Mitt Romney: Why the Republicans lost and may continue to lose

The fanfare is officially over. After hundreds of thousands of phone calls, tens of millions of tweets and billions of dollars spent on campaigning. America decided to stick with President Barack Obama.

In the hours after his victory speech, many both domestically and internationally are making huge sighs of relief to see the 44^th President re-elected, despite a clear victory in the all-important Electoral College.

Yet, for a long time, many Democrats feared the worse. Many influential commentators believed that Obama was on the verge of becoming the first Democratic President to serve one-term since Jimmy Carter. Perhaps he should’ve been.

Obama has already highlighted his desire to finish what he originally set out to do. It is true this is made easier by the fact that he no longer needs to be concerned about his re-election prospects and can ‘get on’ with the so-called job. However, for many ordinary Americans, the idea of getting the job done may appear vacuous and non-evident. For all the rhetoric Obama promised in 2008, much of his ideals and promises lie dormant. The audacity of hope became the absence of anything.

The economic legacy inherited by the Obama administration was far from healthy. Increasing unemployment, a chaotic financial system as well as dealing with two long-term wars and an ever increasing public debt. For any President arriving into White House, any sort of political legacy would need to be put to one-side whilst dealing with the bigger issues. Yet Obama chose to deal with healthcare.

There are arguments to be had about healthcare in general in America. Whether you agreed with George W. Bush extending Medicare or the universal cover provided by Obamacare. But why was this his focus? Why did Obama fail to create the jobs he said he would create? Why was the stimulus seen as the only answer to solving America’s crisis?

Some complain that the Republican majority in the House of Representatives made things impossible, but other Presidents had managed to deal with this before (Clinton springs to mind).

No incumbent President had ever gone into the polls with such poor unemployment figures and approval ratings. So the question is how did the Republicans lose it?

The wrong message

There’s no doubt that Mitt Romney was the best out of a bad bunch, but it shouldn’t deflect from the point that he is a more than competent candidate to become President. A successful businessman, family man, and politician with an excellent record as Governor, Romney was a capable of winning.

Yet, perhaps the Republicans forget the most important thing about politics. Elections are about winning. For too long the candidates slung mud and created an unhealthy portrait of each other. Commentators point at the fact that this allowed Obama to spend his campaign money during the election, but money fundraising wasn’t an issue during the election for either side.

The problem was that we saw the Republicans for what they really were and it was a right-wing party that did not reflect the rest of the electorate. Politics is tribal, but surrendering the centre-ground can be ill-afforded in any election. The GOP may have targeted the blue collar and the religious vote, but its policy towards immigration, the economy and women saw it ostracise a huge proportion and increasingly important section of the electorate: Hispanics and women. Suicidal when one looks at the make-up of the swing states.

For now, the debate will quickly move on as Obama tries to deal with the impending issue of America’s fiscal cliff but the question for the Republicans really remains where do they go next? Was Romney a failure because he wasn’t conservative enough or was it that the party is too right-wing?

2016 will see two new candidates from each side fight again. Even if the Republicans decide to lead with a woman (not Palin) or even a Hispanic, what’s more important is that they sort out their politics, otherwise they won’t be elected any time soon.