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Gingrich "Dumbfounded" by Romney Loss by John M. Curtis Copyright
Nov. 12, 2012 Speaking on NBC's "Today Show," former House Speaker and GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich (R-Georgia) said he was "dumbfounded" by President Barack Obama's stunning Nov. 6 victory. Newt, a former history professor, who prides himself on being more astute than average pundits, predicted GOP presidential nominee former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney would easily beat Obama with over 300 Electoral votes, wining the popular vote too. When the dust settled, Barack had won 322 Electoral votes to Romney's 206, winning the popular vote by nearly 2 million. Gingrich followed the same predictions as Fox News analyst and former Bill Clinton advisor Dick Morris and former President George W. Bush chief strategist and Fox News analyst Karl Rove. Both forecasted Romney would walk away with the election, despite the obvious miscalculations. Neither Rove nor Morris nor Gingrich were uninformed months before the election. Despite working for the GOP, they saw the same forecasters, like the New York Times' Nate Silver, that were using reliable scientific models to predict the election's outcome. While Silver's forecasts varied a bit over the Summer leading up to the Fall presidential election, all savvy pundits knew Romney's long odds. Between September and Election Day, Silver's predictions varied less than 10%, giving Barack between a 85% and 91% chance of winning reelection. "But if you had said to me three weeks ago Mitt Romney would get fewer votes than John McCain and it looks like he'll be three million fewer, I would have been dumbfounded," said Newt. Gingrich pretends, like other GOP hacks, he didn't read the same objective forecasts and somehow miscalculated the results. Most GOP pundits read the same forecasts and knew Romney had an uphill battle. Whatever internal polls forecasted Romney's victory, they weren't taken seriously by anyone, especially those in the business. Campaign staffers used to drinking the Cool-Aid might have been legitimately fooled by the magnitude of Romney's loss. "We need to stop, take a deep breath and learn," said Gingrich, unlike many of his conservative friends that don't seem to get it. Speaking on the Fox News "O'Reilly Factor," conservative radio talk show host Laura Ingram scoffed at anyone suggesting the GOP has moved to far to the right. She cites former President Ronald Reagan's great success in creating a conservative movement in the 1980s. Ingram and other GOP pundits haven't faced the music that their platform was antiquated and didn't appeal to mainstream voters. Predictions made by GOP pundits before Nov. 6 were designed to show confidence and get out the vote. "My personal guess is you'll see a Romney landslide, 53%-plus . . . in the popular vote, 300 electoral-votes plus," predicted Newt, proving he's in the same boat as smoke blowers like Rove and Morris. When the election results showed the exact opposite—an Obama landslide—it showed that you can't trust any partisan to deliver the truth. Newt pretends now that he wasn't following the same polls or forecasts as everyone else. "The president won an extraordinary victory. And the fact is, we owe him the respect of trying to understand what they did and how they did it," said Newt, still scratching his head. Newt and other GOP pundits know that mainstream voters aren't consumed with pro-life issues or trying to prevent gays for marrying around the country. Newt also knows that most hard-working Americans have a symbiotic relationship with government, expecting the country to meet its obligations to seniors, the disabled and the poor. When Mitt and his VP pick House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) talked of privatizing Social Security and Medicare they lost the bulk of Baby Boomers now facing or getting close to retirement. It's not hard to figure out that Midwesterners, especially Ohioans,.didn't forget Mitt's 2009 published opinion in the New York Times about letting Detroit go bankrupt. When Obama bailed out General Motors and Chrysler in 2009, the GOP routinely derided Barack's decision, referring to General Motors as "Government Motors." Hard-working Ohioans, and others in the Midwest tied to the auto industry now working again on three shifts rewarded Obama for bailing out Detroit. GOP pundits want to slice-and-dice the election to blame Obama's win on what Rove calls "voter suppression" or running negative ads against Romney. When conservative Rush-light radio talk show host Sean Hannity called for Immigration Reform two days after the Election, the GOP had blamed the outcome on not getting enough Latino votes. What radio hosts like Hannity don't get is that elections aren't silly games of pandering to one group or another. Unless the GOP can take a serious look at its obsolete platform, it won't matter whether Republicans support immigration reform. "I was wrong last week, as was virtually every major Republican analyst. And so, you have to stop and say to yourself, 'If I was that far off, what do I need to learn to better understand America,'" said Newt, getting closer to the truth. Without going out on a limb, Newt thinks the GOP needs a major overhaul. John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com.and author of Dodging the Bullet and Operation Charisma. |
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