Will the Republicans Learn Their Lesson From Tuesday's Election

An ordinary citizen analyzes the statistical predictions for a Republican loss in the forthcoming presidential election -- and concludes that there are many lessons to be learned by the Republican party.
 
Nov. 4, 2012 - PRLog -- As I am writing, it is now the Saturday morning before the election. Statistically speaking, President Barack Obama is poised to be decisively re-elected. The most current projections (by mathematical wizard Nate Silver of the New York Times) show that he is likely to attain more than 300 electoral votes. Of course, the Republican opposition is hardly ready to concede. A recent editorial by Karl Rove in he Wall Street Journal predicts a Romney victory. Numerous right-wing pundits are predicting a Romney landslide.

It would not be unreasonable to suggest that these Republican partisans are simply in a state of denial. After all, when it comes to matters of scientific fact and statistical evidence, this is far too often the case (i.e., climate change, female biology or even evolution). However, facts aside, there is an enormous weight of logic behind the proposition that Romney should be winning this election hands down.

First of all, there was the ignominious Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court just last year that, in effect, gave the Republicans an enormous financial advantage in this campaign. To the extent that campaigns can be won through money and advertising, a Republican victory should be a no-brainer.

Second, it is fair to say that never in modern U.S. history has an opposition party been so united against an incumbent president. Since Obama’s election, a single day has not passed when the mainstream news media did not give airtime to a Republican spokesperson attacking Obama. And, Fox News, the single largest cable news network rarely let an hour pass without attacks on the President of the United States. This opposition to Obama, and the Affordable Healthcare Act, propelled the Republicans to huge midterm victories in 2010.

Third, not only was the Republican party united against Obama, the vitriolic level of their animosity toward the incumbent far exceeded that seen even against Bill Clinton, who was impeached (but not convicted) by a Republican congress, or Richard Nixon, who was forced to resign. Republicans fostered the idea that Obama was a foreigner by birth, not constitutionally entitled to hold the office of president. During a State of the Union address, one Republican congressman shouted out at Obama, “You lie!” He was accused of being a socialist, a communist, and a Muslim. Michelle Obama was likened to a gorilla. Clearly, many of the attacks against Obama had overtones and undertones of racism – accusing him of being lazy, of fostering a welfare society. Some attacks were racially explicit, such as the t-shirt photographed at one right-wing gathering that stated, “Put a White back in the White House”; or the Halloween image of Obama hanging from a tree, as in a lynching.

Fourth, the Republican congress refused to pass any Obama initiatives after 2010. And, the minority leader in the Senate stated publicly that his number one priority was to prevent Obama’s re-election. Republicans in congress voted against their own proposals and ideas, on numerous occasions, once it became clear that Obama would support them. Their strategy was clear: deny Obama any victories in congress. Then blame him for being a partisan divider and failing to work across the aisle.

Fifth, to put the best face on it, the economic recovery under Obama has been disappointing. For most of his term, unemployment has remained over 8% -- only dipping below that mark slightly during recent months. No president, since Franklin Roosevelt, has been re-elected with unemployment at such a high level.

Sixth, even Obama’s base of liberal democrats has been relatively tepid in its support of the president. The enormous Republican sweep of 2010 is testament to the fact that Democratic voters stayed away from the polling booths. Democrats have been largely disappointed in Obama’s failure to punish the Wall Street executives whose recklessness triggered the financial crisis of 2008. They question the wisdom of his escalation of the war in Afghanistan. They question the use of drones for assassination of terrorists in Pakistan.

In short, the lack of Democratic enthusiasm combined with the strength of both motivation and money on the Republican side seemed to be the perfect recipe for a Republican victory in the 2008 presidential election.

But, as I sit here today, such an outcome seems statistically improbable.

What happened? What lessons can be found here? My perspective is threefold in nature. To begin with, Republican ideas (i.e., deregulation) have already nearly bankrupted this country and are largely responsible for the almost crippling financial crisis that Obama inherited in 2009.

Next, Republican social policies are regressive and out-of-step with the broad tendency toward greater equality and freedom. In essence, Republicans argue that the modern-day version of Robber Barons deserve greater freedom; while simultaneously saying that the government should restrict the freedoms of women, ethnic minorities and the elderly (i.e., voter suppression), and gays. In each case, this goes against the grain of both justice and common sense. No matter how much Republicans try to dress up these ideas, people seem to see through the hypocrisy.

Finally, the Romney team reinforced the perception that Republican policies are bankrupt by wasting no time in building a campaign based upon transparent lies. The very first ad they ran falsely accused Obama of claiming that, “If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.” In fact, the video clip they used in that ad was Obama quoting his 2008 opponent, John McCain.

The misquotes and outright lies of the Romney campaign have continued nonstop, and at a rapid pace, right up to the present day with Romney’s false claim that Chrysler plans to move all of its production to China, a claim that one auto executive called “Bullshit.”

In between, there were some incredible whoppers. For example, the Republican convention itself was built on the theme of “we built that” – based on another misquote from Obama, falsely, implying that Democrats don’t believe that business owners build their own businesses. Of course, the actual Obama quote was that business owners didn’t build the infrastructure of highways and power grids that support their businesses.

Then there was the totally false claim, repeated in a Romney advertisement yesterday, that Obama was trying to “gut” welfare reform. The implication of this lie was that Obama wished to funnel more taxpayer money to lazy black people, and other minorities, who had no desire to work for a living.

Not only did Romney continually fabricate untrue stories about Obama, he continuously lied about his own prior positions on numerous issues. The brazenness and the cynicism of these ongoing prevarications strike me as having reinforced the notion that Romney’s republican platform was as hollow and untrustworthy as his campaign tactics.

It would seem as if all the money in the world could not buy an American presidential election, even in a struggling economy against a mixed-race incumbent, if the challenger and the party backing him or her cannot demonstrate that they have both moral integrity and a clear grasp of reality.

Are the current batch of Republicans even capable learning from this defeat? I hope so. After all, democracy requires a loyal opposition.
End
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