Romney ‘ShellShocked’ After Loss The Huffington Post | By Daniel Lippman | 11/08/2012 6:51 pm EST Excerpts: WASHINGTON -"As Republicans search for reasons why they came up short in Tuesday's elections, anonymous Mitt Romney advisers have described what it was like to be with the former governor as he came to terms with his loss. "He was shellshocked," one adviser told CBS News. Another unnamed senior adviser explained that as returns came in and battleground states went into President Barack Obama's Electoral College column, they felt their paths to potential victory narrowing. CBS reports that the campaign was unprepared for this in part because it had ignored polling that showed the races favoring Obama. Instead, it turned to its own internal "unskewed" polls, which it believed more accurately reflected the situation on the ground. They didn't. On the eve of the election, a number of polling aggregators, including HuffPost's Pollster and New York Times' FiveThirtyEight, showed Obama with a huge statistical advantage over Romney. When it was clear that Romney had lost the race and had to concede, his personal assistant, Garrett Jackson, called his counterpart in the Obama campaign, Marvin Nicholson, to connect the two men. As CBS' Jan Greenburg writes in her article: ‘Romney was stoic as he talked the president, an aide said, but his wife Ann cried. Running mate Paul Ryan seemed genuinely shocked, the adviser said. Ryan's wife Janna also was shaken and cried softly.’ The New York Times' tick-tock of the events that night at the Boston Intercontinental Hotel includes this anecdote: Bob White, a close Romney friend and adviser, was prepared to tell the waiting crowd that Mr. Romney would not yet concede. But then, Mr. Romney quietly decided it was over. "It's not going to happen," he said. As Ann Romney cried softly, he headed down to deliver his speech, ending his second, and presumably last, bid for the White House.’ ‘As evidence of the Romney campaign's sincere belief that the former Massachusetts governor would emerge victorious on Tuesday night, the Boston Globe reported Thursday that it had planned to fete Romney's election with an eight-minute display of fireworks over Boston Harbor. "It was not an intense, grand finale-type of display for eight minutes, but it certainly was a fast-paced show to cap off the evening, if it were necessary," Steve Pelkey, the CEO of Atlas Professional Fireworks Displays, told the Globe. Romney also told reporters on his campaign plane earlier this week that while had had written a victory speech, 'he hadn't prepared concession remarks.’ " http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/08/mitt-romney-lost-election_n_2095013.html ...... When a politician has ‘yes-men’ aides and staff, he gets a false impression of how he is doing, disregarding all the warning signs that should be telling him he is not fooling the American people. Romney has an ego, and false philosophy of ‘I’m rich and I deserve the presidency’ attitude that ill prepares him for any failure. Further, his previous failures at an elected job in Washington should have told him that he was in some way, disqualified. Instead he had to flaunt every personality disorder known to man, begging for donations, changing his persona to suit his audience, and tunning a campaign that was disjointed and gave no lasting credence to any purported plan when he got into office. The fact that he had quietly hired many of GW’s former staff and aides, including Dick Cheney, that must have given the ‘undecided’ Americans that believe in a Democracy their final decision making momentum...thus a decidedly landslide loss for Romney and his VP running mate. And, finally, the 47% of Americans had the chance to tell Mitt Romney what they thought of him also.
I would find it difficult to imagine a scenario where someone pumped millions into something only to lose being a cause for great rejoicing. I mean... DUH
So it turns out that Romney was right-on?? The 47% of governments dependents voted for Obama. Along with some fools and tools for progressivism.
The fact that he had quietly hired many of GW’s former staff and aides, including Dick Cheney, that must have given the ‘undecided’ Americans that believe in a Democracy their final decision making momentum...thus a decidedly landslide loss for Romney and his VP running mate. I'm not sure if the correct word for that is "terrifying" or "horrifying". I wonder how many of the people who supported him knew that a vote for Romney was a vote for the "Dark Side" being let back into our government?
I don't think that's the point. What it illustrates to me is their supreme arrogance in believing they were so sure to win that Romney didn't even bother to prepare a concession speech in case it didn't go his way. It reminds me of 2000 and the reaction by the Repubs when the election was initially called for Al Gore - stunned disbelief as if they knew something we didn't and a Romney victory was supposed to be a foregone conclusion.
Ann and Janna were crying. How poignant. And Ryan was genuinely shocked, like the time he found out Ayn Rand was an atheist.
Liberals are actually reveling in the Romney's pain... you are some vile and twisted people. If Barack Obama lost, I would wish him as I wished Bill Clinton the best and not harbor resentment. What is the point of kicking someone when they are down?
It's shocking that someone so supposedly good with numbers could not interpret the polls. He should have turned Faux News off for a second and actually looked at the numbers. It would have been shocking if he WON, not if he lost. I realize God was on his side and all, but God could not vote because He failed to show his ID at the polls. Turns out the Bible was not an authorized document.
You would have been the only one. Everyone else would have gloated. Seriously. I hate this partisan stuff.
No one is kicking Romney. He is a good man. They are kicking the mouth breathers who kept insisting in spite of all facts to the contrary that Romney was going to win. When you deny reality and insist so vehemently that you are right and everyone else is stupid for not seeing the color of the sky in your world, you can expect to get ridiculed later.
It is the fanciful worlds they construct. During the campaign there was a week prior to the first debate when the polls put Obama ahead, and the right bent itself backward attacking the pollsters. No poll could be right. They were worthless, and I tended to agree that far out. The week after the debate that all changed, and polls were sound and just; the pollsters finally got it right. To people more firmly based in reality, a sudden whipsaw like that could break a neck, but in la la land it's just another day; Obama is a fascist/communist Muslim, cutting taxes increases revenue, rich people create jobs, money equals speech, corporations are people, a big fence will keep them out and on and on.
The look on the News Anchors/Commentators faces after they projected that Obama had won re-election was priceless. Gone was the confident smugness and arrogance displyed by those who were so sure that Romney would win. It was real quiet on the set of Fox News.
I literally never watch Faux (no point), but as soon as CNN called the race I flipped over just in time to see Rove lose what was left of his credibility. I am actually not a partisan or an Obama guy (I voted for Gary Johnson), but over the last few years the right in this country has gone bat shiite crazy. So I loved every second of it.
Done with the Constitution I see. Not me, and I'll fight for it. I'll be looking for you on the field, too.
We had that. It was called the Confederacy. At least Romney won that part of the country, eh?. (I'll save you time: They lost the war).
It is really better to be shell-shocked and a billionaire than to be shell-shocked and working for a wage. Hop on the Gulfstream, point it at Cannes, have a few Pepsis - he'll be alright.
