Associated Press
Stu Stevens and Mitt Romney
It was inevitable that Mitt Romney's aides, if only to improve their own career prospects, would start pushing back against the notion that the Republican campaign was a failed, poorly-run enterprise. And after a few weeks in which Team Romney has taken a lot of heat in recent weeks, most notably from their allies, former chief strategist Stuart Stevens has become the leading defender.
So far, it's off to a rough start. Stevens seemed to brag this week about losing poor, minority voters to President Obama, as if their votes were somehow less important. Alec McGillis labeled it "47 percenterism," since the attitude is clearly an extension of the haughty elitism that plagued the overall campaign.
But Tim Noah took this a step further and questioned Stevens' factual claims. For the Republican strategist, what matters is the fact that Romney won "every economic group except those with less than $50,000 a year," which means "he carried the majority of middle-class voters."
Putting aside the fact that nearly half the country makes less $50,000 a year and their votes count, too, Noah notes that the claim itself isn't quite right.
[W]here does Stevens get the idea that winning the more clubbable majority of voters earning $50,000 or more means Romney "carried the majority of middle-class voters"? Perhaps from President Obama, who during the election preposterously defined as poor or "middle class" any household earning up to $250,000. But if you follow the lead of Romney adviser Martin Feldstein, who defined as poor or middle class any household earning up to $100,000, then that group went for Obama by a healthy 10-point spread, 54-44 percent. This group represented a hefty 72 percent of the electorate.
Noah added that if you define the middle class in a literal sense -- looking at the total electorate, subtracting the top and bottom quintile -- Obama won here, too.
As a practical matter, this doesn't much matter -- it's apparently more about bragging rights -- but policymakers and the political world shouldn't be under the impression that the middle class abandoned Obama for Romney this year. That's just not what happened.
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To choose between fading into distant memories and being remembered, we usually choose the latter rather than the former. For Team Romney, the latter is rapidly deteriorating into whiny, sore loser remembrance!
Stuart Stevens would do well to just fade away! -Kevo
Republicans will never willingly come to grips with the election results because they can't reconcile them with their seemingly central belief that white people matter more than others and that somehow their votes are worth more. I didn't say it made sense.
he's still in romney style campaign mode: lie, lie, lie.
In India, they have a "caste system", with the lowest being the "Untouchables."
I suspect that they also would not vote for Romney.
Keep it up, Stu. The Republican Party needs you and Mitt as its visible faces since there's nobody else willing to step up and do the job.
Well, nobody but The Donald. I suppose he'd be willing. Or maybe Newt. Reince?
Romney lost because as Norquist said he was a poopy head candidate.
What does it say that if so many in our country are under a certain income bracket and can win an election by their numbers?
Perhaps economic inequality is an issue.
This is yet one more example of the bull$hit that was the everyday Republican campaign. Make $hit up. Pretend no one notices that it has no basis in truth.
'Republican' as a party will never let go of this modus operandi. And in not doing so, the party will become smaller and smaller as waves of citizens reject pathological lying as a poor substitute for public discourse.
That, and $hit like this just keeps proving that there are no real constructive ideas coming from the minds managing the republican party. They went overboard in making a "brand" and forgot that there has to be redeeming substance behind the brand. Continuing on this path will be their doom.
Exactly, jcricket. The GOP specializes in making up info that has no, or little, basis in truth.
We live in a world being transformed by globalization. If the GOP continues to hold its provincial worldview, voters will continue to fall away from the party and its principles. It's that clear-cut.
Romney said on the infamous 47% video:
That is a very different statement than Revisionist Apologist/new Senator Ted Cruz's statement in The Atlantic (link below) in which he said:
"We don't have to worry about them" vs. Romney's actual remark, "My job is not to worry about those people [the 47 percent]" and they are "dependent on government, who believe they are victims. . ." Cruz's statement is patronizing but Romney's is dismissive, and as it happens, deeply offensive to the 47% who don't believe they are victims and will not be dismissed.
In The Atlantic article, Cruz called 'utterly ridiculous' the notion that the GOP waged a war on women.
The GOP did, in fact, wage a war on women. The GOP may not like the term and can denounce the term, but that is how moderate and progressive voters viewed the GOP platform. The GOP can say it didn't pinpoint women's independent decision-making for annihilation, but, in fact, the GOP dialed in drone strikes on women's constitutional rights.
When will the GOP get that it cannot talk about small government/less government and then insert government into the doctor's exam room & living rooms and say to women,
Why is that? Because the GOP thinks it is awesome.
How's the saying go? Oh, right. Get a clue.
**Atlantic story w/Cruz's statements: m.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/11/down-and-out-with-ted-cruz-and-the-gop/265767
@madabip
Nobody is going to hire Stevens or the Etch a Sketch guy anyway, so it matters little. Beatings are hard to deal with, humility is not something the far right is famous for. Lets enjoy this, and vow to continue handing them defeats.
Beg to differ- just because the whore does not provide you what you paid for, does not mean the professional will not have another John waiting for service.
Romneys campaign was the worst ever, and the outcome is exactly what they deserved. Fehrnstrom also ran Scott Browns campaign, another terrible operation that lied and had Browns own staff carry bigoted picket signs. If any Republican hires that group of hacks, fine...
LYING until the very end...
no shock here.
Two things:
1) It was Mittens that defined middle class as making $250,000.00 - well off from what the majority of middle class families make.
2) The GOTP and the pimps that supported them are unhappy and whiny because they spent over $300+ million dollars to buy this election and they didn't get what they wanted - namely President Romney! Now if money = power then the big money men feel cheated, and while they may not feel accountable to US as a nation they're whining , petulant and bratty over-indulged behavior is being felt by the people that promised them results! And until we can remove the money from politics the GOTP will not stop whining!
Oh, btw, where is Rove - swimming with the fishes perhaps?
It is the nature of our society that the poor claim to be "lower middle class", the middle class cry poor and want to be rich, and the rich claim to be "upper middle class."
"Putting aside the fact that nearly half the country makes less $50,000 a year and their votes count, too..."
Oh Steve, you meanie, you just made them cry.
The reason it doesn't make sense is that people insist on reading a reference to economic class by a Republican as having something to do with economic class. It's not. Instead, it's just a particularly stark manifestation of the way Republicans have so completely internalized the code words they've spent the last four decades using to impart deniability to blatantly racist messages that they have themselves, at a subconscious level, come to believe that the pretext is the truth.
Stated more plainly, when Republicans are just spewing words out of their right brain without any active left-brain involvement--and this seems to be the norm for them these days--when say "middle class" they mean "white people." When their higher cognitive functions are actually engaged, they'll readily, and even huffily, concede that there are, in fact, non-white people who are middle class, but when they're not doing that, the circle for "middle class" is entirely enclosed by the circle for "whites" in the Venn diagram in their heads.
So what Stu is really saying here has nothing to do with economic class. Instead, what he's really saying, without even quite realizing it himself, is "our brilliant strategy of trying to win the election solely with the votes of white people worked brilliantly except for the part where we lost the election."
I sure hope Steve doesn't have to start a post-election Stu's Mendacity ongoing feature. It looks like "mastermind" of campaign fiction is taking the show on the road post-election.
Just put the dude in charge of Fox-GOP Inc. We'd never notice any difference.
One other thing about Stevens' comment...I think he may have also noted that Romney won the "college educated." However, if you add the "college educated" and the "post college" folks (presumably also college educated), I wonder if that claim would hold up (but I don't have access to the raw data). The latter group went for Obama by almost a 10 point margin, I think. Something to consider, as well.
We shouldn't dispute with Stu's claims. The Republicans are so gullible and only believe in their alternate reality that they will probably believe him and hire him again in 2016. Another easy presidential victory for the Hillary or whoever the Dem candidate will be.
I think everybody missed the footnote in Stu's article:
*Claims refer to results in WV only.
It's very weird that Republicans are using this line of argument. OK, if Romney were running for President of the Country Club, he would have won, but he was running for President of the U.S., where people like women, workers, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Latino Americans, youth, and elders can also vote, and Romney did not get a majority or a plurality of all the voters. Therefore he didn't win. Is that so hard to understand?
The unstated premise of Stuart Stevens' essay seems to be "Romney won the votes of the people who matter." That's the whole trouble with politics in 2012. If everybody doesn't matter, we're all in big trouble.
Am I the only one who sees an "I'm rubber, you're glue," accuse-your-opponent-of-your-own-sins attitude at play here?
"We're not waging a class war against the poor. The poor are waging a class war against us, and we're just defending ourselves. Only poor people would ever vote for Obama, and his election is an act of aggression on the part of the have-nots. We are justified in anything we do to protect our income."
even if we think that the "middle class" consists of those making between $50K and $250K...lost in the story of how romney "won" them was how close the actual results were....
$50,000 - $99,999 31% [of total voters] obama 46% romney 52%
$100,000 - $199,999 21%[of total voters] obama 44% romney 54%
$200,000 - $249,999 3% [of total voters] obama 47% romney 52%
that averages to romney +7.5%. considering that romney almost certainly won this group in the south by 36 to 40 points, that means outside the south obama won them in the 14-16 point range.
-------------------------
here are the $30K to $50K numbers
$30,000-$49,000 21% [of total voters] obama 57% romney 42%
so the totals for the $30K to $99K are Obama 50 Romney 47.5
@ doctor cheese
if you combine four year grads and postgrads then, yes, obama won all college grads..approx 50.2 to 47.5
Exit Poll Results [via Fox News]
College Graduate [29% of all voters] Obama 47% Romney 51%
Post Graduate Study [18% of all voters] Obama 55% Romney 42%
it is true that romney won 4 year grads but only by a few points, so my note about the southern influence in comment #21 applies here as well...outside the south obama won 4 year only grads by double digits
Stevens is developing half truths to put on his resume.
Please help by signing our White House petition to get investigation into Romney/ Bain 2001?
http://www.politicususa.com/meet-man-battling-romney-bains-bankruptcy-fraud-12-years.html