Like many of you, I remember thinking at the time, "Whatever happened to Reagan´s 11th commandment?" But instead, we ate our own and fed the other side. Will we never learn?.

Just about all of Romney´s opponents violated Reagan´s 11th commandment. Newt´s super backer ran some nasty ads against Romney and Santorum never getting behind him,did him no favors either.

I was a longtime fan of Newt until this nasty mudslinging came along. The liberals are the enemy not other republicans.

Now you have Ron Paul crying about how the country is lost but he wouldn´t endorse Romney.This guy didn´t help our cause either.

Romney did some utterly rotten ads against Newt, downplaying his stellar role in Congress, putting a collar on Clinton, forcing fiscal discipline. The bad stuff went two-ways.

It does underline he importance of Reagan´s Maxim. Nobody should be permitted to run on the GOP ticket who has not pledged to adopt it in the next election.

Oh please!! How culpable was George H.W. Bush is Reagan´s 1980 loss? You remember, all that stuff about "voodoo economics"/s. Romney got the Republican nomination because he went super negative on Perry, Gingrich, Santorum, and Bachmann. He lost the presidential election because because he failed to go super negative on Obama. Negative campaigning works - as Rush says, "Learn it, love it, live it".

Our political system has been corrupted and usurped by an agenda driven media who failed to vet obama or report the news. I question whether this is the media the founding fathers really wanted to protect. They have become the enemy, rather than reporting on the enemy.

Here in MA I listened to too many people who advocated for what the dems were saying....steal the money of the rich, target certain groups and just take what you want. I hold the voters and our public education as a reason for this awful political set of people. And a DEADLY lack of common sense.

What #2 said..In all my years of voting, I have never seen a Conservative-Republican attacking capitalism... Newt Gingrich did. Shame on him. obama would have done it anyway, but I´m sure he appreciated the leg up he was given by Newt and some of the other GOP candidates during the Primaries. There is more than enough blame to go around for losing the election. We Republicans are known for pointing fingers at each other, while the demonrats party on.

the whole bunch of them in the primaries were no help to Mitt in Nov. It was like Mitt was running against ted Kennedy again. Mitt was the nomiminee from the beginning and they all knew it. The whole agonizing process helped the dems by tarnishing Mitt and making him spend millions where he could have used that money last week. I also said last winter that if gingrich did get the nomination, he would never be able to physically campaign and would look like a harggard old man buy Nov.6.

The new rule is that you are allowed to lie to get elected. ´I´ll cut the budget in half,´ ´I´ll go through the budget line by line,´ ´I´ll have the most transparent administration ever.´ Obama had no intention of doing any of this. He still doesn´t. Do you think he worries about the debt? The murders in Benghazi? He doesn´t, and half the people, and the old media, don´t care either.

#4. Thanks. I really appreciate your sentiments. Mitt spread as much dandruff and had as many warts as anyone else in the primaries.

The nature of a hard fought campaign means just that. But for some to suggest that Mitt was ABOVE the fray of ´Cut and Thrust´ politics is to deny the facts, and just plain childish.

More of the ´blame someone else for your problems´. Romney lost period! No one else!

Think back to the last person to beat Romney. I seem to recall a fellow called McCain. If McCain beat him how did anyone ever think Obama wouldn´t.

I underestimated the stupidity of the American voter. Vote for someone that will look you straight in the eye and lie is nothing more then blissful ignorance or outright stupidity. I think the latter.

You people need a memory check. Newt and Herman Cain were the only two NOT attacking other Republicans through all the debates heading into Iowa, and Newt was forging ahead. Then the field attacked Newt in Iowa, including primarily Mitt´s campaign and his super pac. Then Newt did respond poorly with Bain, but Obama was going to do that anyway.
But check your history. Mitt, Ron Paul, and Michelle´s camps started the internal food fight. Up til then, Newt was focused on only Obama.

It is truly a shame because Mitt had many of the correct ideas to solve our problems. He was a bad candidate however. He never took on Obama, except for the first debate . He let the Dems (not Newt) define him as opposed to fighting back against the slime campaign. Had too many skeletons in the closet, and on election day his GOTV software didn´t work in the battleground states! Now that could have been sabatoge, but no matter, it should have been anticipated....or the person incharge of that on the implimentation level was a poor hire.....which reflects poorly on the boss in such a crucial area.

Why was Newt--or Herman Cain or Michelle Bachmann--even running? They had no chance of getting the nomination,let alone winning the Presidency. All they did was split the votes and, in Newt´s case at least, damage the candidates who did have a chance. Granted, it was a weak field, but I hope the next time around, we see maybe two or three strong candidates who honor Ronald Reagan´s commandment.

When your party chooses a candidate most likely to be caricatured by the opposition, and that candidate rolls over and allows the caricature to stand - and even be strengthened - this is what happens. I felt heartsick during and after the third debate. Kept thinking, Why did they send Milquetoast MItt out when it should have been Mitt the MIghty? I had to take the dog out for an extra long walk after that debacle to clear my mind and work out the anger I felt, that I had finally been duped into believing Mitt could win and that I could vote for him (instead of against 0).

Newt showed them all how to handle the press - invaluable lessons - and MItt chose to ignore this gift. Mitt is a good man. He was a lousy candidate.
Ramona (the Pest)

#8--Mittens was the chosen won from the beginning? Why wasn´t the whole right-wing cabal informed so we could get in step with the marching orders?

Hey dummy, it´s called a Primary. We are supposed to get to choose who we want, not the RNC. When they choose for us, we all lose.

Totally agree that Romney was part of the food fight. Not that Newt would have been a good candidate. Herman Cain was smeared out of the primaries because he would have showed the Obama voters what an actual decent hardworking man of color looked like. Liberals just hate that.

Blaming Newt because Romney was a bad candidate? Romney´s folks told enough lies as they trashed everyone of his competitors. To bad they chose not to do that to Obama.

Newt would at least hav shown up in all 3 debates. Not just tried to run out the clock after the first one.

#2 - Sorry, but your perceptions may be a bit confused. You should have watched the ugly, ferocious anti-Gingrich ads that the "independent" pro-Romney group (run by an ex-campaign staffer of MItt´s) were running down here in Florida 24/7 on TV. And I wasn´t someone who was backing Newt for President, but these ads left me with a very sour stomach. Add to that the desire to clear the decks of Sarah Palin -- and her dingbat supporters, like me -- and you have someone who eventually reluctantly dragged herself to the polls to vote for Romney.

Unlike some others I know, I wasn´t turned off enough to sit home, but I would strongly suggest that the insults, direct and implied, showered on supporters of candidates other than Romney, produced their own bitter fruit. Blaming us for Romney´s deficiencies as a candidate, and his supporters´ deficiencies as "fence-menders" is hardly going to set the GOP on the road to recovery.

People this isn´t about negative ads, they all ran negative ads. This is about a candidate Gingrich a so called conservative attacking capitalism, along with that dope Perry. We had our own candidates attacking capitalism, the core of conservatism, Those of you who see a Rino conspiracy to get Romney elected, I suggest you get evaluated for medication

Enough navel gazing!!!!! It time to take down their media and their idealogy

After the primaries, I got behind the Romney campaign. BS for blaming Perry or Gingrich on Romney´s loss. Romney wasn´t playing softball during the primaries nor should have his opponents. Romney´s team was as nasty as they come in making personal attacks on the other candidates, even if his hands were technically clean. After Romney sewed up the nomination, he failed to respond to the wave of democrat attacks. On this very sight - for months - folks speculated as to why Romney failed to counter the democrat´s attacks. I kept hearing, "just wait for ..." Romney chose a strategy, followed it, and failed. There is no other culpability. To suggest otherwise is to suggest it was Romney´s "turn" and the other candidates owed him treatment akin to how the MSM strokes Obama.

Gingrich conducted a positive campaign by design up until Florida, when he was ahead and Romney was drawing his usual, six year, 26% support when Romney´s PAC flooded Hispanic airwaves lying about Gingrich´s immigration policy. Prior to Pennsylvania, Romney trotted out his "revised" tax plan, which looked an awful lot like Gingrich´s website. Gingrich was specific on approach to immigration and the dangers of Obama foreign and domestic visions for America. His message resonated, he drew larger crowds.
To revisit history in an effort to offer some romanticized version of the wonderful candidacy of MHR is nonesense. He was a well funded, well organized liberal republican unable to connect. Gingrich may not have been the right guy, but he had the right message. No matter how handsome, a guy who made his money closing plants and making wealthy insiders more wealthy is never going to get traction with a populist message.

The establishment wanted a guy who wasn´t going to upset their political status and wouldn´t allow the T party to expand its antiWallstreet, antiWashington message. They got him, he lost. Predictably.
OWN IT.

Back to Romney-bashing and eating our own... #5 has it right. It´s time to channel our anger and go after the real enemy. Time to work in earnest to overcome the media´s propaganda.

Everyone is coming up with a reason for Romney´s loss.

Answer: Obamaphones! The vast majority of B.O.´s voters don´t even have a clue who Gingrich is!

#23 - you assert that Gingrich´s message resonated and that he drew larger crowds, but also insist he "may not have been the right guy"?

????

There was no conservative Golden Boy out there, and no number of fitful posts on this board could have made it so.

There was a conservative message out there that had traction. Right message, probably the wrong guy. You nominate a liberal republican mouthing vague conservative platitudes nuanced by consultants with no vision beyond the Sunday talk shows, conservatives work hard on his behalf, he loses. Don´t blame Gingrich.

Have to find someone to blame as they cannot pin the loss on Gov. Palin, try as they might. She endorsed 5 for Senate and 4 out of 5 won.
A milktoast candidate on par with the McCain of 2008---not even the "Elitist Establishment" wanted him as first choice-----remember all they tried and failed to talk into running.
That plus what seems to be massive voter fraud put the Fraudulent idiot back into the WH.
The only hope would be for Congress to be strong enough to prove the treasonous acts during the last 4 years to get an indictment and put him and his cronies in Leavenworth.

Romney did more of his share of violating Reagan´s 11th commandment. Remember all the anti-Gingrich negative ads in Florida.

Live by the sword, .. (you know the rest)

Time for Gingrich, Palin, Cain, Perry, Blue Dog Dems, and others to walk away and start a new party. Let the Elites keep the GOP. The middle-class is desperate for real representation.

We need to stop this blame game right now. The opposition, along with their running dogs in the media put out an incessant message the people swallowed hook, line and sinker. No more, no less.