his party's refusal to be inclusive.  They alienated women, gay folks, Hispanics, and working class voters.  He refused to distance himself from the rapey wing of his party and he paid dearly for it.  LGBT rights are just never going to be in the Republican platform and gays and their straight allies, I include myself in that latter group, voted for Obama in droves and will always vote for gay friendly politicians.  Hispanics are about as welcome in the GOP as pedophiles are in a children's hospital, they think all Latinos are undocumented workers and so most all Hispanics of every nationality voted for Obama.  And since tax cuts only favor the rich, working people would have been screwed with Romney's tax plan and Ryan's budget plans.

The fact is the Republicans have become hostage to the religious right in their party.  They've become anti woman, anti gay, anti immigrant and they're now paying the price for it.  According to the religious right of the Republican party, only white evangelicals matter and only they should be heard, to  hell with the rest.  It's a recipe for disaster and Romney's loss should show them that.

Also the Republican party was dead set on doing everything it could to embarrass Obama and to deny him any victory, so they have obstructed every jobs bill and every bill that would improve the economy in order to make things bad so people would vote Republican in this past election.  It didn't work.  Voters saw through that tactic.

A majority of voters in swing states remembered that Obama inherited a sour George Bush led economic meltdown, two unfunded wars, and a whole host of other messes and they knew that it would take more than four short years to clean all of that up.  They weren't about to let the same people who nearly drove us into a depression take back the reins of power.  Romney, just like McCain, got screwed over by Bush.

I'm hoping that like always the Republicans will learn nothing from history and that they will decide that what's best for their party is to be ever more exclusive and to move further to the right, which will of course result in them losing more and more seats in Congress and having less and less a voice in how this country is run.  I hope they let the teabaggers and Christian Taliban continue to call their party tune.  Because if the do, then we'll have more elections like the one we just had.