Tuesday's Election

This past election has many on the conservative side questioning how the election was lost to a president who seemed easy to defeat.  With the economy in shambles and the Libyan consulate scandal so close to the election, many wonder if we have become a nation of takers who are content with the federal government caring for its citizens.  Do the number of Americans receiving government aid outnumber those who are producing wealth, and are those on the government dole concerned about anything other than continuing the enrichment of themselves through federal and state programs? (WND).  Bottom line, have we become a socialist nation?  (And by the way, both CNN and the Huffington Post break down possibilities for the Romney loss, but conveniently leave out the above mentioned reasoning, in typical left-wing media fashion (CNN, HuffingtonPost.com).)

Some conservatives, including myself (initially) felt this was true.  When Barack Obama won, it felt as if the electorate was lost.  After all, Romney received nearly two to three million fewer votes than John McCain did four years ago (BCNN1), and McCain was not nearly as popular.  But upon closer inspection, my views have changed a little.

According the above article in BCCN1, Barack Obama also received fewer votes, nine to ten million less than in 2008.  Due to the Republican loss and media malpractice, this has gone nearly unnoticed.  In fact, I cannot seem to find any major news outlet that even mentions this, because it is extremely devastating for the administration.  Granted this does not change the fact that Republicans lost, and there is no suggestion that Obama's victory should be down played.  The election does clearly show that a majority of Americans, however small, cared more about themselves than the country in this election cycle.  However it also shows that Obama's supposed huge mandate and popularity does not exist.  In fact, he just hit above fifty percent approval (BusinessInsider.com) after approval ratings in the forties for months.

So when combined, around twelve million people did not vote in this election.  How would they have voted?  No one may be able to say for sure, but clearly they would have voted against Barack Obama.  The unfortunate part is that they also refused to vote for Romney.  My take on this is more aligned with Liz Marlantes of the CSMonitor who says Romney just wasn't a good candidate (article here).  I differ with her reasoning, but her premise is correct.  I feel Romney wasn't conservative enough.

But how can one say that after a majority voted for socialism?  Well a few points.

First, many in the Republican party feel cheated by the Republicans, and if your base does not turn out, you lose.  There is a history of bad blood between Conservatives and Republicans.  Conservatives say Republicans are too moderate and therefore refuse to vote Republican (BeforeItsNews.com).  Republicans often attack conservatives as being too "purist" on several issues, sometimes resorting to name calling (Politico, TheHill.com).  Then there is the Republican leadership, who gives into the administration's demands and consorts with Obama too often (Reuters).  Also, Romney viciously went after fellow Republicans during the primary, angering many supporters of other candidates.  I believe a significant number of Conservatives, Libertarians, and right-leaning Independents stayed home on election day.

Second, the actual election results kept the power structure about the same.  The Republicans still control the House of Representatives, the Democrats the Senate and the Presidency.  If there had truly been a huge push for socialism and the Democrats, they would have won super majorities in both Houses, and along with the Presidency. This happened in 2008 because Barack Obama was an unknown and historic figure, not due to the promotion of socialism.

Third, Romney, being moderate, did not distinguish himself enough from Obama.  For example, he would talk in terms of rich and poor and passed Romneycare in Massachusetts, the precursor to Obamacare.  He also let Obama and the traditional media hammer him on several issues with little response or counter punch from Romney.  During the third debate, which centered around foreign policy, Romney did not go after Obama at all on Benghazi, an obvious soft spot in the Obama presidency.  It has always been my belief that if you give someone a choice between a "full-on" vision and "light" version of that vision, people will choose the former.  Plus, if you don't fight back, but instead claim your attacker is nice guy, as Romney often did, you look weak and give your opponent the opportunity to define you.  That is a definite problem Romney had.

So what does this all mean?  We must keep fighting and keep the conversation going.  There were twelve million people who did not vote in the last election and need to be convinced that conservatism is what they should support next time.  If the Republican party cannot realize that, if they continue to push for moderates and moderate ideas that cannot win, then maybe it's time to put our enthusiasm and strength behind something else.