Romney Is Still Dead Wrong! - by TPO

The Romney debacle continues .... His latest analysis for why he lost the election:  Barack Obama was promising (and even giving) gifts to voters! 

The following is a collection of rebuttals, from a variety of sources, to his outrageous claims  ....


ABC News dissects Romney's Analysis of His Election Loss
abcnews.go.com (11/15/12)
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"What the president's campaign did was focus on certain members of his base coalition, give them extraordinary financial gifts from the government, and then work very aggressively to turn them out to vote, and that strategy worked," Romney said, according to audio of the call obtained by ABC News.
"He gave them a big gift on immigration with the DREAM Act amnesty program, which was obviously very, very popular with Hispanic voters, and then number two was Obamacare," Romney said.

ABC News says ...

1. "Free Stuff"
While Romney portrayed Latinos as a group that's very receptive to "free stuff," the community actually places a strong emphasis on hard work and entrepreneurship.
According to a Pew Hispanic Center study, a higher percentage of Latinos believe that hard work can get them ahead when compared to the general public.

2. Obamacare
The Affordable Care Act is expected to have a disproportionate impact on the Latino community, but that's because proportionately it has a larger number of uninsured people than the general population. Three in ten Latinos last year lacked health insurance, according to Census data, almost three times the rate of non-Hispanic whites. 
The law expands access to healthcare through the individual mandate, which requires that a vast majority of Americans purchase their own health insurance or pay a fine. Subsidies and tax credits are available for people who cannot find affordable private insurance (mostly those who live near or below the federal poverty line). These provisions would not necessarily make health insurance free. That means poor individuals and families would still be responsible for paying some healthcare expenses themselves, but would also receive financial assistance from the government. So it's not exactly a gift, as Romney suggested.

3. Immigration
Romney said on the call, "Obama gave them a big gift on immigration with the DREAM Act amnesty program, which was obviously very, very popular with Hispanic voters."
Obama failed to address comprehensive immigration reform during his first term, but he did enact the deferred action program in June 2011 that granted temporary relief to certain young undocumented immigrants.
But Romney's stances on the subject also appeared to fuel his poor performance among Hispanics. Romney opposed the deferred action program, arguing that the president's action would make it more difficult to enact a legislative solution for undocumented youth. The Republican candidate also said he would end the
program and also adopted tough positions on immigration enforcement, such as "self-deportation."
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Washington Post Readers' Comments
(11/14/12)
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bourassa1:
Can Romney or one of his supporters explain why the wealthy and educated Jewish and Asian-American demographics also went for Obama by over 70%?

Buckeye:
Yes Obama gave all students that qualify a chance to go to college and Sanitarian said not all students deserve a chance to go to college {JUST THE ELITE}. Romney said no more grants {BORROW FROM YOUR PARENTS} No clue about the 98%. All repubs wanted to stop college students from voting as very few vote repub due to their policies. Yes Obama gave and Romney wanted to take away. HE LOST GET OVER IT.

Dave234:
I voted for Obama and am now waiting for my gift. I hope it will be a new Ipad. Will it come in the mail?

beachbabe:
Romney DID promise "goodies" to his base -- lower tax rates, no corporate business taxes, no taxes on investment income, no taxes on income earned overseas. Them's some pretty expensive goodies.

BethInBibleBelt:
News Flash Mitt –A large percentage of Americans are African Americans, Latinos and young people, and if you add in women, we are obviously way more than half of us. Soooo… Obama was targeting Americans. How outrageous!
Non-government check receiving, not young, white female Obama voter here. I didn’t vote for a gift. Keep insulting us and your successor won’t do any better than you did. And FYI -there are trailer parks full of people who get government checks and voted for you. You might not realize they exist since they probably were not able to send you a check.
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"A sense of entitlement"
Pioneer Press
Posted:   11/15/2012
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Terry G., Vadnais Heights , MN :
I voted for President Obama, and the writer of "A 'handout' economy" (Nov. 11) is correct -- I have an entitlement mentality. My personal "moral decay" includes teaching children how to play band instruments for the past 34 years.
I also spent 21 years as a volunteer on my local fire department and served as an EMT and CPR instructor for our medical services. Before that, I spent 10 years volunteering with the National Ski Patrol at Afton Alps. My "moral decay" also includes teaching merit badges to Boy Scouts for four years, heading up the confirmation program at my church for four years and serving as its president, as well. In 1971, I volunteered for the draft and served in the U.S. Army for two years. So yes, I have a strong sense of entitlement. I am entitled to vote for whomever I please.

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Relevance or Obsolescence? - by TPO

It is the day after.  The Republican party is in a state of shock and disarray.  The 2012 election results were like cold slaps of reality on the false assumptions and conclusions of a vanished status quo ante. Unfortunately, the party's apparatchiks are now only interested in blame games and doubling down on their obsolete ideology. They do not comprehend the seismic philosophical and attitudinal changes of the citizenry toward government.  True, some thinkers are calling for reforms, but they are largely of the cosmetic kind. 

One conservative, however, is standing up and making an appeal for realism, for truth, and for reasonableness.  That person is David Brooks, a political analyst, commentator, and syndicated opinion-piece columnist for The New York Times.  The following is a recent article by Mr. Brooks that should be treasured by everybody ....

The Party of Work
By DAVID BROOKS
The New York Times, Opinion
Published: November 8, 2012

The American colonies were first settled by Protestant dissenters. These were people who refused to submit to the established religious authorities. They sought personal relationships with God. They moved to the frontier when life got too confining. They created an American creed, built, as the sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset put it, around liberty, individualism, equal opportunity, populism and laissez-faire.

This creed shaped America and evolved with the decades. Starting in the mid-20th century, there was a Southern and Western version of it, formed by ranching Republicans like Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Their version drew on the traditional tenets: ordinary people are capable of greatness; individuals have the power to shape their destinies; they should be given maximum freedom to do so.

This is not an Ayn Randian, radically individualistic belief system. Republicans in this mold place tremendous importance on churches, charities and families — on the sort of pastoral work Mitt Romney does and the sort of community groups Representative Paul Ryan celebrated in a speech at Cleveland State University last month.

But this worldview is innately suspicious of government. Its adherents generally believe in the equation that more government equals less individual and civic vitality. Growing beyond proper limits, government saps initiative, sucks resources, breeds a sense of entitlement and imposes a stifling uniformity on the diverse webs of local activity.

During the 2012 campaign, Republicans kept circling back to the spot where government expansion threatens personal initiative: you didn’t build that; makers versus takers; the supposed dependency of the 47 percent. Again and again, Republicans argued that the vital essence of the country is threatened by overweening government.

These economic values played well in places with a lot of Protestant dissenters and their cultural heirs. They struck chords with people whose imaginations are inspired by the frontier experience.

But, each year, there are more Americans whose cultural roots lie elsewhere. Each year, there are more people from different cultures, with different attitudes toward authority, different attitudes about individualism, different ideas about what makes people enterprising.

More important, people in these groups are facing problems not captured by the fundamental Republican equation: more government = less vitality.

The Pew Research Center does excellent research on Asian-American and Hispanic values. Two findings jump out. First, people in these groups have an awesome commitment to work. By most measures, members of these groups value industriousness more than whites.

Second, they are also tremendously appreciative of government. In survey after survey, they embrace the idea that some government programs can incite hard work, not undermine it; enhance opportunity, not crush it.

Moreover, when they look at the things that undermine the work ethic and threaten their chances to succeed, it’s often not government. It’s a modern economy in which you can work more productively, but your wages still don’t rise. It’s a bloated financial sector that just sent the world into turmoil. It’s a university system that is indispensable but unaffordable. It’s chaotic neighborhoods that can’t be cured by withdrawing government programs.

For these people, the Republican equation is irrelevant. When they hear Romney talk abstractly about Big Government vs. Small Government, they think: He doesn’t get me or people like me.

Let’s just look at one segment, Asian-Americans. Many of these people are leading the lives Republicans celebrate. They are, disproportionately, entrepreneurial, industrious and family-oriented. Yet, on Tuesday, Asian-Americans rejected the Republican Party by 3 to 1. They don’t relate to the Republican equation that more government = less work.

Over all, Republicans have lost the popular vote in five out of the six post-cold-war elections because large parts of the country have moved on. The basic Republican framing no longer resonates.

Some Republicans argue that they can win over these rising groups with a better immigration policy. That’s necessary but insufficient. The real problem is economic values.

If I were given a few minutes with the Republican billionaires, I’d say: spend less money on marketing and more on product development. Spend less on “super PACs” and more on research. Find people who can shift the debate away from the abstract frameworks — like Big Government vs. Small Government. Find people who can go out with notebooks and study specific, grounded everyday problems: what exactly does it take these days to rise? What exactly happens to the ambitious kid in Akron at each stage of life in this new economy? What are the best ways to rouse ambition and open fields of opportunity?

Don’t get hung up on whether the federal government is 20 percent or 22 percent of G.D.P. Let Democrats be the party of security, defending the 20th-century welfare state. Be the party that celebrates work and inflames enterprise. Use any tool, public or private, to help people transform their lives.
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