The GOP 2012 debacle did not end there. No Democrat in the House of Representatives lost his or her seat. Rove's pledge to win back the Senate for Republicans blew up in his face. He won only two senate races -- one incumbent one and another soft, easy race. Likewise, the United States Chamber of Commerce super Pac spent $30 million for a rate of return of just 5 percent.
One final note: Republican strategists themselves acknowledge that the party's method of getting out the vote is antiquated and that in 2012 the GOP was just up to the Obama campaign's 2008 standards. Add to that the fact that Romney was incapable of courting, inspiring and attracting Black (African and Caribbean American), other minorities and, most critically, women voters.
For Mr. Rove: one final mathematical calculation. President Obama won in Ohio because of a huge turnout of the African American vote. He went from a 2008 turnout of 13 percent to a 2012 turnout of nearly 25 percent. For a Republican Party in the grip of denizens convinced that "we have to take back our country" and maybe shove it back to the 1950s, they convinced themselves that the electorate of 2012 would look more like the mid-term elections of 2010 rather than the Grand Obama Coalition of 2008. Big mistake; wrong calculation.
Hey Karl, the first thing that a good strategist does is to look at voter and election history.
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