(SHANNON STAPLETON/Reuters)
Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney was so confident of victory against President Barack Obama that he spent $25,000 for victory fireworks, had already drawn up a list of White House appointments and took it easy on election day when his opponents were still working hard to get out the vote.
Political insiders tell Capitol Hill Blue that Romney didn’t think he could lose and was genuinely “shell shocked” when he lost the Presidential race in an electoral vote landslide to Obama.
“He was supremely confident and delayed conceding the race as long as possible because he just didn’t believe he would lose,” says one senior aide. “It was overconfidence based on inaccurate assumptions and flawed data.”
In conversations with campaign insiders, a portrait of a clueless campaign emerges, driven by a candidate so sure of himself that he ignored all the obvious warning signs.
Romney told his advisers that he was sure minorities and young people would stay home and turn out for Obama as they had in 2008. That turned out to be a politically fatal assumption. Obama drew 90 percent of a large black vote and more than three quarters of Latinos. Asian-Americans also turned out in droves for the incumbent President.
The GOP nominee’s campaign advisers convinced themselves that the polls showing a close race were flawed and that the “true electorate” would give give Romney at least 330 electoral votes.
“They were living in a fantasy land,” says one long-time GOP strategist who asked not to be identified. “They remained in a fog generated by their candidate’s massive ego.”
When the numbers came in election night, Romney was stunned. So was his running mate, who couldn’t even carry his home state of Wisconsin.
The wives of both the Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates broke into tears. Romney appeared dazed and it took a while for him to regain enough composure to deliver a long, rambling concession speech.
“Mitt is not accustomed to losing,” says one friend. “It was a bitter pill for him.”
Even more bitter is the fractured, dysfunctional Republican Party that Romney leaves behind as he turned to his millions, his multiple homes and his comfortable lifestyle.
“Romney can go on,” says GOP strategist Arnold Block. “He’s not dependent on politics or elections but the Republican Party must start again at Ground Zero and it’s a long road back to relevance.”
79 thoughts on “Overconfident Romney was so sure of victory that he spent 25 grand on victory fireworks”
Maybe Doug has something to do with the RSS feeds and he is out of commission for awhile as he had an accident on his motorcycle and hit a cow. He has been unable to add anything to this homepage or the Reader Rant Forum. We are sending him our best wishes and if you want to add, you can come over to Reader Rant and join us. Scoutgirl called the hospital and left a message for Amy (Doug’s wife) who should be up dating his condition. It was very grim since Friday.
I sent Doug a message at the hospital but Scoutgirl will reply when and if we hear back. He is our Chief and we all miss him. I’ve been around here for ages and had my fights with him and my sympathy is for the cow who dared to hit him. We will report in here or on Reader Rant. I was looking at sweet face of Romney’s and wanted to warn anyone who falls for that sweetness. He is my cousin and I wouldn’t trust him for a minute. We have the same great grandfather. I take no responsibility…
I thought it seemed ostentatious to deliver that address from his prepared podium in the round. Obama’s stage (as seen from TV) seemed more humbly appropriate for a concession.
Whaz goin on with da RSS feeds? No updates
Thank you Al. I am no brilliant brain but I have lived in the shadow of politics since 1953 when I turned 21 and could vote. I checked everything out and believed about a third of what I discovered.
All the wars we lived through didn’t teach any of us a damn thing. Every 10 years millions of Americans would try to pay off the previous war and heal the wounds of our lost heroes. It’s like watching the tides come in again and again.
I’m a book lover and read everything I could get my hands on and picked up what I felt was the cream of idealism. I wanted Americans to be the leaders of the world. Why aren’t we? Sitting 15 minutes in any city mall answers the question. For many generations we raised sheep. They are nice looking, well dressed sheep. My grandmother told me over and over that it was not appearance of humans but how they used their brains in a rational way. I think she was trying to justify my wearing uniforms all through school. It was wonderful to have spent 4 years with girls just like me during the time we were trying to be so different from each other. We used our brains! We forced ourselves to look at each other as totally different and we began to search for our differences. The discovery of oil in Beverly Hills brought girls from Egypt and all the Arabic nations. Many of our girls came from the Hollywood people and we focused on our differences. There was no room or time for bigotry.
I can only hope those kids in the malls today are thinking of the glory of our differences and thereby we would find Democrats who relish diversification. Just imagine if these kids had the opportunity to have been raised without television.
America would lead the world in one generation.
He was also cocky enough to rent a suite of offices in DC for his transition staff. Hope they kept his deposit!
There has been some talk in D.C. about putting Romney to work trying to present some of the jobs he swore he had waiting when he won the Oval Office. From my point of view all he had was a declaration of war against Islam. Anyone with defense background would have been given some great jobs. Are Americans that desperate for paychecks that they will sacrifice their children?
Is there anyone here who could locate manufacturing jobs with the individual states to fill up the unemployment numbers? Let’s face it, the GOP has no plan for employment and no plan for their desire to return to the America that our founders had in mind. That early America found native Americans slaughtered in their tents. The founders had no God except the God of the Pilgrims that many of our founders had fled from other nations.
Romney was crystal clear in his plan for America and it reflected the religion of the White Supremacy founders based on an angel Moroni that was seen in a dream brought on by a seizure by Joseph Smith. We had another American religion started by David Koresh based on a very similar dream. Brigham Young brought the latter day Pilgrims to Utah and they should have stayed there. The Union refused to allow them into the USA and they continued to force their religion all over America. David Koresh set fire to his pilgrims but the message remains the same. The only way to keep these religious freaks under control is to keep them out of the government.
We must go back to the Separation of Church and State or we will have these strange people try to push our governments (Federal and State) into the level of control found by the Mormons and the Koresh followers. As long as the Separation is solid they cannot control our government laws. This can be done by removing all tax deductions from people who use them to account for their income. Not all these churches are good for the people. I do not want any church closed down but they must not drive their faith into our government laws.
Sandy,
A giant “AMEN!!” to everything you said!
Al
“overconfidence based on inaccurate assumptions and flawed data”
With deductive powers like that, it’s good for all of us that he’ll never be President.
I was thinking the same thing!
Obama should write a book after he’s done in 2017:
“Lessons to a CEO From a Community Organizer.”
Community organizers cannot afford to ignore unpleasant information. They know it can blow up in your face if left unaddressed and unresolved.
To make it even sadder for everyone, the American people are still going to pay his tax burden until his whole clan disappears.
All they had to do was to check in with Nate Silver. He was on the money in 2008… and saved themselves a lot of money and heartache.
its funny.. his party spent thousands upon thousands of dollars on youtube views from my site https://twitterfollowers.fm – all of those campaign videos had fake views .. i dont feel so bad anymore now that he lost. turns out Romney was good for my small business!
“Pride goeth before the fall” – the GOP forgot that one, the arrogant bastards…
Only $25.000?What a cheapskate!That doesn’t buy much of a show these days.He should double that to impress people these days.
Romney believed his own bullshit. I don’t like Democrats but I despise Republicans. They are just plain clueless how much the rest of us hate them. Of course, they will learn nothing.
Hope everyone’s well. Go to Ars Technica to read about that “Orca” computer fiasco Romney also had. Complete fraud for planning & deploy.
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