Republicans need to get a grip: Obama did not win in a landslide. Not in 2008, and especially in 2012.
Joe Curl for The Washington Times, in particular, needs to take a pill and calm down, who three times in a recent op-ed (here) credits Obama with a "landslide" victory, which drives him to all manner of hand-wringing and unnecessary speculation about the need for Republicans to alter their message. Instead, what Republicans need to do is alter their candidate.
At this far remove from the November election the results are plain for everyone to see, but no one, evidently, is looking. It really doesn't come as a surprise, however, because they didn't really look at the results after 2008, either, and promptly annointed another loser in the mold of McCain, albeit a better loser.
Sen. John McCain lost to Sen. Barack Obama in 2008 by 1.4 million votes out of 131.3 million cast, barely 1.1% of the total vote.
Gov. Romney lost to Pres. Obama in 2012 by 0.77 million votes out of 129.1 million cast, barely 0.6% of the total vote.
They both lost because both failed to carry Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio and Virginia. Had Romney carried them all, which he failed to do by just 767,000 votes in the aggregate, he'd be the president today. McCain failed to carry the exact same states, but by 1.34 million, a performance almost twice as bad as Romney's. In addition McCain lost both North Carolina and Indiana by just 42,000 votes between the two, either of which with the other seven states would have meant a McCain presidency, not an Obama presidency.
The problem with the Republican Party isn't that it can't win elections against a supposedly landslide commanding Democrat machine. Its problem is it can't win with bad candidates like McCain and Romney. They are bad candidates because they are essentially liberal Republicans whom the voters take for Democrat-lite, and shrug.
Why vote for that at all, or why vote for that when you can vote for the real thing?
Message to Republicans: Don't alter your message. Alter your candidate. Nominate a real conservative for a change. The chances are good you'll win.
