I supported him when he dominated President Obama during the first presidential debate.
I supported him when he gave his bold and controversial speech at the NAACP.
And yes, I supported him when he introduced Paul Ryan as "the next President of the United States." A cringe inducing moment indeed.
In fact, it appears that a lot of people still support Mitt Romney.
In a recent polling of New Hampshire voters, 25% answered that they were most likely to support Mitt Romney for president in 2016. Rand Paul and Chris Christie came in 2nd and 3rd with 18% and 17% support, respectively.
And it seems that this support is not limited solely to Republicans. In November, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found that were the election held in November 2013, instead of November 2012, Mitt Romney would become president.
The numbers are quite interesting. In 2012, President Obama had an 11 point lead over Romney with women voters. In 2013, that lead diminished to 1%. Among young voters, President Obama's lead dropped from 18 points to 2.
Of course, these numbers don't mean a whole lot. The presidential election isn't being held this year and people are being asked a hypothetical question. What these numbers do show is that votes can change and voter's opinions can change.
I've spent the past year reflecting on the 2012 election and considering 2016. The Republican party failed Mitt Romney in 2012 and in order for us to meet with success in 2016, we have to be aware of our failures and move forward.
Ways We Failed Mitt
1. We bought into the lie that a candidate can and should have it all.
This is a larger problem within the Republican party as a whole. The Tea Party was enormously powerful in 2010 and it still has enormous power in the House of Representatives. Their power, however, hasn't brought about change, it has brought about stagnation and fear. They've become the bullies of the Republican party and their attitude has impaired our ability to be pragmatic. Not every Republican looks the same and the Tea Party has acted in a way that demands conformity, or else. Conform, or we'll oust you in the next election. Conform, or we'll threaten to pull your funding. Conformity, not compromise has become the order of the day, and it is ruining our ability to win elections.
Ideology is great and is a necessity in politics, but to believe that one candidate will have a perfect ideology is bogus and to punish a candidate because he doesn't share every point of your ideology is fool-hardy and short-sighted.
In regards to Mitt's candidacy, of course he was a flawed candidate, but so was Rick Santorum, Michelle Bachmann, and Newt Gingrich. Mitt took a lot of flak during the primaries for his evolving positions on political issues and the Republican party as a whole could never put those issues behind them and support a man who, at the end of the day, was incredibly qualified to be our nominee. If we as a party can't unify around a candidate, then we are sunk because, contrary to what MSNBC would have us believe, there is a lot of diversity in the Republican party. We've criticized the President and Democrats in Congress for refusing to compromise, but on this issue we're hypocrites. We demand compromise from our political opponents, we should also demand compromise from our allies.
2. We lost sight of the objective.
By demanding perfection, we diminished the reality that the goal is the White House. The goal is conservative Supreme Court nominees. The goal is a chance to reduce the deficit, pay down the debt, and better the lives of Americans by supporting businesses that put people back to work.The old adage "don't miss the forest for the trees" is appropriate in this instance. In 2012, we became so focused on individual differences and discrepancies between ideologies and opinions, that we lost focus on the larger goal and the benefits that would come from attaining that goal.
3. We became irrational and illogical.
The basic tenets of federalism are the bread and butter of the larger Republican mindset. We love small government and we specifically love a small federal government. Our constant response to the over-reaching that comes out of Washington is "let the states decide!" Why then, did we castigate the former governor of Massachusetts for implementing a state-wide strategy to reform health care? He didn't push this idea on the nation and he did it with the support of his constituents. Isn't that what we want from government? Local solutions to local problems.Why then, did we penalize a man for addressing the needs and wants of his constituents in a way that conforms to the larger Republican ideology of federalism? We castigated Romney as a fraud and a traitor, but he was modeling one of the principles that Republicans hold dear. It was irrational to think that just because the Democrats stated that ObamaCare was modeled after Romney's Massachusetts plan, that RomneyCare was something to be ashamed of. This was a knee-jerk reaction fueled by an anti-Obama sentiment that was so gripping it robbed us of the ability to be thoughtful and objective.
Looking to 2016
The Republican party is a fractured party that is being held hostage by the tension between the need for change and the status-quo. There are real problems that need to be addressed and, one way or another, some group is going to be left out. After considering the bitter defeat of 2012, I genuinely believe that in order for the GOP to survive, we have to learn to coalesce around our nominees. Let's fight it out in the primaries and support the candidate that we most agree with. When the fighting is done however, we need to learn to compromise and focus. It's the only path that leads us to the White House.And yes, I am planning on watching Mitt's documentary this weekend. Watching and weeping for what might have been.
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Sources and Recommended Reading
President Romney? Yes, If the Election Were Held TodayMitt Romney is the 2016 Republican Front-Runner
7 Things We Learned from Mitt Romney's Sundance Doc
Despite Some Red Flags, 8 in 10 People Satisfied with Healthcare in Mass.
RomneyCare Facts and Falsehoods
