Republicans are to blame for Romney’s loss

Charles Wilson
Staff Columnist

The voting electorate narrowly re-elected president Obama, giving him another shot at doing what he couldn’t do in his first term: reunite the country and rejuvenate a sick economy.

Obama was actually re-elected with the highest unemployment rate since Franklin Delano Roosevelt and with a lower percentage of the vote than in his first election.

The President’s first term saw four years of trillion dollar deficits, declining middle class incomes and little to no job growth. Considering Obama had trouble keeping an approval rating above 50 percent throughout his presidency, it’s baffling that he still won. After all, he never accomplished anything with congressional Republicans and signed controversial legislation that sparked the Tea Party movement.

The Obama administration’s campaign strategy of ignoring their own record or an agenda for the future, but rather spending a substantial amount of their resources demonizing former President George Bush and painting challenger Mitt Romney as a person to run from worked better than anyone could have imagined.

Exit polls clearly showed voters viewed Romney as an unfavorable candidate and Bush, not Obama, was mostly at fault for the weak economy. In addition, minorities and women overwhelmingly went for Obama. These factors kept Romney from becoming the 45th president of the United States.

So what should Romney have done differently?

In retrospect, Romney needed to spend more time defending his sterling business career at Bain Capital, focusing special attention on his ability to manage a great business that funded American companies, such as Staples, Dunkin’ Donuts and Sports Authority. Accumulating masses of wealth by providing value to society is nothing to be ashamed of or downplayed. Too often during the campaign, Romney let the Obama camp get away with the myth that he represents vulture capitalism rather than the American dream. The Romney camp never effectively rebutted the barrage of anti-Bain commercials

Romney also did a poor job differentiating himself from the unpopular presidency of Bush. Too many Americans bought into the myth that somehow Bush is still at fault for Obama’s incompetency and Romney would just be another version of Bush.

In reality, Obama’s first term was merely an extension of the Bush presidency on many grounds. For instance, both Bush and Obama expanded health care entitlements, increased regulations on businesses and paid for their profligate spending via the national credit card.

Romney’s main economic agenda represented fiscal sanity, regulatory relief and entitlement reform, which is far from anything signed into law by the last Republican president. Unfortunately, Romney failed to convince Americans on how his economic plan was different from Bush’s or how it would once again foster prosperity for the US economy.

On the demographic front, Republicans always lose the minority and women vote, however, the magnitude of these voters flocking to Obama was unprecedented and represents a demographic nightmare for the future of the Republican party.  Republicans must carefully address this issue by reaching out to them in a way that doesn’t compromise too many of their core principles.

Perhaps the Republican Party should de-emphasize the social issues at the federal level. Republicans that represent a hardcore anti-abortion view on the federal level lose crucial votes in the swing states, particularly with women. A few rogue Republicans views on abortion and rape brought down the whole party this year.

In order to win back some of the minority votes, Republicans must articulate their economic platform of growth and jobs to the various minority groups that tend to have higher unemployment rates and lower incomes than the national average, explaining how they can benefit greatly from conservative economics.

For instance, Hispanics tend to be entrepreneurial so the Republicans can win them over with their plans to streamline regulations and lower marginal tax rates. One of the biggest impediments facing business start-ups is complying with government.

In short, the Romney defeat is upsetting and shocking for the political right. With president Obama’s anemic economic record, on top of his unpopular policies among center-right individuals, it’s beyond belief that 50 percent of the population voted for him again.

Republicans have to better prepare themselves for vicious attacks, defend their positions more aggressively and appeal to a broader base of voters to take back key public offices.