We'll just have to disagree then. Gore & Kerry both lost (narrowly) because they had zero personality. Give the Gore & Kerry platforms a candidate with Obama's personality & they both win. Give the Romney platform a candidate with Christie's personality & he wins.

 

Obviously charisma is important, but Kerry and Romney share a lot in common otherwise. They both ran against relatively strong, yet flawed incumbents, where voters were probably willing to give someone else a chance, but Kerry and Romney never gave them any reason to. Both basically ran campaigns as "I'm not the other guy" and were vague and nebulous about their positions so as to not get pinned down on something. Both Bush and Obama had roughly 50% approval ratings. "I'm not the other guy" isn't a winning campaign.

I heard Rudy Guiliani talking about what Republicans need to do going forward in order to get in touch with the changing demographics in our country and I have to say it made sense. Republicans can be fiscally conservative and conservative in their views towards defense (i.e. spend $$ on the military) but when it comes to social issues such as gay marriage and abortion, they need to be Libertarian. If the Republican battle cry is truly less government intrusion on the federal level, then they need to let states decide these issues. A candidate can endorse that their view of marriage is between a man and a woman and that their pro-life while at the same time endorsing that each of these social issues is up to the electorate of individual states. If Republicans can adopt this approach as their platform, they can possibly garner enough votes from those demographic groups that they currently alienate on a large scale. You can't win on hard line stances with social issues while at the same time saying we need limited government!

 

You just summed up where I am at.

Obviously charisma is important, but Kerry and Romney share a lot in common otherwise. They both ran against relatively strong, yet flawed incumbents, where voters were probably willing to give someone else a chance, but Kerry and Romney never gave them any reason to. Both basically ran campaigns as "I'm not the other guy" and were vague and nebulous about their positions so as to not get pinned down on something. Both Bush and Obama had roughly 50% approval ratings. "I'm not the other guy" isn't a winning campaign.

 

I don't disagree with any of this. I am just of the opinion that personability trumps basically everything when you get down to the two final candidates. Romney ran as more of a moderate than Bush, yet Bush won twice. Bush was more personable than either of his opponents & Romney was not. Gore, Kerry, & Romney all share the same perception of being a stuffed suit. That doesn't bode well when running for the White House.

We'll just have to disagree then. Gore & Kerry both lost (narrowly) because they had zero personality. Give the Gore & Kerry platforms a candidate with Obama's personality & they both win. Give the Romney platform a candidate with Christie's personality & he wins.

 

Mr Romney lost in two critical groups: women and Latinos. Personality was not the reason.

Can you give me a number of black voters in past elections? I would be curious what the increase has been in the past two elections. If there was a huge increase in turnout then he absolutely did change their voting patterns.

 

Tired of getting info for you. You're an able body at a computer, no more free handouts!

I wouldn't say no matter what..I guess if there were a narrow minded candidate that didn't respect others that were different from them because of gender, race, or social class, etc.....Then no, I would say, the vote would not be that high for a democrat candidate. I love the notion that the GOP thinks that minorities vote for democrats just for that reason. As if, minorities aren't intelligent enough to look at policies and do what's best for them.

 

I am in no way shape or form trying to insult the intelligence of an entire race but the numbers say they vote democrat no matter what. I find it difficult to believe that 90% of the black population just happen to agree with every democratic nominee.

Mr Romney lost in two critical groups: women and Latinos. Personality was not the reason.

 

As I said, we'll just have to disagree. America consistently votes for the more personable candidate.

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Completely disagree. Gore almost won in 2000 and had zero personality.

 

IMO you cannot win being 100% conservative and trying to placate the far side of the party. A moderate R would have won IMO.

Then why didn't McCain win in 2008? He is pretty darn moderate if you ask me.

Then why didn't McCain win in 2008? He is pretty darn moderate if you ask me.

 

Like Mr Romney , there was Sen McCain and Candidate McCain. They werent' the same people.

Like Mr Romney , there was Sen McCain and Candidate McCain. They werent' the same people.

I disagree. McCain ran pee-poor campaign, from a conservative viewpoint. I remember pundits commenting on McCain's concession speech being quality. I thought his WHOLE campaign was a concession speech.

I am in no way shape or form trying to insult the intelligence of an entire race but the numbers say they vote democrat no matter what. I find it difficult to believe that 90% of the black population just happen to agree with every democratic nominee.

 

I'm sure they probably don't. But the number of positions they agree upon with the GOP, as well as a perceived hostility toward blacks by the GOP, is even less than the Dems and gives you 40+ years of 90 percent.

 

I'm fed up to high heaven with the Democratic party -- that's why I changed my registration a few years ago. That doesn't mean I'm necessarily going to go voting GOP straight ticket either. Even within my frustrations, there are still less things I find abhorrent about the Democrats than I do the Republicans.

Nothing is going to change, they believe they lost because 1)MSM 2)People wanting handouts 3)Race of the President 4) Poor quality of the candidate that they nominated.

It's the message not the messenger. It's the platform not the free loading voters. At least Dick Morris acknowledged it wasn't a blip has anyone else?

So why is that the case?

 

Maybe this will help you some. It's specifically about blacks and Romney but the same could be said about the Republican Party and blacks. Read it.

 

 

Why blacks voters reject Romney - CNN.com

I disagree. McCain ran pee-poor campaign, from a conservative viewpoint. I remember pundits commenting on McCain's concession speech being quality. I thought his WHOLE campaign was a concession speech.

 

McCain's problem was he followed George W. Bush and a terrible fiscal nightmare. That's the reason that McCain lost. (And for the record, I voted for him because I knew I liked Senator McCain and that's who I would get as president)