What Happened To The GOP in 2012

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1. Barack Obama did about everything that gets an incumbent President re-elected. He avoided scandals. His cabinet choices did not make fools of themselves. He got major legislation enacted. He avoided diplomatic and military debacles. He got us out of a pointless war without disgrace. He calmed anti-American sentiments worldwide. He whacked the most objectionable terrorist in American history and some other characters then very dangerous to America. He responded competently, equitably, and promptly to natural disasters. He performed good stewardship of an economy that seemed in a catastrophic meltdown. If it is too early to determine how good a President he is, one can clearly recognize him as much better than his incompetent, reckless, dishonest predecessor.

2. Barack Obama had the same competent campaign methods of 2008. If his campaign could not pretend at any time to contest 50 states it was able to win the States that he had to win. It ably coordinated itself with interest groups that won him the 2008 election. Those groups had no cause to abandon him. If he got fewer votes it was because people who ordinarily voted Republican before 2008 voted for him because they were more concerned about income and asset values than taxes and the cheapness of labor during an economic meltdown, those voters had recovered enough to become more secure about income and asset values to have concern about taxes, regulations, and labor costs. But people who voted for him for other reasons still voted for him. That is success.

3. Republicans assumed that the 2010 elections were the wave of the future because they were so successful. What happened was that they won about every House and Senate seat that they could in a year of depressed turnout. Democrats had little more to lose in 2012. It was easy to see the President as vulnerable if he still stood for everything that the Hard Right despised -- but they couldn't win over fresh voters to their side. There was no nationwide Religious Revival to pull Americans from D to R and there is unlikely to be one soon.

4. Need I mention that politicians are wise to avoid the topic of rape except to say that it is a horrible crime and "lock rapists up and lose the key"? Democrats have largely sloughed off the "soft on crime" meme. Democrats won two Senate seats in states that Barack Obama was nowhere near winning (Indiana, Missouri) because fools nominated for the US Senate trivialized rape.

5. Mitt Romney was a poor candidate for President -- and such was not known to begin with. He ran on his business success, but that implies that what he does to succeed is relevant. His business success was heavily the raiding of assets from cash-rich but troubled companies. The cash disappeared, and the companies stripped of cash became quick failures. People who might have seen him as a possible solution to a fiscal mess found his managerial style inappropriate for government. Businesses can fire at will, but governments cannot 'fire' voters. He showed himself a flagrant narcissist. Even the "dog on the roof" had to scare some people. If he could take a dog across country on the roof of a car, what could he do to people?

I cannot suggest what Republican would have done better in 2012, though. Many would have exposed flaws that we don't know about. Republicans needed a miracle -- another Ronald Reagan.

6. Paul Ryan was a horrible choice for VP. Active Congressional Representatives have fared badly in Presidential politics. Maybe Barry Goldwater and Walter Mondale had doomed campaigns, but their choices could not swing the state that those choices represented in one Congressional district. For good reason we elect numerous current or former Senators and Governors -- they have succeeded in statewide elections. OK, Jack Kemp was a good politician but ran from the wrong state; Dick Cheney won a statewide election in Wyoming because the one Congressional representative is elected at-large. But it was Wyoming, which is no microcosm of America. Cheney was selected for his administrative experience and policy knowledge and not for any perceived  ability to swing a state -- and Dubya got away with that choice.

What about 2014?

The Democrats have more potential for loss in the Senate due to open seats or Democrats in states that Republicans have done well in in recent statewide elections. But that was also so in 2012. Strong Democratic Senate candidates could topple an unpopular Senator Mitch McConnell in Kentucky and win an open seat in Georgia -- if such candidates appear. That is a big 'if'. Indiana looked 'Safe R' for its Senate seat going into 2012, too.  Some unpopular Republican governors can crash and burn.

Democrats must win some House seats with electorates tending slightly R that now have extreme Tea Party types to win a Congressional majority. The other side is that the Democrats have few glaring vulnerabilities in the House. It's not as if the Democrats have outright Marxists in moderate districts in which a moderate Republican could win.

Several Republican governors have approval ratings deep underwater  - in the range of the RMS Titanic.

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2012 was arguably the weakest Republican field in decades. Why is that. Why did the Republican A-Team decide to sit 2012 out. Obama was at his weakest in 2011, when the Primary race began. It was the perfect storm. Why did Jindal, Christie, Thune, Daniels and others decide against running?

Barack Obama is still one of the canniest campaigners out there. He won a Senate seat despite youth and comparative inexperience. He ran a masterful campaign in 2008, and one could expect much the same in 2012. He had done nothing to get himself defeated. The financial industry abandoned him once they had used him to do what was necessary to prevent the 2007-2009 meltdown from becoming like the 1929-1932 meltdown -- but that did not swing a state.

Jindal, Daniels, and Thune have always been B-team material. Christie did not become A-team material until Hurricane Sandy, and then paradoxically by cooperating with President Obama.