Reaganfan
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« on: November 15, 2012, 03:04:03 AM » |
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My official prediction of the 2012 Presidential Election was a close race with President Obama coming out as the victor. My official prediction was 74.1% accurate, not as accurate as my 83.0% accuracy during the 2004 Presidential race. That year, I only failed to predict John Kerry's winning Wisconsin's 10 electoral votes, which I thought would slip to President Bush when in actuality George Bush came up 11,384 votes short.
So, were the results of Obama vs. Romney a shock to me? Not at all. As a matter of fact, I foresaw Romney's pending defeat, and even sent a solemn text message to our very own Keystone Phil around 11:30pm that night saying, "Romney needs to concede, Now." to which Phil seemed surprised. I don't know why. I am NOT a hack. I am a straight shooter. I tell it the way it is. If you can understand that about me, then you can begin to respect my predictions and analysis of elections and current event topics.
Since the election, Democrats have been gloating about their new lock on the electoral college, and how Republicans are a hopeless party doomed to repeat failure over the coming election cycles. In some respects, they are correct. Republicans, whether it be the anti-Obama voters, the Tea Party, the establishment, the evangelicals or even the "Chick-fil-A" crowd, purely and simply did not turn out in the numbers many, even myself, had anticipated. The fact that John McCain's disastrous campaign which culminated with a terrible economic collapse with the incumbent party in the White House with a 30% or lower approval rating received a greater share of popular votes than Governor Mitt Romney shows how many people purely and simply stayed home.
Now, before we begin the recrimination, let me make clear that Governor Romney, who I enthusiastically supported and persuaded several Obama 2008 voters and/or first time voters to cast their ballots for, was not at all my first choice for the nomination. As a matter of fact, I voted for Senator Rick Santorum in the Ohio primary. As did my father. I also would tend to suspect our very own Keystone Phil cast his Pennsylvania primary ballot for Senator Santorum. My choices became narrower and narrower as the primary race went on. The CEO of Godfather's Pizza with infidelity problems? NO. A congresswoman from Minnesota who had solid conservative credentials but came across too extreme for the mainstream and sort-of Palin-esque? NO. The Governor of Texas with a solid conservative record? YES...until you find out that he's more Bruce Dern than John Wayne. The former Speaker of the House of Representatives with a tarnished past who has an ego big enough for several planets to orbit? NO. The former Governor of Massachusetts who can be painted as out of touch and has changed positions multiple times? NO.
With Senator Santorum, I found that his one major flaw was that he was soundly defeated for re-election during the Democratic tidal wave of 2006 in the Democrat-leaning state of Pennsylvania. Losing an election is hardly as terrible as flip-flopping or a tarnished personal problem. Indeed, I came to the same conclusion that my father did. As we both walked out of the voting booth on the afternoon of the Ohio Primary, we confided in each other that we had voted for Santorum to "contrast better" with Barack Obama. That lack of contrast between Obama and Romney, severely evident in the third and final Presidential debate, was critical to have in a society which may be more open to a semi-socialistic viewpoint that the Obama/Biden 2012 campaign pushed forward during this election.
Aaron Goldstein, the Canadian-born Socialist-turned Conservative writer for the American Spectator wrote an outstanding article in the aftermath of the Obama/Romney election in which he basically says that 2012 was the 1980 election all over again...except America has drastically changed in the 32 years since the start of the big-hair punk rock decade.
In the 1980s, American homes were filled week after week with television shows glorifying conservatism. You had "Family Ties", which aired on NBC from 1982 to 1989. The backdrop of the hit sitcom was that Michael J. Fox's idealistic young character Alex P. Keaton, was a Nixon and Reagan-loving conservative having to deal with his 1960s style hippie parents in their home in the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio. One episode in particular was fitting for the times when Mallory Keaton introduced her male friend, "Dad...Alex...this is Jamie Carter" to which Alex leapt into his fathers arms. "Don't worry Alex, she said Jamie Carter...not Jimmy", replied the father, to the audience's delight. Another memorable quote that comes to mind was Alex talking about finding a girl to date and telling his mother that he was going to have to "pick a date off the girl tree." Despondent, she said, "ALEX! The girl tree?" to which he sarcastically replied, "Oh...sorry mom. The woman tree." Again, there was no claim of a fictional "War on Women" or any outcry. In fact, one could claim that the audience, which by the way included the President of the United States, would applaud Alex P. Keaton's sarcastic tone against his liberal mother.
Another popular show, "The A-Team" basically made the protagonists of the show people who could do jobs that the Government was incapable of doing, and the Government was always trying to stop them. This also fit the bill for the Reagan Era's anti-government conservatism.
But the conservatism wasn't always at liberal expense. You would have sitcoms that would air "Very Special Episodes" about the dangers of drugs, drinking and other pressing social issues without resorting to liberalism. Hell, even I myself, born in 1988, remember watching "Just Say No" VHS tapes in grade school a decade after they were made, with Ronald and Nancy Reagan telling kids to say no to drugs and terrifying PSA commercials aired during my Saturday Morning cartoons featuring the dangers of drug use. You remember the PSAs. "Hey Tommy, look what I've got..." as a child held a handful of small white rolled joints with sinister music in the background. Talk about ruining your Saturday bowl of Fruit Loops.
Skip forward nearly 20 years and you now have children watching prime time television shows that glorify drug use. You even have some Americans voting to legalize it. In many ways, it is a victory of liberalism and a nightmare for traditional Americans.
You also, as Aaron Goldstein noted, had many middle aged Americans who grew up under the post-World War II cloud of communism. Japan, Korea, Vietnam, the good old days of the 1950s replaced by the disillusionment of the radical 1960s and 1970s...all the while the Soviet Union was showing off it's military strength. As this was happening, the 20 year old guy firing at German soldiers on French beaches was suddenly a 56 year old American who saw a likable but incompetent President fumbling the ball with the Soviets, having American hostages in Iran, and watching the country they had fought for radically change before their eyes. They were fed up. It didn't matter how likable President Carter was. It didn't matter how good of a speech he might give. The foreign policy failures and the economic recession were simply unacceptable. Nowadays, people were willing to shrug, nod their heads and say, "Oh well, let's keep Barack". It is still difficult to comprehend the change in attitude. It may be a simple case of the 1980 America having more pride than the 2012 America.
As stated earlier, this was the 1980 election. The problem was, it isn't 1980. If it was 1980, and Barack Obama was President and Mitt Romney were the Republican nominee, Romney would have won in a Reagan-style landslide. One important factor often overlooked is that while many people claim conservatism had a firm hold on the American electorate in the eighties, one thing is often forgotten...California. The Republican Party is all but dissolved in the state of California now, but remember, this was a state that Richard Nixon hailed from, and a state from which Ronald Reagan governed. This state held 45 electoral votes in 1972, 1976 and 1980 which were firmly in the Republican column. Had Mitt Romney won California, he would have been just nine votes shy of the White House. But he likely would have won anyways due to the 1980-GOP strongholds of New Jersey, Vermont and Connecticut...states that were Obama Country this year. Also, in 1980, virtually the entire country was contested. You had Reagan campaigning from Michigan to Washington to New York to Florida. In 2012, it basically came down to a handful of states. Most importantly in 2012, there were many less people voting than who voted in elections thirty years ago.
Between Obama and Romney in the state of Ohio, 5,274,423 people cast ballots for either of the two men. Between Carter and Reagan in 1980, 3,958,959 Ohioans cast their ballots for the two men. That's a difference of 1,315,464 people voting in Ohio in 1980 versus 2012. Of course, in 32 years, many things change but one of them is higher turnout for obvious reasons. In 1980, you might see a TV ad for Reagan or hear a radio ad for Carter, perhaps read a newspaper endorsement and hear about the campaign every night on local and national news. But this year, you can't even click on YouTube to listen to a song or watch a video without an ad for the candidates popping up. You can't go onto a website to find school supplies for your children without having an Obama-Biden ad pop up, or do to a fishing website and have an automatic talking Romney on your screen. It's everywhere. For those who have followed politics most of our lives as if it were in the bloodstream, we would vote no matter what. However, in the 1980 electorate...or even as recently as the 2000 electorate...many average American citizens simply didn't care. Nowadays, they want to be involved. Even if they have no idea the difference between being a Governor in your state capitol or being a Senator in Washington, D.C. representing your state, they still want their voices to be heard. That's America. That's the American way.
Nevertheless, conservatism lives on. We will be back. I'm glad because in my heart, I know it's right. I know traditional America lives on. I may not fit in with many my age, but I know what I believe. Why that is, I'll never know. Perhaps...just perhaps... I was raised too similar to the children of half a century ago.
God Bless America
Reaganfan
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