Short version: it was designed to help Romney’s GOTV. It did not work, in much the same way that the sun is warm. That first link will give the gory details; this second one will give you more; and there’s going to be more coming. I anticipate a good deal of useful under-the-hood analysis to come out of this; which should … no. Which will help us do better next time.
For my own part – and I plan to be repeating what I’m about to write to GOP party officials in the very near future – I have a very basic attitude. In 2012 the RNC had just come off of a successful rebuilding and won a series of extremely tricky elections against well-funded and dedicated opponents. The next Presidential campaign that wants to override that kind of institutional strength had better have the track record to justify it.
, and is (to the best to my knowledge) in the public domain.
So in a battle between a killer whale and a mega-shark, the shark won?
Hopefully some good will come out of this, but I can’t help but feel like RNC, Romney campaign and other organizations were more interested in doing what they wanted to do than doing what they needed to do.
Also, there were so many new volunteers this year and now I see that many of them were not used to fully exploit their strengths. If a volunteer feels like they aren’t being effective, they won’t be back. The same can be said for contributers.
I am concerned that the GOP has lost for good some new supporters that believed in the cause. The nature of the loss (unexpected by many, reaching down to Senate and other downticket races) makes it all the more harder to convince people to come back aboard a broken train.
It’s the now largely unstoppable regulatory burden we are to be saddled with as a result of this loss that depresses me. We may fix the Republican party, but regulators answer to no one. And if O gets to replace a right side justice or two on the SC? Might as well not have elections anymore, cuz they just won’t matter.
double face palm.