Romney doomed himself when he wrote an article entitled "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt." Betting that early, and that cynically, on the failure of a major economic engine in the Rust Belt was a chips-on-the-table moment. And, thankfully for the country, he was wrong. Very proud to have to have President Barack Obama continue to lead our country.
The republicans lost once the social issues where brought in to the debate. If they only focused on the economy then Romney would have won.
I have to say that the concession speech tells you a lot. Compare it to John McCain's 2008 speech. Or Adlai's speech, to look back in history. This was pretty weak sauce, and late too. I don't mean to heap dirt on the guy. It was probably especially tough for him, and he was so close.
That was the biggest factor in voters' minds but I don't think people saw Romney as the answer. He was seen as the candidate that was looking out for the wealthy and not interested in solely addressing the deficit. John Mccain would have destroyed Obama if he would have run this time around.
In either case that's just extremely arrogant. Dude must have been predicting a landslide victory for him to completely shirk the possibility of losing.
Romney discounted Women and Latinos. When the details of Voter demographics comes out it will be clear.
Paul Begala nailed it: The term "independent" no longer means anything because most who identify themselves as such are partisan right or left and always vote the same way. They are NOT swing voters. I brought this up a few months ago. Going forward, pollsters need to either parse "independent" voters into meaningful groups or drop the term entirely and identify the swing voters whose votes are actually up for grabs.
Considering Minnesota is in a dead heat with 33% left to count, i suspect it is too early to call 4-0.
Props for being pretty much the only repub still here, but dude stfu and go to sleep. You lost, stop acting so butthurt.