Thursday, November 8, 2012

Why Romney Lost?


The stressful environment of Tuesday night elections, made my fellow classmates, professors, family members and I, all huge Obama supporters, cringe at the anticipated results. The slight chance of Obama losing came across the minds of everyone in the room as we patiently watch the electoral votes. Obama’s miraculous win of 303 electoral votes, beating opponent Romney with a mere 203, made the crowd in the room to jubilate the re-election of president Obama. As millions of people watch and celebrated, the Republican Party engaged in soul-searching and blame game.

Few days prior to the elections, the eight “swing states”: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Ohio, New Hampshire, Nevada, Virginia and Wisconsin were up for grabs. This made both candidates, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney to step up to efforts to win the majority of the swing states.

Now that the elections are over, news correspondents, analysts and troubled Republicans analyze why Romney lost?

In the last remaining weeks of the presidential race, news coverage focused attention on Hurricane Sandy. This seems to favor Obama, since he showed leadership. Obama’s natural instincts allowed him to set aside his campaign to appease the nation. Obama’s leadership reassured Americans about his resilience and leadership role. Supporters across the nation saw Obama’s firm actions in unifying the nation which affected his campaign status positively. Unfortunately, Romney’s campaign lost their momentum. This was because the unexpected storm consumed the much of the East Coast news coverage. As a result, it upset the dynamic of the Romney campaign as he struggled to grab the attention of the American people. Although, Hurricane Sandy was a minor reason as to why Romney lost, Obama and his administrative team not only appeased the nation, they also met the expectations of every American. The hopes for America were visible throughout the Obama campaign in which Romney heavily lacked.

Romney’s major faults, during his campaign, were his beliefs on abortion rights, gay-marriage rights and minority rights. His inability to foresee the diversity of America led him to be strongly “hated” by various communities. Romney’s belief in abortion and gay marriage rights created controversy among these two communities. Not only did Romney oppose the congregation of same-sex marriages but his views towards marriage only took in account small majority of Americans. His beliefs oppressed gay-marriages, allowing only marriages made up of relationships between a man and a woman to be justified. In addition, Romney failed to acknowledge “that all citizens deserve equal rights, regardless of sexual preference.”[1] His religious and moral belief pushed voters towards the Obama campaign, were Obama strongly believed that each individual has a right regardless of their sexual preference. Romney underestimated the diversity in every community which led voters to see him as bias.  Meanwhile, his belief in banning abortion disregarded many Americans who were either pro-choice or pro-life. The role of a national leader, which Romney lacks, is to encourage freedom of choice and expression without being bias.

Romney’s views and moral values generally supported Republicans, a majority being Caucasian, the rich social class and of those of Christian faith. He completely illegitimatized the roles of being a strong American President. Romney’s campaign turnout did not legitimatize the rights and rules of all Americans. He inabled the power of voice from the American people; un-inspiring those whose voices are not heard. Obama's leadership role unified the nation by resolving issues fromminority groups, decreasing gender disparity, and abolishing racial disputes, which Romney and his campaign significantly lacked.
 
Romeny's principles related to only a percentage of Americans who are made up are of visible minority and believe in the same religion or have the same values on marriage. The lack of dependence as a leader led Romney to be viewed as narrow-minded person who did not take into consideration all the other citizens residing in the country. Romney’s failure to get the votes of minority groups- women, gays and lesbians, blacks, Latinos and Muslims was mainly due to the Republic Party, especially the tea party wing, outmoded policies. This should be a wakeup call to the party but instead selfishly ignored by the Republican Party. The Romney campaign and Republican Party instead should have promoted diversity within its rank and file or build a coalition as Obama had successfully achieved.

As a result, Romney embarrassingly lost amongst the young people, African Americans and Hispanics, and the gay community. Romney’s inability to have the needs met by every American lost the election as he was unable to foresee the diverse population.


 
 
 
Work Cited

CNN: Analysis: Why Romney Lost?
http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/07/politics/why-romney-lost/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Fox News: Article Obama and Romney: Where they stand on the issues http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/09/10/obama-and-romney-where-stand-on-issues/

 

 

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