I agree. I think Romney lost mostly because he flip-flopped. I watched the Frontline episode called "The Choice 2012" and it was quite insightful. The two candidates come across as quite similar in many policy/thinking respects. Because Romney had to cater to the right wing fringe, the republicans essentially ate themselves.
Effectively, the country moved right because the republicans effectively shut Obama down and caused him to polarize. Basically negating the "yes we can change" hypothesis. In 2008 people were sick of unilateral Bush action, the wars, and wanted people who would work together. By the midterm elections fringe groups got super worked up about Obamacare and death panels. Tea party hyperbole basically, a very effective and vocal minority. In addition the vote for Obamacare was drawn down party lines which I believe contributed to the democratic losses. It was a sign of not working together even though the republicans basically stonewalled the entire time.
Essentially, Obama, the great listener who could bring people together was shut out and shut down by politics.
He was shutdown as an outsider essentially. We had hoped that an outsider could bring change, but the system itself refused to. Romney himself was an outsider too but would have had the initial advantage of a republican congress.
Romney's flip-flopping was only one reason for his loss. Obama's ground game played a much bigger role, IMO. Rather than trying to woo mercurial independents, Obama simply used the changing demographics to his advantage to turn out a lot of new voters who simply hadn't voted in previous elections. Romney's ground game was much weaker because Obama had been developing his over the last 4 years and didn't have to waste time and money on a long primary campaign.
In swing states like FA and CO, he got many US-born Hispanics who hadn't previously voted (many of whom recently became adults) registered and got them to vote for him by telling them that Romney would deport their foreign-born family members who are in the country illegally. As explained by the NYT[0]:
> In Chicago, the campaign recruited a team of behavioral scientists to build an extraordinarily sophisticated database packed with names of millions of undecided voters and potential supporters. The ever-expanding list let the campaign find and register new voters who fit the demographic pattern of Obama backers and methodically track their views through thousands of telephone calls every night.
> That allowed the Obama campaign not only to alter the very nature of the electorate, making it younger and less white, but also to create a portrait of shifting voter allegiances. The power of this operation stunned Mr. Romney’s aides on election night, as they saw voters they never even knew existed turn out in places like Osceola County, Fla.
In Ohio and Pennsylvania, Obama partially relied on the black vote. These are people who are guaranteed to vote for him, so the main issue was getting them to vote in the first place. He set up neighborhood election stations in black community gathering places like barbershops and beauty salons, getting people to register their friends and family and encourage them to go to the polling stations on the day of the election. In fact, the voting rate among blacks was higher than among whites in Ohio - an amazing coup.
Another key constituency in Ohio and PA was the auto workers and other blue collar voters, mostly whites. This one was pretty easy - Obama bombarded the airwaves with TV ads portraying Romney as a corporate asset-stripper who cackled merrily all the way to the bank as he shipped blue collar jobs to Mexico and China. Obama also reminded them about the auto bailout he engineered, which saved many blue collar jobs in those parts of the country.
In Ohio and PA, as well as places with low minority populations, like Wisconsin and Iowa, Obama relied on the female vote. He associated Romney with Senate candidates like Richard Mourdock and Todd Akin, who made controversial remarks about abortion and rape. I believe Paul Ryan made some similar comments as well. He played up the angle that Republicans want to tell women what they can and can't do with their bodies.
69 million people voted for him in 2008, and 61 million in 2012. This is the most objective metric available. These more subjective ratings show his potential for bringing people together: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/07/13/obama-does-...
"According to Pew, 92 percent considered him a “good communicator,” 87 percent deemed him “warm and friendly,” 81 percent said he “cares about people like me,” 79 percent thought him “well-informed,” and 76 percent judged him “trustworthy.” Since then, each of those numbers has declined between 10 and 20 points. But they began at such stratospherically high levels that even with the drop, the public’s perception of Obama as a person remains remarkably cheery."
And that was during an election with a flood of attack ads from both sides. The cause of the double digit drops will attenuate with time.
Effectively, the country moved right because the republicans effectively shut Obama down and caused him to polarize. Basically negating the "yes we can change" hypothesis. In 2008 people were sick of unilateral Bush action, the wars, and wanted people who would work together. By the midterm elections fringe groups got super worked up about Obamacare and death panels. Tea party hyperbole basically, a very effective and vocal minority. In addition the vote for Obamacare was drawn down party lines which I believe contributed to the democratic losses. It was a sign of not working together even though the republicans basically stonewalled the entire time.
Essentially, Obama, the great listener who could bring people together was shut out and shut down by politics. He was shutdown as an outsider essentially. We had hoped that an outsider could bring change, but the system itself refused to. Romney himself was an outsider too but would have had the initial advantage of a republican congress.