kunkmiester wrote:It means the conservative base stayed home, and so the liberal base was able to outvote them.
Last year, while following conversations over at Free Republic, I lost count of how many people said they would absolutely refuse to vote if Mitt Romney became the nominee. He was seen as just another North Eastern Country Club Rino who would stab the base in the back, the way all those North Eastern Country Club Rinos always do. Also, the choice of someone who is a Mormon was objectionable to some of the more religious types.
A lot of people regarded Romney as a bridge too far, and they decided they would rather have a genuine Socialist/Communist as opposed to a Socialist-light. I have some sympathy with this perspective as well.
How much of his loss is attributable to this reason I do not know, but some of it surely was.
Flames
Smokey the Bear heads
into the autumn woods
with a red can of gasoline
and a box of wooden matches.
His ranger's hat is cocked
at a disturbing angle.
His brown fur gleams
under the high sun
as his paws, the size
of catcher's mitts,
crackle into the distance.
He is sick of dispensing
warnings to the careless,
the half-wit camper,
the dumbbell hiker.
He is going to show them
how a professional does it.
Billy Collins
‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’
— Lord Melbourne —