The Fantasy Dwellers

     It has been a month since the 2012 Presidential election, which saw the American people reward failure and incompetence with another four year term for President Obama. Over the last month I have heard many hours of analysis from the right, the left and those disinterested parties in the middle. One thing is clear, many in the Republican party are what I call, "The Fantasy Dwellers." They refuse to leave their comfort zone of denial as they blame the election loss on a supposed lack of Hispanic outreach or too strict of an adherence to the social issues like abortion. All of their reasons lead to the same conclusion, less Conservative influence in the party.
      I believe that the recent election loss is a result of Republicans not understanding the contest in which we were involved. We sent a chess player to a boxing match, and expected him to deliver a first round knock-out punch. This is not a criticism of Mitt Romney, he is a decent and accomplished man for whom I have nothing but respect and admiration. But it is obvious now that the world of politics has an ever decreasing tolerance for men who posses decency and honor. And therein lies our problem. The electorate say they abhor negative campaigning, yet they just re-elected a man to the Presidency based solely on his character assassination of his opponent. The more that Republicans deny this fact, the more national elections they will lose.
     But still the "Fantasy Dwellers" persist in their absurd notion that somehow we can keep sending out tit-mice to battle rattle snakes. I'm re-evaluating, based on the election results, my opinion that Newt Gingrich may have been a better choice for our party than Mitt Romney. Recent polling has shown that a majority of those who voted for President Obama don't like his policies and think they are wrong for the country. So why did they vote against their own self-interests? They did so because they were influenced by the barrage of negative ads by the Obama campaign against Mitt Romney. It didn't matter that they weren't true, they made people dislike Mitt Romney more than they disliked the President's policies. The Republican establishment's insistence that President Obama is a nice guy but just misguided on policy, helped President Obama maintain his likability edge.
     Hindsight is always 20-20, but after the 2008 election many on our side were saying we needed to attack Obama on his radical ideology and roots. But the moderate faction of the party, "The Fantasy Dwellers", were afraid of alienating the independent voters as well as being called racists. Well Mitt Romney won the independent vote and was called a racist anyway, and still lost the election. Maybe if we had sent a street fighter like Newt Gingrich into the ring with Obama, the result may have been different. He may have been able to give people a reason not only to vote Republican, but a reason not to vote Democrat. "The Fantasy Dwellers" in the Republican party, unfortunately, seem to be in control. And as long as they are, we can expect to lose elections with candidates who arm themselves with pee-shooters against nuclear-armed opponents. 

Click here to watch my latest political song parody. Posted December 2, 2012.