Republican backrooms are buzzing as strategists are attempting to find someone or something to blame for the Mitt Romney loss.
Mitt Romney lost on Tuesday night and the modern republicans are still grappling with the reality that their presidential candidate lost. They were prepared for a landslide – in which their candidate won. Instead, after a very expensive campaign President Obama was re-elected.
A very embarrassing prediction came from Dick Morris who appeared on a special broadcast of FOX News’ “On the Record” with host Greta van Susteren and predicted that Mitt Romney would win the presidential election in a landslide victory.
Specifically, he opined that Romney would capture 325 electoral votes while Obama would get 213.
“It will be the biggest surprise in recent American political history,” Morris said. “It will rekindle the whole question on why the media played this race as a nailbiter where in fact Romney’s going to win by quite a bit.”
Morris was not alone, though. Fox News hosts, talk radio shock jocks, and conservative bloggers echoed the same sentiment. George Will was also caught up in the echoed message that Mr. Romney was going to be elected. In fact, the echo chamber was loud and confident.
However, as the election night proceeded, Karl Rove was unable to handle Fox News calling Ohio for President Obama. His two super PACs spent millions trying to support Mitt Romney’s campaign. While on the air, Rove attempted to argue that only 77 percent of the votes from Ohio precincts were known. He continued that these uncounted precincts were in heavy republican areas. Mr. Rove was wrong.
By the end of election night, the vote count was the reverse of republican expectations and hopes in which President Obama received over 300 electoral votes. And despite this victory, select republicans attempted to spin the vote count by stating Mr. Obama received less votes than Mr. McCain (R) received in 2008. This idea is a false equivalency, as well as ignoring the fact that a win is a win.
Today Mr. Rove is blaming the loss because of voter suppression – a new definition in which poll taxes, voter ID programs, and limiting poll locations are generally considered methods for suppression of votes. The echo chamber is running with this story, for example Breitbart is attempting to spin the idea by blaming implementation of ORCA, a republican voter registration program.
Mr. Rove is also pushing the voter suppression idea by suggesting that the loss is the blame of President Obama’s campaign ‘Grand Bet.’ As the LA Times points out the irony that the master of negative politics accused the other side of not playing fair.
Without a doubt, Fox News pundits and Republican surrogates are struggling with a new reality, the Rove-ality is wrong. Some of the modern republicans cannot see that the Rove-ality ruined Romney.
As time passes, some citizens will start to question the latest excuses: voter suppression, Sandy, partisan fact checking, and an uninformed electorate .
The truth is that the republican message is out of step with the majority of Americans. After all, Karl Rove handled two SuperPACs which had financial power to run over the Obama campaign, and yet, the message did not resonate with the American electorate.
Eventually modern republicans will stop insulting people: claiming 47% of the electorate are takers, lazy, and moochers, and ultimately calling Obama voters stoopid. Maybe the out of touch ones are the ones still clinging to the idea that Romney had a consistent message. He didn’t, but some people cannot accept that fact.
Will the Republicans adjust? Probably not. They’ll try the Southern Strategy again. They’ll obstruct in Congress and blame President Obama. They’ll twist words and facts. After all, they are the new modern republicans – conservatives without conscience.