# Is it too early to say Romney has lost? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [September 18, 2012, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066 "2012-09-18T13:26:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/162 "2012-09-23T16:27:45Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > A sure sign that your campaign isn’t going well is when the campaign manager insists that the national polls should be ignored. Obama’s campaign manager just did that very thing. ([Link](http://www.buzzfeed.com/zekejmiller/messina-forget-the-tied-national-polls-were-win)) It’s only a bad sign when you’re _down_ in the polls, not when you’re up. And, by the way, it’s the Republican side who is down on the quality of their candidate, not the Democrats. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/163 "2012-09-23T17:17:35Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I don’t know if Huntsman was really serious about running in this election. More likely, he saw this as an opportunity to run an introductory campaign and get enough national exposure to run a serious campaign in 2016. He was probably hoping to accomplish what Santorum did. Coming in second or third in the primaries is a good way to set yourself up for a future run. I don’t think coming in last, behind people like Cain and Newt, is. Plus, assuming Romney looses, Huntsman will just look like a slight variation of the same type of candidate that lost last time. I can’t see the GOP getting behind another Romney. Huntsman won’t be the GOP nominee in 2016 ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/164 "2012-09-23T17:43:26Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally Posted by **aldiboronti** > A sure sign that your campaign isn’t going well is when the campaign manager insists that the national polls should be ignored. Obama’s campaign manager just did that very thing. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Reminding people they shouldn’t get complacent because they’re so far in the lead is hardly a sign of a campaign that isn’t going well. > [@](#): > > Originally Posted by **Knorf** > It’s only a bad sign when you’re down in the polls, not when you’re up. Can I just say that **aldiboronti** has pretty much scraped the bottom of the barrel with this one? I mean, he either did not actually read his link, or he does not understand what it said. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/165 "2012-09-23T17:59:10Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > My conservative cousin was unhappy with Romney to begin with and is now openly wondering if Perry wouldn’t have been a better choice. Fewer people would be holding their nose, he’d do better with hispanics and he had nowhere to go but up. I disagree. If Romney looks foolish running for President, Perry would have been an order of magnitude worse. Romney can at least maintain some kind of equilibrium through all his flip-flopping and lying, whereas Perry doesn’t seem to fully understand his current positions. I think Perry would have been really, truly awful. > [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > The problem that all of the Republicans have is that their party has gone so far to the right they are finally out of touch with the mainstream. This was a poor field of candidates, but if you think about it, Huckabee, Rubio, Jeb Bush, whomever, would have the same problem if they were running. Plus, poor Jeb Bush, I dont think anyone who is not a fanatic is going to associate the name “Bush” with anything good for a long, long time. There is a good [article](http://www.salon.com/2012/09/22/blame_fox_not_mitt/) about this in Salon. Here’s a good quote: > [@](#): > > The truth is that Romney is constantly constrained by what conservatives want him to do and by what they believe. Furthermore, what they want is generally unpopular, and what they believe is far too often simply cut off from the reality that the rest of the nation lives in. ---
**Author:** ![appleciders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/166 "2012-09-23T18:25:41Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > Early voting has begun in some states. With the absolutely horrid week Romney has had, and people talking about the 47% instead of anything else, and Romney releasing his tax returns to stem the freefall, can I say that this is the worst time for Romney for early voting? People will likely be voting with his dumbass video in mind, and then its too late: nothing Romney can say or Obama can say would be able to take those votes back Only one swing state (Iowa) is doing early in-person voting and only two other states (Wyoming, Vermont) this month. I wish people would quit stating this around here; many states open their absentee voting in September, and so the media reports that absentee and early voting has started. Absentee voting is a small fraction of the total. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/167 "2012-09-23T18:31:02Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > … He was probably hoping to accomplish what Santorum did. > [@Simplicio](#): > > Coming in second or third in the primaries is a good way to set yourself up for a future run. I don’t think coming in last, behind people like Cain and Newt, is. > > Plus, assuming Romney looses, Huntsman will just look like a slight variation of the same type of candidate that lost last time. I can’t see the GOP getting behind another Romney. > > Huntsman won’t be the GOP nominee in 2016 Funny. I read **Little Nemo** ’s post as what Huntsman was “hoping to accomplish” not what he actually achieved (or more accurately, failed to). Huntsman will be a persona non grata for many cycles to come, which is a loss for the GOP. Picture Huntsman running against Obama. That premise had scared me as an Obama supporter. He actually has international relations cred. The prospect of him in charge of dealing with China’s emerging power and nationalism, dealing with circumstances such as the anti-American rioting in the ME, does not make one hyperventilate like the prospect of Romney in charge does. He is Right of my positions sure, not someone I’d want to win, but not extremely so and he actually sounds like he believes what he says even when it goes against the beliefs of the audience he is supposed to be pandering to. He has demonstrated an ability to compromise and work across the partisan divide. The prospects for the Democratic party to hold onto the White House was based most of all in the fact that the GOP primary process gives a candidate like Huntsman no chance at all. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/168 "2012-09-23T19:41:18Z")
What Huntsman was hoping for was for someone like Santorum or Bachman to win the nomination this year, then get horribly trounced by Obama, so that the Republican party would look for a moderate in 2016. Yeah, it was a longshot, but it was a lot more plausible than any route to the Presidency you or I might hope for, and I’d say that it was a reasonable thing to try for. It didn’t work, of course, but there’s no way Huntsman could have know that in advance. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/169 "2012-09-23T19:41:41Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > I fail to see the appeal to Huntsman. If he couldn’t get anyone to vote for him in the primaries, what would have been his chances in the general? The Obama administration was most worried about him in June 2011. The beltway is enamored with bipartisanship. Now given that Tea Party tail is wagging the Republican dog in DC, it would be foolish to pin your hopes on a neuro-typical Republican President. But most independents won’t see it that way. And given Republican economic sabotage a candidate who performs at the average should be able to beat Obama. Huntsman was extremely conservative: as Governor in an already conservative state he applied more tax cuts. But he was also sane: he stated that he believed in both evolution and the scientific consensus on global warming. This would play well in the general election, but doomed him in the Republican primary. He _never_ received his day of sun in the polls. In fact, IIRC he ever even placed 3rd nationally. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I don’t know if Huntsman was really serious about running in this election. More likely, he saw this as an opportunity to run an introductory campaign and get enough national exposure to run a serious campaign in 2016. I agree, but he failed at that. You need to lead in the polls for at least a short span of time and he never came close. We Democrats really dodged a bullet. [Check out this table](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/11/03/magazine/538-gdp-election-calculator.html). We owe the Republican primary voter a debt of gratitude: I extend thanks to all the crazies. ---
**Author:** ![Untoward\_Parable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/51bf81/32.png) [@Untoward\_Parable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Untoward_Parable)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/170 "2012-09-23T20:02:45Z")
There’s still plenty of time for things to go another direction, but being so far behind at this point certainly puts Obama in a highly advantaged position. Personally I think romneys numbers are even weaker than they appear, a Bradley effect for people not used to saying they won’t vote for the republican candidate as a identity reflex. A lot of them are holding their breath for him to change into a credible candidate, if that never happens this could be a massive massive landslide. On the other side if things do turn around republicans are cheating in most of the swing states and Romney wouldn’t even have to win fairly, he just has to get close enough for ballot stuffers, voter purges, and other major voter suppression and forgery to make the difference. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/171 "2012-09-23T20:30:43Z")
The thing is that the middle and the moderate left _love_ compromise. There are a lot of ex-Republicans who can’t vote for Romney this year because the ‘no compromise’ people are leading the party. You give them a Republican who looks like he’d be willing to work with the Democrats, he’d have won handily. The core of the conservative party really doesn’t do themselves any favors when they take such a hardline stance against the ‘commie socialists who are going to destroy the nation’ and manage to include most of the nation in that group. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/172 "2012-09-23T20:44:25Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > Can I just say that **aldiboronti** has pretty much scraped the bottom of the barrel with this one? I mean, he either did not actually read his link, or he does not understand what it said. Or…[can’t say that in this forum]. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/173 "2012-09-23T20:48:09Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > Or…[can’t say that in this forum]. What, that he may have deliberately misrepresented the article? I dunno, I don’t think it’s against the board rules to suggest he may be a Fox News anchor. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/174 "2012-09-23T21:18:03Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Funny. I read **Little Nemo** ’s post as what Huntsman was “hoping to accomplish” not what he actually achieved (or more accurately, failed to). Yes, I said this is what I think Huntsman’s plan was. But obviously if that was his plan, it didn’t work. Of course, if he had some other plan, it doesn’t look like that plan worked either. ---
**Author:** ![elbowj](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9adbd/32.png) [@elbowj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbowj)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/175 "2012-09-23T21:45:11Z")
:smack: > [@aldiboronti](#): > > A sure sign that your campaign isn’t going well is when the campaign manager insists that the national polls should be ignored. Obama’s campaign manager just did that very thing. ([Link](http://www.buzzfeed.com/zekejmiller/messina-forget-the-tied-national-polls-were-win)) > > Many Democrat leaders have tried to shake the party faithful from their complacency by warning that this election is not a foregone conclusion but will be a tough fight. To little avail though. As with the liberals on this board, Democrats nationwide believe that it’s almost impossible for Obama to be beaten. Let them continue to so believe, it helps the Republicans no end. I’ll agree with your conclusion that the game isn’t over. [Neil Newhouse memo: Romney camp dismisses Obama lead in polls](http://mobile.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2012/09/10/neil_newhouse_memo_romney_camp_dismisses_obama_lead_in_polls.html) Edit: unintentional smiley ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2012, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/176 "2012-09-24T21:36:37Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Romney was the best candidate next to John Huntsman. Anyone else would have done far worse. Actually, they did. they ran against Romney and actually led him at one point, but then failed in the end. Cain, Gingrich, Perry, and Santorum. And what lesson can we learn about Republicans from that observation? ---
**Author:** ![2ManyTacos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/3da27b/32.png) [@2ManyTacos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2ManyTacos)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2012, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/177 "2012-09-24T21:58:34Z")
No, the campaign isn’t over, but seriously, as of now [Obama is leading Romney in North Carolina.](http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/nc/north_carolina_romney_vs_obama-1784.html#polls) Who the fuck saw that coming? I still think that NC is going to go to Romney, but Mittens will be seriously toast if he can’t even count on that state going his way in this election. NC is, after all, the one toss-up state that has long been assumed to have been trending towards Romney. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/178 "2012-09-25T19:47:50Z")
Saw an online joke about Romney’s next move. He’s going to drop Ryan and name Ed Hochuli as his running mate. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/179 "2012-09-25T20:01:16Z")
Besides the fact that Mr. Hochuli doesn’t have a whole lot to do these days anyway, why is that funny? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/180 "2012-09-25T20:11:48Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Besides the fact that Mr. Hochuli doesn’t have a whole lot to do these days anyway, why is that funny? I suppose it’s a joke that Romney is seeking desperate means to raise his appeal and is latching on to a group with a current surge of popular support. The equivalent would be if Obama’s campaign was in trouble and somebody joked about him replacing Biden with Claire Danes after she won an Emmy this week. I think it’s funny. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/181 "2012-09-25T20:59:36Z")
Oh. Haha! Who’s Claire Danes? Does she do a voice on _Family Guy_? Or _The Venture Bros._? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066.md?page=10)