"Victory has a thousand fathers, defeat is an orphan" a John F. Kennedy often quoted canard has been far from true over the last months following the Republican defeat in the November Presidential elections. Many Republicans are still crying in their beers, blaming the party, blaming the pundits, blaming unfair tactics of the opposition, blaming "the takers on the dole" who voted for Obama to continue whatever benefits they were getting.
Facts are facts. They won. We lost. And as Mr. Obama has said elections are about winning, and they won. Now is the time to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and get back in the race. Not next year when the heat is on do we want to be scrambling to keep and extend seats in Congress, retain and gain Governor positions. It is only in winning seats in key local and Federal positions that Republican values of strong fiscal management and economic growth can prevail. Too many of us have become disillusioned, disgusted. We thought we had a great candidate, and continue to grimace as we watch the current "leader" in the White House fail at doing anything to get our County back on track. We need to stop the hand wringing, stop the fallout and get back to work.
How did they beat us and how do we move forward? A combination of turnout and segmentation of the vote. Obama campaign officials said their get-out-the-vote organization — the people who make calls, knock on doors, micro-target potential voters and drive supporters to the polls — was more than three years in the making, building on "their record-breaking effort in 2008". Republicans did make an effort at this, but they outdid us. Moreover, they segmented the race and focused in on two important and large populations: women and Latinos. Two weaknesses in Republican rhetoric and policy.
As I made my "turnout" calls for the Republican Party I spoke to Republican woman after Republican woman who was uncertain about Romney. Fearful on the abortion issue, fearful he would take away needed senior benefits, fearful of health care costs for themselves and family. While not clearly saying that this was going to happen, what these women were telling me was their vote was swinging towards Obama for safety. They didn't want their daughters or granddaughters to have to face an illegal abortion or a family member out of job not to have health care or themselves to lose social security. The Obama campaign's claim that Republicans were waging a war against women was winning and ultimately won.
The Republican Party has to clearly define itself now before 2013 on where they stand on issues that concern women. President Barack Obama won the two-party vote among female voters in the 2012 election by 12 points, 56% to 44%, over Republican challenger Mitt Romney. Meanwhile, Romney won among men by an eight-point margin, 54% to 46%. That total 20-point gender gap was the largest the Gallup organization had measured in a presidential election since it began compiling the vote by major subgroups in 1952. To keep the house and gain the Senate, the woman gap has got to be resolved.
