Romney lost because we were willing to pretend the Governor of Massachusetts, who instituted Socialized Medicine in his State, was an appropriate candidate to represent Conservative interests.

Our last two losing candidates have been Mitt Romney and John McCain. Those who wish to do us the most damage tell us we "need" to keep moving "towards the Center" for our own good. If we ever -- ever -- win another Presidential election, it will only be if we stop allowing the Media to convince us who is electable. That and a top to bottom overhaul of our voting system to ensure every eligible voter receives precisely one vote.

This is the first article I have read that analyzes the failure of the Romney campaign in a useful way. It does not suggest that Republicans become democrat-lite, that conservatives abandon everything we believe and become progressives, or that Romneycare was the singe fatal flaw. It was all communication.

Romney lost because you can´t beat Democrat Real with Democrat Lite.
If you nominate someone that could not beat McCain, why do you think he would beat someone to whom McCain lost.
Insanity - the practice of doing the same thing and expecting a different result.
It no longer matters, the country is lost.

Wow! More than Must Read...

FTA: Romney lost the presidency because he failed to connect emotionally with the voters. He and his advisors failed to realize that they had to present Romney as uniquely able to deliver an emotional benefit that Obama could not. They talked about what he had done in his career, but seldom talked about what he would do for the people and for the country. Presidential elections in America are won by candidates who successfully persuade the people that they are able to create the conditions that will improve the voters´ lives. This is the quintessential way to deliver a powerful emotional benefit.

He lost because when a person dies, he´s automatically re-registered as a Democrat!

There will probably never be anything like consensus among conservatives about why Romney lost. The only thing to be said with certainty is that he lost because he didn´t win.

He got the full Alinsky treatment and refused to fight back. He called Obama a nice guy. He never touched a one of Obama´s personal vulnerabilities. He ran a dignified, elevated, high-minded campaign while the other side, with the complete cooperation of the mainstream media, dumped barrel after barrel of slop and ordure over him as he pretended not to notice. He and his staff appeared to be completely clueless about what was happening. They probably still are.

Regardless of their candidate, Republicans will never will an election against people like Barack Obama by refusing to fight back while they are being smeared and slandered 24/7. I don´t know why this is so difficult for some of them to understand. There is nothing new here. Politics has always been a dirty, nasty, ugly business. The American public has always been dumb, uninformed and easily manipulated.

You can´t win if you won´t fight. If you are too proud or too noble to fight, you shouldn´t be in the ring in the first place.

There are many reasons Romney lost, and one I haven´t heard discussed too much is that he failed to personalize his ideas. For instance, we heard repeatedly that Romney wanted to "grow the economy and create jobs". That is such an abstract idea to so many. What he needed to say is: we want to let Carol the bakery owner keep more of the money she would pay in taxes so that she can hire a new clerk. Or so that she could buy a new commercial mixer, which helps employ someone at the mixer factory in Peoria, while making Carol more profitable.

He needed to show the public he cared. It is pathetic that our populace is so dumbed down that this is how they choose presidents, but it is the reality we must deal with.

Romney lost because people didn´t know which Romney would govern - the far right Romney who won the vicious GOP primaries or the reasonable Romney who won the first debate.

Romney had to go so far to the right to win the primaries that he couldn´t recover and be himself.

#6 is right and I wholeheartedly agree.

I teach people how to give sales presentations, and this article is exactly right. He gave a bad presentation because he did not connect the dots for the audience. Common Sense.

Nah, Romney lost because of fraud committed by the Democrats. It´s really no more complicated than that. How many big city precincts were there where Obama got 100% of the vote? (statistically virtually impossible) How many precincts were there that had 99.9% voter turnout or where the number of votes cast exceeded the number of registered voters? And please don´t try to suggest that those high turnout rates might have gone for Romney. Here´s a hint: they didn´t. There´s a very good reason why the Democrats so strenuously object to voter ID: it makes it much more difficult for them to cheat, and cheating is what they do. JFK used to openly joke about beating Nixon through the ´dead´ vote delivered to him by Daley in Chicago. Hugh Hewitt is right: if it ain´t close they can´t cheat. Unfortunately the last election was too close.

Our analysis of the Rasmussen data led us directly to the inescapable conclusion that the campaign desperately needed to turn over the stones that were covering up the secrets to victory. Unfortunately, the Romney campaign management ignored our warnings and rejected the help we offered.

http://www.amazon.com/Right-Brain-Way-Drive-Emotion/dp/1425130410

About the Author ~

With a bachelor’s degree from the University of Notre Dame and a Ph.D. in Psychology from Clark University, Dr. Charles T. Kenny saw the application of his academic expertise to the commercial world early on. He founded the strategic market research firm, The Right Brain People, in 1972. Thirty-six years later, his client list is a “who’s who” of major companies, including 22 of the top 40 advertisers on the Advertising Age list. Today he is recognized as one of the top consumer psychologists in the world. Using two proprietary methods – Right Brain Research and Brand Strategy Development – Dr. Kenny has worked with more than 450 corporate clients and organizations in 225 product and service categories. His work with Saturn was hailed as The brand building event of the century.” He lives in Memphis, Tennessee, with his wife of 40 years. He has two daughters and four grandchildren.

He got fewer votes than the other guy.

FTA: "During the presidential campaign, Romney......never presented his ideas and policies in the context of conservative principles. Nor did he paint a picture of how his ideas and policies would work better than what Obama has done and will do."

Bingo!! Romney´s failure to do this could not overcome the shallow slogans and talking points of Team 0bama, nor could it persuade those still on the fence, because 0bama made people "feel good" instead of making them think.

Any Republican candidate for office who is unable to articulate conservative principles 1) probably doesn´t really believe in conservatism and is therefore NOT conservative, and 2) will not be able to defeat the Democrats.

He lost because of Romneycare. He wasn´t anyone´s first choice, mine included. The media won again by choosing a canidate for us, just like 2008 McPain. I voted for Romney because he was the lesser evil.

Voter theft in the battleground states.

Further the msm is now blaming voter I.D. rules for creating those long lines at the polls for the lower obamao turnout.

They have a lie for everything.

I was afraid that there would not be an election Nov.6th. I wasnt seeing clearly at the time, an election was held, but it was a show election, to keep the people quiet. There was an election, but the results were never in doubt, massive fraud was in place.

Humbug! He lost because the American voting population has been propagandized to the point that half of them "want what they want and they want it now."
Romney promised to put people back to work to have a better life and future. They don´t want to go back to work.. they want freebies and to feel like they "belong".. which they do.. to a gang of thugs that have taken over the Democrat Party and our White House, intending to "rule" America.
Reasonable, thinking Americans voted for the fine man Romney.. but there are no longer quite enough of them.

Come on, friends.

There were over 100 million votes cast or counted or invented or what-have-you. To think there was one reason, or even to think we should look for the one magic reason, is silliness.

It´s like saying, "This one part is why an airplane flies." See? Silliness.

He lost because I had him pegged from Day One - - Milquetoast Milt.

Any questions?

Voter fraud was a given from the outset...everyone knew Obama would rig this election as much as he could. The problem we was finding a candidate whose appeal would have impassioned enough people to overcome the fraud.

Romney was never appealing because of his moderate governing policies. He was and always has been a rino. Everyone knew it no matter how many times we were shouted down and accused of ´religious bigotry´.

Conservatives were more afraid of Obama than enthusiastic about Romney.
Fear does not make people enthusiastic or passionate and they just won´t go where they know they´re being dragged. And the rest will take whatever carrot is dangling in front if they don´t see something better down the road.

The election was obviously fraudulent.
There were enough people to overcome it...but not enough of a candidate to overcome Obama.
That doesn´t mean we give up. They´re going to try it again with Christie, Jeb, Rubio or some other establishment get-along who looks like a nice family man.
But it will be the one who fearlessly confronts Obama and exposes the lie that will carry Reagan´s banner.

we get the leaders we deserve.

Yes, 20 my question is: Was Obama preferable?

Romney never had to connect emotionally with me. I am not an emotional voter. The fact that Obama was incompetent, hostile to half the country and dangerous to our Republic, and his opposition was a man of proven ability to turn an enterprise around was enough. I knew he was honest, capable and very hard working. I didn´t aspire to be his friend, I didn´t care if he was stiff and I didn´t mind the lack of a road map as to exactly how he would accomplish saving our Republic. I knew if he gave one the Democrats would twist every word of it.

Sorry, folks all we get is the same old Romney bashing, Romney Ryan were a terrific pair and would´ve been wonderful for this country. Lets ignore the lying media, the voter fraud and the kickbacks and keep devouring our own. Santorum, perry, Palin or Cain could´ve have fared better? Tell me why?

The article states Romney lost because he failed to make an emotional connection to the voters.
I suppose that´s true enough. Bill Clinton simpered and smiled and made love to us all and won the presidency for eight years.
When the electorate shows all the intellectual maturity of a twelve-year-old girl, I suppose Obama is the result.
Americans are no longer a serious people.

You have to look deeper than "failed to make an emotional connection". What exactly does that mean and does not mean? Did 0bama the lipsync Telereader make that connection? 66 million out of 220 million elected the Man. In any future election at least that many will vote for a continuation of the gravy train. Romney and the Republicans could convince only 57 of the 154 million to come out and vote against an obvious fraud and failure. Thats pathetic and frightening.

Thank you, #23. I´m deeply sick of hearing that Romney didn´t "connect emotionally" with the voters. Barack Obama is a cold, distant, arrogant man who can´t conceal his contempt for this country and its people. But he had the press working night and day to portray him as a warm, caring, loving protector of us all. Romney, on the other hand, was demonized as a cold-hearted thief and murderer. Most people believe what the press tells them to believe. And they bought the notion that Romney only loves the super-rich.

I´ve never voted on the basis of how warm and fuzzy the candidate was, and I never will.

Agree #22, ´we deserve what we tolerate", as my mentor used to say.

He lost because we had Romney the pussy willow going up against Obama the street fighter. When that happens the nice guy will always be KO´ed.

Article is marketing blather. Willard, Son of George the Brainwashed and creator of Romneycare is a No East Progressive Lefty in the Rockefeller mold and as such unelectable by a predominately center right electorate. He was viscerally hostile to all thing conservative as well as a feckless and inept nominee. A majority of voters knew exactly who Willard was.

Romney lost because of data-mining and micro-targeting. Dems had a bigger and better GOTV operation. For example, Obama had 120 field offices in Ohio, Romney had 44. Read the MIT Technology Review article to see how Obama did it: http://goo.gl/bDTEv

Well before election day, the Obama campaign knew the name and contact info of every single one of the tens of millions of 2008 Obama voters. While we Republicans were criticizing Obama for not having an overall message, the Obama campaign, through extensive A/B experiments, had created multiple individual messages precisely tailored to appeal to individual Democratic voters.

Then, once they had taken care of inspiring their base to vote, they switched to working to CHANGE votes. Where Republicans skipped areas deemed "safe Democratic," Obama´s people went after "soft" Republican voters everywhere, with a carefully organized - and field tested - methodology by which they were able to target individual Republicans with precisely the narrowly tailored message each needed to hear to be persuaded to change their vote.

And as we saw, it worked.

A "predominantly center-right electorate", #30? Not anymore.

Posters #18 & 25 come closest to the heart of it, IMO. And the campaign´s passivity in the face of all the vile slanders certainly didn´t help matters.

He, who tolerates not a doubting word about the former half-term governor of Alaska, is full of venom and ugliness toward the former full-term governor of Massachusetts. Can he spell hypocrisy?

#32. Fair enough. I should have qualified my predominantly w/sentimentally but not practically.

Romney lost because he didn´t articulate his beliefs? Maybe he couldn´t because he did not believe, in his own core, what he was saying.

And another point...if Romney couldn´t "connect" with people, why were tens of thousands of people standing for hours in the rain and snow waiting to see him and hear him? Sixty thousand turned out at one venue in Ohio. Obama got a terrible turn-out; a few thousand if he was lucky. But, to reiterate, he had 95% of the press corps working as unpaid public relations agents for him. Hard, if not impossible, to beat that.

Romney lost because the Republicans didn´t plan to win. They wanted to collect their share of money from their hapless campaign donors and they wanted to polish their resumes.

The only qualification for becoming the Republican nominee was that the person wouldn´t hurt the party "brand." Which is how Karl Rove could tell us that Jon Huntsman (who?) was in the top tier of candidates. Huntsman was a nonentity who wouldn´t hurt the brand in the process of losing. That made him top tier. A nonthreatening loser. Just like Romney.

And as soon as the designated loser lost, he disappared. It was as if he had never existed. Yes, I believe the election was stolen. But it couldn´t have been stolen if the Republicans had not cooperated. They never planned to win, even in the Senate. Else why would they have refused, absolutely refused, to fight for Missouri and Indiana? We have one political party, masquerading as two. I´m done pretending otherwise.

Look at this thread and you´ll know why Romney lost. Sure hope the ones who couldn´t and still can´t stand Romney are happy with four more of Obama. I´m sure not.

Most Romney supporters on this site did their candidate no favors. To find out anything useful or true about Romney, you had to wade through political operatives paid to post propaganda about their boss, and a clone army of attack posters, most of whom mysteriously vanished the moment Mitt secured the nomination. Romney´s appalling primary campaign was aided and abetted by some of the most dishonest and obnoxious people it has ever been my displeasure to interact with on this site. Throughout, we were admonished that "Romney knows best" and accused of religious bigotry and closest Obama-ism if we questioned Mitt´s inevitability. During the entire grotesque affair, I encountered fewer than five principled conservatives who were prepared to make the case for Romney based on something other than political invective. Even they were sometimes attacked by the Romney Uber Alles crowd.

Despite all of that, I voted for Mitt Romney and did what I could to secure additional votes for him in my precinct. I did so because, unlike the one maroon who pogo-sticked from thread to thread repeating it endlessly, "ABO" wasn´t just a slogan for me. It was a patriotic imperative. The Romney Campaign blew this election. It was an ugly, stupid, unnecessary mess. And I greatly fear that those who will not learn from Romney 2012 will condemn us all to repeat it.

You are obviously a huffington post operative and troll who wears ill fitting clothes and uses the same toothbrush for years on end.

Romney 2016!