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Washington
Times
Election 2012:
What really happened? Idea lost to ideologue
“Competence is for
after the election when it is time to govern. Ideology is what gets the
winning candidate elected.”
LAS VEGAS, November 8, 2012 – After every election there are
celebrations for the winning side and recriminations for the defeated.
Yet what usually fails to transpire is an actual understanding of what
happened.
Recent past elections provided clues to what the Democrats grasped and
the Republicans ignored in this last election.
This was a very close election and recriminations are best left to the
side. Leftists like E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post and Joan Walsh
at Salon will write their typical drivel about how conservatism is now
dead and liberalism will rule forever and ever by divine left. Serious
individuals saw President Obama win the popular vote 50-49%. He won
Virginia by one point, Florida by less than one point, and Ohio by
between one and two points.
Had Ohio been slightly closer, America would be buried in counts and
recounts right now. President Obama hung on by his fingernails, so any
liberals lacking humility may wish to remember what happens to
politicians who get full of themselves and mistake a second chance for
a mandate for one-party governance.
Yes, Barack Obama is the luckiest man on Earth. He was losing by five
points nationally in 2008 before the financial crisis hit. After a
disastrous first debate in 2012, he was down four points nationally
before being rescued by Hurricane Sandy. MSNBC's Chris Matthews took
flak this week for thanking God for the hurricane. However, luck does
not explain everything.
President Obama should have been defeated by twenty points, in the same
way Al Gore should have won in a landslide in 2000.
One key reason President Obama defeated Governor Romney is that
negative campaigning works. In 1988, campaign strategist Lee Atwater
savaged Michael Dukakis, allowing George Herbert Walker Bush to turn a
17 point deficit into a 13 point lead and eventual eight point victory.
In 2004, George W. Bush could not have asked for a better attack dog
than current Democrat and former Georgia Senator Zell Miller. John
Kerry was defined as weak, wobbly and a man who would try to defend
America with "spitballs."
The 2012 version of Lee Atwater came in the form of barracuda
throat-slitter Stephanie Cutter. Her job is not to make the world a
better place, spread peace and love, or help a single struggling
American have a better life. Her job is to be a soulless, ruthless
political operative with no regard for standards of humanity.
Her job is to win at all costs. She did her job very well, defining
Governor Romney as a 1950s patriarch and patrician who was waging a war
on women and wanted to reinstitute slavery, all the while burning
one-hundred dollar bills to smoke his cigars (Ironically it is
President Obama who smokes. Mr. Romney does not even drink alcohol).
Yet the biggest reason President Obama was able to survive is because
of the battle between "competence" and "ideology." When two candidates
choose these two different approaches, ideology will emerge victorious
every single time…
Read the rest of this article at the Washington Times
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